Attic Stories at Lawrence Batley Theatre

Love words? Head to Lawrence Batley Theatre’s monthly night of words, shared spoken and sung, hosted by Rose Condo.

This March, the special guest performer at Attic Stories is Ciarán Hodgers, a multi-award winning Irish poet based in the UK, who cut his teeth on the spoken word scene of Salford and Manchester. His second poetry collection, Solastalgia, was published by Burning Eye Books in November 2023, and explores mental health, landscape, climate change, language, spirituality, philosophy and healing.

His debut collection Cosmocartography was shortlisted for the Rubery Book Award 2019, toured the UK and Ireland for 30 dates, and was featured on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. The Independent called him “one of the region’s most exciting spoken word performers”, and he was named a highlight of Guy Garvey’s Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre London and a “powerhouse poet at the top of his game” by Lingo Festival Dublin.

He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2020 and won the Sean Dunne National Young Writer 2010, an International Pangaea Poetry Slam Champion 2015 and the Word War 3 Slam Champion. He’s been shortlisted for the OutSpoken Prize for Poetry two years in a row and longlisted for the Not The Foreword Prize and the Gingko Eco-Poetry competition. He’s performed in festivals and venues across the UK including The Royal Albert Hall, John Ryland’s Library, London Irish Centre, Contact Theatre, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, The 100 Club, the European Science Open Forum and Threshold Festival, Liverpool Irish Festival, WoWFest and Political Pride Manchester.

Catch Ciarán on tour, including at Attic Stories, which welcomes Gerry Potter on 31 January, Rob Gee on 27 February and Leon the Pig Farmer on 24 April.