The north Kent coast is buzzing this week, thanks to the magnificent Faversham Literary Festival – programme here – with stars like Simon Armitage and Michael Palin visiting, and Will Self and Sebastian Barry to come. I’ll be there helping – feel free to say hello.

On Saturday the Alexander Centre hosts a Poetry Hub with poets including Fiona Sinclair, Nancy Charley and Maggie Butt at noon, Robert Selby and Declan Ryan at 1pm, Louisa Campbell and Jake Nathan with me at 2pm, Julian Bishop and Christopher Horton with Jessica Rose at 3pm, Professor David Herd at 4pm and from 5.15 there’s an open mic hosted by the mighty Angie Dye.

Yes, at 2pm in the Parlour this Saturday I’ll be reading too and I’m just gathering poems to see what works together. There’ll be something new, not read before, most of it from my forthcoming fifth book of poetry Off the Map, scheduled for publication by Lapwing Publications again. Please come!

In these darkest days of the year before spring’s awakening, Faversham Festival brightens us all on the north Kent coast. This year’s schedule has stars ranging from Hollie McNish and Simon Armitage to Michael Palin and Maggie Aderin-Pocock. You’ll find me helping and ushering towards the end of the week and on stage on Saturday 25 February as part of the Poetry Hub.

The Poetry Hub is an amazing event. It expands every year in range and impact and this year’s promises to be more powerful than ever – full details here. Please come and join us if you can.

With dark, chilly weather and a new batch of Covid circling, the news that I have three poems in the latest issue of A New Ulster is enormously cheering. What an excellent magazine ANU is. It’s always a rewarding browse and you can find issue 121 here.

These poems along with Off the Map published before New Year on the Mary Evans Picture Library’s ‘Poems and Pictures’ blog are included in my fifth book of poetry, coming soon. More news when I have it …

On Thursday 16 February, 2023, 19.30 – 21.30 GMT, Irena Hill of In-Words will host an evening featuring Irish poets who have appeared on Gill Stoker’s marvellous Poems and Pictures blog on the Mary Evans Picture Library’s website. I’m honoured to know both these excellent women. I’ve been a contributor and big fan of Gill’s blog since its early days. Irena was a member of my earliest writing group in Bermondsey in 2011 and we’ve been friends ever since. Very many thanks to them both for inviting me to read alongside Catherine Phil MacCarthy, Eithne Hand, Geraldine Mitchell, Geraldine O’Kane, Linda McKenna, Maureen Boyle, Maurice Devitt and Noel Duffy.

This is a free, online event – you can find more about the poets and how to contact Irena to get your Zoom link here.