That’s What She Said at Tribeca

Kicking off the new year and the new decade complete with a new asterisk and a new suffix, That’s What She* Said MCR has announced their first headliner of 2020 in the shape of BBC Radio 3 The Verb’s New Voices Award-winning poet Louise Fazackerley. She closed That’s What She Said for their final show of 2018 and she’s opening the first outing for 2020, with more special guests on the night still to be revealed and an open mic you can sign up for in advance (just drop an email to hello@forbookssake.net to cadge a slot).

Having brought us the myriad talents of Holly Ringland, Rebecca Tamás and Desree last year, and even fitting in a quick trip to Altrincham Word Fest, with For Books’ Sake founder and director Jane Bradley, the FBS-run night also features regularly on the Edinburgh Fringe, at London’s Royal Albert Hall (where the Evening Standard called it “biggest spoken word night in London for women”) and also in Bristol.

That’s What She* Said offers an inclusive space for emerging as well as established writers (*not all performers use she/her pronouns)

Shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards’ Best Spoken Word Night in the UK, That’s What She* Said offers an inclusive space for emerging as well as established writers (*not all performers use she/her pronouns, and women and non-binary performers are welcomed, as well as attendees of all genders). Expect a mix of performance, poetry, storytelling, slam and more, plus fierce, feminist truth and fierce, feminist fiction.

This evening’s headline performer, poet Louise Fazackerley, describes herself as “a product of Orwell’s Wigan”. She is signed to spoken word label Nymphs & Thugs, and you may have caught her at Chorlton’s The Edge on their autumn tour, which also featured labelmate Luke Wright (others represented include Salena Godden, Toria Garbutt and Matt Abbott). Her piece ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ is the result of a New Voices commission from Radio 3’s The Verb. Her first collection, The Lolitas (out with Verve Poetry Press on 12 December), is “a genre-distorting, disconcerting, dystopia of daughters, single parenting, love and abuse. From the lyric tenderness of the first kiss, to a place where poetry borders with reportage and records the experience of working with groomed girls in the care system. Darkly humorous, the work weaves working-class, feminist narratives of fiction, fact and foretelling, in an intensely readable, page-turning glut of the gamine.”

Keep your eyes peeled for further line-up announcements, but be sure to get hold of a ticket as soon as you can – TWSS is always a sellout!