Snippet reviews from some of my festival experience. Enjoy your bite of SAHLF 2021.
All the featured books can be purchased in the S@HLF Bookshop here.
Monday was a Bank Holiday here which meant Mr G. had a rare day off work and we spent it not online much. I missed a good programme of events today but actually ended up going to the open mic as well, which I hadn’t anticipated.
The Pleasures of Detail
Join writer and University of Glasgow senior lecturer Elizabeth Reeder for a short workshop about gather original details – and how to them as a driving force in your writing.
Elizabeth Reeder, originally from Chicago, now lives in Scotland. She writes fiction, narrative non-fiction and hybrid work that creates spaces between forms, subjects and disciplines. Her work explores identity, family, illness and grief, creativity and landscapes. She has published two previous novels, Ramshackle and Fremont. Her latest novel, An Archive of Happiness, was published by Penned in the Margins in September 2020. microbursts – a collection of hybrid, lyric essays about the places between life and death; memoir and poetry; making and letting go – is a collaboration with artist Amanda Thomson and is published by Prototype Publishing (Feb 2021). She is a MacDowell Fellow and a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at University of Glasgow. © SAHLF Programme
This was a brilliant hour, lots of advice and thoughts on editing. People are still talking about this session *and we are on the last weekend of the festival now. I am not surprised, it was great. We did a short writing exercise from multiple angles, a useful take on the ordinary.
* Longlisted for the 2020 Highland Book Prize*
The online literary salon where writers and guests come together to read, listen and encourage. Prose, poetry and pleasant surprises welcome.
Author Bio
Janet Floyer holds a master’s degree in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. She is inspired by the quirky side of family life and fully embraces the term creative non-fiction. You can find her work in From Glasgow to Saturn, Random Reject Project, and languishing shyly on her laptop. Floyer’s monologue ‘Can you See Me?’ was performed in November 2020 by Rachel Ogilvy for Hidden Women online at In Motion Theatre. She facilitates creative writing workshops for people in addiction recovery, and writers about town who need a little extra inspiration and encouragement. Since 2019, Janet has been opening her door for literary salons both at home and online including the #Stay-at-Home-Literary Festival and the #Stay-at-Home-Fringe in 2020. Janet lives in Malaga, Spain with her husband, daughters and miniature schnauzers. So far, they’re all still speaking to her. © SAHLF Programme
It was a fun hour and lovely to put names to faces from the INSTA sessions.
Kathryn Koromilas
Join Kathryn Koromilas for a daily morning meditative writing session. In this calm and mindful session, we’ll meditate – in writing – with a poem. The intention of meditative writing is to help you remove mental obstacles, encourage mindful concentration, enhance your creative practice, and just generally supercharge your day. Sessions will be streamed live on Instagram, every morning from 9:15am to 9:45 am for the duration of the festival.
Author Bio
Kathryn Koromilas is a creative writer, a teacher & a gentle, joyful Stoic! She uses ancient wisdom and writing practices to help reignite creativity, reimagine purpose, and foster a thriving writing practice. © SAHLF Programme
I have been joining in with these sessions on IGTV but TODAY I made my first LIVE session. They are a great way to start the day. Most of the recordings can be found on the SAHLF Instagram, a few had technical difficulties and unfortunately are not available.
The basis is meditative writing from the starting point of copy work. I have enjoyed this practise and have also found some of my own writing completed in these sessions has some gold within it too.
On top of that, these sessions are relaxing and fun.
Claire Dyer on Instagram Live
Poet and novelist Claire Dyer reads from Yield, her new poetry collection. In Yield, the the eponymous verb is repeatedly redefined over a poetic odyssey that sees a son becomes a daughter as the mother becomes a poet, only to see the daughter follow suit.
Claire Dyer’s poetry collections are published by Two Rivers Press, her novels by Quercus and The Dome Press. Her novel, The Significant Others of Odie May, is forthcoming in 2021. She curates Reading’s Poets’ Café, teaches creative writing and runs Fresh Eyes, a mentoring, editorial and critiquing service. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London and is a regular contributor on BBC Radio Berkshire. © SAHLF Programme
I was lucky enough to be at the Launch of Yield, but these poems do not lose their power the more you read/hear them.
I was glad to listen in again to this short reading from Yield.
Anthony Anaxagorou: A Workshop on Strangeness and Associative Logic in Poems
Acclaimed poet Anthony Anaxagorou reads from his collection After the Formalities and leads a workshop on strangeness and associative logic in poetry.
Author Bio
Anthony Anaxagorou is a British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, essayist, publisher and poetry educator. His poetry has been published in POETRY, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, New Statesman, Granta, and elsewhere. His work has also appeared on BBC Newsnight, BBC Radio 4, ITV, Vice UK, Channel 4 and Sky Arts. His second collection After the Formalities published with Penned in the Margins is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the 2019 T.S Eliot Prize. It was also a Telegraph and Guardian poetry book of the year.
In 2020 he published How To Write It with Merky Books; a practical guide fused with tips and memoir looking at the politics of writing as well as the craft of poetry and fiction along with the wider publishing industry. He was awarded the 2019 H-100 Award for writing and publishing, and the 2015 Groucho Maverick Award for his poetry and fiction. In 2019 he was made an honorary fellow of the University of Roehampton. Anthony is artistic director of Out-Spoken, a monthly poetry and music night held at London’s Southbank Centre, and publisher of Out-Spoken Press.
© SAHLF Programme
I was fortunate enough to attend a few of Anthony’s workshops in the first lockdown and even had a 1 to 1 with him in 2020, I was delighted to have another opportunity and was excited to discover it wasn’t a repeat class.
It was great, a reading and lots of thoughts on writing as well as a chance to do some writing of our own. If you get a chance to catch this, please do.
The Stay at Home! Literary Festival finishes today – a brilliant fortnight of bookish (and beyond) events & opportunities from Carolyn Jess-Cooke & the SAHLF team. But fear not… next week I will continue blogging about it and I believe the You Tube channel will be open for donations to watch replay/catch up of some of the Festival Events.
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