Leave a Comment · Posted on January 13, 2025
Behind the Scenes: Writing for the Screen
A Hive Writers’ Day with Russ Litten
‘To make a great film, you need three things – the script, the script and the script’ Alfred Hitchcock
How do we get the scene in our head onto the page? How do we create characters that we can believe in? And how do we keep the audience glued to the screen until the final frame?
Explore these and other tips and tricks with Russ Litten in this one-day exploration of the vital aspects of screenwriting. You’ll look at how to structure a story, how to write convincing dialogue and how you might polish your raw material into a beautiful shiny piece of potential celluloid.
Creative, supportive and fun for all levels, this workshop day will get you thinking of the tools of the trade required to transfer your stories to the screen.
Russ Litten has written for TV, radio and film, including scriptwriting for the Guy Ritchie films Sherlock Holmes and RocknRolla. He is the author of the novels Scream If You Want to Go Faster, Swear Down and Kingdom, the short story collection We Know What We Are and the poetry collection, I Can See the Lights. He has corroborated on spoken word/electronica recordings and performances as part of Cobby & Litten, Oddfellows Union and as a solo artist under the name Deckie Learner. Russ spent ten years as a Writer In Residence at various prisons in the north of England. His next novel The Crime Writer is due in 2025.
Cost: £10/£5 SHU | Refreshments provided
Saturday 1st March 2025: 10.30 to 4pm
Booking: [email protected]
Where: Cantor Building, Arundel Street, Sheffield (4 minutes from Sheffield train station) Stree view here.
Supported by English & Humanities at Sheffield Hallam University
Leave a Comment · Posted on February 12, 2025
Spread the Word – Open Mic Night (14+)
Join us for an evening of all things words, be that poetry, short fiction or anything goes! The event is open to all ages (14+) and this edition of Spread the Word is hosted by the wonderful Vicky Morris & Nik Perring from Hive Young Writers network – who hope to encourage more younger voices to also take to the mic!
Spread the Word is a writing initiative run by Flux Rotherham, that includes projects, writing workshops and open mics. To learn more and get involved visit here
are a chance to read your own poetry or other short writing, in a safe and supportive space. We welcome all abilities and both new and experienced performers. Book your ticket and find details on securing your performance slot in the confirmation email.Spread the Word usually happens at Grimm & Co in their new building on Ship Hill, but please note for this event on 27th Feb we are at Rotherham Minster.Are you a young person who maybe wants to read or perform something? If so, get in touch at [email protected]
Leave a Comment · Posted on February 8, 2025
Young Writers Open Mic at Barnsley Civic
Young Writers’ Open Mic (aged 14-25)
Special guest Sile Sibanda
Barnsley Civic | Fri 7th March 2025 | Tickets here
To reserve a slot: [email protected]
Whether you write poems, tell stories, compose lyrics, spit bars, or have anything to say out loud to a supportive audience, this is an evening to celebrate your words in a warm, inclusive atmosphere. All welcome, but the stage belongs to young people, aged 14-25 years – from Barnsley, South Yorkshire and beyond.
The event will also launch a new pamphlet of writing in collaboration with Barnsley Academy. Open and supportive of both new & experienced performers.
Part of Barnsley Book Festival
Supported by Hays Travel Foundation
Sile Sibanda is a British Zimbabwean spoken word performer and BBC radio presenter. Sile has been an active part of the Hive young writers community for many years and cut her teeth hosting Hive live literature events which stood her in good stead for winning BBC Radio Sheffield’s ‘This is Me’ presenting competition in 2019. She subsequently became the host of several BBC Radio shows broadcasting across the region. Sile is loved by everyone for her warmth and encouragement of young voices.
Leave a Comment · Posted on February 8, 2025
Luke placed in the Fool For Poetry International Chapbook Competition
We are absolutely delighted for Hive poet Luke Worthy who was highly commended in the Fool For Poetry International Chapbook Competition 24/25. The competition is open yearly to new, emerging and established poets from any country writing in English.
The Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition was established in 2005 by the Munster Literature Centre, a not-for-profit organisation based in Cork, Ireland.
Luke Worthy is a queer poet and fiction writer from Sheffield. His work has appeared in Poetry Wales, fourteen poems, East of the North (The Poetry Business), Queer Responses to Dante’s Inferno (Carrion Press), Soapbox Journal, Arji’s Poetry Pickle Jar, and anthologised in various books including After Hours & Surfing the Twilight (Hive Press), and Broken Sleep’s Masculinity: an anthology of modern voices. He was commissioned by the British Library and Leeds 2023 to write a piece of children’s literature for the Northern Dreaming anthology. He was a digital poet-in-residence for The Poetry Business in 2022 and young poet-in-residence for Sheaf Poetry Festival 2023. In the same year, he was runner-up in the International New Poet’s Prize, judged by Kim Moore. Luke is a member of Hive Poetry Collective. He was a shadow judge for the Forward Prize 2024. www.lukeworthy.com
Leave a Comment · Posted on January 7, 2025
Watch Ear to the Street
Ear to the Streets: 24hrs in the life of South Yorkshire – is an audio-visual love letter to the urban and rural life of South Yorkshire, featuring the words and voices of over 40 young writers from across the region’s cities, towns and villages, working with poet Vicky Morris through Hive Young Writers Network. The film was created in collaboration with digital content producer and musician Kitty Turner.
Now available to watch online
The film was designed for site-specific installation to be happened upon in a transitory way with the movement of people through their day. The installation was showcased at the Millennium Gallery as part of the Off the Shelf Festival.
A single vibrant red leaf is ripped from its home and runs through the silent streets. An overflowing bin looks like a volcanic eruption of household rubbish. A soot black cat with shining yellow eyes sits on top of another lid, as if claiming the throne of a grey and abandoned kingdom. (2.45pm: Royston, Barnsley)
Ear to the Streets is inspired by Ian McMillian’s ‘Early Stroll’ series.
In partnership with Off the Shelf Festival of Words
Writing workshops & editing:
Vicky Morris
Audio-visual elements:
Kitty Turner
With thanks to support from:
Outwood Carlton Barnsley – Matthew Rhodie
High Storrs Sheffield – Joe Caldwell
UTC Doncaster – Ross Cuncliffe & Liam Barlow
Wales High School Rotherham – English team
Penistone Grammar Barnsley – Sarah Mann
The Civic Barnsley – Jason White
Young writers & readers:
Maia Brown
Emmie Alderson
Lauren Hollingsworth Smith
Taina Maneus
Sarafina Maneus
Hannah Zaki
Ayah Aslam
Shannon Johnson
Lacey Williamson
Samuel Davey
Peter Bridgeland
Eliza Livingstone
Sylvia Faggs
Hettie Collins
Lucy Gray
Lola Kenny
Oliver Brearley
Millie Appleyard
Oliver Brearley
Amelia Martin,
Joseph Leathead
Chloe Pearson
Ben Hudson
Ava Collier
Harriet Stockdale
Harry Lodge
Izzy Whiston
Harry Bates
Phoenix Sneap
Phoebe Marklew
Hannah Rawson
Isabelle Naylor
Ameesha Wood
Emily Linton
Lily Smith
Kenzie McMaster
Evie Burgess
Luke Worth
Jess Connelly
Olivia
Abby
Tia
Leave a Comment · Posted on November 5, 2024
Buy The Camellia House & Other Stories
The Camellia House & Other Stories now available to buy
The Camellia House & Other Stories is an anthology of poetry and fiction inspired by the families, gardens and histories of Wentworth Woodhouse. Inside this wonderfully evocative collection, you’ll find the most magnificent range of creative works that tenderly, innovatively, and sometimes humorously, bring history to life through compelling new voices. Consider the historical significance of tea drinking in Lady Rockingham’s Camellia House Tea Room to the advancement of women’s intellectual freedom from the mid-1700s. Witness the lighting of the Marble Saloon in 1834, and immerse yourself in the worlds of Wentworth’s family members and their invisible servant staff. Encounter magical menagerie mammals, birds and garden plants with their own stories to tell of import and adaptation from faraway climes.
£12 (inc.P&P) (discount possible on orders of several copies) The Camellia House & Others Stories offers 45 poems and 16 pieces of short fiction over 112 pages. A wonderful gift for fiction and poetry lovers. Email [email protected] with the number of copies you’d like and we’ll send the amount and bank transfer details. Also available for late Nov 2024 at Wentworth Woodhouse in-house shop.
Reviews
The Camellia House & Other Stories offers us a beautiful and varied collection of hymns to the past, as emerging writers celebrate and sing the history of Wentworth Woodhouse. Here you will find exotic animal interactions and religious visions, the voices of aristocrats, servants and disgruntled vegetables, the sound of giggles which carry across history. This wonderful collection creates a place in which the writers of tomorrow and the people of history can meet, through the magic of language, in the most fantastic, shared now.” Jonathan Edwards: Poet & Fiction Writer
‘This superb book’s heart beats with the transcendent power of creative responses to history. Each piece here could be a freshly painted room in the great Wentworth House, and each piece could also be a well-lit space in the huge and evolving edifice that is new writing. Read this book. Relish it and feel inspired. Then, of course, write something of your own…” Ian McMillan, Poet & Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Verb
Accompanying many of the works in the collection, you’ll also find absorbing contextual and historical insights, such as the importance of pineapples in 1800s England, and what life ‘below stairs’ was really like. The anthology features the micro-commissioned works of 31 emerging writers aged 16+ from the Hive network, many of whom were inspired to write several pieces. These include prize-winning writers such as Luke Worthy and Freya Bantiff, and Sheffield Poet Laureates Warda Yassin (2020-22) and Beth Davies (2024-26). There are also pieces from several established local writers including Ian McMillan and Helen Mort.
The project, which led to the works in this collection, was one of several funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to offer creative engagement with Wentworth Woodhouse in celebration of the opening of the newly refurbished Camellia House Tea Room, situated in the gardens of Wentworth’s Grade II* listed mansion. We hope you enjoy this stunning slice of history – brought gloriously to creative life – exploring what can only be described as South Yorkshire’s most renowned and fascinating aristocratic dynasty.
This is a limited edition, not-for-profit publication in part funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund via Wentworth Woodhouse
Preservation Trust, Hive South Yorkshire Young Writers Network & Off the Shelf Festival of Words
Contributors
Alastair Smith
Anzal Adhan
Becca Drake
Beth Davies
Charlie Jolley
Charlotte Murray
Dillon Butt
Ellen Uttley
Emily Charlton
Erik Ruder
Fae Horsley
Freya Bantiff
Helen Angell
Helen Mort
Holly Thorpe
Ian McMillan
Isabelle Pollard
Jade Beachell
Jenalla Waddington
Jess Lentz
Katherine Henderson
Lauren Hollingsworth Smith
Louisa Rhodes
Lucy Nadin
Luke Worthy
Lydia Allison
Maia Brown
Merila Gramy
Milly Boden
Nik Perring
Rebecca Payne
Rebecca Smith
Sam Parry
Vicky Morris
Warda Yassin
Leave a Comment · Posted on November 1, 2024
Canal Works a crowd-sourced poem by Warda Yassin
In 2021, as part of her role as Sheffield Poet Laureate [202-22], Hive poet and founder of Hive’s Mixing Roots, Warda Yassin, ran the Canal Works project – a Waterlines collaboration between The Poetry Society and the Canal & River Trust – aimed at celebrating the history and life of the Sheffield to Tinsley Canal route.
Working with mentor, Vicky Morris, Warda devised and delivered workshops inspired by the canal’s waterways, wildlife and histories with members of the public and young people from the Mixing Roots Programme.
The project culminated in Warda creating a crowd-sourced poem using writing produced in the workshops. The poem ‘Canal Works’, inspired an installation by local Sheffield artist Grace Visions which is now displayed along a wall by the Bacon Lane Bridge entrance of the Sheffield to Tinsley Canal, with an accompanying QR code to the full poem.
…
You can watch short films [by Aidan Joseph] of the poem and the creation of the installation here.
Read the full text of the poem here.
Read more about Warda’s experience creating the poem here.
Learn more about The Poetry Society and what we do here.
Learn more about the Canal & River Trust here.
Huge thanks to The Poetry Society, Julia Bird and Billie Manning for this fantastic opportunity for young writers on the Mixing Roots Programme.
Leave a Comment · Posted on October 31, 2024
Beth Davies is announced as Sheffield Poet Laureate
We are thrilled for Hive poet, Beth Davies, who was announced as the new Sheffield Poet Laureate (2024-26) by previous laureate Danae Wellington (2022-24) on Thursday 24th Oct 2024.
The aim of the laureateship is to champion engagement in poetry and support its wider community reach.
Both poets follow fellow Hive poet Warda Yassin who was Sheffield’s second laureate from 2020 to 2022, succeeding Otis Mensah. The event was headlined by Jackie Kaye, who said on Beth’s Instagram – “You were a sensation! Loved your poems – have to get my hands on your TPB chapbook! Sold out before I got to the end of my queue!”
Congratulations to Beth. We’re thrilled for you and can’t wait to see what you get up to!
Leave a Comment · Posted on October 14, 2024
Congratulations! Foyle Young Poets 2024
A huge congratulations to 17-year-old Charlie Jolley Hive Collection Poet/Sheffield Young Writer – one of the 15 winning poets of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year 2024!
Charlie was also in the top 15 in 2023 – a huge achievement. This year the competition had over 17,000 poems (!) She follows in the footsteps of previous winners from our South Yorkshire groups including Georgie Woodhead, Lauren Hollingsworth Smith & Claire Carlile. Young people from 113 countries entered the competition from as far afield as Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Madagascar and Sri Lanka, as well as all over the UK. The winners were chosen by Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood, who said:
Vanessa says: “This year’s entries took me to many wondrous and unexpected places. I loved the poems that were playful with form and language and the poems that stood in humble awe at the beauty of nature. Some poems made me cackle and others made my stomach twist in recognition of the pain and struggle they depicted. Jack and I were awestruck at how precocious and assured these poets are. Amongst them are the future stars of the poetry world and I’m honoured to have had this glimpse into the crystal ball.”
Jack says: “…it was genuinely restorative to see so many poems written by young people, while initially daunting, reassured me that poetry is healthier than ever, and continues to lure fresh minds into its weird, millennia-old conversation. I was impressed by those poets replying to the older, more formally regular traditions, and how deftly they managed things like metre and rhyme, but also by those poets finding new shapes, structures and cadences for their concerns. Most of all I was impressed by how imaginatively and wholeheartedly these poets ventured into the world, asked questions, and replied to it – with tenderness, social conscience, and novelty of thought and phrase.”
Winners of the award receive a fantastic range of prizes to help develop their writing. The top 15 poets are invited to attend a residential writing course at The Hurst, Arvon centre in Shropshire; and all 100 winners receive a year’s youth membership of The Poetry Society and a bag full of books donated by generous publishers. The Poetry Society continues to support winners throughout their careers providing publication, performance and development opportunities, and access to a paid internship programme.
If you’re a young poet, sign up the our free Young Poets Network e-newsletter to hear about all the Poetry Society’s opportunities for young poets to submit their work, perform their poems and further their writing skills. Explore the Young Poets Network for regular writing challenges, articles about poetry, events, workshops and more.
You can read the winning poems here
Massive thanks to The Poetry Society for all you do to support and encourage poets of all ages!
Leave a Comment · Posted on September 15, 2024