Blakenhall Writers Autumn News

We have plenty of things going on in autumn so make sure you’re up to date by checking through this post!

September 6^th – Kuli and Cherry appeared at the Stafford Arts Festival, reading their poetry in St Chad’s Church Stafford. The event was organised by the Staffordshire Poet Laureate, and Kuli was invited to do further readings as a result of the great reception her poems received.

October 11^th – We will NOT be having a session in October. This is due to Roma, Kuli and Cherry being at the Offa’s Press Writing Day. We discussed our options at the September meeting and decided this was what we wanted to do. We’ll see you in November! If you want to head along to the Offa’s Press Writing Day with us, check out the details here.

October 14^th – Roma will be reading at Wolverhampton City Voices in the Lych Gate Tavern, 7:30pm, £2.50 on the door. Let’s turn up and support her!

November 8^th – We will be back on schedule with a session on Poetry & Prose techniques. Come along to Blakenhall Healthy Living Centre at 11:00 – 13:00.

Other news!

We will be starting conversations soon about putting together a Blakenhall Writers anthology in the early part of 2015. We will need some funding to put towards this, so any ideas you have, please let us know! Start having a think about what you might want included in the anthology, and we will start discussion in the next few months.

We also want to hear from you about your writing plans. We’ll be tailoring next year’s schedule to what people want to develop, so start thinking about why you write and what your goals are, ready for when we have those conversations.

Take care everyone, and see you in November!

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September 13th Session & September Writing Task

In September we had a very special session. We’d spent the preceding month reading pieces of each other’s work which we needed help and support on to improve. We’d made notes on each person’s work and came together to share our thoughts.

We’d noted down things we liked about the pieces, and things which could be improved, done differently, or just tweaked. We made sure that nobody was critical of each other’s work and just made constructive comments.

It was a very useful exercise and it was great to see what kind of projects the group work on outside of our meetings. Usually when we meet up we do a writing exercise, and sometimes we share what we’ve worked on the following month, but we don’t always get a feel of everyone’s writing style through these exercises.

Letting other people read and feed back on your work is really valuable. It gives you an idea of how an audience might respond to your writing. Your readers can also suggest new ideas which you may not have thought of, or let you know of new techniques which can improve the overall feel of your work. But you’re not obliged to make any changes they suggest – just consider everything objectively and use your discretion to make your own changes.

Feeding back on someone else’s work can be difficult, especially if you want to offer suggestions but don’t want to offend them. Make sure that any suggestions you make are backed up by a good explanation – changes should improve the audience’s experience of the piece, so make a link between this and your advice. Try to look for the potential in a piece, and focus on the good as well as the constructive - give them a platform to build on.

I hope everyone managed to take away some considerations for their work. For September’s writing task, try to make some edits to your work based on the feedback you’ve received from the group.

Not everyone could make the September session, so where possible we will email you your feedback, otherwise we will let you have it in our next session, to take away and mull over.

There are lots of changes over the next few months, so keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter to make sure you’re in the loop!

August 9th Session & August Writing Task

We had a bit of a different session this month – instead of meeting in our usual place, we met up at Wolverhampton Art Gallery to try and inspire some writing from the artwork!

This technique is known as Ekphrasis, which is one art form responding to another. It’s a good technique for practicing idea development, as you already have a starting point.

We looked round the gallery, which has all sorts of artwork, from medieval paintings, to Victorian art, to sculpture, to modern art.

A good starting point is to ask yourself questions about the art:

•       What happened to this piece before it ended up in the gallery?
•       What are the people in the piece feeling or thinking?
•       What does this remind me of?
•       What were the people in this piece doing before, during or after this painting?
•       Where in the world has this artefact come from?
•       Who used to own or use this piece?
•       Who are all the different people involved in this piece (subjects, artist, owner etc), and what are their perspectives on the piece?



New Wire Across The Somme - Brian Yale





Looking Towards Ypres - Brian Yale



Whisper of Spring - Sara Page





The Lady of Shalott - Henry Darvall





A Japanese Book purchased by Wolverhampton Art School in the 1800s



Job: Man of Wood - Lancelot Bryan

Stained Glass display in the gallery

The Apothesis of Penelope Boothby - Henry Fuseli

Thanks to Wolverhampton Art Gallery for letting us take photos of these brilliant pieces. The writing task for August is to see if you can develop a poem or short story from one of the pieces of art you saw in the gallery.

If you didn't manage to come along to the session, why not visit the gallery in your own time? It's free to enter and conveniently in the centre of Wolverhampton. Alternatively, use another piece of art you're familiar with to try and inspire some writing, or even use the pictures in this article.

Can't wait to see what you come up with!