Spoken Label

* containing topics and language not suitable for all *A special bonus episode from Spoken Label (Poetry Chat) featuring our friend Hayley Lynn Gordon returning for a brief chat to talk about her debut poetry book "Lemonade Grenade" due out via Luain Press on 01 July 2026.Hayley's debut collection is described is described as "an explosion of love, joy, grief and pain. Both angry and tender, this collection - with its witchy undertones - is pumping with the punk poet’s spirit. “An articulate and relatable poet/spoken word artist twisting her words with tales of woe, joy and laughter” - Jay Lowe, Vinyl Scouse"The launch is in Liverpool on 18 July 2026 (Kazimier Gardens, Kabin Room) which me (Andy N) cannot wait to attend.

Latest Podcast from Spoken Label (Author / ArtistPodcast) features making her debut, Lucy Beth. Lucy Beth (she/her/hers) is a multi-award-winningemerging performer, theatre-maker and lecturer from Inverurie, Aberdeenshire.​​She graduated with Distinction from the University of Glasgow’s MLitt Theatre & Performance Practices Course after being awarded a PGT Excellent Scholarship bythe University.​​Lucy has worked on various stage, screen, and audioprojects. Her recent credits include Blanca in Ten Feet Tall's production of "Guilty" by Rona Munro at Granite Noir Festival. Penny in “How To Train Your Dad To Be A Feminist” at the Aberdeen Arts Centre, and she has alsostarred in TMM Recruitment’s Christmas Advert, “Scary Tale of New Work,”​Beyond conventional performing, part of Lucy's practiceconcerns dialect preservation. She speaks Doric and seeks to create and perform works in Doric as a means of continuing to render the dialect present. Her Doric works have reached critical acclaim and have earned Lucy several awards.​Her Doric solo theatre show, “Ma Name Is Isabelle” wasperformed at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was highlighted as one of SNACK Magazine’s Picks of the Fringe. It also received an Edinburgh Fringe TheatreAward from the Fringe Theatre Awards. The show has received 5-star reviews in the press.​Lucy won the Best Newcomer Award at The Doric FilmFestival for her film, "Fit Wye Nae" in 2024. In 2025 she performed in "Sticky Business", winner of the Best Film Award at the 2025 Doric Film Festival.​​Lucy’s Doric poetry won her a place in the finals of the Loud Poet's Slam Poetry Competition in Aberdeen in June 2025 and made a guest appearance at the LoudPoet’s Edinburgh Fringe show, which was awarded 5 stars. ​​She was one of the Young Women’s Movement’s 30 Under 30 Honourees for 2025.​​Lucy was also a 2025 Scottish Emerging Theatre AwardsWinner. More details can be found at: https://www.lucy-beth-performer.com/

Latest up from Spoken Label (Poetry Podcast) features the return of our friend Sarah James (also known as Sarah Leavesley ) talking about her new poetry book 'Darling Blue'.Darling Blue interweaves ekphrastic poems with a book-length fictional poetry narrative of love, lust and letting go. The poems inspired by Pre-Raphaelite artworks include QR codes, which readers can scan to view the pieces after or alongside their reading. Blue here is more than a colour or inspiration; it is desire, secrecy and sorrow – the essence of ‘feeling / really alive’, yet ‘distance’s illusion’.“A fascinating creative hybrid weaving ekphrasis and cohesive narrative, Darling Blue deftly balances its fictional speaker’s personal response to various Pre-Raphaelite artworks, with rich descriptive hints that resonate way beyond the mere visual. Exploring the complex tensions between the public sphere and private activities, this collection is a gallery tour of the narrator’s unfulfilling relationship with an unattainable partner, through to the ultimate redemption of self-worth and new love. James’s finely crafted and intelligently controlled poems brim with vivid imagery and lush sensory detail, reminding the reader ‘how brightly sunlight shines through // when freed from a cracked mirror’.”Sarah Doyle, Pre-Raphaelite Society Poet-in-Residence“James uses the lyric and ekphrasis to create a profound and moving collection on the cost of love; what endures and how we survive its wake. As vivid and emotive as its pre-Raphaelite sources, Darling Blue is also startlingly direct, eloquent and consoling on the things we find hardest to put into words. An unmissable collection.”Luke KennardMore details about said book can be found here;https://www.sarah-james.co.uk/?page_id=17191

Happy New Year all folks!Back with a bang, the first Spoken Label (Spoken Word Podcast) Podcast of the year features the Hongwei Bao.Hongwei Bao (he/him) is a Nottingham-based queer Chinese writer, translator and academic. He is part of the Fifth Word Playwrights, GOBS Spoken Word Collective and Nottingham Playhouse Writers’ Room. He is also a Middle Way Mentee for writing fiction and a New Earth Theatre theatremaker. His work explores queer desire, Asian identity, diasporic positionality and transcultural intimacy.Hongwei is the author of Dream of the Orchid Pavilion (poetry pamphlet, Big White Shed, 2024), The Passion of the Rabbit God (poetry collection, Valley Press, 2024) and Queering the Asian Diaspora (nonfiction, Sage, 2024). His short story ‘A Postcard from Berlin’ was a runner-up for the Plaza Prize for Microfiction in 2023.Hongwei has performed poetry at Bad Betty Live, City Arts Nottingham, Dandelions Poetry, DIY Poetry, ESEA Authors LitFest, ESA NE Newcastle, Five Leaves Bookshop, Fluent in Both, Lighthouse Bookshop Edinburgh, Kif Kif Antwerp, Nottingham Central Library, Nottingham Poetry Festival, Nottingham Playhouse, Notts Poetry, Nowhere Netherlands, Paper Crane Poetry, Prague Pride, Shaded Writers, Speech Therapy, and The Common Press London.Instagram: @patrickbao123Bluesky: @queercomradesSelf-Portrait as a Banana can be purchased from here - https://amzn.eu/d/0GOtbOo