Saturday, 31 January 2026

I am nature - 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






Sunday, 25 January 2026


 











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

Saturday, 17 January 2026

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






Sunday, 11 January 2026

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