Sharpen your skills and develop your practice with some of poetry's leading lights.

Bad Betty masterclasses take place in the afternoon prior to each Bad Betty Live show, and offer a chance to work closely with one of the featured acts.

Join Sarah Howe for a masterclass about the stories we inherit: the overheard or uncertain, the incomplete or misunderstood. We’ll look at poems that arise out of the dark and fertile space where generational memory and ancestral lore shade into myth and hearsay. We’ll touch on family secrets, buried shames, the scenes of storytelling, and what happens when a single event is refracted through contrasting perspectives. We’ll look at poems that explore the myths – sometimes deep-seated or destructive – about ourselves imposed on us by others, thinking about inherited forms, and newly invented ones. Poets we’ll read together might include Terrance Hayes, Cathy Linh Che, Richard Siken, and more, en route to generating new drafts of our own.

About the facilitator:

SARAH HOWE

Sarah Howe is a Hong Kong-born British poet and editor. Her first collection of poems, Loop of Jade (2015), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second collection, Foretokens (2025), is a Poetry Book Society Choice and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize.

Venue & Access:

This workshop takes place in the Learning Room at New Art Exchange (NAE). There is a lift and accessible toilets. The building is fitted with induction loops for enhanced sound. Disabled parking is available on request. Full accessibility info here.

New Art Exchange (NAE) is the UK’s largest gallery dedicated to contemporary visual arts from the Global Ethnic Majority. Based in Hyson Green, Nottingham, NAE champions inclusivity and equity in the creative industries, nurturing and celebrating talent from diverse backgrounds About Us page on our website.

About Bad Betty:

Bad Betty Press is an award-winning independent poetry publisher, and curator of live literature events taking place across the UK. London-born, Nottingham-based, Bad Betty was set up in 2017 with the aim of showcasing risk-taking poetry, supporting poets’ artistic development and celebrating stories less often told.

Bad Betty is a British Book Awards Small Press of the Year Finalist (2024, 2023), a Michael Marks Publishers' Award winner (2022), and the parent of pamphlet imprint, Little Betty.

Description supplied by the event organiser.