The Poetry World’s Shooting Stars 

Hollie McNish & Donna Ashworth in conversation with Michael Pedersen

Poets Hollie McNish and Donna Ashworth come together chaired by Michael Pedersen to celebrate the energy and reach of contemporary poetry.

They’ll discuss their writing, the experiences and emotions that inspire it, and the ways poetry can help us feel connected, understood and less alone.

Hollie McNish is a Sunday Times best-selling poet and author. 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 three further collections of poetry – Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum, and prose-poetry books Slug and Lobster, with translations in French and Spanish. Her latest collection is Virgin. She absolutely loves writing.

Donna Ashworth is a no. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author and the UK’s no. 1 bestselling poet. She lives in the hills of Scotland with her husband, two sons, Brian and Dave (the dogs) and Sheldon and Mani (the cats). Donna started her social media accounts in 2018 in a bid to create a ‘safe’ social space for women to come together and connect, but her love of all things wordy quickly became the focus, and a past love for poetry was reignited. Over 10 books and nearly 2 million followers later, Donna is delighted daily with her mission to shower the world with words and bring poetry back into focus. ‘I believe wholeheartedly in the power of opening a daily poetry page to better everyone’s mental health and clear space within our minds. Poetry is permission to feel everything we as humans are absolutely supposed to, knowing we are not alone, never alone. Poetry is not folly for the fancy; it is using words to shift perspectives, heal wounds and let in light again. And it is something we can pass to one another when times become turbulent, as they so often will.’ Donna’s bestselling books include To the Women, Wild Hope, Words to Live By: A Journal, Growing Brave, I Wish I Knew, Love, Loss, Life and an illustrated book of children’s poetry Words Can Fly.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish author and Edinburgh’s Makar (Poet Laureate). He writes across fiction (Muckle Flugga), non-fiction (Boy Friends), and poetry (The Cat Prince). Pedersen has won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship and a Books Are My Bag Readers Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry, The Indie Book Awards, the Saltire Scottish National Book Awards, and more. A Sunday Times Critics Choice, his work has been translated into many languages with praise garnered from the likes of Stephen Fry, Bernardine Evaristo, Alan Cumming, Ocean Vuong, and beyond. He is also the programmer of Winter Words Festival 2027.

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