Left: Divine Chocolate by Mark Brooks from Grown From Stone
Right: Song of Ages II by Giles Macdonald, one of the pieces in the Art & Memory Collection at Winterbourne House
The Lettering Arts Trust’s latest exhibition of the carver’s art, Grown from Stone, opens later this month at Winterbourne House in Birmingham: https://www.winterbourne.org.uk/whats-on/grown-from-stone-an-exhibition-from-the-lettering-arts-trust/
We will also be unveiling a new addition to our Art & Memory Collection at Winterbourne on 8 September. This is one of the six venues for the Collection around the county with nearly 70 works of contemporary letter carving.
– Mark Noad
Sisterhood Anthology: I chose a line ‘Small town, big dreams’ from a previous 26 Characters’ challenge to create a poem, which I’m delighted was chosen to appear in the Sisterhood Anthology 2024. The themes were imagination, dreams, hope, ambition. Sisterhood is a women-only series of open mics in Bradford founded by poet Sharena Lee Satti in collaboration with Bradford Libraries; 2023 saw the first Sisterhood Festival of writing, words, music and creativity.
– Irene Lofthouse
I interviewed a local author (Nottingham) who writes ghost stories featuring local landmarks. Kristina Adams has just released her latest book: https://www.kristinaadamsauthor.com/
– Sarah Elliott
An East Anglia Bylines colleague told me 18 August would be Poetry Bears’ Day. Wife Clare and I have a whole bear vocabulary for addressing each other. I hope I can get away with an article about poems I’ve written using it: https://bit.ly/3STtq41
– Aidan Baker
I have an interview with the fantastic Denny Upkins for Yopp’s “Uplifting Black Voices” series! I reached out to Denny after reading a fabulous interview he had done, and I’m so honoured that he was willing and able to interview me with his insightful line of questioning! I’ve done over 100 interviews in my career thus far and this is one of my favourites!
Read the interview here: https://www.yoppvoice.com/2024/07/29/uplifting-black-voices-an-interview-with-mugabi-byenkya/
– Mugabi Byenkya
The Dark Angels are running an online Foundation Course, introducing people to the Dark Angels way of writing – whether for your own creative expression, as part of your work, or both.
For more than 20 years Dark Angels has been sharing the idea that our writing truly connects when we draw on what makes us each uniquely human. Come join us.
Find out more here.
– Susanne Wakefield
The other half and I travelled up to Glasgow in mid-August for Worldcon, the global celebration of science fiction which is held in a different part of the world every year. It’s also the place where the Hugo Awards are given out – one of science fiction’s biggest and most prestigious prizes. I was there partly with my British Fantasy Society hat on, and spent time at their table touting for new members, but also got to sit in on numerous thought-provoking panel sessions – how cosmic horror shows us as “meaning-making beings confronting a meaningless universe and asking what we do with that”; what role stories and minority writers play in a world where book bans and moral fascism is taking hold; how the difference between technology and magic is as simple as the beliefs of the people wielding them; the issues around techno-orientalism, especially in cyberpunk; how witches present a great way to tell stories about marginalised women; how we can integrate cultural and generational elements to make mother-type relationships more rounded; and whether there’s a line between “monster” and “just a really big creature”. Oh – and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of Ghostbusters, IMHO one of the greatest films ever made!
To recover from 5 days of insane learning and sensory stimulation, we stopped off in Bronte country for a few days on the way back. It was really quite a treat to re-read Wuthering Heights in the actual moors that inspired it, and to see the house the Brontes lived in – the living room they did their writing in, the desks they used, even the clothes they wore. If you’re ever in the vicinity of Haworth, it’s well worth a visit to the Bronte Parsonage Museum.
– Lauren McMenemy
I was in France at the end of July and early August on a choir tour with the Esprimo Consort, a semi professional group of singers based in and around Winchester. It was a cracking tour. We stayed in a farmhouse outside of Meaux for the first half of tour and our first concert, at St Peter’s Anglican Church in Chantilly, was well attended considering it had accidentally been double booked with the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
The second (and slightly longer) half of tour was in Troo in the Loire Valley where we upgraded our accommodation to a rather fancy château. We sang our second concert at the local church, Collégiale Saint-Martin de Trôo, and this was enjoyed by the locals but it was our third and final concert that was in a cave cut out into the hills that took the cake. The whole village turned out in force and they demanded not one but two encores, which was very touching but slightly nerve-wracking as we hadn’t prepared for a second. All went smoothly though and the choir were treated to some of Troo’s speciality sparkling rosé as thanks. Once the singing was finished, we had a couple days to relax, spend time at the chateau and enjoy local french wine, which I must say, we did rather spectacularly.
– Harry Ashton-Key