Thank you! Leadmill open mic & launch…
Last Thursday evening, we filled the iconic Leadmill Sheffield with an epic 60 young performers scanning poetry, monologues, rap, music and words, words words, for an epic open mic and the launch of two Hive anthologies – From our Mixing Roots project: ‘We Are Everything’, featuring writing from 34 young women of colour, and Dear Life, an anthology of fiction and poets by 74 emerging young writers from across the region. Links to both coming soon!
Meanwhile, we just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the team who made Thursday night the wonderful night it was…
Thank you to:
A huge thanks to our front-of-house team on the night: Helen Angell, Megan Cook, Dominic Heslop, Kit Fox, Lauren Hollingsworth Smith and Thandiwe Grant – we couldn’t have done it without you!
Warda Yasin & Danae Wellington – of our Mixing Roots Project. Girls from the project opened the night with some really powerful pieces. A massive thank you to Claire Exton and fellow English staff at King Ecgberts School for mini-busing some of the girls down hot-foot from a school event. It’s been wonderful working with King Ecgberts these last few months on the project too.
Thank you for stellar hosting from the absolute legend that is poet and BBC producer Matt Weigold (and we missed his other radio half, our girl Sile Sibanda who came after her radio show to help rescue us with a flat car battery!) Massive thanks also to Jason White and Nik Perring who brought a big posse of Barnsley Young Writers via train.
Thank you to everyone who came to support, listen, buy books, and of course, to every young writer who shared their words on the Leadmill stage – it was so brilliant to be back in the real world!
A massive thank you for the generous time and skills given by wonderful community photographer Tim Dennell who always captures the best of Sheffield in his work! Thanks to all wider support including Sheffield Hallam English Yvonne Battle-Felton & Chris Jones. Last but not least, a huge thank you to the Leadmill. Such a wonderful and accommodating venue to work with, shout outs to Rose, Mike, Frazer, Paul and the gang – thank you! As we said, watch this space for more info on our books available to buy soon.
You can find a full album of photos from the event here