Hollie McNish has made a name as one of the hottest names in spoken word, having shot to prominence through her viral videos, McNish has collected awards aplenty, and became the first poet to ever record at the iconic Abbey Road studios.

After a run of sold out shows up and down the UK, Hollie McNish is back with a brand new book, Lobster and other things I’m learning to love. A Sunday Times bestselling writer whose live readings are not to be missed, expect strong language and adult content, gift-wrapped in gorgeously crafted poetry.

In Lobster, Hollie brings her much-loved style to questions of friendship, flags and newborns, clocks, cocks and volvos, shining a ridiculous and beautifully poetic lens upon all those things we have been taught to hate, and which we might just learn to love again. Here, she will be joined by fellow poet Michael Pedersen reading from his latest brilliant books The Cat Prince and Boy Friends.

Adult content warning 14+ / Book signing after the gig.

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Hollie McNish is a poet and author based between Glasgow and Cambridge. She was the first poet to record at Abbey Road Studios, London and won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her poetic parenting memoir – Nobody Told Me – of which The Scotsman stated ‘The World Needs this Book’. She has published four further collections of poetry – Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum and Slug, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and translated into French under the title Je souhaite seulement que tu fasses quelque chose de toi. Her new book, Lobster, and other things I’m learning to love is out in March 2024.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet, author, scribbler, stitcher. He is currently Writer in Residence at The University of Edinburgh. He’s unfurled two acclaimed collections of poetry with Polygon Books with a third (The Cat Prince & Other Poems) published by Corsair/Little Brown in July 2023—the title poem of which is currently shortlisted for the Forward Prizes. His prose debut, Boy Friends, was published by Faber & Faber in 2022 in the UK & North America and was a Sunday Times Critics Choice. He won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, the John Mather’s Trust Rising Star of Literature Award, and was a finalist for the 2018 ‘Writer of the Year’ at The Herald Scottish Culture Awards. With work anthologised by the likes of Pan MacMillan and Canongate Books, Pedersen has collaborated with musicians, film-makers, and visual artists.

She loves writing.

This event is supported by Kerry County Council through their Arts Act Grant.