Readings by Jan Norton (Relief Map) and Julie Burke (Kindling), supported by Tony Challis and Lizzie Dunford – all current members of The Writer Highway and published, or due to be published by Five Leaves New Poetry.
In Kindling, Julie Burke takes the embers of unreliable memory and sparks stories from them. Light-heartedly playing with images and form, many of these poems have a distinct scent of the sea about them while others burn with the fire of a life well-lived. Julie Burke has created a collection of poems that flicker with people and places, lives coming into being and lives lost, flights of fancy, and feet-firmly-on-the-ground reflections on the world that holds us all.
Julie Burke worked as an au pair, toy maker, library assistant, biscuit inspector, sandwich vendor and balloon-shopkeeper before returning to her native Nottingham. Her poems have appeared in magazines including Brittle Star, South, The Cannon’s Mouth, Obsessed with Pipework, Dream Catcher, Dreich and ARTEMISpoetry, as well as in anthologies, exhibitions, websites, a podcast – even on a building.
Jan Norton’s debut pamphlet, Relief Map, traces her journey from a working-class Welsh Valleys childhood to where she finds herself on the map now. These no-nonsense poems are packed with rich detail, evoking vivid memories of that childhood and the people who populated it. Although the poems leave the Valleys, Wales never leaves the poems, and through laughter, love, sorrow, motherhood and challenges, Norton observes families, friendships, passion and pain in the light of her origins.
Though born and brought up in the South Wales Valleys, Jane has lived and worked in Nottingham for over 40 years, and is a former Head of English in a Nottingham comprehensive school. She is active in the East Midlands poetry community. Jan has published poems in The North, Ink Sweat and Tears, Cannon’s Mouth and The Lampeter Review, as well as being successful in numerous poetry competitions, including winning the Ilkley Poetry Festival’s Robert Swan Prize and being placed in the Elmet Trust Poetry Prize and the Kent and Sussex Poetry Competitions.
This event comprises the summer showcase for The Writer Highway, jointly with Five Leaves New Poetry
The Writer Highway provides creative writing courses and coaching sessions for writers, prioritising wellbeing across all of its activities. For further information see www.thewriterhighway.co.uk. Summer Term 2025 courses now booking.
Five Leaves New Poetry is a series of poetry pamphlets by East Midlands writers published in pamphlet form for the first time.
Refreshments provided
You may also like the following events from Five Leaves Bookshop:
- This Thursday, 5th June, 07:00 pm, Five years, 30,000 miles and 1,000 Trees… an illustrated talk by Paul Wood in Nottingham
- Next Wednesday, 11th June, 07:00 pm, Feminist Writing Workshop in Nottingham
- Next Thursday, 12th June, 07:00 pm, The Radical Jane Austen, a talk by Deirdre O’Byrne in Nottingham
Also check out other
Arts events in Nottingham,
Literary Art events in Nottingham,
Workshops in Nottingham.
