Books: Incredibly beautiful monastic library
For writers: Writing prompts to help generate free writing
Animals: Don’t catch them unawares!
Category: Writing
Reaper
Indigo eyes of the exterminating angel
Forewarn of potential danger
A wreath of barbs in the tear garden
Create a fiendish tangle
Her grimy soul in isolation
Catches rain within her hands
Weeping song drips through her fingers
And sings a note of salvation
Pity their ignorance in the joy of diversity
Forgive their joy in the pursuit of bigotry
Refuse to kow tow to conformity
The Reaper will have her revenge.
This is a new piece of artwork by Richard Jefferies in his Goth on My Keyboard series.
After contributing poems responding to Richard’s wonderful character for his Goth on My Keyboard charity book, Richard produced a new image for a reading I gave at a Seasonally Effected evening. The result was the Reaper poem above, which doesn’t appear in the book.
If you’d like to contribute to the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, you can find a link to the book in my original blog post here, which gives you more information on the charity.
Sunday Slackers
This week’s lazy Sunday selection …
Art: Sort of – people who didn’t know they were art until it was too late!
Business: 5 Reasons Darth Vader made a great leader
The physics of productivity: Newton’s Laws for getting stuff done
For writers: 10 Blunt Tips from Geoff Dyer – who has to feel like he’s bunking off from something!
Film: Raiders of the Lost Ark sweded – by 11 year olds
Sunday Slackers
The internet of fascinating things with which to hit the Sunday slow-way …
Animals: Pets who could’ve sworn you just said “Treats!”
Photography: Fairytale art attack
Travel: The most breathtaking small towns and villages in the world
Life: Things creative people do differently – such as day-dreaming
Bear like puppies: *Warning* Serious heart melting may occur
For writers: The surprising reading level of top writers
Dance: Ballet and Irish blues gospel, who knew?
Perfect Sunday Slacker material: Pointless stuff
Music: The awesome Bobby McFerrin, his audience, Bach and Gounod. His voice is just incredible
Supernatural: Do you believe in ghosts? Maybe after seeing these you will
Images by Pixabay: Fairy Tale; Puppy; Ghost
Sunday Slackers
The internet of interesting things. Put the kettle on and while away your Sunday …
Animals 1: (video) Everybody’s gone surfin’, surfin’ USA (Uplifting Seal Adventure)
Sculpture: Wooden transformation
For screenwriters: Download 9 Oscar Screenplays
Photography: A gorgeous view of Venice
Adult fun: Who’s with me?
Tech: For lazy people
Family Fun: Hilarious, yet also somehow creepy
Animals 2 (video): Unlikely best friends
Art: Ancient mosaics in Greece
Politics: What it means to ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ Britain First content
Stupidity: A lighter, totally unrelated note to the last link 😉
Extreme Sports (video): Don’t try this at home. I know it’s tempting, since we’re having a little bit of white slushy stuff falling intermittently …
Sunday Slackers
The internet of interesting things to enjoy on the Sunday slow-way … help yourself to a biscuit.
Culture: Douglas Adams on what it is to be English
Art: Even if you don’t believe in all that astrology stuff, you’ll want to check yours out!
Life: An incredibly inspiring story
Death: All men (and women) must die. But what about after? I want to be a tree …
Writing: How to write a screenplay that sells itself
Music: Brilliant one-man cover version of Uptown Funk
Photography: Fascinating old photos, some odd, some poignant
Sunday Slackers
The Internet of Fascinating Things …
Being active online means coming across far too much good stuff than I can personally read during the week or can be shared on my Twitter and Facebook timelines without annoying the hell out of friends and followers. So I’ve decided to collect them all together in one handy blog post that I can enjoy at my leisure, along with the hope that you do too 🙂
Miscellaneous: Bikeshedding and Parkinson’s Law – In thirty odd years of employment, I’ve come across this a lot! I’ve been to meetings where the only decision made was – the date of the next meeting! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
For writers: Two heads are better than one http://www.bang2write.com/2013/06/4-reasons-2-heads-are-better-than-1-by-gareth-meredith.html
Nature: An excerpt from Chasing Ice – the largest ice glacier calving filmed. Awe inspiring and yes, scary. http://uk.businessinsider.com/largest-ice-glacier-calving-filmed-2015-1 and some ice pictures to show up close how beautiful it cab be http://www.boredpanda.com/natural-winter-snow-ice-art/
Music: You know that joke about someone’s singing sounding like cats? http://www.reshareworthy.com/boys-choir-sing-funny-song/#xqUKpalS67mwzoZ5.01
Creativity: Cassy’s 100 ways to get creative. What are you waiting for? http://www.cassyfry.com/2015/01/100-ways-to-get-creative.html/
Humanity: Restore your faith in 4 minutes flat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btiDHCuWyBA
Animals: Literally shaking a tail feather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bt9xBuGWgw
Festival: The first South Coast Jazz Festival, 23-25th January, support it if you can. http://www.southcoastjazzfestival.com/
Practical joking: I started laughing at the description, then got mildly hysterical as it went on, which became maniacal cackling. http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2015/01/09/limbo-stick-prank/
Quote of the Week:
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
Rochester LitFest: Six Ways to Wellbeing Swale
An innovative new collaboration between Ideas Test, Swale CVS and ourselves is set to help teenagers in Swale boost their wellbeing.
Ideas Test and Swale CVS will be offering an exciting programme of free taster sessions and workshops through autumn as part of Kent County Council’s Six Ways to Wellbeing campaign. The events will explore how getting involved with something creative can improve health and wellbeing. If you’re a young person (age 13-19 or 25 SEN) this is your chance to have fun with poetry and spoken word, both writing and performing.
We’re delighted that the brilliant and exuberant Dan Simpson will be with us to run poetry and spoken word sessions, which will culminate in a short performance at a finale of the whole project. He’ll be kicking off the entire Ideas Test Six Ways project by crowdsourcing a poem from 10am on Monday morning, finishing on Friday 24th October. The finished result will be recorded for broadcast at the finale event. Read more about the poem here or join in on Twitter with #wellbeingpoem
The first of the LitFest hosted sessions is Capturing Stories – a digital storytelling workshop by Jaye to make the most of smart phones or tablets when attending events. Covering the basics of Twitter, Vine, Audio Boom and Storify, this session will help the participants capture and document their activities across all the different sessions they take part in, aiding them in their quest to obtain a Bronze Arts Award by having an easily accessible digital archive. Blogging will also be covered. (This and ‘Captured Stories’ are also available for those not doing an Arts Award or taking part in other sessions).
The workshop dates are as follows:
Saturday 25/10 12 – 4pm Capturing Stories. Pulse Cafe, Sittingbourne
Tuesday 4/11 6.30pm – 9pm Poetry/Spoken Word. Sheerness County Youth Centre
Thursday 13/11 6pm – 8.30pm Poetry/Spoken Word. New House Sports and Youth Centre, Sittingbourne
Saturday 15/11 11am – 3pm Poetry/Spoken Word. Sheerness County Youth Centre
Monday 17/11 5pm – 7.30pm Poetry/Spoken Word West Faversham Community Centre (disability group/all welcome)
Saturday 29/11 11am – 4pm Poetry/Spoken Word. Phoenix House, Sittingbourne (open workshop and final rehearsal)
Saturday 6/12 6pm – 8pm Finale Performance Avenue Theatre, Sittingbourne
Saturday 13/12 12noon – 2pm Captured Stories. Pulse Café, Sittingbourne
The finale performance will include activity from the other partners in the project overall. See the Ideas Test website for more information.
The ‘Captured Stories’ session on 13/12 will bring together and share all the media surrounding the project.
All sessions are completely free to attend and you can book on line here or by calling 07713 865955. Cassy will be delighted to send you all the information you need to know. Please note that photography and other media will be shared on line and in promotional material.
The Six Ways to Wellbeing are all about doing more of the things you enjoy, with research showing that this can help improve your moods, strengthen your relationships and even add seven years to your life! It can be something as small as having a dance around, meeting a new person or learning a new skill.
The Six Ways are:
Connect – with family, friends, colleagues, neighbours
Be active – walk, run, garden, dance
Take notice – be curious, reflect on experiences
Keep learning – try something new
Give – doing something for others
Grow your world – planet care for its sustainability
You can find ourselves, Ideas Test, Swale CVS and Six Ways to Wellbeing on Twitter @RochLitFest @IdeasTest @SwaleCVS and @liveitwelluk, all of whom will be tweeting about the project under #sixwaystowellbeing. Six Ways to Wellbeing is also on Facebook, please search for ‘liveitwellkent’.
Find out more about the Six Ways to Wellbeing at http://www.sixwaystowellbeing.org.uk.
This programme of arts events is being funded jointly by Kent County Council, Artswork and The Royal Opera House Bridge.
Rochester Literature Festival 2014: Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know
We’re delighted to be opening this year with an hilarious and heart-warming one woman show with actress Sunny Ormonde – the outrageous Lilian Bellamy from BBC Radio 4’s The Archers, the world’s longest running soap.
Over the course of the next ten days, we’ll be joined by as-seen-on-tv-off-his-trolley comic genius Phil Kay, master of freeform performance and storytelling, and notorious Australian, Trenton Oldfield – who served six months at her Majesty’s Pleasure for disrupting the 2012 Boat Race in a protest against elitism.
We will be hosting two wonderful authors who’ll fascinate you with insights and anecdotes from their latest books: Angela Buckley introduces us to The Real Sherlock Holmes – Detective Jerome Caminada, whose methodologies mimicked Conan Doyle’s genius, and Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, who will discuss the impact of reality on fiction. While No One Was Watching is set against the backdrop of the Kennedy assassination and the abduction of a young girl from the grassy knoll on that fateful day.
Sadly, we have to announce the postponement of one of our family events,Assassin, due to technical issues. Featuring the fantastic Joe Craig reading extracts from his Jimmy Coates series – part boy, part weapon, totally deadly – and music from Jacob Bride, Graham Sykes and Jamie Godfrey, this will hopefully take place early in the new year. However, we do still have the awesome Keeper of the Realms author, Marcus Alexander, who is Charlie’s Keeper, who will entertain and inspire you with his delightfully wicked fantasy adventure series – get your read on! Waterstones in Chatham have kindly agreed to sell books in the venue on the day, if you need to complete your collection.
Our interactive story game this year is Murder in the Crypt, in which you’ll be invited to solve mysteries and puzzles with Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin. In addition, we’re holding a Cafe Crawl, where you can sample poetry and storytelling, while Bookmark’d is a chance to buy books, swap books or just listen to books, read aloud by their authors.
Our Night at the Theatre will this year be held in conjunction with Chatham Grammar School for Boys and be presented by award winning 17% playwrights,Sam Fentiman-Hall, Sarah Hehir and Maggie Drury. The Spirit of My Dream is inspired by Byron’s poem The Dream and features new plays with a fantastical theme.
An exhibition curated by ME4Writers especially for the festival, An Assemblance of Judicious Heretics, has channelled Byron to produce work inspiring madness, badness and dangerousness in the hearts of artists. A live reading will bring the visual carnage to life!
Byron’s Teapot will be our finale – a mad mix of unusual and quirky music, poetry and theatre, featuring The James Worse Public Address Method, JP Lovecraft,Dylan Oscar Rowe and Brides of Rain.
We look forward to welcoming you to our exciting – and only slightly scary – second full length festival!
To read full details, download a copy the 2014 programme and buy tickets, please visit rochesterlitfest.com.
If you have any enquiries regarding any of the events or festival in general, please email rochesterlitfest@gmail.com or telephone 07904 643770.
We look forward to seeing you 🙂
The Word Play Wagon lights the Fuse in Walderslade
I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been selected by the Kent Baton to open their Sparks Fuse Festival project, One Day Works.
My short term residence in the Baton – a vintage silver airstream caravan converted to a mobile art centre – is on Wednesday, June 4th from 11am – 6pm. It will be located outside Permark Post Office in Walderslade Village and its activities will be suitable for all ages and all abilities. No previous experience is needed, just turn up and play around with some words.
The overall title, The Word Play Wagon, reflects the diverse creative writing activities planned, including:
- Turn over a new leaf: Add a poem, wish or favourite saying to a luggage label leaf you create and hang it on a Poetree.
- A Novel Experience: Bring your favourite book and write an original short piece based on its premise (see example ‘Triffidus Corpus’ here).
- Hint: Writing micro fiction from as little as 10 words. (Examples)
- Spoofing Medway: Write the local news as it didn’t happen! (Example)
- Mystery Collective Poems: Add a line to the one before – it’ll be the only one you can see! (See examples here.)
- If and Then: A question and answer session with a difference. (Examples – scroll down to ‘Potlatch’)
I’m really looking forward to engaging lots of people in writing activities – who knows, I might find the next generation of Medway poets!
One Day Works will host a series of one day experiments throughout Medway during the Fuse Festival and its build up. From urban high streets to country villages, the project will showcase ten of Medway’s finest creative talents across a range of art forms. Along with the The Word Play Wagon, the works include an epic poem, sculptures made from found objects, archival collections, insect inspired costumes, drawings made from thread, an acoustic live music gig and a magic lantern performance. Click here for the full list of artists and their projects.
The Fuse Festival runs from Friday, June 13th – Sunday, June 15th, find out more at their website here.
It’s arts. It’s yours. It’s free.
Jaye Nolan 