The Wordsmith Awards 2010, supported by Aim Higher, in association Xaverian College and Speakeasy, is an interschool spoken word workshop and showcase project. Seven schools will participate in three creative writing “wordshops” and three performance “wordshops” between now and the beginning of March 2010. The workshops are geared towards creating individual and team poems for performance at a showcase which will take place during March 2010, the date and venue are yet to be confirmed. The finale will consist of guest performances (tbc), a showcase of all created work from schools, awards for specific categories, prizes and certificates for all participants. All “wordshops” will be delivered by what we believe is a group richly representative of Manchester’s diverse and dynamic spoken word culture, including Mandy Coe (joint winner of the Manchester poetry prize 2008), Mike Garry (cheers ta publishing), Segun le french (Speakeasy, Bro 9), ChrisJaM (Speakeasy), Yvonne McAlla (Speakeasy), Shirley May (Speakeasy, Young Identity) and Yusra Warsama (Speakeasy). If that isn’t breathtaking enough we are blessed with the presence of four young poets from Young Identity, a creative writing and performance group founded by Shirley May and Ali Gadema which has already caused mini Tsunami’s of eloquence in the Northwest, UK, USA and the Caribbean. This page is a shared space dedicated to encouraging interaction between school teams, facilitators, teachers and “floetic” students, with a view to heightening the creative process for participants and creating a internet presence where friends and family can follow the progress of loved ones and their teams. Over the coming months we hope to encourage posting of reflections on the process, uploading of examples of students and facilitators work, information regarding upcoming related events and updates on the evolving shape of the project. more