Last night we convened at the Continental to celebrate Wordsoup’s first anniversary and the launch of the new anthology, presented in little bundles done up with string – can’t beat a bit of Julie Andrews wrapping! (Not to be confused with Julie Andrews rapping. ‘I say super calli fragilistic expialidosious (one time – uh!)’

The Anthology! Available to buy from the Lancashire Writing Hub!

It was a fantastic night and I got to try out some of my new pieces: ‘The Self Sufficient Opinion Grower’ and ‘Hen’.

There were a whole plethora of performances, I particularly enjoyed Rachel McGladdery’s final piece, which I think was called ‘My Dead Dad,’ – the subject matter was risky, but executed and performed with total assurance and integrity. And Johnny5thWheel’s music was fantastic: lyrical substance, a light touch on the strings and real energy. Wordy without being heavy! Yup – Instant fan.

Sarah Hymas treated us to a selection of poetry from a sequence in bedrock: really inspired to hear the narrative told through four generations;  Socrates Adams did a fantastic piece about, well, shall we say, young parenthood; Norman Hadley not only performed but in a multi-tasking powerhouse recorded the whole night too – three cheers for Norm! Tom Fletcher read two extracts from The Leaping which I reckon is going to be the thing to read when summer is over and the winter starts to draw in like a Great Dark Thing.

And that’s not to mention the Open Mic! Max Wallis, Sarah Fiske, Kev McVeigh, Dave,  James Diable and his performing orange, Ron Baker, Pascal the Rascal  and Mark Mace Smith.

And I came home with a tray of chips and a short story in a little blue book! Who could ask for anything more! But apparently extracts from the anthology are going to bus-stopped around the North West too and this continues from earlier in the week when Jane and Ruth donned balaclavas and projected extracts from the anthology in Preston and Lancaster, at the Harris Museum and Lancaster library respectively. Thanks guys!

From 'Five Rooms' in the Word Soup 1 Anthology

For more info about the night and for details on buying the anthology, goto the Lancashire Writing Hub.

And all Norman’s videos from the night are here.