A 100-year-old World War One diary has inspired a retired engineer to take up his hobby, writing, as a career.

To celebrate something that is dying a graceless death in the minds of many may seem a strange thing.

Manchester will once again stoke the fires of creativity and passion this winter as an eclectic new festival celebrating local music, poetry and fashion begins tomorrow evening.

Childhood memories will sparkle and shine this winter when a jewellery exhibition celebrates the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Books exploring magic, bereavement and landscape are among the fiction and nonfiction shortlisted for a £10,000 writing prize dubbed the ‘Booker of the North’.

The annual Gothic Manchester Festival will return for another weird and wonderful outing this October.

Manchester cultural commentator CP Lee will provide a special introduction of the film tomorrow night as part of Manchester Literature Festival.

In 1955, at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg gave the first public reading of his epic poem Howl.

The festival, which is organised by founder Dr Jill Adam and award-winning music journalists John Robb and Simon A. Morrison, focuses upon the age-old relationship between music and the written word.

Over the past few years, the number of independent bookshops in the UK has fallen to fewer than 1,000 nationwide – the lowest since records began.

The 60th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg’s ground-breaking poem Howl is to be celebrated at The Wonder Inn in Manchester.