Walking Solo

Walks taken in or around Lancaster

In 2020, during the nationwide lockdown for Covid-19, Litfest launched a series of podcasts themed around walking and enjoying your local area. We invited two locally based writers, Polly Atkin and Jenn Ashworth, to make a podcast each, based on a solo walk or walks taken in or around Lancaster. They created two terrific pieces which you can download free from SoundCloud here or, if you prefer, read as texts here:

Litfest then invited everyone to submit their own ‘Walking Solo’ podcast. After much deliberation by our judges, our winners were:

All three podcasts are available at The Litfest Soundcloud account to be listened to for free by clicking on each podcast above, or you can find all the Walking Solo Podcasts here.

You can also read these podcasts as texts if you prefer here:

Podcast Authors

Polly Atkin

lives in Grasmere. She grew up in Nottingham, then lived in East London for seven years before moving to the North West. She has taught English Literature and Creative Writing at QMUL, Lancaster University, the University of Cumbria, and most recently at the University of Strathclyde.

Her debut collection of poetry Basic Nest Architecture was published in February 2017 by Seren.

Jen Ashworth

was born in Preston and studied at Cambridge and Manchester. Her novels include A Kind of Intimacy and Fell.

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018. Her latest book, Notes Made While Falling, is a memoir told in a series of essays published by Goldsmiths Press. She lectures in creative writing at Lancaster University.

Judges for ‘Walking Solo’ podcasts

Jennifer Dobson was the Bookshop Manager for Waterstones, King Street, Lancaster. Having been in the business for more than twelve years, she is passionate about reading and working with the local community. She has been involved in many events over the years and has worked in many branches of Waterstones around the country. Her hobbies include illustration, getting out in the wild when she can and one day owning her own cabin.

Karen Lloyd is an award winning writer and environmental activist based in Cumbria. Her first book, The Gathering Tide; A Journey Around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay was published by Saraband. It won the Striding Edge Productions Prize for Place in The Lakeland Book of the Year Awards 2016. The Blackbird Diaries, published by Saraband in 2017, won The Lakeland Arts and Literature Award 2018.

Beth Pipe Is a regular rambler. She writes the words, husband Steve takes the pics. Both have a passion for the outdoors and have been working together for five years, whilst drinking tea and eating copious amounts of maltloaf. @CumbrianRambler