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Hello and welcome to the January update from alisonlittle.blog.
If you’re new here, this is where I share writing, research, creative work and reflections on culture, libraries, public space, art practice and everyday life in and around Liverpool. January has been a busy and varied month – and I wanted to pull everything together for you in one place.
Here’s what’s been published recently on the blog.
🏃♀️ Starting running (without the pressure)
A gentle, realistic beginner’s guide to getting into running using walk–run methods, choosing simple, practical kit and finding ways to stay motivated – whether you prefer heading out on your own or joining a group.
🎨 Could Liverpool create a Yellow Submarine art play park?
Liverpool has always been fuelled by imagination – from Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire roots to The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.
This article looks at whether Liverpool could develop a world-class public art play park inspired by projects such as Gulliver Park in Valencia, Kyiv’s Landscape Alley and sustainable playgrounds across Africa.
It asks some big (and very local) questions:
Should it be free and community-led? Funded through tourism? Could it rival places like Park Güell – while still staying rooted in Liverpool’s own culture and communities?
🚨 Student police officers, universities and public protection
For over three decades, UK police forces have embedded student officers within university degree programmes, sometimes operating undercover among their peers.
Using an anonymised case study, this piece looks at emotional maturity, institutional culture, over-parenting and informal networks inside policing – and asks whether current practice is undermining public trust and failing some of the people most in need of protection.
🌳 Park Benched – flash fiction
Set in Stanley Park, Liverpool, Park Benched is told from the point of view of a park bench quietly observing an encounter between two men.
The story centres on a university student who is confident in his sexuality but uncertain about how that identity should be lived – exploring vulnerability, consent and the subtle ways confusion and power can intersect in public spaces.
🧵 Tittle-Tattle – feminist conceptual artwork
Tittle-Tattle is my conceptual artwork using a domestic rolling pin carved with gossip-like statements.
The piece looks at how women are encouraged to judge one another through appearance, cleanliness, homemaking and social status – and challenges the quiet persistence of internalised misogyny inside everyday domestic life.
📖 Between the Pages – historical fiction
Set in the Rawdon Reading Rooms on Breck Road, Anfield (later to become a public library), this short story captures a slow winter’s day during a time of social change.
First performed at the People of Anfield celebrations at the Irish Centre on Boundary Lane, with music from the Socialist Singers, it reflects working-class life, women’s quiet resilience and the importance of shared reading spaces.
🏛 Birkenhead Priory – a hidden local landmark
Founded in 1150, Birkenhead Priory is the oldest standing building in Merseyside – and one of the region’s most overlooked historic sites.
This piece explores the priory’s long history, its links to early ferry crossings across the Mersey and its survival within a rapidly changing dockland landscape.
Birkenhead Priory
📚 Liverpool launches its Year of Reading
Liverpool Central Library was buzzing on Saturday 24 January 2026 with poetry, performance, flash mobs and storytelling for the city’s Year of Reading launch.
From powerful spoken word on identity and homesickness to brilliant Scouse poetry and local history, it was a reminder that reading in Liverpool is social, creative and very much alive.
✊ The fight to reopen Breck Road Library
The campaign to reopen Breck Road Library continued on Saturday 22 January outside Liverpool Central Library.
Former staff, community workers, councillors and local residents spoke about the real impact of the closure on the Anfield and Everton communities – with young people describing what it means to lose access to a local, safe and supportive public space.
🛍 Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and The Shop
A look back at the short-lived but hugely influential Shoreditch space run by Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas in the mid-1990s.
Blurring art, commerce and everyday social life, The Shop became a defining moment of the YBA era and a key reference point for third-wave feminist art.
✍️ Returning to digital sketching
A reflective post on my own practice – moving from daily sketching in 2025 into a renewed digital workflow in 2026.
It covers my struggles with Krita, the switch to Infinite Painter, and how experimenting with texture, tools and slower working helped rebuild confidence and reconnect me with digital drawing.
What’s coming up on alisonlittle.blog in February
February is shaping up to be just as busy – and just as mixed.
I’ll be covering:
- 🎬 New exhibitions at FACT Liverpool
- ✊ Ongoing coverage of the fight to reopen Breck Road Library
- 💔 Not gushy hearts for Valentine’s – expect something a little more reflective (and probably political) instead
- 🥾 Local hikes to properly wake you up – places to clear your head and get moving
- ✍️ More progress with my digital sketching practice
- 🏃♀️ My running playlist – what I actually listen to when I’m trying to get out of the door
As always, alisonlittle.blog will keep blending art, libraries, local history, feminist practice, public space, creative work and everyday life in Liverpool and the wider region.
Thanks for reading – and I’ll see you back here in February.
alisonlittleblog 
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