Readings

Liverpool Literary Festival 2022 panel discussion for 'The Great Read'
On Sunday 9 October 2022, Phil was part of 'The Great Read' at Liverpool Literary Festival. As one of the three prize-winners of the Short Story Competition, he participated in a panel discussion at the Victoria Gallery & Museum and gave a reading from his story, 'Do Not Point at the Sun'. Author Patrick Gale presented the prizes to Phil Olsen (staff category), Marta Zanucco (postgraduate category), and Trudy-Ann Smith (undergraduate category).
On Friday 24 April 2020, Phil participated in a Leamington Spa PechaKucha Night. In a special online edition (brought about by the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdown), presenters gave their 20 slides x 20 seconds talks remotely via a Zoom webinar and the event was live-streamed on YouTube. One of the founders of PechaKucha, Mark Dytham, joined in from Tokyo (at 3am!) and the night raised £1,160 in donations towards the Warwickshire Scrubbers to help them make scrubs for NHS health workers. Phil told a story about a Lost Lido and an Accidental Time-Slip.
On Saturday 8 June 2019, Phil read a specially commissioned short story for Re/Place(s) at the Victoria Baths Weekend of Words. Along with five other writers — Sarah-Clare Conlon, Kate Feld, David Gaffney, Joe Stretch and Lara Williams — Phil was invited to write a piece for performance that responded to Manchester's Water Palace. Photograph courtesy Nicholas Royle.
Headlining Verbose at Fallow Cafe, Manchester in October 2017.
Performing at the Northern Short Story Festival Flash Fiction Slam, Leeds, June 2017.
Bad Language at The Castle Hotel in Manchester's Northern Quarter, August 2016.
Centre for New Writing alumni at The Poetry Society in London, 18 April 2018. L-R: J.C. Wilson, Shellie Jane Kelly, Rebecca Zahabi, Ciaran Grace, Phil Olsen, Geoff Ryman, James D. Ward, Tom Lee and Paul Thomas.

Read at the second Flash Fiction Festival

Phil performed his Flash Fiction piece ‘Orrery’ at the second international festival dedicated to the short-short story, organised by the Bath Flash Fiction Award and this year taking place over three days at Bristol Trinity College.

Creative Writing MA alumni readings at The Poetry Society, London.

Launching the ebook version of The Manchester Anthology 2017, Phil read alongside fellow graduates of the MA, to an audience of invited literary agents and publishers.

Award winning science fiction novelist and honorary lecturer Geoff Ryman hosted the evening.

Headliner at Verbose, Manchester.

Phil and two fellow MA students from the Centre for New Writing were chosen to headline a ‘Manchester themed’ edition of the monthly spoken word night.

Second launch party for The Manchester Anthology 2017 at Gullivers, Oldham Street, Manchester.

Following the official launch at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on Thursday 7 September, MA students from the Centre for New Writing hosted another night of fiction and poetry readings in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

Phil read an excerpt from his short story ‘Lorem Ipsum’.

Launched The Manchester Anthology 2017 at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester.

Alongside fellow MA students and Centre for New Writing lecturers Geoff Ryman, Beth Underdown and Vona Groarke, Phil read an excerpt from his short fiction piece in the anthology.

Read at the first Flash Fiction Festival 

Phil performed his Flash Fiction piece ‘Small World’ at the inaugural international festival dedicated to the short-short story, organised by the Bath Flash Fiction Award.

Performed at Leeds Carriageworks as part of the Northern Short Story Festival.

Phil won the Flash Fiction Slam at the second annual #NoShoSto Festival with a performance of his short story ‘The Haunted Pan’.

Phil participated in a multi-character reading from George Saunders' novel Lincoln in the Bardo in March 2017.

Read from George Saunders’ novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, with George Saunders at his Waterstones Deansgate book launch, Manchester.

While studying at the Centre for New Writing, Phil and four other students were invited to join the acclaimed short story writer in a multi-character reading from his debut novel.

Performed at the Saboteur Award-winning open mic night in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

October’s headliner was Mark Pajak, winner of the 2016 Bridport Prize for poetry.

Phil read his flash fiction story ‘Orrery‘ and his overheard dialogue piece ‘Gents‘.

Performed at the Saboteur Award-winning open mic night in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

August’s headliner was Anna Chilvers, reading from her Bluemoose Books published novel Tainted Love.

Phil read his flash fiction story ‘Small World‘.

Performed at the Saboteur Award-winning open mic night in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

July’s headliner was Wil Menmuir, reading from his Salt published novel The Many, on the night it was announced it had been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2016.

Phil read his flash fiction story ‘The Haunted Pan‘.

Phil was an invited reader at the International Festival for Business at Exhibition Centre Liverpool in June 2016.

Invited by Writing on the Wall to perform on their Blue Skies stage at the International Festival for Business

Phil read his short story ‘Orrery’ at Exhibition Centre Liverpool as part of a Writing on the Wall event that featured discussions about advances in science and science fiction.

‘In Other Words’ was a one-off Literary Festival in Liverpool organised to mark the re-opening of Liverpool Central Library following its three year redevelopment

Having recently completed a continuing education course in ‘Writing Novels and Short Stories’ at the University of Liverpool, Phil was invited to read at the festival.