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Bad Betty Press

Independent publishers of new poetry. We love writing that is beautiful and bad (in the Foxy Brown s

27/09/2025

Congrats whose poem Munster Road is Highly Commended in the 🎉🎉🎉

You can find the poem in the Forward Book of Poetry 2026, and in Ashley’s moving, musical sonnet collection, WHY I AM NOT A BUS DRIVER 🚌

26/09/2025

✨Bad Betty Live Nottingham ✨
Poetry & Music
Friday 24th October, 6pm

✨Artist Spotlight ✨

ASHLEY HICKSON-LOVENCE

Ashley Hickson-Lovence is the author of The 392, Your Show and Wild East (East Anglian Book Awards Book of the Year). His nominations include the Carnegie Medal 2025 and the Black Excellence Awards 2023. He is a former secondary school English teacher with a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia. Why I Am Not a Bus Driver (Bad Betty) is his first poetry collection.

Full line-up:

BSL interpreted by

Tickets via our Linktree 🌳
Tour info: badbettypress.com/events

25/09/2025

Happy Publication Day 💚 Woman : Plant : Language is out in the world 💫

Pick up a copy from our site, selected indie bookshops & branches of , online booksellers, from at the launch on 1st Oct or from us on the Bad Betty tour!

Part lullaby, part insurrection, Agata Masłowska’s dazzling poetry is powered by the drive to understand life at its deepest level, pre-human and beyond borders. To explode language, grasping what we can know in our bones and roots, and to live according to that knowing. Lyrically sublime, playfully provocative, the poems in Woman : Plant : Language disrupt form to challenge rampant authority, layering the lived experiences of womanhood, migration and war between the ripple of bryophytes, the songs of the soil, the fading call of endangered species. Masłowska’s work is myceliumesque, linking arms with Etel Adnan, Jane Hirshfield, Nan Shepherd, Anna Tsing and more, to flourish within a crystalline network of thinkers. An unforgettable debut, calling us back to the unspeakable world.

24/09/2025

It’s tour season 🎉🎉🎉

We’re coming to Derby on 2nd October for a bonanza with the brilliant 💕

Join workshops by & during the day to get your creative juices flowing, then catch them alongside & for an evening of live poetry & open mic 🔥

The DPF team have been bringing great things to the East Midlands for years. This year’s programme is ‘Abridged’ due to funding challenges, so we’re extra glad to be able to continue our partnership & be part of a delivering a cracking festival, despite the curveballs that they & so many arts organisations are currently facing.

You can also catch our judging the DPF slam on 3rd Oct!

This is the first official stop of our autumn tour - bringing Bad Betty authors to a poetry night near you. Check out the last image for more dates, locations & line-ups 👀

23/09/2025

We are so excited to be working with this year. Here’s a bit more about what we are doing with them:

Celebrate wonderful words at this year’s Inspire Poetry Festival 📚✨

We’re delighted to be featured in this year’s programme with our poetry showcase, Bad Ideas Club. Following workshops led by poets Chris Lanyon, Leanne Moden, Casey Bailey and Georgina Wilding throughout August and September, this showcase is the perfect chance to hear from writers who took part. You’ll get to hear the pieces they worked on during the sessions, as well as others written before and since the workshops took place ✍

Hungry for more? Check out headliner performances from Imtiaz Dharker and Romalyn Ante, as well as fantastic workshops including Black British Ballet, led by Marsha Lowe and Dr Panya Banjoko.

Join the celebration! Find out more and view the brochure online at inspireculture.org.uk/poetryfestival 👈 [tag Inspire – InspireCultureNotts on Instagram, NottsLibraries on facebook]

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Get involved in this year’s Inspire Poetry Festival 🤩✍
We’re delighted to be featured in this year’s programme with our poetry showcase, Bad Ideas Club. Are you a writer delving into the world of poetry, looking to perform your work to an audience? Contact the team now and sign up for the open mic!
📅 Saturday 27 September
🕐 1:30pm
📍 Mansfield Central Library
Priority is given to participants from Bad Betty Press’ recent Bad Ideas Club workshops in libraries. Contact [email protected] in advance to reserve a slot. [tag Inspire]

22/09/2025

✨Artist Spotlight ✨

Joining the Bad Betty Live line-up on 24th Oct: NAFESSA HAMID 💜

Nafeesa is a Brum-Kashmiri poet; playwright; educator; performer; director. When she’s not archiving city council bankruptcy, Nafeesa uses a multidisciplinary approach to her creative practice. Nafeesa is published in Forward Poems of the Decade 2011-2020, among other publications. She appeared on BBC Bitesize, BBC Radio 4 Comedy, The Verb & international literary festivals. Nafeesa received a scholarship for an MA in Writing Poetry at Poetry School London 2023-2025. Nafeesa continues to develop a body of work exploring corner shop culture, car boots, faith, divine love, and female health. She continues to learn ways to incorporate film, bansuri, printing techniques, and puppetry into her poetic practice.

✨Bad Betty Live Nottingham ✨
Poetry & Music
Friday 24th October, 6pm

Acts:

BSL interpreted by

Tickets via our Linktree 🌳
Tour info: badbettypress.com/events

19/09/2025

Some Friday morning poetry by 😍 One of our faves from his collection SUBURBAN LOCUST, out next month! Pre-order now, or catch Antosh at and pick up an early copy 💕

18/09/2025

Show announcement!!!

Tickets: https://scottishstorytellingcentre.online.red61.co.uk/event/913:6366/913:27995/

Next month Loud Poets is once again teaming up with Nottingham's innovative poetry organisation Bad Betty Press to showcase a stellar lineup of wordsmiths. Expect fist-thumping, heart-wrenching, side-tickling poetry performances with live musical accompaniment!

The event features poets Molly Naylor, Francis-Xavier Mukiibi, Antosh Wojcik, and Agata Maslowska, hosted by Kevin Mclean, with live music from Jack Hinks.

Thursday 16 October, 7-9:30pm at the . Tickets via the link in our bio!

*Please note, this showcase begins at 7pm, rather than 7:30pm as with previous Loud Poets showcases. This will be the consistent start time for Loud Poets events at the SSC moving forward.

17/09/2025

👋 Introducing Antosh Wojcik - Poet

Antosh will be performing at the DPF x Bad Betty Press Special on 2nd October The Old Bell Hotel Derby and delivering a workshop on Friday 3rd.

Antosh Wojcik is a poet, drummer, and sound designer. His work explores memory, heritage, labour, time & the destabilisation of these things. He is a co-founder of Sleepwalker Studios, a Dorset-based production company. He has received film commissions from BFI Network, The Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts and Culture University of Exeter and Natural England. He wrote the screenplay for ‘The Memory Boom’ (dir. Xenia Glen), which premiered at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024 in the Rebels With A Cause competition category. His poems are published in bath magg, Action, Spectacle and Anthropocene. His debut poetry collection, Suburban Locust, is forthcoming from Bad Betty Press in Autumn 2025.

“Like James Tate, but drunk.” -Roger Robinson

https://www.derbypoetryfestival.com/events/dpf-2025-dpf-x-bad-betty-live-feat-agata-maslowska-antosh-wojcik-desree

16/09/2025

📆 DPF 2025, the abridged version is back on the 2nd and 3rd October 📆

Although we're sad we can't return for a full festival this year, we're excited about what we can deliver, an abridged version of our festival, including a National Poetry Day special with Bad Betty Press

We have three poets performing a special, a set from one of our co-directors, all hosted by Derby's own Dan Webber Poet

Join Agata Maslowska, Antosh Wojcik & Desree at the wonderful The Old Bell Hotel Derby with doors at 7 pm.

Book tickets now:
https://www.derbypoetryfestival.com/.../dpf-x-bad-betty...

15/09/2025

NORWICH WE ARE BACK!

Tuesday 4th November
7pm
£6-£10

Always one of the most stunning nights of the tour at the hosted by Cai Draper!

Poems provided by:

You on the open mic!

11/09/2025

Look what’s arrived! It’s SUBURBAN LOCUST - the electrifying debut collection from 💛💛💛

“Novelistic in range and depth, the narrative forms and reforms into taut poetic gems”

“Electrifying… and it keeps bumping into an urgent question: how do you save someone who is their own cataclysm”

“Tops my list of new favourites, with surreal propulsion and a breakneck pace”

Available to pre-order now, out 23rd October.

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