LIVEwire Poetry

We return to The Edge Theatre & Arts Centre on Thursday 13 June for our fourth instalment of LIVEwire Manchester! It meant a lot to us to kickstart the LIVEwire era at this venue back in March and we can’t wait to bring you yet another stunning line-up.

This event features Salena Godden, Molly Naylor, and Nafeesa Hamid. Tickets are on sale here for £15 (£13)!

Salena Godden

Salena Godden is an award-winning author, poet and broadcaster of Jamaican-mixed heritage based in London. Her debut novel Mrs Death Misses Death won the Indie Book Award for Fiction and the People’s Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the British Book Awards and the Gordon Burn Prize.

Salena’s work has been shortlisted for the 4thWrite short story prize and the Ted Hughes Prize, and has been widely anthologised and broadcast on radio, TV and film. Her poem Pessimism is for Lightweights is on permanent display at the People’s History Museum, Manchester. She was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022. 

Her brand-new poetry collection With Love, Grief and Fury is available here on Canongate Books.

Molly Naylor

Molly Naylor is a poet, scriptwriter, performer and director. Her stories and plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and she has performed at festivals and events all over the world. She has published three poetry collections her third was published by Bad Betty in spring 2022.

She is the co-creator and writer of Sky One comedy After Hours. She wrote and performed the acclaimed solo spoken-word shows Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You and My Robot Heart. Her first graphic novel was published in September 2021.

Nafeesa Hamid

Nafeesa Hamid was born in Kashmir, bred in Birmingham, and uses the intersectionality of her identities to inform her work. Her debut poetry collection Besharam (2018, Verve Poetry Press) was highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2019. She is subsequently published in Forward Poems of the Decade 2011-2020 (2021, Faber Poetry). She is also published in The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write (2017, Saqi Books).

Nafeesa has appeared on BBC Bitesize; BBC Radio 4 Comedy; The Verb; as well as literary festivals across the country. She is currently developing her first full length play about corner shops, magic, faith and worship. Nafeesa is a big fan of large bodies of water.