playforth News, Readings

Jackie Wills (prose), John McCullough (poetry) and Bethan Roberts (prose) – Thursday 18 June

Our next Needlewriters evening will be on Thursday18th June 2026, featuring Jackie Wills (prose), John McCullough (poetry) and Bethan Roberts (prose).

This will be a LIVE event at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes (upstairs room): doors 6pm for a 6.30pm start.

Tickets £5 (£3 students/unwaged and claiming benefit) available on the door. 

Books will be for sale on the night (cash only please).

Jackie Wills is a gardener, life-long maker and mender of clothes for herself and others. Her new poetry collection, Making the Wedding Dress is out soon. She’s a former journalist and is juggling several prose projects. 

*Image copyright Giya Makondo Wills

John McCullough lives in Hove. His book of poems, Reckless Paper Birds (Penned in the Margins) won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. John’s collections have been Books of the Year for publications including The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and The Telegraph and he also won the Polari First Book Prize. The poem ‘Flower of Sulphur’, from his fourth collection Panic Response (Penned in the Margins), was shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. His fifth collection, Crowd Voltage was published in March 2026 by Bloodaxe. He teaches creative writing at the University of Brighton.

*Photograph by Stephen Wells

Bethan Roberts has published six novels and also writes stories and drama for BBC Radio 4. Her latest novel is A Short Road to Longbrook,a family saga about three generations of mothers and daughters. Her previous novels include My Policeman (Chatto & Windus, 2012), which was adapted as an Amazon Original movie starring Harry Styles, Rupert Everett and Emma Corrin; Mother Island (Chatto, 2014), which received a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered prize; and Graceland (Chatto, 2019), a novel about Elvis Presley and his mother. She has been awarded the Society of Authors’ Olive Cook Prize and the Royal Academy Pin Drop Award for her short fiction. Bethan has taught Creative Writing at Chichester University and Goldsmiths College, London, and she currently teaches for the Creative Writing Programme in Brighton. 

rhneedles News, Readings

Karen Smith, Julia Webb, Jackie Wills and Emily Bell – Thursday 15th April 2021

Needlewriters is going to be online now until the autumn, when we’re hoping to be back at the John Harvey Tavern… but of course, that’s to be confirmed.

Meanwhile our next event is on Thursday 15th April and we’re delighted to be welcoming Karen Smith (poetry), Julia Webb (poetry), Jackie Wills (prose and/or poetry) and Emily Bell (prose).

Doors open at 6.20pm and readings begin at 6.30pm.

The event is free to attend but please do book in advance. If you feel able, we would be very grateful for any help you can offer us by way of a donation and you will have that option when you register.

Please register here on the Eventbrite page.

We look forward to seeing you!

Karen Smith is a wild swimming addict, librarian and poet from Uckfield, East Sussex. Since 2018, she’s been collaborating with Kin’d & Kin’d, an Ecopoetry collective of writers and artists. Her pamphlet Schistwas published in 2019 as part of the Laureate’s Choice Series and she is currently working on a hybrid text about water.

Julia Webb is a writer, teacher and artist living in Norwich. She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse. In 2011 she won the Poetry Society’s Stanza competition and in 2018 she won the Battered Moon poetry competition. She has two poetry collections with Nine Arches Press: Bird Sisters (2016) and Threat (2019). She is currently working towards her third collection.

Jackie Wills has been a journalist, editor and writing tutor but none exclusively. She’s written six collections, short stories and a handbook on running workshops. She’s run several reading groups, including for the Child and Adolescent Mental Heath Service on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund. Her most recent collection is A Friable Earth (Arc Publications 2019). Jackie has had an allotment for more than 20 years and has worked with the Surrey Hills AONB, Gatton House, the Garden Museum and RHS at Wisley. She’s written about her reading and writing life for Smith Doorstop – On Poetry –  will be published next year.

Emily Bell is a writer of prose and poetry and a research student at the University of Brighton. She is currently working on her PhD, a ficto-critical thesis exploring creative processes in literature and visual art, centred on the works of Emily Brontë.