Mining Our Memories: Writing Workshop with Simon Maddrell

This workshop with poet, editor and wellbeing facilitator Simon Maddrell will enable participants to uncover memories and identify ones that they’d like to explore further.

We’ll examine a memory from different perspectives and explore word associations to create the raw materials to develop our own poem/story and elevate narratives to the next level. To help identify the best approach for our specific memory, we’ll read poems that use the different approaches, or even take the memory to new places.

The workshop is suitable for writers of poetry, prose, short stories and flash fiction at all levels.

About Simon Maddrell

Simon Maddrell writes as a queer Manx man, living with HIV in Brighton & Hove. Since 2019, over 200 of his poems have appeared in numerous publications including & Change, AMBIT, Acumen, Gutter, Magma, MODRON, Poetry Wales, SAND, Southword, Stand, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The London Magazine, The Moth, The Rialto, Under the Radar. In 2020, Simon’s debut chapbook, Throatbone, was published by UnCollected Press, and Queerfella jointly-won The Rialto Open Pamphlet Competition. Isle of Sin (Polari Press, 2023); The Whole Island (Valley Press, 2023); a finger in derek jarman's mouth (Polari Press, 2024) were all Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Selections. Out-Spoken Press publish Simon's debut collection, lamping wild rabbits, in Feb 2026.

More about Simon

• Web simonmaddrell.com
• Instagram @simonmaddrell
• Facebook @SimonMaddrellPoetry
• Bluesky @simonmaddrell
• YouTube @simonmaddrell
• SoundCloud @simonmaddrell
• LinkedIn: @simonmaddrell

Buy the book at Waterstones

About MK Lit Fest

Milton Keynes Literary Festival (MK Lit Fest) began in 2017, since when over 250 authors - ranging from international bestsellers to debut novelists, and including all kinds of fiction and non-fiction - have appeared at our in-person and online events. We also host children's events, literary walks, writing workshops, submission-based events for local writers, an annual writing competition and anthology, and more. Our next in-person festival is happening between 22 and 26 April 2026 in Central Milton Keynes, but our programme extends year round. Visit us online at  www.mklitfest.org or follow us as @MKLitFest on most social channels.