The Manchester City of Literature executive office consists of:

Ivan Wadeson – Executive Director
(he/him)

Ivan has over 25 years’ experience in the arts and heritage sector leading on business planning, strategic review and transformation programmes including most recently working for Dance Consortia North West, The Dukes in Lancaster and serving for six years as a Committee Member for National Lottery Heritage Fund (nee Heritage Lottery Fund) in the North West. Between 2003 and 2014 Ivan led a series of audience development agencies. He joined All About Audiences (then Arts About Manchester) as Chief Executive in 2003. In autumn 2012, All About Audiences and Audiences London merged to create the new national audience development agency The Audience Agency and Ivan became joint Executive Director alongside Anne Torreggiani (ex-CEO of Audiences London). 

Between 1993 and 1999 he worked at Sadler’s Wells, where as Head of Marketing, he was part of the team that oversaw the National Lottery-funded re-building and re-opening of Sadler’s Wells. He then moved to Manchester to be Marketing Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

He is currently on the Board of Without Walls the outdoor arts consortium.

 

Jo Flynn – Communications and Partnerships Manager
(she/her)

Jo has years of experience in communications and marketing for the Manchester arts and cultural sector. Jo is also a poet who has just been awarded a Northern Writers’ Award for her current work in progress and awarded funding from Arts Council England. After winning the Roy Fisher Prize for poetry, Jo’s debut pamphlet was published and she’s since been featured at the National Poetry Library in London and been shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize as well as invited to read internationally. Jo is Director of For Books’ Sake, who champion feminist writing by queer writers and writers of marginalised genders.

 

Hawwa Alam – Community Engagement Manager
(she/her)

Hawwa is a (self-proclaimed) professional multitasker working in the creative, cultural and heritage sector, who holds particular focus on facilitating authentic youth engagement, anti-racist advocacy and supporting institutional change within the arts. Alongside Manchester City of Literature, she leads on communications for the NGO Doctors Worldwide, is a freelance producer, photographer and artist, founder of the qamar collective for young Muslim women in the north, mentor for early-career creatives of colour, and founder of the online platform hawwa, etc, which explores themes of identity, belonging and heritage through visual storytelling.

Her work has been published in a variety of platforms and publications including Oxfam, Adobe, Instagram and TMRW Magazine, whilst her poetry has been used in history classrooms across Manchester and London. In her spare time, she is proud to be the shortest shooting guard on any basketball team she has ever joined, takes the upkeep of her colour-themed bookshelf very seriously, and is consistently creating new zines and lino-prints that will probably never get finished.

 

Rachel Fallon – Operations Manager
(she/her)

Rachel’s background includes roles in HR and events administration, predominantly within the arts sector. She has previously worked for art organisations such as the National Theatre, English National Ballet, and the Royal Exchange Theatre. Rachel holds a first-class honours degree in English and Creative Writing from the University of Salford and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Westminster. As a former young company member at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Rachel has firsthand experience of the positive impact supportive programs can provide to emerging writers in Manchester. In her spare time, Rachel is passionate about researching her Irish heritage and is currently writing a play based on her own family history.

Our Board of Trustees is currently made up of:

Katie Popperwell – Acting Interim Chair

Katie Popperwell is a cross-disciplinary creative producer and programmer with experience of visual art, music, heritage, literature and performance. She is a senior visiting producer at HOME, Manchester’s centre for international contemporary art, theatre and film, and has produced programmes of work for Manchester International Festival, Selfridges, The University of Manchester, Cityco and The Asia Triennial. Her work as a cultural consultant includes advising on city centre developments, leading on strategic cultural partnerships, and devising projects and initiatives that engage with the culture sector and the wider creative industries. Katie also works as a journalist and broadcaster, regularly chairing conversations with high-profile authors including Nick Hornby, Jennifer Egan and Zadie Smith as part of Manchester Literature Festival. She presents the Salford edition of BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts programme Front Row, has covered music news on BBC 6Music and written for publications including The Guardian, Stylist Magazine and The Big Issue.

 

Mike Murphy

Mike has worked in publishing for many years, latterly back in the North West, in content and commercial roles. Growing up in Lancashire,what theNorth West offers the literary world is rich and unique, and Mike is delighted to see our Publishing sector continue to grow.If we want literature to reflect our character, we need to have a strong production sector for books. Mancunians, by birth or spirit, own the stories of our city and its new narratives. Mike wants our city and its voices to grab you and shake you up in the best possible way. Mike is driven by identifying barriers to growth and overcoming them, and helping people find their voice and fulfil their potential. Having lived in Edinburgh and Barcelona,he knows how valuable a well-loved City of Literature can be. We are a city steeped in a radical tradition that stands for fairness, being fiercely proud of our own,while global in our outlook and friendships. Mike hopes to bring that to his work with Manchester City of Literature.

 

Chandan Shergill

Chandan Shergill is the Coordinator of the Young Audiences Content Fund at the British Film Institute, which supports the creation of distinctive public service, high-quality content for audiences up to the age of 18. Chandan is also currently working on a project in Blackpool to recruit under-represented writers with New Writing North and Sky TV, and with BFI Network in the reader pool for the ShortFilm Fund. Chandan hails from Wigan, she studied French and German at the University of Bristol and enjoyed time working abroad in Vienna, Paris, and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. She then spent several years in a talent agency representing television presenters in London, working across numerous factual shows along with children’s and live events. More recently she has worked in the charity and public sector, with roles at Refugee Action and Manchester City Council. She lives in Manchester and enjoys reading (of course!) cooking, yoga and ceramics classes.

 

Rochelle Saunders

Rochelle is a cultural producer, curator, and project manager with over 10 years of work experience spanning the arts, education, and community leadership. Her particular expertise in literature has led to focused work on projects in both national and international contexts. A politics graduate from SOAS, she recently completed a master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Enterprise at the University of Arts London, where she developed an academic interest in transformative social change frameworks. Rochelle has built a portfolio career and is currently a Producer at Factory International in Manchester. She also serves as an Executive Producer and sits on the Advisory Board for the Black British Book Festival. Her previous roles include positions within the British Council’s literature team, Penguin Random House’s Social Impact team, and as a Senior Producer at Renaissance One.

 

Michelle Collier

Michelle is a writer, artist and narrative designer born and raised in Greater Manchester. Her work spans animation, games, printmaking, immersive digital experiences and more. As a writer, she’s worked on projects for the BBC, the National Gallery, the British Museum and the BFI, as well as charitable organisations such as Syria Relief, Children in Need and the Mental Health Foundation. In 2023, she was accepted into BAFTA Connect in recognition of her contribution to the UK screen industries.

Michelle’s practice is often playful and participatory, encouraging communities to create new stories together. She’s invited people to hunt for old gods in the Dark Peak, grow mushrooms on books and commune with ghostly distant librarians… among other things! She’s exhibited prints at HOME, NOMA and Manchester Print Fair; screened work at DepicT!, London Short Film Festival and Manchester Animation Festival; and published creative writing with Lune, MsLexia and the Glossop Winter Story Trail. She’s currently part of Channel 4’s New Writers Scheme, one of York Mediale’s Immersive Assembly artists, and is working on her first short fiction collection with support from Arts Council England. Michelle especially loves stories about the strange and unusual – from our newly emerging myths to folklore that endures through the ages.

 

Reshma Ruia

Dr. Reshma Ruia is a Manchester based British writer of Indian origin. She has a PhD and Master’s in Creative Writing from Manchester University. Her first novel, Something Black in the Lentil Soup, was described in the Sunday Times as ‘a gem of straight-faced comedy’. She has published a poetry collection, A Dinner Party in the Home Counties, winner of the 2019 Word Masala Award and a short story collection, Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness, shortlisted for the 2022 Eastern Eye ACTA Awards. Her new novel, Still Lives, won the 2023 Diverse Book Readers’ Choice Award. Reshma’s work has appeared in anthologies and journals, and commissioned by the BBC, University of Cumbria and Manchester Literature Festival. She is the co-founder of The Whole Kahani – a writers’ collective of British South Asian writers. Her writing explores the preoccupations of those who possess a multiple sense of belonging.

 

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