“I’d like you to feature in my Guardian poem of the week blog.” That was the gist of an email I got from Carol Rumens, earlier this year – and on 14^th February, there was my prose poem ‘Second Sleep’ in the online pages of that august newspaper, accompanied by Carol’s sensitive and insightful analysis. Over the years, I have read Carol’s blog and often thought ‘I’d like to do that’: I write a lot of reviews of books of poetry and teach poetry in my capacity as an Open University tutor. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I would be the subject of her blog.

It all started with the MA in Creative Writing; as an academic colleague of Oz Hardwick and Amina Alyal at Leeds Trinity University. I was aware of this exciting new contribution in 2013 to the ‘offer’ (oh, I do dislike this trend for turning nouns into verbs) from the English Creative Writing department at Leeds Trinity University. My youngest child had just gone to university and I feared a bad case of empty nest syndrome unless I found myself a new identity. I rather casually asked them if it would freak them out if, as a fellow academic, I applied to do the MA, and then agonised about whether my submitted portfolio of a few fairly rudimentary poems I’d written over the decades would pass muster for my admission to the programme. To my delight it did. Proudly sporting my red Leeds Trinity hoodie, at the age of 53, I embarked on my fourth degree: Hannah Stone was born.

Since then, I have had nearly 400 poems published in books, online and print journals as well as various other media. I’ve had a book published to my name almost every year since then, including the inaugural volume for two different local small presses and one which was a ‘prize’ for a pamphlet competition. I’ve somehow become poet-theologian for Leeds Church Institute, editor of Dream Catcher journal, convenor of the Leeds Lieder poets/composer's forum, curator of a monthly poetry discussion at the Leeds Library, and compere at Leeds Trinity’s very own open mic sessions ‘Wordspace’. The imprint I rather grandiosely mooted as one of my MA portfolios has been grown by Oz into a 3-volume per year output with Indigo Dreams Publishing.

Recently, I was invited back to Leeds Trinity as a workshop leader for the annual Writers’ Festival. It was such a joy to be able to give back to the department by sitting in a room with talented, enthusiastic writers, introducing them to new ideas and forms to enrich their own writing. This year, after the pandemic hiatus, there was a palpable sense of excitement as we gathered in the conference centre and then dispersed to immerse ourselves in two hours of talking, listening and writing. The work that was shared in my sessions was so diverse and engaging.

As Professor of Creative Writing and an immensely talented poet himself, Oz (Paul Hardwick) has a genius for supporting emerging writers, gently nudging them in the direction of opportunities for their own growth and is the most supremely generous writer of book blurbs, reader of manuscripts and editor. Amina Alyal and Martyn Bedford complete the MA team, each bringing consummate skills to the task. The work they do on campus is connected to the monthly ‘Wordspace’ open mic, held live in a Horsforth venue and also online, giving opportunities to the wider community to join with Leeds Trinity folk in sharing their writing, music, stand up or other creative forms of expression. Find out more! It may just transform your life, as it has mine.

Find out more about the Creative Writing MA course on the Leeds Trinity website. 

Hannah Stone is a published poet and an alumna of Leeds Trinity’s MA Creative Writing course.