See past events by clicking here
Events are always free to NTU students and staff, and open to the public. The programme of events evolves throughout the year, and runs annually from autumn to spring. Check back often!
11 February 2026
7pm (until 8.30pm)
Five Leaves Bookshop,
Nottingham city centre
Clare Pollard & Ian Parks
with support readings from some of the finest student writers on NTU’s Creative Writing courses, including OLIVIA MOULD, ELISE HARRINGTON
Booking link here!
Come to readings by two exceptional poets with considerable public appeal, supported by some of the finest student poets from NTU’s Creative Writing programmes.
Clare Pollard was born in Bolton in 1978 and lives in London. She has published five collections with Bloodaxe, including Changeling (2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and Lives of the Female Poets (2025). Her translation Ovid’s Heroines was published by Bloodaxe in 2013. She works as an editor, broadcaster and teacher. Her documentary for radio, My Male Muse (2007), was a Radio 4 Pick of the Year. She is also the author of the non-fiction book Fierce Bad Rabbits: The Tales Behind our Picture Books (2019), and the novels for adults Delphi (2022) and The Modern Fairies (2024), which won the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize. Her book for children, The Untameables, illustrated by Reena Makwana, was published in 2024. The Othernauts, a new telling of the myth of Jason and the Argonauts for younger readers illustrated by Macha Yao, is due from Piccadilly Press in 2026. Clare was Editor of Modern Poetry in Translation from 2017 to 2022 and is Artistic Director of the Winchester Poetry Festival. Her poem ‘Pollen’, included in Lives of the Female Poets, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Poem 2022. In 2024 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Ian Parks, from Mexborough, South Yorkshire, was commended by Donald Davie for his ‘instantly recognisable voice: spare, lyrical, memorable, and intense.’ His most recent collection, The Sons of Darkness and the Sons of Light, was published by Crooked Spire Press in 2025, and his Selected Poems 1983-2023 was published by Calder Valley Poetry in 2024.He is the editor of Versions of the North: Contemporary Yorkshire Poetry and the Selected Poems of Harold Massingham. His translations of the modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy were a Poetry Book Society Choice. His poems have appeared in Poetry Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The Morning Star, and Poetry, among many other places. He has been a Hawthornden Fellow since 1991 and has held residencies at Gladstone’s Library and at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Olivia Mould is a first-year student on the BA Creative Writing at NTU. Elise Harrington is a BA graduate from NTU’s School of Art and Design, and a current student on the MA Creative Writing.
Video and audio from some of our past events is available here.
Do you want to contribute?
If you are a Hub member and want to propose an event, please email Rory Waterman, the Nottingham Creative Writing Hub convener (see ‘Members’). Nottingham Creative Writing Hub exists primarily for the benefit of all of its student and staff members, and all ideas will be given open consideration and accepted wherever feasible. The main programme will run from autumn to spring.
We also accept applications from NTU Creative Writing students at all levels (BA, MA and PhD) to support any of our events with readings or performances. Slots will be awarded based on merit, fit, and fairness. Again, please email the convener if you’d like to put yourself forward. We’d love to hear from you!
NOTTINGHAM CREATIVE WRITING HUB 