Blue Diode readings at Saul Hay Gallery

This special one-off features readings from three writers to celebrate the launch, on Blue Diode Press, of Spurious Language by James Appleby.

Described as “always shifting in form, serious about humour,” Spurious Language is James Appleby’s debut book of poems, and it comes highly commended by The Poetry Business’s International Book & Pamphlet Competition. Critics are saying that “Spurious Language is both playful and serious, human and exact – always alive to language” (The London Magazine) and “Appleby is a talent to watch” (B O D Y). Featured in, among other places, The Kenyon Review and The Best American Poetry blog, Appleby has performed at festivals across Europe and will be translator-in-residence for the 60th Anniversary of Modern Poetry in Translation. As editor of Interpret, a new magazine of international writing, he has published winners of the International Booker Prize and King’s Gold Medal for Poetry. A fluent speaker of French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, he was born in Manchester and has just returned.

Appleby will be joined by fellow Blue Diode poet Tim Craven, author of Good Sons (Blue Diode), and Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor of Creative Tourist and author of five books, most recently Wanderland (Red Ceilings Press, 2025). Tim Craven is from Stoke-on-Trent and lives in Scotland. He has a poetry MFA from Syracuse University and, from the University of Edinburgh, a PhD examining the characterisation of mental illness in Confessional poetry. He received a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust and an Emerging Writer Award from Cove Park. Described by John Glenday as “a poet of astonishing range … utterly original”, Good Sons is his debut collection.

Blue Diode is an independent Scottish book publishing press specialising in poetry, based in Leith, Edinburgh. The publisher is no stranger to Castlefield’s Saul Hay Gallery, having last November showcased there the work of Czech poet Olga Stehlíková (Týdny, Weeks, Dauphin 2014; Though the Sky Is Embroidered by a Zigzagging Bat, Blue Diode Press, 2024) and Prague-based Divorcee Disco Music author and B O D Y editor Christopher Crawford, with special Manchester guests David Gaffney and Lydia Unsworth.

It was in October 2023 that Blue Diode began its relationship with the gallery, bringing Czech poet Petr Hruska to the Rainy City as part of his UK tour, supported by Jake Morris-Campbell, Jennifer Lee Tsai and Sarah-Clare Conlon, with Petr Hruska returning this March, reading alongside John McAuliffe and Jazmine Linklater (and our own Literature Editor once again).

Note: filming will be taking place in Castlefield, so parking restrictions and road closures near to Saul Hay Gallery may apply and if you are approaching from Duke Street side or from the canal basin beyond Barca, you will be directed by marshals via the towpath by Lockkeeper’s Cottage. Full pedestrian access from Deansgate down Castle Street and across the footbridge to the gallery will not be affected.