Verbose Tenth Birthday at The King’s Arms

Verbose is one of Manchester’s longest-running spoken word events, and we’re delighted to have been invited to help celebrate its ten-year anniversary at a very special evening – come along and join the party on Monday 27 January.

The latest line-up of hosts Ilaria Robinson-Passeri, Alicia Fitton, Becky May and Alice Godliman have continued to keep the Verbose spirit alive, curating guest performers and a talented bill of open mic acts that includes newcomers as well as writers with decades of experience for a really welcoming night showcasing a vibrant mix of spoken word and live literature. They’ve also maintained an amazing audience and say: “Verbose would not exist without its loyal followers, contributors and supporters and we would love to be able to thank you in person.”

For the tenth birthday bash, award-winning Verbose is bringing together the twelve hosts past and present to read, from Sarah-Clare Conlon, who kicked things off in 2015, right through to the latest recruits. They include poets, short story writers, authors, comedians, festival organisers, publishers and much, much more.

Introducing this month’s readers…

Sarah-Clare Conlon was invited to run Verbose by the team at Fallow, where it along began, starting January 2015 and ending in May 2017. She has since been writer-in-residence at Manchester’s Victoria Baths and Ilkley Literature Festival, and written cache-cache, Using Language and Lune, a Poetry Book Society Winter 2023 Selection. Broken Sleep Books published her prose collection Marine Drive and her latest poetry pamphlet Wanderland is out with Red Ceilings Press this spring. She is the editor of Creative Tourist’s Literature Guide.

Zena Barrie and Jo Howard took over from Sarah-Clare and co-hosted Verbose until 2019, taking the night from Fallowfield to Levenshulme, having a lot of fun and making a lot of friends. They were thrilled when Verbose won the Saboteur Award for Best Regular Spoken Word Night in 2018.

Jo is a teacher, producer and writer of young adult fiction with a distinctly Mancunian flavour. Her novel Legal Walls won the 2023 Skylark Soaring Stories Competition and she was chosen as one of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ 2024 Undiscovered Voices. Zena is founder and co-director of The Camden Fringe festival, and was previously a director of the Greater Manchester Fringe as well as a former landlady of The King’s Arms, where Verbose now resides. Zena’s debut funny novel Your Friend Forever came out in 2021 and in 2025 her book of illustrated short stories, Two Similar Looking Men with Umbilical Hernias, will be published.

Next at the helm, Ava MacPherson, Zoë Turner and Adam Evans took the reins in 2019 and co-hosted together into the unforgettable lockdowns until 2021.

Ava is a writer and now lives in Amsterdam; Zoë is a Manchester-based writer and currently works for Manchester University Press. Adam is a writer and comedian (and an original Verbose open micer), who, after the lockdowns, shepherded Verbose to new home The King’s Arms alongside Manchester-based poet Amy L King, taking us to the end of 2022.

In January 2023, a new team stepped up to the stage – not an unfamiliar prospect for Ilaria Robinson-Passeri, Alicia Fitton and Lisa O’Hare as all three had featured on the open mic since the Levy days.

Verbose was one of the first places writer and storyteller Ilaria told stories at – she loved it and felt like she had found her people. Alicia has been a regular Verboser since 2018, reading pieces about love, loss and justified feminist rage. In 2024 she co-edited a Swift-inspired zine, The ______ poets department with Alice Godliman, and has performed her one-woman show, Thing of Myth and Beauty, at the Camden and Manchester fringe festivals. Lisa first attended Verbose in 2019 and became a regular on the open mic, a headliner, devotee and co-host until summer 2024. She has since taken her poetry show Do You Remember The First Rhyme? to Edinburgh fringe, been shortlisted for a Saboteur Award and become a BBC Words First Finalist. Her new book Proving I Exist came out at the end of last year.

In the autumn of 2024, Ilaria and Alicia were joined by Becky May and Alice Godliman – the current line-up, and your hosts for this birthday special.

Becky is a Manchester-based poet who read poems at Verbose in her first week in Manchester, studying at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University – she loved it so much, she kept coming back for more. Alice is a Pushcart-nominated writer and workshop facilitator who has been commissioned by Factory International and featured at Edinburgh Fringe and Leeds Poetry Festival. Her debut chapbook The Book of (seeing past the) Shadows came out with Written Off in 2022.

Note that this month there’s no open mic in January, but applications will open shortly to sign up for the next event on 24 February.