Cumbrian poet Fernando Smith would like it known that he’s streaming over the internet with a reading slot on Birmingham’s Radio Wildfire on Monday 7 November, sometime between 8.00pm and 10.00pm. The spoken word webcast will be available to listen to online for a month thereafter. Read more>>

We missed it when it was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at the end of August and in early September, but this two-part documentary is still available to listen to on iPlayer. In Cat Women of the Moon, Cumbrian novelist Sarah Hall explores the popular motif in science fiction of an all-women society surviving without men. Read more>>

Cockermouth’s tireless octogenarian poetry campaigner Michael Baron is best known for his talents as an anthologist, and as the champion of neglected Ennerdale poet Tom Rawling, but he gives his own poems an airing on audio website listenupnorth.com.

Listenupnorth’s Rachel Cochrane recorded Michael in his attic, reading six poems from his collection More Than A Man In A Boat. They range in subject matter from travels in Europe to bats, autism, and a love poem to Rita Heyworth. Read more …

listenupnorth.com is a website created by Northumberland writer Rachel Cochrane, offering “an eclectic mix of spoken word entertainment for your enjoyment.”

Site content includes audiodrama, poetry, short stories and extracts from novels, and interviews with writers – mostly from the north east but with some Cumbrian material, including archive recordings of ‘Ennerdale poet’ Tom Rawling.

Read more …

James Naughtie and readers talked to Cumbrian author Sarah Hall about her novel The Carhullan Army, recorded at the Chapter and Verse Literature Festival in Liverpool in October and subsequently broadcast on 5 and 9 December.

Read more and listen again, or download the podcast.