Writing West Midlands – Network Meeting for Writers

Copyright © 2014 Lee Allen

Last week WWM (Writing West Midlands) had a launch event, to showcase Lee Allen’s new design, featuring many poets and writers I know or at least have met, at other events.

 

What a week it has been! Last week went REALLY slowly, this week has shot by. This evening saw the first of 2 meetings for all the writers who work for Writing West Midlands in creative writing groups for young people. It was an inspiring meeting and great to chat to everyone – I would say network – but happily I knew most of the writers there!

I have been at work all day and by the end of that I felt like I should /could just go to bed and sleep. I also had to forego SpeakEasy for the second time this year! The set list this month looked good, including the Headliner, Ash Dickinson. No doubt May will roll around before I have time to blink!

The meeting was a great experience, spending a few hours with so many writers in one room. I hadn’t realised Hayley Frances had starting working for it was lovely to see her again this evening and she told us about a project ‘Page Talk’ I may be getting my teeth into next month (May), of course I will be blogging about it.

And as always I didn’t have much of a chance to talk to everyone I wanted to – in fact I turned around and half the people had left!

I have several pages of scribbled notes, a ton of inspiring ideas and a few emails to fire off as a result of this meeting at the

It was a great way to start my Easter Holidays – 18 days in my writing skin 🙂

AND I got to test drive my SATNAV gifted last night (thanks again Mike!) – and even learnt how to make the volume work. Happy with today’s achievements.

What’s The Agenda – The MAC 21st-23rd March

Last Wednesday I wrote 21 Haikus for What’s the Agenda – a project organised and facilitated by Hayley Frances for the MAC.
The deadline for submissions was the 20th.

I missed the workshop because I couldn’t get tickets from the website, due to an error in the sign up form. I contacted Hayley directly and followed the tasks covered by the workshop.

When I saw the submission details advertised it read – isolation in a digital world – yet the workshop dealt with heritage as well as loneliness. Freewriting tasks I wrote about loneliness and how times have changed – in past generations people lived close to their families or stayed with their families. The world today is open globally, many children move away, across country or continents.
The network support isn’t instantly there – if you are lucky and able you make friends and these become your new family.
The pressures of 21st century living on young people and the changing world they are growing up in can cause all sorts of issues.

I then read up on Hikikomori, including some personal accounts and articles. From here I started freewriting Haikus. I wrote 7 in my lunch break at work, the next 14 flowed out of me in the afternoon, after work and before heading out to perform at Confab Cabaret.

I emailed Hayley and she has used them. Not sure if she used all 21 but they form part of the Agenda weekend exhibition down at the

Quick Mini-Update! The Past 3 Days of Poetry Me.

I plan to write separate posts over the weekend for the events of the past 3 days… for now – having just come home from the MAC (Midlands Art Centre) I am buzzing and too excited to write blog posts!
Surging energy….
news in brief….

WEDS
Wrote 21 Haikus on Hikikomori for What’s the Agenda, a project Hayley Frances is producing, isolation in a digital world, this weekend at The MAC.
Then I went to CONFAB CABARET which was a superb night. I performed and my poem went down well.
I finally got to see the Decadent Divas and Men in General would have blown me off my chair, had I been sitting on one. Fortunately the settee was up against a very solid wall!
I came away from the silliest raffle with a silly prize and there was free CAKE!

Then Thursday I managed to HIT THE ODE and support my friend Andrea Shorrick in her new SWINGERELLA persona, as well as catching 3 amazing headliners, chatting to many poets and buying a new pamphlet of poetry!
I got in on a high and was up until 2 a.m….

Tonight I went to the MAC to see The Quiet Compere a show created by Sarah Dixon across the country. I know 8/10 poets and have been lucky enough to perform at the same events and open mics as 8 of them in the past 6 months too.
It was a great mix and I discovered 2 new, very talented poets.
My Worcester poetry friends blended with my Birmingham Poetry Friends and it was a bit weird for me cross mingling -torn, I wanted to be a part of everyone’s conversations… I am glad they had the opportunity to meet and hear the talent that I discovered at the very start of my journey back in September!
Homegrown talent!

I have come home and written 2 new poems for 42 next week. A themed birthday edition.

What’s The Agenda?

On Sunday I missed a workshop at Arts Centre, original post – I managed to contact Hayley Frances (who I performed alongside at the Amphitheatre at the Library – Poetry For Lunch, earlier this year.) The Festival takes place this weekend, there was already a note in my diary to submit some work for this and the writing produced in this workshop is also being used.

I may have missed out on the workshop, but I won’t miss out on the writing.