Creative Writing in the Community is a one-year collaborative venture bringing together researchers within the School with Poetry Business and other community groups to examine and explore the impact of creative writing on the local environment. The project leaders are Dr Joanna Gavins, Prof Adam Piette, and Dr Duco van Oostrum, working with research assistants Dr Sara Whiteley and Agnes Lehoczky. The project also features the Simon Armitage CBE, the School’s new Professor of Poetry.

Some of the exciting events Simon and the project team will be involved over the course of 2010-11 include:

• Poetry readings at various events and venues across the city, including the Off the Shelf festival and the first ever Sheffield Poetry Festival (1st – 3rd April 2011)
• A poetry-writing workshop for secondary-school teachers of English in Sheffield
• A creative-writing day for local schoolchildren at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park
• An empirical academic study of the responses of a range of local reading groups to poetry and a discussion forum on the wider impact of this investigation
• A workshop for University students and users of local mental health services as part of the School’s Storying Sheffield project
• A poetry competition in conjunction with the Sheffield Telegraph
   

Please follow the links below to further information about our partners in the local community and for details of forthcoming events.

Poetry Business

Sheffield Poetry Festival

Off the Shelf