Adam O’Riordan Words and Pictures by Siobhan O’Toole As I entered the foyer of The Midland Hotel, I instantly felt transported to 1900s Manchester. The grandeur and beauty of my surroundings seemed like the perfect setting for the day’s intimate and special reading from the hotel’s writer-in-residence, and lecturer of poetry at Manchester Writing School,…

Words by Sophie Bannister. Warning: Manchester Metropolitan University’s Geoffrey Manton building is infected. Do not enter under any circumstances. Zombies walk among us.  I walked into MMU’s Geoffrey Manton building to be confronted by zombies riding the lifts, limping across the atrium, and creepily sniffing those of us who dared  to stay for Professor Fred Botting’s lecture, Zombie (?). Thankfully, the zombies didn’t follow us into the lecture theatre, so we took a…

Eoin Colfer with ‘Postacards From The Past’ Winners, Aisha Akhtar, 17, Eoin Colfer, Beth Harrop, 10, Shannon Barrett, 17. Words By Caroline Matthews  I’d been invited to attend a talk by Eoin Colfer, writer of the hugely popular Artemis Fowl series at the The People’s History Museum, and decided to congratulate myself on my (unheard…

Words by James Harris In autumn I return to something like memories, like home. It is the slow bursting of trees into flame, whipped by winds returned to reclaim the shrinking days. The wilderness creeps back into the world, and amidst the smell of earth and dance of leaves at my feet, I am reassured…

Words by Caroline Matthews We’ve all received those messages from friends telling us to search for something in Google: ‘French military victories’ famously returned nil results, alongside the tongue-in-cheek message ‘Did you mean, ‘French Military Defeats’?’. Another time, Google Maps issued directions from China to Japan including the unlikely instruction to ‘swim across the Pacific…