A SKEIN of wool, an elderly person and a young child were all it took for Cumbrian poet Kate Hale to tell the story of a Maryport estate.

Of course, she had 200 people speaking, sharing memories, the Ewanrigg Choir providing a poignant musical background and the screech of the area's more recent residents, the peacocks.

But it was Katie's poem that pulled the Ewanrigg Audio Adventure.

The skein swapped between the elderly and the young as they wound forward and wound back, each turn covering a time and place during the past 70 years of Ewanrigg life.

Katie lives in Shap, but her love of her county reaches all who listen to her.

University studies took her to London, St Andrews and Australia but she always returned to Cumbria.

The child who loved to write has become an accomplished adult author and poet with an understanding of people and their communities.

She always wrote, even as a child, but it was a Carol Ann Duffy collection of poems, The World's Wife that inspired her to look at writing as a livelihood and not just a hobby.

"I started to take it seriously when I was in sixth form - we read Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife, and for me, it opened up what poetry could be, and who could write it.

"My first poetry pamphlet, Breaking the Surface (flipped eye, 2017), was published around a decade later.

"My second pamphlet, Assembly Instructions (Southword, 2019), won the Munster Chapbook Prize."

Her debut novel, My Name is Monster (Canongate, 2019), came out later the same year.

It tells the story of a woman, known only as Monster, who believes herself to be the last person left alive on earth - until she finds a girl. Set in the rural north of England, it's a story about mothers and daughters, and about survival against all the odds.

The novel was shortlisted for the Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award, and has been translated into multiple languages. Kitchies awards the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining books.

She is working on another poetry collection now but details have been embargoed until later in the year.

Katie was introduced to West Cumbrian audiences through the audio adventure run in Maryport.

Everything she does is either writing or writing-related. She run creative writing workshops (both in schools and for adults), gives readings and chairs book events, "and this year I was Festival Coordinator for Kendal Poetry Festival."