Literature Events in Manchester and the North

Books are most definitely back, with a whole host of live events by writers local as well as international, from pop-up performances to regular reading series, plus some hybrid festival specials and online launches allowing access wherever you happen to be.

Manchester Literature Festival presents another spring event in the form of an evening with Douglas Stuart, hosted by Helen Mort at Central Library, and Huddersfield Literature Festival runs into April, with Linton Kwesi Johnson on Saturday 1 April – he pops up again at Litfest in Lancaster, both in person and online, on 20 April.

Blackwell’s bookshop has an increasingly packed programme of in-person events, including, Livi Michael’s launch of her new Salt title Reservoir on 26 April. On 17 April, H Gareth Gavin of the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing is in conversation with Andrew McMillan of Man Met’s Manchester Writing School, then on 14 April, the very same H Gareth Gavin is talking to Jen Calleja about her debut novel Vehicle, out with Prototype (also back at Blackwell’s on 24 April to launch Lori & Joe by Amy Arnold) – read more here. Check out Poets & Players at the Burgess Foundation on 22 April, featuring Katrina Naomi, Nick Makoha and Sammy Weaver as guests, then a week later, head to Peste in Ancoats, for a one-off afternoon of Oulipo-inspired words as our own Lit Ed Sarah-Clare Conlon launches her latest poetry book, bringing Philip Terry to town to read alongside Jazmine Linklater.

Online, and Manchester’s Carcanet Press hosts the launch of Lisa Kelly’s latest collection, The House Of The Interpreter, on 12 April then, on 19 April, Kit Fan’s third collection Ink Cloud Reader. Meanwhile, the Mary Barton season of talks continues to beam out of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House and the Portico Library is running a hybrid season related to walking and the right to roam – you can join their rambler-in-residence Anita Sethi on some wanders to encourage writing, reading and wellbeing.

On to the regulars… purveyor of fine avant-garde poetry Peter Barlow’s Cigarette is celebrating 10 years in 2023 and back at the Carlton Club in May, Speak Easy’s bumper open mic is every first Thursday of the month at Dulcimer in Chorlton, Crooked Poets in Prestwich is now going strong and Punk In Drublic marks its sixth birthday on 27 April, with poets including Lou Machen. Verbose takes place on the fourth Monday of the month in Salford’s King’s Arms theatre space and Salford-based publisher Flapjack’s Word Central can be found in Central Library’s events space (also host to Crime Central), back on 25 April with Louise Fazackerley headlining. They also host the launch of Gerry Potter’s latest tome of pomes, on 18 April.

The University of Bolton’s Creative Writing department has a new spring programme worth a look-see, welcoming Helen Mort on 18 April, while Natter Bolton, hosted by Romina Ramos and Stuart Beveridge, has just celebrated its first birthday. Also be sure to keep those peepers peeled for incoming events from The Door’s Open, a new Bolton-based project courtesy Natter’s Romina and Will Stevenson of the Northern Quarter’s Switchblade Society.

In Bradford City of Culture 2025, newcomer More Song promises to showcase innovative writing from the North at The Record Café. Back on 5 April – with headliner Joe Carrick-Varty (Anthony Burgess Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester), and readings by Emily Oldfield, Nicola Singh and Charlotte Shevchenko-Knight – More Song is hosted by the new Manchester Cathedral Writer-in-Residence, Tom Branfoot.

Also over the Pennines, keep an eye out for Resonance and Nine Lives Poetry in Sheffield (and, en route, Glossop Bookfest’s monthly open mic); in Huddersfield, try Ink Spill (now at The Head Of Steam) and monthly Attic Stories at Lawrence Batley Theatre, hosted by the talented Rose Condo; head to Headingley for the monthly Soundbites open mic with guest poet at the Enterprise & Arts Centre, and stay more city centre Leeds for Chemistry each month, with headliners and an open mic, and the Radical Reading Book Group at Left Bank.

Out west, and in Liverpool, don’t forget to look up the regulars like A Lovely Word, Blast!, dead good poets society (new details: the third Thursday at MerseyMade cafe on Paradise Street), Give Poetry A Chance, Liver Bards and Speakeasy. The Dreaming is now a fixture at The Reader’s new city-centre venue The Reader Bar & Restaurant, and head to its Mansion House HQ in south Liverpool’s Calderstones Park for the weekly Poetry Walk. Across the water, there’s Limoncello and The River Poets in Birkenhead, and Testify continues apace in Chester.

For borrowing and browsing books, check out the Manchester Poetry Library, plus Deansgate’s John Rylands Library, the Portico Library, Chetham’s Library, and the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. For buying books, check out the next Northern Publishers’ Fair, visit Elizabeth Gaskell’s House for the monthly book sale and flick through our Bookshops in Manchester Guide. If you’re venturing further afield from Manchester – now officially an “excellent” UNESCO city of Literature – see our literary guides to Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Cumbria, and don’t forget to scroll down for more events and activities in the land of Literature.

Here are our picks