1990s. Wilfred Hopkins, under the pseudonym Billy Hopkins, has written Our Kid and other works. Carcanet Press began publishing poetry collections and novels in the early 1970s under the editorship of Michael Schmidt Schmidt was one of the first directors of the Manchester Metropolitan University Writers' School, whose staff currently includes Simon Armitage and Carol Ann Duffy. This school and the University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing are two of the top creative writing schools in the country. Since 2006 there has been a Manchester Literature Festival. Since 2000, Manchester Cathedral has sponsored the International Religious Poetry Competition. Judges have included Michael Schmidt, Michael Symmons Roberts and Linda Chase. In 2010 the cathedral re-established its Young Poets' Competition, a national competition open to all schools and all children from Key Stage 1-5. On 23 January 2010, the cathedral announced the appointment of its first Poet-in-Residence, Rachel Mann. On 21 October 2010, the cathedral hosted the inaugural Manchester Sermon. Developed in collaboration with the Manchester Literature Festival, the event was aimed at revitalizing the sermon as a literary form. The inaugural sermon was delivered by the internationally known novelist Jeanette Winterson. Carol Ann Duffy, the UK's Poet Laureate as of July 2013, is a resident of Manchester and read her work "The Crown" at Queen Elizabeth II's 60th coronation anniversary ceremony. Writing circles in Manchester include Manchester Speculative Fiction, Monday Night Group, Muslim Writers North and Manchester Women Writers. Manchester was awarded City of Literature status in 2017. Theatre The first theatre in Manchester was the Theatre Royal, established in 1775. The town soon became one of the stock company centres with a group of resident actors who supported the travelling "stars". Great actors and actresses who appeared on the Manchester stage included the Kembles and the Keans, Macready, Henry Irving and Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson. In the latter half of the 19th century the Prince's Theatre in Oxford Street was the scene of a series of public-spirited dramatic enterprises, including those remarkable Shakespearean revivals organised successively by John Knowles and Charles Calvert. Several other theatres, especially the Gaiety and the Queen's, had in the meantime begun to provide entertainment of varying quality for the growing theatrical public. These included a further series of Shakespearean revivals given at the Queen's Theatre by Messrs. Flanagan and Louis Calvert. The Independent Theatre staged some of the plays of Henrik Ibsen for the first