Speak Easy - thank you's for Feb and how to book Mar 26

 

A big thank you to everybody who attended Speak Easy (Our spoken word open mic night) at Chorlton’s Dulicmer.

A very enjoyable night all in all with a decent crowd of somewhere around 50, and me, Amanda and Jo Somerset all wish to thank the following for attending to read:

1.      Jo Somerset

2.      Anne Delargy

3.      Mark Quinn

4.      Joy Wasell Tims

5.      Martin Elder

6.      Joe Tetley

7.      Alison Knowles

8.      Amanda Nicholson

9.      Andy N

10.  Joe Gill

11.  Becky May

12.  Anna Percy

13.  Ella Holmes

14.  Martin CM

15.  Andy Cash

16.  Jenny Pilkington

17.  David Bond

 

A full set of pictures can be found here –

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=speakeasymanchester&set=a.1436558534929593&__cft__[0]=AZbUFhoUiFXm5FUZwwd0ZF970-7H-J87URniLCxgKkIKbJMhUJXvQgpGx8pAfcS3wV59OrQOEaDL_vZLshRyvh4Lo7Hq21xavAE9HZO1w7fEgRlWMSbk7JJJd4mciO9Q-Z7mg77PfYUOzcp4f2EvW7n2Do5Q5QAZ2OutlVhZYoF679fG58DKF4I3xDoYcdO-EiY&__tn__=-R

The next Speak Easy will be on Thursday 05 March 2026.

Bookings open this Sunday 08 February 2026 from 12 Noon by emailing Andy N on aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk

Lucy Beth - Spoken Label, February 2026

 

Latest Podcast from Spoken Label (Author / ArtistPodcast) features making her debut, Lucy Beth.

Lucy Beth (she/her/hers) is a multi-award-winningemerging performer, theatre-maker and lecturer from Inverurie, Aberdeenshire.

​​She graduated with Distinction from the University of Glasgow’s MLitt Theatre & Performance Practices Course after being awarded a PGT Excellent Scholarship bythe University.

​​Lucy has worked on various stage, screen, and audioprojects. Her recent credits include Blanca in Ten Feet Tall’s production of “Guilty” by Rona Munro at Granite Noir Festival. Penny in “How To Train Your Dad To Be A Feminist” at the Aberdeen Arts Centre, and she has also starred in TMM Recruitment’s Christmas Advert, “Scary Tale of New Work,”

​Beyond conventional performing, part of Lucy’s practiceconcerns dialect preservation. She speaks Doric and seeks to create and perform works in Doric as a means of continuing to render the dialect present. Her Doric works have reached critical acclaim and have earned Lucy several awards.

​Her Doric solo theatre show, “Ma Name Is Isabelle” wasperformed at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was highlighted as one of SNACK Magazine’s Picks of the Fringe. It also received an Edinburgh Fringe TheatreAward from the Fringe Theatre Awards. The show has received 5-star reviews in the press.

Lucy won the Best Newcomer Award at The Doric FilmFestival for her film, “Fit Wye Nae” in 2024. In 2025 she performed in “Sticky Business”, winner of the Best Film Award at the 2025 Doric Film Festival.

​​Lucy’s Doric poetry won her a place in the finals of the Loud Poet’s Slam Poetry Competition in Aberdeen in June 2025 and made a guest appearance at the LoudPoet’s Edinburgh Fringe show, which was awarded 5 stars.

​​She was one of the Young Women’s Movement’s 30 Under 30 Honourees for 2025.

​​Lucy was also a 2025 Scottish Emerging Theatre AwardsWinner.

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https://andynartist.substack.com/p/lucy-beth-spoken-label-january-2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDoe7c5EeH8 (Reading)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlGVj1wpBgg (Chat)

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Lucy-Beth-Spoken-Label--February-2026-e3e5h11

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/spoken-label/id1501847969

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6YYusBA9I8PXTXS7cnLi4w

https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0GLHWY45V?ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&pf_rd_p=a202f891-0d90-47a2-ac3f-8ebc4b2943db&pf_rd_r=ST0KMB2WRPTBX2ARQX6M&plink=vJqX2z0GgAvOsihN&pageLoadId=GQ52ffl2KjwwtfjI&creativeId=43463e8d-6f2b-4d01-a759-854a1034c4b8&ref=a_podcast_S_c4_lAsin_0_0

I am Nature Podcast 1 (Leaf Pettit and Diana Sanders) (Spoken Label, February 2025)

 

First of a two part Podcast today from Spoken Label (Spoken Word / Poetry Podcast) features discussing 'I am nature' an Environmental Poetry book with two of their poets, Leaf Pettit and Diana Sanders.

Leaf Pettit lives in the vale of Clwyd with her husband and three children.

Rural north ales has been her home since she was three years old and she has developed a deep connection with its landscape and environment, choosing to raise and home-educate her children.

Leaf has been active in caring for local green spaces and has played a leading role in a community project to develop a green space at the heart of her village, including planting native hedging to forma wildlife corridor and wildflower areas.

Leaf has a BA (Hons) in Literature Life and thought and imaginative writing and an MA in Creative Writing.

Leaf's work has also appeared in the writer's wheel magazine and a couple of local publications, including the 'stillness' pamphlet produced from the Wellbeing Weekend at Saint Eidan Pilgrim Church in 2023.

Diana Sanders is a composer and award winning poet. She is the composer of six published works for flute and has curated several events that combine music and poetry, some of which have been on podcasts and local radio.

Her poetry publisjed has been published in magazines and anthologies in the UK, USA and India and her poem 'Birth' was third in the Welsh Poetry Competition in 2016. She has a BA from Nottingham Trent Creative University in Creative Arts (Music and Drama),

In partnership with her friend, Pat Sumner, she runs a monthly writing group.

She is the editor of the local Friends of the Earth magazine and is passionate about caring for the environment.

More about this book can be read here:

https://www.veneficiapublications.com/product-page/i-am-nature

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Can be downloaded / streamed from:

(Chat)

(Reading)

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4opmyZ5d02dgKvPutAjK3K?go=1&sp_cid=ac6242ee86cad14746912d883cb19282&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop&nd=1&dlsi=f8cfc05257cc4162

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/bae49616-2295-4e7c-b931-91415a724cb6/episodes/28c13279-68c2-4efa-841c-08ab34304cbb/spoken-label-i-am-nature-podcast-1---diana-sanders-and-lea-petit-spoken-label-february-2026

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4opmyZ5d02dgKvPutAjK3K?go=1&sp_cid=ac6242ee86cad14746912d883cb19282&utm_source=embed_player_p&utm_medium=desktop

 

Latest up from Spoken Label (Poetry Podcast) features the return of our friend Sarah James (also known as Sarah Leavesley ) talking about her new poetry book 'Darling Blue'.

Darling Blue interweaves ekphrastic poems with a book-length fictional poetry narrative of love, lust and letting go. The poems inspired by Pre-Raphaelite artworks include QR codes, which readers can scan to view the pieces after or alongside their reading. Blue here is more than a colour or inspiration; it is desire, secrecy and sorrow – the essence of ‘feeling / really alive’, yet ‘distance’s illusion’.

“A fascinating creative hybrid weaving ekphrasis and cohesive narrative, Darling Blue deftly balances its fictional speaker’s personal response to various Pre-Raphaelite artworks, with rich descriptive hints that resonate way beyond the mere visual. Exploring the complex tensions between the public sphere and private activities, this collection is a gallery tour of the narrator’s unfulfilling relationship with an unattainable partner, through to the ultimate redemption of self-worth and new love. James’s finely crafted and intelligently controlled poems brim with vivid imagery and lush sensory detail, reminding the reader ‘how brightly sunlight shines through // when freed from a cracked mirror’.”

Sarah Doyle, Pre-Raphaelite Society Poet-in-Residence

“James uses the lyric and ekphrasis to create a profound and moving collection on the cost of love; what endures and how we survive its wake. As vivid and emotive as its pre-Raphaelite sources, Darling Blue is also startlingly direct, eloquent and consoling on the things we find hardest to put into words. An unmissable collection.”

Luke Kennard

More details about said book can be found here;

https://www.sarah-james.co.uk/?page_id=17191

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Available from: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/sarah-james-also-known-as-sarah-leavesley-spoken-label/id1501847969?i=1000745962511

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Sarah-James-also-known-as-Sarah-Leavesley---Spoken-Label--January-2026-e3drecm

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/bae49616-2295-4e7c-b931-91415a724cb6/episodes/ec2ec25a-59d7-4ef6-8690-fa2be8279c59/spoken-label-sarah-james-also-known-as-sarah-leavesley---spoken-label-january-2026

https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Sarah-James-also-known-as-Sarah-Leavesley-Spoken-Label-January-2026/B0GHT38YG6?ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&pf_rd_p=a202f891-0d90-47a2-ac3f-8ebc4b2943db&pf_rd_r=AF9075KXG0FR6557W24Z&plink=OVkMaLAycNniNOEm&pageLoadId=xd4LWDMaSTrYxDip&creativeId=43463e8d-6f2b-4d01-a759-854a1034c4b8&ref=a_podcast_S_c4_lAsin_0_0

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0h69J2AH42H3a0p0gv5JQA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiP8ehND-a8 (Chat Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA36FpxaQv0 (Reading Video)

https://andynartist.substack.com/p/sarah-james-also-known-as-sarah-leavesley

Suzy Aspell (Spoken Label, January 2026)

 

Latest up from Spoken Label (Spoken Word / Poetry Podcast) and our 2nd Podcast of the year, features making her debut, the wonderful Suzy Aspell.

Suzy advises she writes in her spare time. She lives and works in Bedfordshire, UK, with her cheeky, very pampered cat. She has worked in the Airline industry for nearly forty years, apart from a year working as a travel rep in Spain and five years teaching English as a second language in Taiwan.  While in Taiwan, Suzy wrote, produced and performed two plays at the Tainan Civic Centre, for her fellow teachers.

Suzy was known as the ‘English Nerd’ in school but paused her love for literature due to having day jobs, in which she embraced her fervour for travel instead. Returning to the UK to bring up her daughter, Suzy enrolled in the Open University and emerged with a BA in Humanities with English Literature.  Armed with her degree, Suzy has tutored many students since 2008, mainly GCSE English students struggling with dyslexia and ADHD. Suzy’s nerves are shredded every August in anticipation of GCSE results.

Whilst furloughed during COVID, Suzy joined numerous poetry workshops which have now become an essential part of her life.  It is thanks to these Poetry Mentors that Suzy has been published, and encouraged to perform at Spoken Word events.

Just like her nan, Suzy nurtures a novel inside, watch this space!

You can follow Suzy here:

Bluesky – @susisu371.bsky.social

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/susan.aspell

Instagram/Threads – @susisu37

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzy-a-95040839/

Twitter – @susisu371

This Podcast discusses her debut book 'Webstrung' published by Poetic Edge Publishers

which is described as by Wendy Pratt "Suzy Aspell’s poems take the reader on a magical journey:  often profound and always imaginative the poems bloom from their ekphrastic origins into whole worlds of their own. A very special collection and one to revisit.

~Wendy Pratt, Author of The Ghost Lake and Blackbird Singing At Dusk"

More details on the book can be found here: 

https://poeticedgepublishers.com/suzy-aspell/

*

available at:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/suzy-aspell-spoken-label-january-2026/id1501847969?i=1000745195635

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Suzy-Aspell-Spoken-Label--January-2026-e3d4p5e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMvtkstZZTw&t=1s (Chat)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiYP_kAdVlo&t=1s (Reading)

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/bae49616-2295-4e7c-b931-91415a724cb6/episodes/bcffb2e2-9e1f-4a18-86a7-40a111bb1ba4/spoken-label-suzy-aspell-spoken-label-january-2026

https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Suzy-Aspell-Spoken-Label-January-2026/B0GGVHTVH8?ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&pf_rd_p=a202f891-0d90-47a2-ac3f-8ebc4b2943db&pf_rd_r=MA5ZEDFW67J9RBMNVV2R&plink=FFOsLt4PM6Pwkx6a&pageLoadId=bJZeSbIdFVjhaem4&creativeId=43463e8d-6f2b-4d01-a759-854a1034c4b8&ref=a_podcast_S_c4_lAsin_0_0

https://open.spotify.com/episode/20vBMQhzkcdw8nyl9irGT9

https://andynartist.substack.com/p/suzy-aspell-spoken-label-january

Hongwei Bao (Spoken Label, January 2026)

 

Back with our first Podcast of 2026, Spoken Label (Spoken Word / Poetry Podcast)'s 1st show of the year features Hongwei Bao.

Hongwei Bao (he/him) is a Nottingham-based queer Chinese writer, translator and academic. He is part of the Fifth Word Playwrights, GOBS Spoken Word Collective and Nottingham Playhouse Writers’ Room. He is also a Middle Way Mentee for writing fiction and a New Earth Theatre theatremaker. His work explores queer desire, Asian identity, diasporic positionality and transcultural intimacy.

Hongwei is the author of Dream of the Orchid Pavilion (poetry pamphlet, Big White Shed, 2024), The Passion of the Rabbit God (poetry collection, Valley Press, 2024) and Queering the Asian Diaspora (nonfiction, Sage, 2024). His short story ‘A Postcard from Berlin’ was a runner-up for the Plaza Prize for Microfiction in 2023.

Hongwei has performed poetry at Bad Betty Live, City Arts Nottingham, Dandelions Poetry, DIY Poetry, ESEA Authors LitFest, ESA NE Newcastle, Five Leaves Bookshop, Fluent in Both, Lighthouse Bookshop Edinburgh, Kif Kif Antwerp, Nottingham Central Library, Nottingham Poetry Festival, Nottingham Playhouse, Notts Poetry, Nowhere Netherlands, Paper Crane Poetry, Prague Pride, Shaded Writers, Speech Therapy, and The Common Press London.

This Podcast discusses his newest book on Poetic Edge Publishers 'Self-Portrait as a Banana which is discussed as "Hongwei Bao’s latest collection, Self-Portrait as a Banana, is a candid exploration of his queer, diasporic, East Asian identity and cross-cultural relationships. Appropriating, subverting and queering cultural tropes like the banana, rice and beckoning cat, and identities such as queerness and Chineseness, this is a powerful journey. A bold, humorous and refreshing celebration of queer desire, identity and cultural difference"

More about Hon can be found at:

Instagram: @patrickbao123

Bluesky: @queercomrades

The book can be found at: https://poeticedgepublishers.com/hongwei-bao/

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The Podcast be can be found at:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/hongwei-bao-spoken-label-january-2026/id1501847969?i=1000744148602

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Hongwei-Bao-Spoken-Label--January-2026-e3d4gpg

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/bae49616-2295-4e7c-b931-91415a724cb6/episodes/8f88135a-4629-4e88-8496-0c1cbad15b64/spoken-label-hongwei-bao-spoken-label-january-2026

https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Hongwei-Bao-Spoken-Label-January-2026/B0GDDHWSCD?ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&pf_rd_p=a202f891-0d90-47a2-ac3f-8ebc4b2943db&pf_rd_r=7FPJYCHNNE74ETR0NWR0&plink=Ds5QMcKszI7Gasjj&pageLoadId=SlwBN4AHUn8dRtSn&creativeId=43463e8d-6f2b-4d01-a759-854a1034c4b8&ref=a_podcast_S_c4_lAsin_0_0

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4rRgMjTXIiRVIp4VuLpuLw

https://andynartist.substack.com/p/hongwei-bao-spoken-label-poetry-spoken

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfCMjPXq2v4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j4VnLkMgyI

Dr. Jack Hunter - Spoken Label, December 2025

 

* Happy Christmas all * 

Latest up from Spoken Label (Author / Artist Podcast) features Dr Jack Hunter.Dr Jack Hunter is an anthropologist exploring the borderlands of consciousness, religion, ecology and the paranormal. He is an Hon-orary Research Fellow with the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, and a tu-tor at the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture, Uni-versity of Wales Trinity Saint David. He teaches on the MA in Ecol-ogy and Spirituality and the MA in Cultural Astronomy and Astrol-ogy. He is also a tutor for the Alef Trust on their MSc in Conscious-ness, Spirituality and Transpersonal Psychology, where he teaches on the ‘Approaches to Consciousness’ module, and teaches ‘The Va-rieties of Anomalous Experience’ for the California Institute for Hu-man Science. He is the author of Manifesting Spirits (2020), Spirits, Gods and Magic (2020), Ecology and Spirituality (2023), and The Folklore of the Tanat Valley (2025). He is the editor of Deep Weird (2023), Greening the Paranormal (2019) and Damned Facts (2016), and co-editor of Talking With the Spirits (2014), Mattering the Invis-ible (2021), Folklore, People and Place (2023) and Sacred Geogra-phy (2024). He lives in the hills of Mid-Wales with his family.

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https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dr-jack-hunter-spoken-label-december-2025/id1501847969?i=1000742207601

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/spokenlabelpodcast/episodes/Dr-Jack-Hunter-Spoken-Label--December-2025-e3claek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj9WBjh9zu8 (Chat)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulv--5yyLeA (Reading)

https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Dr-Jack-Hunter-Spoken-Label-December-2025/B0GBL7C2ZP?ref_pageloadid=not_applicable&pf_rd_p=a202f891-0d90-47a2-ac3f-8ebc4b2943db&pf_rd_r=GY8SC7AB1E6E2B50J36E&plink=dhEk3BLrwiJvuFU6&pageLoadId=RMskFLoeNvomSHt9&creativeId=43463e8d-6f2b-4d01-a759-854a1034c4b8&ref=a_podcast_S_c4_lAsin_0_0

https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/bae49616-2295-4e7c-b931-91415a724cb6/episodes/66c211d6-552a-4fae-8e2b-02a75e3111db/spoken-label-dr-jack-hunter-spoken-label-december-2025

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ohogb5vYGPiFJLMVH8aKv