For several years Lauren has been a member of Hive Poetry collective and Rotherham Young Writers. She’s a recipient of the Young Northern Writers Award and was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year 2019. Lauren has recently joined the Writing Squad. Her debut pamphlet Ugly Bird will be published by the Poetry Business in 2021.
With poems from classic, well-loved poets as well as innovative and bold modern voices, She Will Soar is a stunning collection and an essential addition to any bookshelf. From the ancient world right up to the present day, it includes poems on wanderlust, travel, daydreams, flights of fancy, escaping into books, tranquillity, courage, hope and resilience. From frustrated housewives to passionate activists, from servants and suffragettes to some of today’s most gifted writers, here is a bold choir of voices demanding independence and celebrating their hard-won power.
Join award-winning British-Somali poet, Warda Yassin, for a writing workshop exploring all things language. Warda will encourage you to use the words you love from the tongues you speak (or maybe know only a little of!) and write in the dialects, and even the slang, that matters to you. Participants also have the opportunity to edit and record a piece for a follow on podcast. All levels of writing experience and interests welcome across two age groups and sessions. Expect and warm, supportive and relaxed atmosphere.
Jonathan Edwards’s first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. His poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2019, and he has received prizes in the Ledbury Festival International Poetry Competition, the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. He has read his poems on BBC radio and television and at festivals around the world, recorded them for the Poetry Archive and led workshops in schools, universities and prisons. Jonathan is the editor of 
For a while I’ve been aware, everything points to me having Fibromyalgia, a condition my mum has, that’s characterised by all of the above issues. I’ve ticked every symptom box. I’m currently in limbo between child and adult services but even so, they don’t like to diagnose Fibro in kids. Now the occupational therapist and the psychologist are starting to agree, it’s likely what I have.
Things changed in a flash; the sudden turn from coping to her struggling to breathe, calling 111 for advice, then following the paramedic’s instructions and taking her to A&E. I remember sitting in the car checking my phone every minute for updates, feeling hopeless and returning home to check on our pets, crying and praying while clutching the cross on my necklace. Eventually, we got the good news that Mum could come home.
Well, certainly not the disease itself, but how it changed my thinking and really shifted me to face the future I’m determined to have. Through the rainstorm of anxiety, this frightening experience, when everything I have, and everyone I love, was no longer stable, it awoke in me a fierce desire to live, and to see all the reasons why, despite everything, I’m still lucky and grateful in many ways. I come from a household of strong women, there’s no dad or husband, it’s just us and we all have health conditions, but we are here and we have each other.
But the thought of my life and world being pulled from under me made me realise just how much I wanted to be here. It’s made me step back and think about everything I still want to do and how my story really is only just beginning. I thought about how far I’ve already come, and how I want to get back on that road the moment the outside world lets me.
emmott is a 17-year-old student studying Journalism and Social Media Communications. She’s an aspiring journalist passionate about hard-hitting issues such as mental and physical illnesses in young people and politics. In summer 2020 she was a guest editor for the Sheffield Star newspaper. Follow her on Twitter 
r, theatre-maker and event organiser – a wearer of many creative hats! She graduated with a First Class Honours Degree from the Performance for Stage and Screen course at Sheffield Hallam University in 2019. Described as a ‘one-woman army’, Melanie single-handedly set up her own event, the Sheffield Monologue Showcase (SMS), which premiered last March.
The Orwell Youth Prize is an annual programme for 12-18-year olds culminating in a writing prize. Rooted in Orwell’s values of integrity and fairness, the prize and the activities around it introduce young people to the power of language and provoke them to think critically and creatively about the world in which they are living.
With a focus on social justice, the themes of the Youth Prize ask young people to respond to big ideas, past themes have included: ‘Truth vs. Lies’, ‘Identity’ and ‘A Fair Society?’. We believe increasing young people’s confidence in writing, critical thinking, and interest in social justice helps to equip them for their next step, whether that be higher education, apprenticeships or work.
Naomi Thomas is a 17-year-old writer and committed member of Sheffield Young Writers. She won two Sheffield-based short story competitions in 2014 and 2016. In 2019 she was highly commended in the Forward Arts Foundation/EMC e-magazine Creative Critics Competition and Hive Young Writers competition. Hannah’s story Breakfast was published in Hive anthology Surfing the Twilight and she has work forthcoming in Sheffield Hallam University’s Matter journal. She is a new recruit of the Writing Squad.
