Literature Events in Manchester and the North

If you missed Emma Jane Unsworth launch her much-anticipated, critically acclaimed and already best-selling third novel Adults at Waterstones earlier in the year, you can catch the author of Animals (the film version is just out on DVD) at the first Words Weekend at The Lowry at the end of March. The three-day festival showcases 60 very varied events, including a music and words night with Grief Is the Thing With Feathers and Lanny author Max Porter, The Water Cure’s Sophie Mackintosh having dystopic visions with Jane Rogers, and dialect-drawn Poems From the Edge of Extinction with avant gardist Chris McCabe.

Words Weekend also welcomes former Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam – to be seen in March launching the third of his Art Decades books, Searching For Love: Courtney Love in Liverpool, 1982, first at a sold-out event at Blackwell’s and then at the second Leeds Lit Fest – and Okechukwu Nzelu, also to be found talking new novels with Sarah Butler on 19 March at No70, the same venue for the launch of poet and Man Met lecturer Jean Sprackland’s latest collection, These Silent Mansions, on 27 February. Both No70 events start at 6pm, both are free.

Also free is Peter Barlow’s Cigarette, back at Waterstones on 22 February with four readers in the shape of Mau Baiocco, Tessa Berring, Peter Hughes and Nell Osborne, the latter of No Matter fame, and, the same day, but at The Whitworth, Poets & Players, featuring JO Morgan, Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale, with music by Phil France (miss that, and they’re back on 21 March with David Wheatley, Mary Jean Chan, Isaiah Hull and Jane Burn). Regulars rounding off the month include Verbose on 24 February, with a line-up including Emily Oldfield, and Bad Language on 26 February, putting on a special tribute to much-missed open micer and arts aficionado Quiet Man Dave from headliners Kate Feld and Tania Hershman. Meanwhile, an old favourite that’s been missing since the closure of 3MT drops into the Northern Quarter’s Rose & Monkey on the evening of 27 February, as feminist poetry makes a suitable re-entrance with Blue x Stirred.

International Mother Language Day on 21 February is marked in the Rainy City over three days, with events and activities taking place at Central Library (including The Poetry Exchange, and also hosting an evening with Jess Kidd, on 26 February) and beyond, while the team at the UNESCO City of Literature is taking shape – and exciting things are promised, including the inaugural Festival Of Libraries in June… before then, World Book Day takes place on 5 March (with Read Manchester organising a Share a Story Live event at the HSBC UK National Cycling Centre), while 8 March sees International Women’s Day – head to the Pankhurst Centre to join author Helen Antrobus and cover designer Jane Bowyer as they launch First In The Fight, about the inspirational women who helped to make Manchester the radical city it is today.

Nearby Elizabeth Gaskell’s House hosts a secondhand book sale on 8 March (the next is 12 April), worth perusing alongside a look at the Ruskin exhibition; while John Rylands Library is home to a special exhibition running for six months from March all about Carcanet Press. On 9 March, you can hear from two Carcanet poets Vahni Capildeo and Peter Gizzi (whose work just featured in the Guardian’s Poem of the Week) alongside Anthony Caleshu – the latest in the Literature Live programme at Martin Harris Centre for Music & Drama. The next Literature Live brings together Scottish talent Frances Leviston and Kirsty Logan on 23 March, and the same night sees Carol Ann Duffy & Friends back at the Royal Exchange, this time with guest poets Ella Duffy and Andrew McMillan.

There’s a new library in town to complement the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, Chetham’s, and the most polite, the Portico Library. Alternatively, buy your books with the help of our Guide To Bookshops In Manchester, and don’t forget to Read More: scroll down for Hilary Mantel in April and our More in Literature stories, including the weekly Poetry Walk at The Reader’s recently revamped Mansion House in Liverpool’s Calderstones Park. Fancy more poetry out of town? Catch three leading contemporary female poets at the Bluecoat in Liverpool and Kate Tempest at the first-ever Aerial Festival in the Lake District’s Ambleside. And get more tips for trips with our literary guides to Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Cumbria.

Here are our picks