The Quiet Compere

The idea came to me after two things coincided. I went to an Apples and Snakes Masterclass with Tony Walsh about promoting yourself, your work, your events and the following week my contract with NHS did not get renewed. This had been a job for life for 17 years! So, I thought back to masterclass and Tony had talked about funding opportunities and I though 'hmmm they wouldn't pay me to tour as I am not funny or performance-based enough!' cogs going, then 'I could use my 17 years of NHS admin skills and my love of a colour-coded spreadsheet to put together showcases of poets in different places, bringing poets together from different groups in one big celebration of the area. I decided 10 poets x 10 minutes was a neat format and this was the format for the Arts Council funded 2014 and 2015 tours and for a 4 event tour funded by crowd-funder in 2016/7.

I always read a couple of poems first because the main request when discussing running orders is usually 'early please, but not first!'