Paul Blackburn is a published and prize winning poet & story writer.

He is also a singer/song writer and performer based in Bolton in the UK

Click on Picture

For many years Paul has been involved in a variety of Art projects and organisations. He co-founded and ran a local newspaper (Bolton Free Press) for two years in the seventies.  He was a member and one of the chief writers for Optical Busstop (an off the wall musical group). At Ruskin College Oxford he ran a Folk/Spoken Word Club and was a punk DJ. At Liverpool University he assisted in running the Folk Club and was involved in a writing/drinking group there. He was employed for two years by LAMP (Leigh Alternative Media Project). From its base as a bookshop, LAMP was a community resource, providing a variety of workshops to the community and resources & support for a number of local arts groups. Paul was heavily involved in facilitating, running and assisting in all aspects of the LAMP work particularly in Literature and Poetry projects.

In the early nineties he instigated and ran , with his friend Nat Clare, the immensely successful  monthly "Friday Live" show at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton. The idea of the show was to provide a platform both for new, raw, local talent to test, grow and develop as performers as well as showcasing well established regional/national acts. Following on from the regular shows there were appearances at other venues, performances at Arts festivals and other events and, later, several appearances on the Channel TV programme "The Word".

Paul has also been collaborating with a bunch of people from the States and Ireland on a number of projects. this has resulted in songs and poems with music that you can hear by clicking here. There is also the interesting project whereby Paul provided some lyrics and several individuals and groups developed songs which you can hear by clicking here.

Paul created and runs the Optical Busstop web site and works with Nat Clare and others in producing content for it.

At the same time he has become increasingly involved in the vibrant performance poetry scene in the North of England, performing at many venues across the region and elsewhere. Paul is particularly involved in national poetry group "Write Out Loud" (WOL) were he is a director, key member and http://www.writeoutloud.net web master. He helps run a regular monthly open mic poetry events  in Bolton, Hebden Bridge, Rochdale, Stockport,Trafford and Wigan. He also runs "Riders on the storm" an irregular poetry & music night held a various venues throughout the North West including, The Royal Exchange, and is constantly developing new and interesting projects.

He's a regular compere at  various events across the North West including  the Royal Exchange, the Everyman in Liverpool  and the Phoenix & Octagon Theatres in Bolton.

He has appeared as a individual performer:

Manchester: Royal Exchange, Urbis, Contact Theatre, Greenroom, Embryo, Inn Verse, Joshua Brooks, Britons Protection, Fuel, Iguana Bar, MMU, Manchester University's Poetry Society and the "Lost and Found" Arts squat

Preston: The Poetry Cafe & The New County Arms Arts pub in Preston

Leeds: Leeds University & Wicked Words

Merseyside: The Everyman Theatre, the Cathedral Cafe, Liverpool University, John Moors University, Flying Picket and the Scouse House, New Brighton

Lancaster: Lancaster University & Spotlight Club

Oxford: Ruskin College & various clubs

Bolton: Octagon Theatre, Phoenix Theatre, Little Theatre, Albert Halls, Town Hall, the Howcroft Inn, Gypsy's Tent, Cotton Tree, Prince Bill, the Swan, Brass Cat, Man & Scythe, the Balmoral, the Pack Horse hotel, the Socialist club, the Crown (Horwich), St Gregories Social Club (Farnworth), Thornleigh College, Bolton University, Turton Arts & Media College, Harper Green school, Central and other libraries and various community centres

Others: Newcastle-upon-Tyne University; Stockport Art Gallery; Oldham Library; the Library Poetry Group in Newquay, Cornwall; the 2006 Apples & Snakes Poet's Showcase event "Give me 5" at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal; Red Shed Readings in Wakefield.

He organised and ran the World Book Day 2008 event at Bright Books in Rochdale which had Anjum Malik as the main guest and organised and ran Kulture Kulb at Hopwood Hall college in Rochdale. He's also been a guest at the "Barefoot in the park" festival in Leeds; Horwich Carnival; Farnworth's Arts Festival; Leigh & Wigan Literature Festival. He organised, compered and led a Write Out Loud group at the Darnhill Festival in Heywood, Rochdale and the first LitaBury festival in Bury and has appeared at several events and ran a workshop at the International Poetry Festival in Bordeaux, France in 2006, 2007 & 2008.

Recently he was invited to and performed to great acclaim at Gujarati Mushaira (a poetry festival) at a Muslim community centre in Bolton - you can find a review of this event at the Mushaira Review.

Paul and Julian Jordon appeared reading poems about Wigan FC on Sky Sports TV in May 2007

He organised and compered "guerrilla" poetry readings for National Poetry day at the Central Library, Bolton;  performed at the prestigious Turton Media and Arts College, Bolton as part of a National Poetry Week Event in 2006; Performed at Harper Green School as part of the 2007 Farnworth Arts Festival; and has appeared as both a guest and a compere at "Men's Health" poetry events at several libraries and community centres.  In autumn 2006 he was invited to the Clifton Creative Writing group in Wigan where he led a discussion about performance poetry followed by an extremely well received performance.  

Throughout the years his work has been accepted by many publications the most recent being in Citizen32, Libertine, Scribble & 'Unsung' magazines; his poem "Doctor Curio" was not only Write Out Loud's poem of the month but was also that site's first audio offering; he was awarded a prize by the Bank Street Writers International Writing Competition for his story "Viking" which you can read in Optical Busstop site's Stories section; He also won the December 2006 Slam Idol contest (http://slamidolpodcast.com) with his poem "The policeman in my head" - click on the certificate to the left - you can hear the poem by clicking here and you can hear an interview he did for the Slam Idol Web site by click here. He also came last in several slams in Liverpool and Manchester!

You can access some more of his poems by clicking here

In 2008 he starred in Dave Morgan's play "Hovis in Wonderland" appearing in venues such as: The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester; Spotlight, Lancaster; Studio Salford in Salford; The Everyman Theatre in Liverpool; Forum 28 Arts Theatre in Barrow-in-Furnace; the Little Theatre, the Phoenix Theatre and the Octagon Theatre in Bolton.

Paul and Nat Clare are now making films to complement their songs. They are also extremely interested in developing multi-media  projects involving video, art, music, puppetry and the spoken word.

Paul is available for compering or performing at your events, email paulblackburn@opticalbusstop.com

Go to Optical Busstop Main Site