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Newsletter – September 2011
5 months ago
by Writing West Midlands
in Birmingham Book Festival, Birmingham Writing Squads, Coventry Writing Squads, Events, For Aspiring Writers, For Emerging Writers, For Established Writers, For Literature Professionals And Organisations, Kidderminster Writing Squads, Links To Other Organisations and Events, Literature Festivals, New Writing, Our Organisation, Poetry, Poetry in Performance, Walsall Writing Squads, Write On! Writers in School, Write On! Writing Squads, Writer Training, Writers in Schools and Communities, Writing by Young People, Writing West Midlands
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The Birmingham Book Festival 2011
6 months ago
by Writing West Midlands
in Birmingham Book Festival, Events, For Aspiring Writers, For Emerging Writers, For Established Writers, For Literature Professionals And Organisations, Literature Festivals, Our Organisation, Poetry, Poetry in Performance, Theatre Writing, Writer Training, Writing in Performance, Writing West Midlands
The Birmingham Book Festival 2011
6-16 October
www.birminghambookfestival.org
For 13 years, the Birmingham Book Festival has been a place for ideas and conversation, bringing writing to the fore in its capacity to make us question our worlds. This year is no exception: there is much to talk about in 2011, and plenty to interrogate during the ten days of the Festival.
WILL SELF will lead us in an examination of our dependency on the car in an alternative sermon in the city’s beautiful cathedral. TONY HARRISON will bring his exceptional repertoire of striking verse and the weighty subjects that populate it, to our stage. STUART MACONIE will share his journey through the decades of our recent history in search of the tragic, shameful and glorious ‘days that made Britain’. IAN RANKIN will take us back to 1985 and a period of political turmoil with his new novel. OWEN HATHERLEY will chart the architectural wreckage of the ‘age of greed and aspiration’ of the late nineties and early noughties.
IAN LESLIE will explore how deceit is central to who we are and ingrained in our practise of art, advertising, sport, politics and war. Cuban poet VÍCTOR RODRÍGUEZ NÚÑEZ will join us in a rare UK appearance to share poetry that is ‘participatory yet not political, Cuban yet not essentially Nationalist.’ Dutch poets ELLEN DECKWITZ and DAAN DOESBORGH will delight us with their extraordinary blend of humour, rhythm and mime.
There’s more, too. A festival shop, a festival book (JENN ASHWORTH’S Cold Light, a brilliant second novel), an all night writing workshop with JUDITH ALLNATT (back by popular demand), a Fringe Festival giving opportunities to meet professionals such as TINDAL STREET PRESS and reporter SONIA FALEIRO and a specially commissioned empty shop sound installation, BOY YOU TURN ME.
Join us as we work our way around the city, inhabiting an array of interesting venues, exploring a profusion of events, workshops and conversations. Enjoy!
The Great West Midlands Poetry Relay – we made it!
6 months ago
We have posted over on our sister site, www.birminghambookfestival.org about this in detail – have a look at this.
We had a brilliant day out and about in the West Midlands celebrating Open Weekend in anticipation of London 2012. We made it around our ten destinations safely and as quickly as we could, and our ten racing pigeons made it safely back to Birmingham with the final order of our relay poem.
Our colleagues at Monty Funk productions are busily editing the audio footage they took over the day, as well as creating some interactive content for you, so look out for that in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, there are some photos at www.birminghambookfestival.org and some on our Facebook page. Project Pigeon have also uploaded some footage and there will be more of that shortly.
Thanks again to Arts Council England for supporting this event, and to everyone involved (special thanks to our poets, venues, and Lauren, our project manager, for coralling us all!).
New ways of publishing
1 year ago
One of the pleasures of running Writing West Midlands is the chance to help ensure that good books by good writers get a day in the sun. On Tuesday 27th April 2010 we were delighted to launch Christine Coleman’s new novel Paper Lanterns (more details from www.christinecoleman.net). This book is interesting on several counts: it is a well written good read, no doubt of that, but also is has been published by the author herself, and very professionally as well. Years ago self-publishing was looked down upon by those who published through the traditional publishing houses, but times are changing. Mainstream publishers have long since given up their monopoly on spotting good writers (if they ever had it) and smaller and smaller publishers are making an impact (Tindal Street Press have a better strike rate for successful books than any major publisher, for instance). And the means of production is moving away from being held in the hands of one conglomorate. Now a talented writer can employ a talented editor and a copy editor and a designer and with energy and a bit of luck manage to produce a book as good, if not better, than those churned out (and so many novels are churned out) by the bigger publishing houses. There is perhaps less likelihood of making enourmous amounts of money but there is more likelihood of books being successful because of the artistic skills and administrative passion lavished upon them. Good writing will surface for us all to enjoy: poor writing won’t be quite so often foisted upon us in an attempt to get a return on investment or to distort our reading tastes for purely commercial gain. This isn’t perhaps the solution for all publishing in the UK at the moment, but it will become one of a range of solutions and help break down the perception that there is only one true way to publish. Writers being by their very nature people who want to explore and make new need a means of production and distribution that wants to explore and make new. Carry on, Christine Coleman and others.
Poetry in the West Midlands
1 year ago
Suddenly the West Midlands is full of poetry activity. I’m not sure why, although the common factor is individuals who want to make it happen. The Polesworth Poets Trail is a case in point. Malcome Dewhirst has lead this project to use money available to the town for improvement of the environment and has had installed a fabulous series of poems, etched into metal and wood, set in stone, and placed around the town. The poetry is inspired by the fact that John Donne and Michael Drayton and others gathered in Polesworth in the 16th century but more importantly has been responded to by contemporary writers from across the country.
The Much Wenlock Poetry Festival has had a successful first outing and has reminded us once again that people are interested in poetry if you present it imaginatively and in an interesting location. And soon we will have Ledbury Poetry Festival‘s programme and the Stratford Poetry Festival and Helen Dunmore, winner of the National Poetry Competition is part of the the Birmingham Book Festival’s first Festival in a Day on 29th May. To add to this, Jacqui Rowe has launched a great series of poetry workshops to run in Birmingham, Nine Arches Press are rolling out handsome books and events to match (and we mustn’t forget Flarestack) and even as I write I suspect some enterprising enthusiast will be costing up a poetry project. I mention costing up, because money is necessary, but as these various events and projects show, there are a range of ways of getting iand using it. More on this in a future post.
And now I’m going to read another couple of poems from Jo Bell‘s collection, Navigation; eccelent stuff and long overdue for a re-print…