Steve Dearden

Otherhood | Bradford 2025 A story of radical love and found family.

If you get a chance to catch this brilliant, funny, heartbreaking play by Writing Squad team member Emma
Adams - then late your way to Bradford!!

Chatted to Wakefield Museums Senior Curator Steph Webb re possible Squad collaborations. God wasn’t in Creative Cafe today but it was nice to feel the presence of characters from my online novella for - still trapped in my story or a decade older? Judge for yourself at wakelost dot com

Lenni Sanders and Helen Bowell: a weird dialogue - The Poetry Business Helen Bowell & Lenni Sanders, our February & March Digital Poets-in-Residence create a collaborative poem using answers from questions presented to TPB's Twitter followers...

Delving back into all the wonderful thoughts, prompts, conversations Squad writers have had as Poetry Business Digital Writers in Residence here's a weird dialogue and some found jewels from our first handover between Helen Bowell and Lenni Sanders poetrybusiness.co.uk/2021/03/06/l...

Just been to this excellent one person show/musical by recent Writing Squad recruit Eli Yim - moving, funny, pulls no mental health punches if you’re near Buxton tomorrow afternoon catch their last performance www.writingsquad.com/event/the-ea...

The Gaza students with scholarships to UK unable to take up their places Visa obstacles threaten to dash the hopes of 40 students due to start in September. Here are some of their stories

The Home Office could allow them in with a click of their fingers (as they did with Ukrainian and Afghan visas) but they’re refusing, write to your local MP now. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

On 2 August, head to SHORTS at Stockroom for 3 new short plays - one by new Squad 12 member Sadie Pearson!

Mack is a New Writing North Creative Associate - The Writing Squad

Mack Sproates has been made a New Writing North Emerging Creative Associate 2025! Mack is one of ten early career writers and artists who are receiving bursaries, individual mentoring, training and networking over six months 🤩

Meet our poet selectors - The Poetry Book Society Our expert team of poet selectors read hundreds of poetry books and pamphlets, submitted in an open call to all publishers big and small.

Some fabulous Squad reviewers have been working with the Poetry Book Society recently: Tayiba Sulaiman, Gregory Kearns, Kayleigh Jayshree, Jasmine Gray, Beth Davies and Jenny Danes! You can check out their work in the Summer & Autumn bulletins 🗞️

This morning’s treasure at the Writing Squad hq!

Fantastic to watch the live stream of ⁦‪Malika Booker‬⁩ dancing to receive her Doctorate ⁦‪at the Uni of Newcastle‬⁩ - we are so lucky to have her as a member of the Writing Squad’s Core Team!

No idea if you’re in Aarhus tomorrow but, if you happen to be, drop by at Godsbanen, Vogn 1 at 19.30 to listen to what this lot cooked up in Aalborg last April and over the last few days here, and if you can’t catch us then, we’ll be at Manchester Literature Festival in October.

Always good to see a Writing Squad writer and erstwhile colleague’s work on a main stage - catch Billie Collins brilliant The Walrus has a Right to Adventure at Liverpool Everyman until June 21st.

Welcome back Mr Frog! Welcome to Squad 12! Our first Workshop with new Squad recruits was in Leeds today with Core Team member Emma Adams. In How to Find Your Focus we reminded ourselves to play, sketch, is watch, listen, start stuff then do something completely different!

Treasure arrives at HQ @thewritingsquad.bsky.social

All lines lead to York today for Nowhere Places, Squad writers working with @stevieronnie & @SteveDearden to devise and produce personal projects in response to the climate crisis.

Amy Wins The Bridge Awards /Moniack Mhor 2025 Emerging Writer Award - The Writing Squad

Congratulations to Amy Luxton, who has won The Bridge Awards /Moniack Mhor 2025 Emerging Writer Award! This award provides focused development support for emerging writers of fiction 🏆

Episode 12: Hera Lindsay Bird The Poems We Made Along The Way · Episode

My interview with Hera Lindsay Bird dropped this morning. Check it out!

We talked about her super fandom of the writer Mark Leidner, children’s literature and the New Zealand poetry scene.

Find it on Spotify here

Issue 11.5 - Carmen et Error t-boy brotherhood (for Jay)by Louie Rudge i’ll tell you something/ i hated myselftil i met you/ saw the sun lift you outof your boots/ it’s not fair, so many of uswanting to die in the dark because th...

Issue 11.5 of Carmen et Error is here! A gorgeous, queer and very tender issue, courtesy of our guest editor Chloe Elliott. 💚
carmenerror.com?page_id=510

She tells me she comes here to sleep. In the blue rippling/theatre of the everyday, people find in public pools/what believers search for when they pray. Jay Mitra on pool friendship and northern lights - the Squad in Iceland ~[https://www.writingsquad.com/push/issues/issue-19/two-poems-jay-mitra/

If you're not already subscribed to Gregory's podcast The Poems We Made Along The Way, you're missing out on warm and insightful conversations with the likes of Helen Mort, Roger Robinson, Ella Frears, and many more amazing poets! Subscribe now and you can catch up before Season 3 😊 tr.ee/MS3R7Y1hKV

Episode 11: Liz Berry The Poems We Made Along The Way · Episode

The new episode of The Poems We Made Along The Way is now live.

The first interview is with the amazing Liz Berry. We talked about the importance of libraries, Liz’s love of zines and the positive sides of the internet.

You can listen to it on Spotify

The Neighbour – Lydia Marchant - The Writing Squad Every couple of hours or so she thinks about the things she has lost. Never people. Not yet. Warm chicken nuggets in the car park with the radio turned up and the rain hammering down. Starchy Premier…

‘Evening.’ The casual way he says it makes her teeth grind. Her spine goes rigid. ‘Evening.’ The casual audacity of it. Neighbours - a rare short story from Lydia Marchant - the Squad in Iceland

Down Down Down – Ingólfur Eiríksson - The Writing Squad I. Catacombe. There is a great risk of moisture damage here. My nose glued to the damp wall And the bunk that I have buried myself in Decayed like an ancient dock But I have never been afraid of…

Mountains and plains/Waters and cities/Rip off their white fur coat/Moaning sweatily/I can’t breathe in this heat! Ingólfur Eiríksson going down down down - the Squad in Iceland

Join the Squad - The Writing Squad

Are you a young writer? Do you work with or know young folks?
👇🏻
Listen up!
@thewritingsquad.bsky.social is recruiting 👇🏻
We are AWESOME & FREE. Yes FREE
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So? 16 -22, live, work or study in the North of England?
👇🏻
APPLY!
👇🏻
www.writingsquad.com/join-the-squ...
Deadline 31st March
🔥PASS IT ON🔥
😘😘😘😘😘😘😘

All lines lead to London this morning for a workshop with Squad Grad and Core2 Team Member Helen Bowell on poetry, prose and the lyric essay!

Good to be in Hull today at #CulturalTides2025 for the launch of Hull’s Culture & Heritage Strategy and hear speakers from Rejkjavik (see our Iceland Push) and Aarhus where we’ll be going in June!

Cetancients – Katie (Tom) Walters - The Writing Squad Blue Whale Model, Natural History Museum Suspended in the centre of the mammals gallery, and utterly dominating the room, the natural history museum’s blue whale model is an iconic aspect of the…

Your great tail will follow me home, In the corner/Of my eye, I see whales. Always whales/In the movement of headlights, the shadow of a streetlamp/Reflections in the window of the bus. @detrivore-core sharing the results of their Squad International Residency in Iceland

All lines lead to thinking about arts leadership with Squad grad Laura Attridge and @SteveDearden in York. Who, why, how and in what ways can we support Squad writers as leaders in future?

Arrive back from holiday to find treasure waiting @thewritingsquad hq from the brilliant Dilettante

Massively enjoyed running a public workshop at Helen Clapcott’s exhibition at Stockport Art Gallery this afternoon and a lovely surprise to have her join us to hear our reflections and responses.