Events
Greenbelt Festival
30th August 2026 – 11.30 a.m.
‘Dark Night’
Martha Sprackland reads her luminous translations of poems and prose by sixteenth-century Spanish mystic John of the Cross.
Dobunni Poetry Festival
16th Oct - 15.30–16.30
‘Translations’
Stroud’s first dedicated poetry festival, creating a cultural home for writers, readers, and audiences of all ages.
Held at Lansdown Hall, this event discusses languages and poetry: Karen Downs-Barton, Alun Hughes, Martha Sprackland reading and Q&A. Chaired by Philip Rush.
God and the Dark
31 October 2026 - 14.00–16.00
Lancaster Priory
In the beautiful surrounds of Lancaster's medieval Priory, Professor Andy Tate and poet Martha Sprackland will explore ideas of God and the dark, and reading
from Martha’s new translation of John of the Cross.
Arvon
Residential Writing Course
Getting to the Heart of the Matter:
Deepening Your Practice in Poetry and Prose’
Monday November 2nd - Saturday November 7th 2026
Join Keiran Goddard and Martha Sprackland, writers and editors of both poetry and prose, on this cross-genre course examining how your motifs, themes and ideas reveal the conceptual and emotional concerns at the core of your writing.
Over the week you will learn to take apart and reassemble, with workshops on the art of redrafting. Using robust, dynamic and playful exercises, you’ll build your editorial confidence, and leave the week sure that you have put your finished pieces through their paces. You’ll explore the ways in which disparate pieces of writing may speak to each other, even coming together to spark new work that offers you fresh insight into the driving force behind your writing.
You’ll end the week with a sense of having built connections, layers of interest and thematic scope, and have asked yourself the question: why do you write?