Get ready for the launch!

We have spent the last 14 months working on it, and it's finally here - it's nearly time to launch Blakenhall Writers Anthology!

It all started at the end of 2013 when Roma, Kuli and Cherry decided to create an anthology of member's work to showcase the talents of our group, and to get people from the community we sit in involved in writing and showing off their work. With the group's help we settled on a theme of 'identity' to reflect all facets of ourselves, and we were off!

In order to fund this project, an application was made to Arts Council England, who reviewed our case and kindly granted us some money to progress the anthology. This meant the project was run tightly and in accordance with ACE guidance, as we will be reporting back to them on the successes of our anthology.

2014 comprised workshops geared towards creation of content of our anthology - some run by group members, and some run by local writers who provided us with different viewpoints on 'identity', and armed us with different tools to enable us to write varied pieces. We invited guests to attend our workshops too.

Our members (and guests!) beavered away creating pieces which reflected the theme of 'identity'. Roma, Kuli and Cherry shortlisted, edited, proofread and compiled the pieces into the final anthology, as well as working with a local designer in the background to create a stunning cover.

So much hard work has gone into the creation of this booklet, from workshops run by local writers, to busy writers creating stunning pieces, and hours of editing and proofreading. Now we're gearing up to launch in several places.

Our main launch will be held during our March session, on 12th March, 11:00 - 13:00 at the Old School in Blakenhall, Wolverhampton. We will be providing a buffet lunch beforehand, followed by performances from our contributors.

We have also been invited to launch our anthology at City Voices, on 12th April, 19:30 - 21:00 at the Lych Gate Tavern in Wolverhampton city centre. We will be performing alongside other writers on the night (£3 entry).

Some of our members are also attending a poetry reading event at Walsall Arboretum on 13th March, 14:00 - 16:00, where they will be promoting and reading from the anthology.

Please feel free to join us to celebrate the hard work of our contributors. We hope to see you at one or more of these events.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Blakenhall Writers during the creation of this anthology.

July 11th Session - 'My Place' with SImon Fletcher

For our July session we were very pleased to welcome Simon Fletcher, a local poet and publisher, to head up a workshop on the theme of ‘My Place.’ We also opened up the workshop to non-members of the group so we had a couple of visitors with us for the session.

Simon led a discussion on our individual ideas of ‘My Place’, and we discovered that different people interpreted the concept in different ways, from a house, a home, a country, heritage, community or even a role. We each feel in our ‘place’ in a variety of locations and situations – and sometimes it’s the culmination of everything that’s come before which creates your own ‘place.’

Then we looked at some different writers’ ideas on the theme of ‘place’, including an excerpt from Meera Syal’s Anita and Me, where she considers her mother’s Punjabi upbringing, and part of a Gabriel Okara poem, Piano and Drums, in which the poet reminisces on his homeland of Nigeria.

Our first writing exercise was to make notes on somewhere we could call our ‘special place.’ It was interesting to hear how people felt about certain locations, houses or places they’d visited. We had descriptions of places all over the world, from right on our doorstep in Wolverhampton, to Africa and Asia.

Then we expanded on this by describing the place in detail.  There were some very good preliminary pieces emerging from this second exercise. Some people stuck with the same place, and some people changed their places. After all, we’re not confined to being connected to only one place! We had some great ideas which also encapsulated more abstract ideas of ‘My Place’. Hearing the stories about places people felt close to gave the writing much more depth. It will be very exciting to read the pieces when they are tidied up!

We’d like to thank Simon for leading such an inspiring workshop – it certainly gave us a lot to think about in terms of writing about ‘My Place’!

‘My Place’ is a key part of your identity…which you might remember is the theme for our anthology! Don’t forget, you can submit your works – including any written in Simon’s workshop – to be considered for the anthology, as per the guidelines, which can be found here.

June 13th Session - Settings

Settings are important for all writing. Whatever your piece is about, and whether you're writing poetry, prose or plays, it's got to be set somewhere. The way you create settings in your piece has a big impact on your audience. If you do it right, you can set the mood for your piece and create tension, drama and emotion. If you do it wrong, well, the audience will struggle to follow your piece.

We held a workshop on how to describe settings at our June session. Firstly, we had to source some settings to write about. Some of us went out and about into the local area to take photos of things of interest. Where we meet at Blakenhall Community and Healthy Living Centre, we are in some interesting surrounds, such as a Sikh temple, an empty church, some abandoned industrial buildings and a park. Some of us looked through books to find pictures of settings which inspired us.

We had a think about what a 'setting' actually is. It's where a story takes place isn't it? It's a bit more than that. A setting can encompass the 'where' but also the 'what' and 'when.'  

Where? - Country, town, street, house?

What? - A room, a car, a tree?   

When? - Era (current day, historical, future), season/weather, time of day?  

We wrote a few lines on our settings - just what we could see at first glance. But creating a setting is much more than just what you can see. We did an exercise where we imagined that we had been kidnapped, blindfolded, and left in a room. How would you describe that room to someone, when you couldn't see anything? You have to use the other 4 senses:

What can you hear? - Noises can give a lot away. Can you hear traffic, voices or footsteps? Or can you hear birdsong or running water?

What can you smell? - Are there any distinctive smells which remind you of a specific place? Food cooking, greenery, chemicals?

What can you taste? - Are any of the smells so strong you can actually taste them? Are you eating? 

What can you feel?  - Is the surface hard or soft? Is it warm or cold? Are you outside or inside? 

Using all five senses to describe a setting really immerses the reader in the situation. It can make them imagine it very vividly!

Those of us who have all five of our senses tend to notice the things we can see first of all. But do we look past the details and see the overall? Do we see the blue sky and green hills instead of the birds flying and the flowers blooming? Our next exercise was to take our original setting and 'zoom in' until we could see the tiniest details (or imagined we could!) Then we wrote about those. 

It can be easy to think that everyone is familiar with the settings we're describing - or forget that some people won't be. Our last exercise was to imagine a setting we were familiar with - somewhere we go very frequently. Then we imagined taking someone there who'd never been there before. What would they notice about the place?

 So describing settings can be beneficial for your writing as it gives the reader lots of information about where and when your writing takes place. But what we learned is that you have to be careful about how to incorporate them into your writing - you need to ensure your audience can understand the setting through describing it effectively. You also need to incorporate all five senses into the description to heighten the impact of the setting. I think we're all a bit more confident in writing about settings now - I hope you are too.