Hello!  I’m Nina Lewis, a writer and current Poet Laureate of Worcestershire. I’m very excited to be the brand new Reader In Residence at Rugby Art Gallery, Museum & Library. My position has been appointed through Roz Goddard of West Midlands Readers’ Network and Warwickshire Libraries.

 

So far I met some of the team in Warwickshire to make initial plans and introductions. I came to visit Rugby Library, spent a good while looking at a heritage display, dipping into local history books and admiring historical photographs and maps of the area, before meeting the lovely Library staff and the rest of the team.

 

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I was delighted to find out more about the Poetry Voices work happening in Warwickshire with Brenda Read-Brown and Poetry on Loan. There have been so many great events for you to attend locally. As my residency runs at the same time we decided not to focus on poetry. I will be focusing on enthusing more people to read books, talk about books, recommend and review books and hopefully attract new visitors to the library.

 

I have looked at all the wonderful ways Rugby Library promote books, I know I am going to enjoy working with such an enthusiastic team.

 

I love the idea of a Reader In Residence. I know some of the poets who were allocated a library in previous years and it seemed like such a great project to be involved in. I have always loved libraries and been an avid user before I could even read, thanks to a family of Bookworms! I moved around a lot in my twenties and always went to find my local library first as a moving in ceremony.

 

I will be in the library on Thursday 30th November to run a workshop on Writing Book Reviews (book here).

 

I look forward to meeting you.