Rochdale Culture Awards – Runner Up

Last week Rochdale held its final event of its year as Greater Manchester Town of Culture – the Rochdale Culture Awards, celebrating the borough’s cultural changemakers.

I was delighted to have been nominated, and then to receive a runner up award in the ‘Creative of the Year’ category.

The award recognises the work I have done to encourage and support local communities in creative writing including running workshops, taking part in events and performances and creating commissioned pieces.

Photo taken at the awards with my runner-up certificate.

The winner in my category was Hayley Garner (AYLO) is one half of the street art duo ‘Nomad Clan’ and has created some amazing large scale murals in Rochdale as the Common Walls Festival. The other runner-up was Martina Coggins the founder of Trading Steps Theatre and Dance Company, Martina is also the woman behind the choreography for Sign Along With Us who mixed dance and sign language to great effect on Britain’s Got Talent.

It was an honour to be alongside these talented creatives and I am thankful to those who nominated me and to all of those I have worked with throughout the year. Many Thanks!

What’s Going on…

I’ve been quiet on here for a little while but lots going on elsewhere.

have been working, with support form my wife Maggie, Steve Cooke and Kirsty Olczak, towards the launch of a new and exciting CIC to support creative writing and poetry in Rochdale. I will post further details in the near future and we plan to launch in April. In the meantime this link – www.rochdalewrites.co.uk – takes you to a holding page which will be updated when we launch.

Long Tailed Tit - watched at Hollingworth Lake
Long Tailed Tit – watched at Hollingworth Lake

I also manage the website for Riverside Writers, based in Rochdale Central Library. The site www.riversidewriters.org.uk carries notifications not only for that group but also for lots of other creative writing related activity that we are aware on in our area.

For my own work I’ve been writing and running various writing workshops. My newest writing includes a number of new poems, a collection called “Feathered”, some new short stories and I am continuing to work on a narrative non-fiction book about thin places.

Teal duck - spring 2026

At last in recent days I’ve managed to add a couple of new pages with watercolour paintings to my own nature journal, pictured here. One lesson from all of this is that it doesn’t matter if you pause on something to concentrate on others. You can come back and that when you do you can feel refreshed and ready to go.