Manchester Writing School Alumni Showcase at Manchester Poetry Library
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
Spring 2025 sees the first in what promises to be a series of events to showcase work by alumni of the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.
As well as readings by six graduates, there will also be a chance for a Q&A to find out from each of the writers a little about their very different journeys towards publication and what they are up to now. Held in person at Manchester Poetry Library, this event is also accessible online – follow the event link to find out how to join via Microsoft Teams.
The event is hosted by Dr Kim Moore, Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Deputy Programme Leader for the MA and MFA in Creative Writing. Her first collection, The Art of Falling (Seren, 2015), won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and her second, All The Men I Never Married (Seren, 2021), won the 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection. A “collection of vivid and immediate snapshots” What The Trumpet Taught Me was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2022 and a hybrid book of lyric essays and poetry Are You Judging Me Yet? Poetry and Everyday Sexism was published by Seren in March 2023.
This event will feature Betty Doyle, reading from her recently published pamphlet Fruits of Labour (Seren, 2024); Rachel Davies and Hilary Robinson, reading from their joint collection of poems about dementia An Altogether Different Place (Beautiful Dragons Squared, 2024); Rachel Carney, reading from her debut poetry collection Octopus Mind (Seren, 2023), which was selected as one of The Guardian’s Best Poetry Books of 2023; Simon Costello, reading from his pamphlet Saturn Devouring (The Lifeboat Press, 2024), and Deborah Harvey, reading from her sixth collection Love the Albatross (Indigo Dreams, 2024).
Dr Betty Doyle is a poet from Merseyside with a PhD in Creative Writing from Man Met. Her research interests include infertility poetry, motherhood poetry, ghost children poetry, trauma poetry, the language of grief, the poetics of absence, and elegy. Her debut poetry pamphlet, Girl Parts, was published by Verve Poetry Press in March 2022 and she was poetry editor for Flash Journal from 2014 to 2016 and is currently a poetry reader for Bandit Fiction.
Rachel Davies has both an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in Contemporary Poetry from Man Met. Her Pushcart Prize-nominated poetry is widely published in print and online journals, and she has been a winner in several poetry competitions, most recently the 2024 Hippocrates Prize. Her debut pamphlet Every Day I Promise Myself was published by 4word Press in 2020.
Hilary Robinson has an MA from Manchester Writing School. Her work has been published in Strix, Riggwelter, Obsessed with Pipework, Poetry Birmingham, Morning Star and The Interpreter’s House. Her debut pamphlet, Revelation, was published in 2021 by 4Word.
Rachel Carney lives in Cardiff, where she teaches creative writing at Cardiff University. She recently completed a PhD at Man Met, examining the ways in which ekphrastic poetry can be used as a tool for visitor engagement in art museums. Her poems, reviews and articles have been published in Poetry Wales, Anthropocene, iamb and Acumen, and she won the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize.
Deborah Harvey lives in Bristol and has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Writing School. She is co-founder of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy, a member of IsamBards, leading poetry walks, and runs Bristol’s longest-standing open mic, Silver Street Poetry. Her poems have been published in many journals and anthologies, broadcast on Radio 4’s Poetry Please, and awarded several prizes.
Simon Costello studied on the MFA programme at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is from Ireland and lives in Dublin, and he is currently a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholar at University College Dublin, where he lectures in creative writing. In 2024 he was awarded Ireland’s The Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry and in 2021 he won The Rialto Nature & Place Poetry Prize. He has previously worked for Granta magazine and his poems have been published in The Poetry Review, New England Review, The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, Bath Magg, Magma, The Rialto, The Moth and The Irish Times. His full collection Antichrist will be published in 2026.
