Welcome!

Hooked on Words is the website of poet and workshop leader, Maggie Sawkins.

Maggie holds an MA with distinction in Creative Writing and is a professional member of the National Association of Writers in Education. She won the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her live literature production, Zones of Avoidance. In 2021 she moved from Portsmouth to live in the Station Master’s House at Brading Station on the Isle of Wight.

RECENT PROJECTS:

City Space — Ekphrastic Poetry Workshop at Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester — March 23

HMP Portland – Poetry Workshops for inmates as part of their Festival of Books, Ideas, Discussion – Nov 2022

VENT – Poetry Festival for Ventnor Fringe – July 2022

Boojum & Snark Ezine Workshops, Sandown, Isle of Wight – June 2022

Brading Station Writing Group – Monthly workshops taking place in the Heritage Centre 2022/23

City Space – documenting Portsmouth City Centre through photographs and poetry, April 2022 – March 2023

From the Heart Poetry Workshops at Portsmouth Central Library

Community Conversations – Poetry Project for the refugee and asylum seeker community in Portsmouth. 

Poetry Workshops for SHIFT – a peer led group for people with experience of mental health difficulties.

Performance of Zones of Avoidance at HMP Downview (Penned Up Prison Literature Festival).

A Poem to Remember – Poetry Workshop on the theme of triumph over adversity (BBC and The Poetry School).

Survivors’ Poetry – Poetry and Performance Workshops, London

Writing Edward King – Short Story Writing Project with Portsmouth Museum and New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth

British-Romanian Week – Translation Masterclasses, Bucharest University

Diving into the Wreck –  a live literature production based on the lives of people in recovery from addiction in Portsmouth

From Here to There – creative writing workshops at  HMP Erlestoke

Finding the Words – poetry workshops with people living with dementia in Basingstoke (Anvil Arts)

I Saw My Voice – writing for well-being workshops at Portsmouth Museum

Speak Out Poetry Project – workshops for people living with dementia and their carers in Hampshire (Hampshire Cultural Trust)

Living Memory Project – Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Voices from the Front – workshops and performance to commemorate Gallipoli 1915.

If you would like to discuss your ideas for a reading, talk, workshop or project, please contact Maggie.

Thanks to Jon Everitt for the use of his image from ‘This Island City – Portsmouth in Poetry’ (Spinnaker Press)