Verbose MCR 10th Birthday

One of Manchester’s longest running spoken word events, Verbose is delighted to be celebrating its ten year anniversary with a very special evening on Monday 27th January 2025.

We are bringing together twelve Verbose hosts to read for us, from Sarah-Clare Conlon, who kicked things off in 2015, right through to our latest recruits. Amongst them, we have comedians, poets, writers, festival organizers, Pushcart-nominations, numerous publications and much, much more.

Please come along and join the party – Verbose would not exist without its loyal followers, contributors and supporters and we would love to be able to thank you in person.

Introducing this month´s readers

Sarah-Clare Conlon’s poetry pamphlet Wanderland is published by Red Ceilings Press in 2025. She has also written cache-cache, Using Language and Lune, a Poetry Book Society Winter 2023 Selection. Broken Sleep Books published her prose collection Marine Drive. She has been writer-in-residence at Manchester’s Victoria Baths and Ilkley Literature Festival. She was invited to run Verbose by the Fallow team, starting January 2015, ending May 2017.

Zena Barrie co-hosted Verbose with Jo Howard 2017 - 2019, they had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends.

Zena is founder and co director of The Camden Fringe festival, and was previously a director of the Greater Manchester Fringe as well as a former landlady of The Kings Arms. Zena´s debut funny novel Your Friend Forever came out in 2021 and in 2025 her new book of illustrated short stories will be published Two Similar Looking Men with Umbilical Hernias.

Jo Howard was co-host of Verbose with Zena Barrie from 2017 to 2019. They were thrilled when Verbose won the Saboteur Award for Best Regular Spoken Word Night in 2018.Jo is a teacher, producer and writer of young adult fiction with a distinctly Mancunian flavour.

Her novel LEGAL WALLS won the 2023 Skylark Soaring Stories Competition and Jo was chosen as one of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ 2024 Undiscovered Voices.

Ava MacPherson had the honour of hosting verbose alongside Zoe Turner and Adam Evans through 2019 and into the unforgettable lockdowns. Ava is a writer and now lives in Amsterdam.

Zoë was co-host of Verbose alongside Ava and Adam from 2019-2021. She is a Manchester-based writer and currently works for Manchester University Press.

Adam is a writer and comedian who was lucky enough to take the Verbose reins alongside Zoë Turner and Ava MacPherson in 2019, shepherd it through lockdown(s), then bring it to new home The King's Arms alongside Amy King from 2021-22.

Amy L. King is a Manchester-based poet who was lucky enough to join the Verbose team alongside the wonderful Adam Evans from 2021 until the end of 2022.

Alicia Fitton has been a regular Verboser since 2018 and joined the hosting team alongside Lisa and Ilaria in January 2023. She writes about love, loss and justified feminist rage. In 2024 she co-edited a Swift inspired zine, The ______ poets department with Alice Godliman, and has performed her one woman show, Thing of Myth and Beauty at the Camden and Manchester fringe festivals.

Ilaria is a writer and storyteller. Verbose was one of the first places she told stories at and she loved it straight after and felt like she had found her people.

It’s been such a joy to host alongside Lisa and Alicia and now Alicia, Becky and Alice.

Lisa was a co-host of Verbose from January 2023 to summer 2024. Lisa first attended Verbose in 2019 and became a regular on the open mic, a headliner, host and devotee. She has since taken a poetry show to Edinburgh fringe, been shortlisted for a Saboteur Award and become a BBC Words First Finalist.

Becky May is a Manchester-based poet who read poems at Verbose in her first week in Manchester and loved it so much, she kept coming back for more. She is one of the most recent additions to the Verbose team, joining in Autumn 2024.

Alice Godliman is a Pushcart-nominated writer,workshop facilitator and self-described ´spooky bitch´. She´s been commissioned by Factory International and featured at Edinburgh Fringe and Leeds Poetry Festival. Her debut chapbook´ The Book of (seeing past the) Shadows´came out in 2022. She joined Verbose in Autumn 2024.

This month there´s no open mic, sign up for Februrary will open shortly after the January event.

Tickets are PWYC from the link

Verbose: Kings Arms, Bloom Street Salford 7.30pm to 9.30pm.

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