Writing Workshops: Bad Ideas Club

Poets! Share new work, first drafts and ‘bad’ ideas in a warm, inclusive setting. 

Come and join a professional poet for a relaxed poetry workshop where you can share your ideas and work on new projects. 

Brought to us by Nottingham-based independent publishers Bad Betty Press. 

Supported by funding from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Three libraries will host three workshops. Book your place for one or come along to all three! 

Workshop dates and locations:

Mansfield Central Library

Saturday 9 August

Saturday 16 August

Saturday 23 August

Newark Library

Wednesday 3 September

Wednesday 10 September

Wednesday 17 September

Hucknall Library

Saturday 6 September

Saturday 13 September

Saturday 20 September

Chris Lanyon is poet and mathematician. Chris has nearly a decade of experience running poetry workshops for people at all stages of their writing practice, from those looking to write their first ever poems, to professional and published poets and even sometimes academic mathematicians.

Leanne Moden is a poet, theatremaker and educator, based in Nottingham (UK). She’s performed across the UK and Europe, including gigs at WOMAD Festival, Sofar Sounds, and Bestival on the Isle of Wight. She was a semi-finalist at the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam in 2018, and has shown work at Fourth Wave Feminist Festival, Trinity College Cambridge, and TEDxWOMEN UCL. In Summer 2019, Leanne performed her first solo theatre show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and her second pamphlet of poetry, “Get Over Yourself,’ was published with Burning Eye Books in 2020. She is currently working on her first full-length play.

Casey Bailey is an award-winning writer, performer and educator, born and raised in Nechells, Birmingham, UK. Casey was the Birmingham Poet Laureate 2020 - 2022. Casey has had three poetry books published and his poetry has appeared in a number of anthologies and journals. As a playwright, Casey has brought plays to the stage in Birmingham, Coventry and London, including Please Do Not Touch which had a critically acclaimed run at The Belgrade Theatre in 2024. In 2022 Casey won a Royal Television Society award for a film for his poem Dear Brum. A number of organisations have commissioned pieces from Casey, including the BBC and the Royal Shakespeare Company and he has performed his work internationally. Casey is a fellow at the University of Worcester, and in 2021 was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Education by Newman University.

Georgina Wilding has had the pleasure of working as Nottingham's first Young Poet Laureate, the Creative Director of Nottingham Poetry Festival, Manager of the Writing East Midlands Writers Conference 2023, and alongside this, she has been working as a freelance writer creating pieces to commission. Her debut poetry collection Hag Stone was released with Verve Poetry Press in 2022, and she recently collaborated with Nottingham University Hospitals and Vicky McClure on a poem celebrating the NHS. Currently, she is the Events Lead at the new Nottingham Central Library, creating a cultural programme that celebrates the artistic talent thriving in Nottingham. 

Bad Betty is an award-winning independent publisher of new poetry, and curator of live literature events taking place across the UK. 

London-born, Nottingham-based, Bad Betty Press was set up in 2017 by Amy Acre and Jake Wild Hall with the aim of showcasing exciting and risk-taking poetry, supporting poets’ artistic development and celebrating stories less often told.  

Bad Betty won the Michael Marks Publisher’s Award in 2022, and was a regional finalist for the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year in 2023, 2024 and 2025. 

Their books have won or been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Michael Marks Award, the Laurel Prize, Polari First Book Prize and BAMB Readers’ Award, featured in the Guardian‘s Best Recent Poetry, and selected as a Telegraph Poetry Book of the Month, a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and several times as Pamphlet Choice.