Helen Jaeger wonders how the internet is changing our stories, and perhaps changing us.

We all love a good story. Great stories arouse emotion in us, connect us to one another and help us make sense of the world. They open up to us to new places – figuratively and imaginatively. A great story will take its readers or listeners on a journey that may challenge, stimulate, reassure – or do all three at the same time! Stories can speak in nuanced tones – with humour, pathos, tragedy and irony. That’s the joy of them.

So, I wonder, where are the real stories happening online? I’m not sure I’ve found them. Have you? In fact, some of the questions I have are these: does literary internet content help us to connect in the way that stories may have done in the past? What about the time it takes to hear a story, let alone construct one? Is it possible to go on a story-journey digitally, even communally, in the same way that it used to be?

Without being too doomy and gloomy about it, I wonder if, in this world of byte-sized information, we are beginning to experience ourselves as a bit bite-sized, too?!

had double macchiatto this morning ok c u l8tr met up with an old friend http://yfrog.com/abc3xyz watching awful #CelebShow btw finally listened to Arctic Monkeys on last.fm is glad school holidays are over coolest google chrome extension ever: http://bit.ly/95uc02 Am at The Dog and Dustbowl. http://4sq.com/9abhE with @jobloggs and @somerandomother RT Is the internet killing story-telling? “my quote of the day” lol

Instead of real stories, with their integral twists and turns, what I see at the moment are personal fragments and pieces, not a whole story-line with depth and rhythm and resonance to it. We get snapshots of stories – real or imagined – via blogs or  comments, on photostreams on Flickr or twitpic, a soundbite story through Facebook or on a website or  a texted thought at a particular time. To my ears, it’s a kind of staccato story-telling, requiring me to decipher the messages, a bit like morse code.

Can the digital medium lend itself to anything more concentrated, slower, more abstract or sophisticated?

Finally, I’m aware this line of questioning may make me sound like some techno-Luddite, which I’m not. Far from it! In fact, what started this train of thought was reading ‘Radical Amazement: Contemplative Lessons from Black Holes, Supernovas, and Other Wonders of the Universe’ via a Kindle for Android app on my smartphone (yes, really!).

But I still feel this vague unease…So, have you managed to find some true, thoughtful, creative digital story-telling yet – and if so, would you please mind telling me where? Thanks.

Links

1. Have just started to read: ‘The Shallows: how the internet is changing the way we think, read and remember’ by Nicholas Carr. Promises to look at this subject in a lot more depth.

2. Storytellers, get your fix with the UK Society of Storytellers. They say: ‘Storytelling is more than just performance or entertainment; it can also educate, heal, lead to better practice in business, inspire and change lives.’ And Amen to that!

Supported by Writing East Midlands.

Helen Jaeger is a social marketing consultant based in the UK. She works with charitiable and arts clients. She is an internationally published author, journalist and photographer. Her books are: As Night Falls, Paths Through Grief, As Day Dawns and A Treasury of Wisdom.

Writer, journalist and editor James K. Walker shares his top ten tipes for pitching an article as a freelancer.

How to pitch an article is one of the most frequent questions I’m asked when holding journalism workshops. As is often the case within this industry, there’s no magical solution. But here’s my top ten tips:

1. Be direct and to the point. They want to know the genesis of your idea not every single detail. This can be done in 3-5 lines. Remember they have to trawl through hundreds of these enquiries a day.
2. News desks are run off their feet and poorly staffed. If you can make their job any easier, do it. Explain exactly where you see the article fitting into the publication. Suggest a relevant word count. Give a realistic date for copy. Pitch features in advance e.g. Summer festival guide in spring. If you can provide photographs do it. This saves them time and earns you extra dollar. (Note: Just because you have a digital camera built into your phone doesn’t mean you can take photographs…)
3. Have a unique angle, something that sets your idea apart from others. In my experience this comes from finding unique correlations and juxtaposing them together. This is an impossible trait to teach people and comes only with being well read and informed, a skill which inevitably improves with age. No wonder the government have put up the age of retirement…
4. A brief biog under the pitch reassures the Editor that you are competent and reliable. Alternatively this can be done in your email signature, with contact details and links to your work. If you are starting out then stating why you are so passionate about this feature and perfectly suited to write it may be enough to lure them in. Never underestimate enthusiasm because it tells an Editor that you’ll deliver the goods.
5. Picking up the phone is far more effective because you get to talk to someone directly which means you don’t become an anonymous email clogging up an inbox that will probably get erased due to time constraints. But you need broad shoulders for this. You may well encounter a gruff almost monosyllabic response simply because you are the hundredth call they’ve taken on the bounce. Remain calm, polite, enthusiastic and articulate. It works every time. With this in mind, print out your pitch and rehearse it.
6. When you ring up, mention your name in the first sentence. ‘Hi. I’m Arthur Seaton, a freelance journalist based in Nottingham’. Even if they don’t take the bait, at least your name has been stored for future reference. On a similar note, try to find out the name of the person you want to talk to before ringing up. And it goes without saying to check you’ve been put through to the right department before delivering your spiel. A lot of publications are owned by larger organisations and so numbers can occasionally be generic.
7. Whether email or phone, timing is pivotal. Make sure that a UFO has not landed or a madman has gone on a shooting spree because this will take up most of their attention. For example, this can account for up to 50% of all news feeds on a website as they have to keep up with developments.
8. More esteemed publications are likely to go for established writers, which isn’t very helpful when you’re trying to break into the market. But fear not, take a look around at who falls into this category and get them to pitch on your behalf. A good starting point is a university lecturer. They have regular contact with the media due to their specialised knowledge and if not, will know someone within the department who does. Of course this means you must be achieving high grades for them to risk their reputation.
9. There is of course the distinct possibility that an Editor will steal your idea and get one of his staff to follow up the article. Get over it. You probably stole your idea from a mix of articles you’d read online. But rest assured if you keep ringing up with great ideas, eventually they’ll cave in and you’ll experience that wonderful feeling that comes with seeing your name in print.
10. This one’s down to you. What advice would you give readers based on your own experience? Do you have a magic formula?

James K. Walker is the Literature Editor at LeftLion magazine. He’ll be hosting a free spoken-word event called Scribal Gathering at Nottingham Contemporary on August 4th, 7pm. For more info, please see http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001244726246

One of the most exciting developments in creative writing is the growth in prose spoken word nights. There are events across the country, such as Short Fuse in Leicester and Brighton and nights organised by groups like Hello Hubmarine. My personal interest in spoken word was sparked by Jay Clifton and Sam Collins’ night Tight Lip, which inspired a boom in prose nights in Brighton. I’ve since read at a number of events. The first few times were terrifying, but I’ve come to enjoy reading in public.

Some writers don’t want to read aloud  and I think they’re missing a great opportunity. Giving readings can build your confidence while honing and proving the work in question. I still get nervous whenever I read, but I now know I can overcome those nerves and give a good performance.

Here are some tips, both from my own experience and collected from other performers:

1. The audience are on your side. They’ve given up time to watch and they want to enjoy themselves – you only need to help them do this.
2. It’s easier to read funny pieces than serious ones. You can tell when people are enjoying a funny story because they laugh; an audience spellbound by a serious story is very quiet, which can be unsettling.
3. Practise! You should read the piece again and again, until you feel bored with it. Make sure you can read it without stumbling and remove anything that sounds clumsy or is difficult to say – if the piece is easy to read aloud, it will also work well in print. If possible, read the story to a friend and get their feedback.
4. Many nights ask for a bio to use for introductions. I could do an entire post on writing biographies. Keep it short – nobody needs a long list of plaudits and prizes, since they’re about to listen to you anyway. Make sure to mention any books or other appearances you are promoting. Most of the time, if I’m not promoting anything, I’ll try and work a story into the space available for the biography.
5. Arrive early at the venue and ask to do a sound-check. It’s useful to stand on the stage and get comfortable with the environment where you’ll be performing. Check that you can be heard clearly and make sure you know how to adjust the microphone if you might need to.
6. Nervousness is good – it’s a normal part of preparing to perform. The only time I’ve not been nervous my reading was less focussed. Welcome your nerves as your body gearing up to do a good job.
7. Keep any introduction brief – trust the audience to work out what your piece is about. If there’s any risk of being misunderstood then revisit the writing and improve it. It’s not a bad idea to ask if people can hear when you start – it avoids people asking you to speak up during the reading.
8. When performing, read the piece as slowly as you can bear (within reason!). Remember that the audience haven’t heard your story before and need a little time to digest each bit.
9. Make frequent eye-contact with your audience – don’t spend the reading looking down at your text. This makes you seem more confident and engaging, as well as being easier to hear. Looking up is much easier if you know the piece well – see above.
10. Some people find their hands shaking the first time they read. The best way to stop this is to read from something heavy. A thick folder will weigh your hands down, whereas a couple of sheets of A4 makes any movement obvious. You’ll still be nervous, of course, but only you will know.
11. Don’t worry too much about audience reaction – responses can differ to the same piece. One story I’ve read a lot, A Bad Place to Stick Your Hand, has had reactions varying from faint amusement through to loud laughter.
12. Make sure to thank the people who have organised the night. Running an event is very hard work and often unappreciated.

These tips are almost certainly not complete. There are some good guides to spoken word performance on the web, such as Tim Clare’s guide to performance poetry. Do you have any hints of your own? And, if you don’t want to read aloud, what is stopping you?

Supported by Writing East Midlands.

JAMES BURT is a writer and spoken word artist who hates writing about himself in the third person. Although he’s focusing on smaller projects he still can’t resist working on his epic novel about his school-days.

Lyric Lounge artistic director and Literature Network blogger Lydia Towsey lets us in to some of the creative process that underlies the spoken word festival.

Yesterday was the first meeting of ‘Lyric Lounge Leicester’ volunteers. We met at The New Walk Museum and Art Gallery – where the festival’s set to happen from July 31st to August 1st. It was stupidly lovely.

I arrived to find 5 or 6 people (Yvette, Natasha, Tejel and Lauren, I think, plus a few more) waiting in Gallery 6 – one of the largest spaces in the venue and where all of the festival’s performances will be taking place. Considering this first session was for only a quarter of our volunteers, this struck me as a fine number. Then about 20 more people turned up!

The festival is just a weekender of poetry and spoken word. Only, I guess, it’s not. Last year when it happened for the first time at The Y Theatre, it engaged just over 2000 people. It was more than 30 new commissions, 25 workshops, 10 open mics, countless one-ones and so much love. I know it sounds trite, but excitement and energy – and love – are really the most fitting words to described what happened.

People came to The Y, often knowing no one, sometimes with limited experience of poetry. By the end of the week there were lasting friendships and reams of writing and ideas, that no one could have imagined possible.

Somehow, this is what a festival like ‘The Lyric Lounge’ can do. It can bring people together and inspire and uplift in a way that is almost surreal. And it clearly leaves people coming back for more.

So, 20 something volunteers – not even half of the 50 we’ve so far got signed up – sat in The Lord Mayor’s room of New Walk Museum and met each other for the first time.

We started off with a game of Grandma’s Breakfast; an ice breaker that involves people saying what their name is and what they had for breakfast – then saying what everyone else’s name is and what they had for breakfast. Ingenious.

The purpose of the game is to get people’s names fixed. Of course it also has the added benefit of revealing the full and hilarious variety of people’s eating habits. If I remember correctly: Tara (young poet extraordinaire/Citizen’s Eye journalist) had crumpets and lucazade – someone else (you know who you are Ms N) had ice cream. We at The Lyric Lounge do not judge.

Next we all went on a grand tour of the museum. Starting in the Durer Room, we snaked through Gallery 6, The Council Room, Shops, Cafe, Landing, Space Show, Miri Railway Show and World Gallery. With such a large group it was a proper expedition – we almost had to do announcements in two halves – one for the front, one for the back, then nearly lost a couple of people moving around! In the end though we counted back in with the same number.

Talking to the group on ‘The Landing’ (in front of the plastic dinosaur and 2 small children and their father) I described the 2 poetry films we’re commissioning – both to be projected on the wall during the festival.

The first, ‘The Kushi Film’ will be a wonderful little piece about a group of older Asian ladies – and their trip to the seaside.

The sessions to create the film will happen over July, at Belgrave Library and see the Kushi woman (Kushi means ‘happy’ in Gujarati) doing ceramic and writing poetry about the coast, then visiting Hunstanton to sit by the sea with ice creams and castles. Well done the Kushi Women

The whole thing, poetry, clay and trip will be made into a film by Keith Allott, our Lounge film maker magician and played throughout each day at the festival. Our Book Doctor (Alison Dunne of Leicester Libraries) and Fiona Meagher (sensible ceramist) will be facilitating the sessions. Hopefully, a few of our volunteers may drop into to take photos, write it up and generally speaking, get involved.

The Book Doctor and our filmmaker, Keith will also be behind our other film: ‘Little People’s Poetry’. Going back to The Landing (with the big plastic dinosaur and father of two small children) this film seemed to particularly excite.

Overheard by the eavesdropping family, we talked about how The Bookdoctor and Keith will be working with a set of 6-10 year olds and making a film of their ‘Little People’s Poetry’. Very quickly the explanation became interactive, as said father (and in particular his 7 year old daughter) started asking questions about when the festival was happening and how they could get involved!

After a quick break, for coffee, sustenance and frantic printing of more programs, we met back in The Lord Mayor’s Room for the next installment. As this was the ‘Events and Promos’ volunteer team, this mainly involved coming up with ideas to promote the festival.

Citizen’s Eye people (Tara Gatherer, John Coster and the enigmatically named, James Black!) came up with a few websites that blogs, photos, films, interviews, articles (anything!) could be posted up on. Other volunteers came up with ideas, like performing ahead of festival or reaching out to specific groups.

One volunteer, the glamorously gothic, Lauren Furze, suggested the ‘Dark Side’ cafe’s knitting group as a prime target for The Lyric Lounge’s ‘Knit and Think Poetry’ session – scheduled for the first morning of the festival. Others like the lovely Karen Ferguson (who last year came to the festival with her daughter) talked about how volunteers could get involved during the actual festival period. We touched on signposting, handing out brochures and in general leading by example. And of course, we also talked about the much sought after, Lyric Lounge T-Shirts – which should be ready to look at by our next session…

Before the end of the afternoon we also talked about the brand new WORD! Radio Show, that will launch this Wednesday, 5 weeks ahead of the festival dates.

The show, hosted by Panj Pani and run by WORD! (the longest running poetry night in the region) will for the whole of July, specifically cover ‘The Lyric Lounge’. It will be manned by our volunteers, who will learn on the job how to present, do all the technical necessaries and in general make radio happen.

The first show will feature: Lauren, Tara, Yvette, Karen, Kishan and Diviesh. The Wedneday after (July 7th) will be headed up by Shahide, Zara, Saskia, Kishan and exciting guests to be announced..

We next meet together on July 10th, when our Theatrical Happenings Group, will also be dropping into the museum. In store will be a proper in depth look at the programme, various treats (‘The Lyric Lounge’ provides) and a chance for a catch up.

But for now, from me.. there we have it. The first ‘Lyric Lounge Leicester’ training session. All very exciting. We have lift off.

Supported by Writing East Midlands.

Lydia Towsey is a poet and writer. She coordinates and often comperes the spoken word night WORD. When not doing poety things, she is Creative Arts Coordinator for her local NHS Trust. She is also studying towards an MA in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.

Helen Jager is breaking her reading rut. Why don’t you break yours?

I’ve been ill recently – I won’t bore you with the details – but one of the more curious symptoms of the affliction whilst laid up on my sickbed was a desire not to read the same old books I’d been in the habit of reading.

I don’t know about you, but my bookshelves tend to heave with the same genres of books – for me, books on marketing and journalism, fun creative stuff, a few slim volumes of poetry, collections of photography, a couple of autobiographies. In other words, books based in the real world. I don’t know why this is, since I have a degree in English, and, technically, fiction should share a larger slice of my bookshelf space.

Until I got ill, that is. Then, suddenly, I had an unholy desire to read ‘Wolf Hall’ – yes, that Wolf Hall, all 650 pages of Hilary Mantel’s masterpiece, and a 2009 Man Booker prize winner to boot. For a while, I was happily lost in the Tudor world of Cromwell and his politics, reveling in page-by-page phrasing such as ‘a wash of sunlight lies over the river, pale as the flesh of a lemon.’

Reading Mantel reminded me of the epiphany I’d had reading Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ just a few years ago. I’d tried with Tolkien when I was at school – and failed. Finally, though, I had been ready for him. Again, like Mantel at times, it was like reading poetry in prose – skillful phrasing, adroit word play, and insightful descriptions – just a beautiful use of language. And in a book of fantasy fiction as well!

Does this mean I am a revert to fiction? An avid follower of every prize-giving literary event and list? Well, not quite. But it did remind me that it’s good, sometimes, to break out of any reading rut you may have got into, to try out something new, to stretch the mental and creative muscles in a different direction. Such explorations can refresh the mind and stimulate your own creativity.

So what do your bookshelves say about you? Are there one or two genres of literature that dominate? If you’re a die-hard blockbuster fan, why not try some pared-down poetry? Criminal fiction your thing? How about a gentler biography instead? I’m not saying you have to change your tastes in reading for the long-term, just that sometimes a change can be as good as, well, a rest. It certainly was for me.

Supported by Writing East Midlands.

Helen Jaeger is a social marketing consultant based in the UK. She works with charitiable and arts clients. She is an internationally published author, journalist and photographer. Her books are: As Night Falls, Paths Through Grief, As Day Dawns and A Treasury of Wisdom.

Ross Bradshaw gives an overview of the work of Jon McGregor, one of the most talented writers working in the East Midlands today.

About four years ago Jon McGregor was one of the featured writers at the Nottinghamshire Readers Day. His session, which people had a choice to attend, was packed. His second book had just come out, but most people there wanted to talk about his first book, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. In fact many of them wanted to say that they didn’t really like it, and one person said she didn’t even like it the second time she read it. Yet there they were, and all said they were looking forward to reading his new book. What did that reveal? Well, I had some sympathy with them as I was not sure about the style of If Nobody… yet eagerly bought his second book. But on re-reading I enjoyed it immensely.

I think what this reveals is that the group – and critics were in a national minority – could see that the boy had talent and wanted to see what else he could do. On this the critics were right. He has talent. And with his third book, Even the Dogs, recently released we can now have a better overview of the writer who, in my view, is the most interesting writer currently being published in the East Midlands.

If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is a novel set over one day in a street in an unnamed inner city. The setting could easily be Forest Fields in Nottingham (though it isn’t); a not very well off multicultural area with a lot of students living there. The day is the last day of summer, the students packing and leaving. There is a restlessness in the street. And we know from the start something will happen, something tragic, that will change the lives of many people in the street. We get to know the people, their individual stories.

Though seemingly unconnected, observant readers will notice one person’s story has its roots in Jon’s second book, So Many Ways to Begin. This book takes the form of a more traditional narrative: two main linked stories which must at some stage meet, when the full picture will, or may, finally be revealed. The book opens with an Irish woman leaving home for London a generation or two ago, but the two main characters are a museum worker in Coventry and his Aberdonian wife, who, from a promising start in life, begins to lose confidence. What will become of them?

In this book Jon McGregor, like the museum worker, is a collector of stories: stories given, stories hinted at and stories never explored. What impressed me most in this book is Jon’s description of the Aberdeen working class family, whose daughter is the first to be offered a university place in her family, and her whole community. There is a small party, the letter offering a place is shown round proudly. I know something of this world and Jon has a tremendous feel for the time, an ear for dialogue.

His third novel (like the others it is published by Bloomsbury) may be the most controversial of all. Even the Dogs is entirely set within a community of heroin users. There are visible traces of Nottingham city in the book, but the setting is an amalgam. What the book did for me was make me notice the city more, the people who live in the shadows. Near where I work there is a place, out of sight of CCTV cameras, where dealing goes on. I now notice the quick meetings, the furtive scurrying away to find a place to fix. I notice the people in Boots picking up their daily script, knocking back a small cup of methadone in the shop. The book has an interesting form, the narrators are always given as “we”, and, like a Greek chorus, they comment on the scene. They join us watching the dealing, the lives of the people. They are in the ambulance taking a dead man to the mortuary. One gets used to them as they, and the reader, see the story unfold. And there is one long sequence, it takes eleven minutes to read out loud, where we follow the path of the poppy seed from a field in Afghanistan, to its manufacture into heroin, to how it is smuggled into this country, to how it finds its way into the hands of a junkie, and how it is made up and how it works in the bloodstream of the user. I heard Jon read this piece at the Flying Goose in Beeston, before it was published, before anyone knew what he was working on, and at the end there was no applause, simply silence.

Ross Bradshaw runs Five Leaves Publications, the region’s “biggest small press” and jointly organises Lowdham Book Festival. For ten years he was Nottinghamshire’s Literature Development Officer, and, earlier, spent seventeen years working in a radical independent bookshop – http://fiveleavespublications.blogspot.com

Nottingham poet Aly Stoneman delves into the murky world of judging and poetry contests. Read on and see what she finds there…

Judging a writing competition is potentially more stressful than actually competing. Last year I was on the panel for The Charnwood MiniWords Competition, and didn’t realise what I’d let myself in for until a bulging wad of 2000 50-word stories thudded onto my desk. ‘Who the hell am I to be judging anything anyway?’ I wailed. By the time I reached the 2000th story however, I felt qualified by experience, if nothing else, to evaluate which three stories worked better than the other 1,997. I also realised I’d gained valuable insight into tight editing skills – never underestimate the value of reading for improving your own writing.

The Nottingham Poetry Society Performance Competition (Saturday 22nd May 2010), promised to be a briefer affair. Running since 2004, the event is an opportunity for performance poets to demonstrate their work and performance skills and to have the chance of winning a cash prize. Competitors sign up on the door and have a three-minute slot to perform. Those who are successful go through to Round 2 and have another three minutes in which to impress the judges – and the audience.

Read more on Aly Stoneman’s website

James Burt wonders why, with millions of tons of books already in the world, so many of us want to add to the weight.

(James originally wrote this post some months ago and has now returned from his foreign travels. Apologies from the editor for only just finding a space to run this blog post!)

I’m writing this post while boxing up my library. Everything is going into storage while I take a two month holiday. I’m looking forward to relaxing, travelling, and better weather. I’m also excited about reading some good books, something I haven’t had enough time for lately.

I carry a book everywhere I go but it’s only when lugging whole boxes of them that you become aware of how heavy text is. I’ve slimmed my library down massively and it’s still too heavy. I think back to the rumours that my university library is sinking under the weight of the text inside. The story wasn’t true, but it sounds like it could be.

The huge amount of writing in the world feels oppressive. The UK has the highest per-capita number of new titles, with 206,000 published in 2005, an increase of 28% on the year before. That’s more than a life-time’s reading being pumped out year on year. I’d hate to have to carry those books, let alone have to read them. The Internet contains even more text than the world’s books. Wikipedia takes up the equivalent of 1,000 hard-copy encyclopedia volumes.The blogosphere is much larger. There are millions of people writing things on the web.

When blogs first became popular, many people asked what the point was – who cares about the minutiae of regular peoples’ lives? The same sneering continues today, directed at twitter. Critics claim the chatter about TV shows, meals and and dreary days at work is pointless. Why would anyone add to this noise? Doubters often say the same thing to writers: why bother working on a novel/play/story/poem that the vast majority of people won’t even hear about, let alone not care about.

According to some social scientists language didn’t evolve as a means of exchanging information, but rather as a social tool. Social bonding in primates is based on reciprocal grooming, but this takes a fair amount of time. Talking allows people to have a friendly interaction in less time than it would have taken to eat nits from each other’s hair. This is what scientists refer to as ‘phatic communication’, speech intended “to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information”

Phatic communication is the type of speech where we ask someone how they are, and they tell us they’re fine, a verbal nod from one person to another. It’s why we point out how good the weather is when we meet someone outdoors. With blogging and twitter, the exchange of information is as important as the content of the messages. I think the same is true of creative writing: it performs a social function.

Guardian blogger David Barnett wrote a post asking Is it time to revive the Christmas tradition of the chapbook? Barnett describes giving family and friends copies of Christmas stories he’d written as gifts. He writes “It’s a hugely egotistical exercise, I admit, but no more so than hoping people you know will shell out hard cash for a properly-published piece of fiction. Chapbooks of this kind are homemade, personal and inexpensive – and have an illustrious literary history.”

I love seeing work by friends of mine. There’s something wonderful about a pamphlet or a CD that a friend has put together. As much as the work itself it’s the gift of something they’ve worked on. I think people neglect this phatic aspect of writing. If you’ve finished an amazing story, why not bind a few copies and distribute them? Writing is not simply about the text – or, at least, it shouldn’t be. We should pay more attention to the phatic aspects of creative writing. The presentation of the work is as important as the writing itself.

I’ve now finished packing the books and put them into storage. It’s strange to think of my library boxed and locked away in a room. Books don’t do much good when they’re hidden away.

Supported by Writing East Midlands.

JAMES BURT is a writer and spoken word artist who hates writing about himself in the third person. Although he’s focusing on smaller projects he still can’t resist working on his epic novel about his school-days.

Performance poet and comedian Rob Gee takes a look back at the 20 year history of performance poetry in Leicester.

Performance Poetry in Leicester can be traced back to 1990 and a gent called Jim Harwood, who ran the modestly titled “Jim Harwood’s Poetry Night” in the backroom bar of a pub called the Magazine. I started performing poetry there in 1993 at the age of twenty.

The Magazine was a unique anti-fascist pub, which had free condoms in jars at the bar, its own fanzine, live bands and comedy. It served as a rallying point for lefties, anarchists, anti-fascists, hardened piss artists, musicians and, yes, poets. It was demolished long ago to make way for yuppie flats. That’s progress.

Jim’s poetry night stopped in 1994 after Jim was stabbed coming out of a particularly rowdy gig. I took it over and cunningly re-branded it as “The Poetry Night”. This ran successfully for the next year or two.

By then I was getting bored of running an open mic event, and I’d had chance to see what other poetry promoters were doing around the country. The Hard Edge Club in Soho was particularly inspiring. Run by ex-National Front thug turned enlightened poet Joe Cairo, it took the comedy club format (3-4 booked acts, compere, limited or no open mic) and used it as a template for a poetry gig. This was poetry as entertainment. We weren’t competing with other poetry nights; we were competing with bands, comedy clubs, cinemas and the telly. We were offering something that they couldn’t: something with all the entertainment of comedy, but without the restrictions of going for a laugh every 5-10 seconds. I decided Leicester needed this, so I scrapped The Poetry Night and The Brightside was born.

To date, The Brightside has been the East Midlands’ most successful and longest running poetry show. Between 1996 and 2003, we ran monthly gigs in Leicester, Derby and Nottingham, showcasing Stand Up Poetry from all over the world. In Leicester we ran seasons at Bar Gaudi, The Charlotte, The Y (complete with house band), and regularly achieved audiences of over 100, which no one had thought was possible for poetry in Leicester. We never asked anyone for funding, because we wanted to put what we liked on our posters, and stay in control of our own gig. We showcased local talent without a “pay to play” policy, because we believed that no one should have to pay money for the privilege of doing their thing.

The open mic sensation we now know as Word began life as an offshoot of Brightside in 2001. We decided to run a rough-as-old-boots gig for open mic-ers at The Musician, called The Killing Floor. The first couple of nights were okay, but then it started failing (I think with hindsight, perhaps we could have made it more supportive!), so Steve Carroll, who ran Brightside in Nottingham, took it on himself to start a much more supportive open mic at Costa Coffee. He called it Word.

Word is the now healthiest open mic night Leicester has ever had. Sometimes when I see the diversity of talent, use of multimedia, and constant influx of new performers, I think back to Jim’s nights at the backroom bar of the Mag, and it’s impossible not to smile.

Originally published in From Dusk 2 Dawn magazine.

http://www.robgee.co.uk

Selina Locke of Factor Fiction press reviews the ‘Know Theyself’ writing and meditation retreat.

On Saturday 24th April I attended a one day ‘Know Thyself’ Writing and Meditation Retreat in Leicester, organised by Catherine Digman with the help of members of The Western Buddhist Order.

The day started very civially at 9am with breakfast and introductions. Nothing gets a good writing retreat going like a cuppa and croissant. It was an interesting mix of people, with some of us coming from the writing side and others from the meditation side, but everyone was very friendly which helped the day go with a swing.

Read more on the Factor Fiction website.

James K Walker shares his experience of life at the frontline of community journalism, and how to make it pay.

At the recent Writing Industries Conference I chaired a panel on Community Journalism and Blogging. Many attending hoped this would impart a magical formula for turning words into cash. When this was not forthcoming – or at least not in the traditional sense of print journalism – the inevitable disappointment was palpable. It’s my intention in this blog to reinstate hope or rather, encourage people to think differently about how to make money. But first a brief history lesson.

Listen to the WIC 2010 Community Journalism podcast

The 1980s saw an explosion in magazine journalism and a world in which you could ring up an editor, pitch an article, and then get paid for it. But that world doesn’t exist anymore. Endless cuts in print journalism and the yearly diminishing returns from advertising revenues means prices have dropped and a core team of hacks are left to do the cooking, cleaning and proverbial ironing across the pages. This culling is endemic throughout the industry; even established authors are taking up to 25% drops in advances. To make matters worse, publications accepting freelance work have become frighteningly competitive and often use content for free on the grounds that it will bolster the CV (n.b. recently graduated journalists).  One northern publication which used to offer ten pound per 100 word book review, now insists the free review copy is enough recompense. There’s no way of disguising the fact, times are tough for those with pen as sword.

So what’s changed? Well it’s all because of new media, the interface through which you read these words now. Online, people want things immediately and for free and if you charge, they’ll go elsewhere for it. Rupert Murdoch is (some say valiantly) attempting to impose a traditional media model online through his Wall St Journal and charge for content. Maybe he will save us all and offset the intellectual damage his tabloid publication has caused. This model may work for the Wall St Journal because it has such a niche market, but it is highly unlikely to work with the Times as it is too generalised. People will simply source the information elsewhere.

So how do we survive this technological nightmare? Simple, stop harping on about the old days and make friends with it. Here’s the LeftLion story for you to replicate…

Get a bunch of writers together who all agree to write out of love. Get a geeky mate (we’ve all got one) to do a website for you and start uploading articles. Make a small revenue from online advertising generated from your copy (no work involved on your part) or sell space to local businesses, those bars that want your hip young audience to frequent their hip youthful venues. No work involved. Pennies in the kitty. More importantly than money, you’ve now developed a readership. Fact: There are more magazines now than at any other point in history because the internet does the one thing traditional media can’t; it enables you to build up a core readership that will buy your product. Now you have an established audience you can take the plunge into print journalism. The advertising will pay for print production and any leftover goes into the kitty.

All this free writing is also developing the ace in every journalists pack, contacts. Those agents, marketing and sales staff, publishers, authors, will all come in handy throughout your career. Experience will teach you how and when to use them. The key skill you’re learning now. You may not have any cash in the pocket yet, but the £18,000 you’ve just saved in student debt by skipping the degree and doing what they’ll be doing in three years time, is, a fair return.

The copy you are writing for free can then be pitched to people who do pay. You approach the British press and they ignore your emails. (Don’t worry, paragraph eight reels them in.) Time to think further afield. The new Hood film you’ve just written about can be pitched to publications in America, better still, one’s in each state. Move onto the next country and repeat the process. Remember you’re a novelty from that cute little island, offering up an authentic take on culture that their home-grown journalists simply can’t deliver. Now think of trade publications. A law magazine likes the way you’ve related justice in Hood to the beating of G8 protesters. A food magazine likes your receipt for Meade and the oat cakes the merry men ate in the forest. You are now developing the most integral element of journalism – versatility – the ability to create a demand for copy rather than simply writing what you think people want.

Once the paper is established, put on music nights to promote that wealth of local unsigned talent you’ve discovered. Charge an entrance fee. Put the money in the kitty. Approach a university and suggest some type of work experience for someone doing ‘sound management’. Get them to sort out the gigs whilst putting their theoretical knowledge into practical experience. Repeat this process for art, comedy, literature. If you’re really motivated, combine the lot and approach the arts council or your local council for funding to stage ‘the greatest event ever seen’. Done.

Now move onto podcasts. Strike up a deal with a local business and exchange studio space for free print advertising or tickets to the wonderful events you’re putting on. Use a wide variety of guests on your podcasts. Sit back and watch them filter through endless links via Facebook et al and see your viewing stats go through the roof. Now insert some adverts into the show. Put the money in the kitty. Consider making a compilation CD of your work and approach small independent businesses.

As you become more established across all mediums, people will start to approach you. The council want you to design their in-house magazine. The Guardian will want to know what a local journo has to say about Jeff Hoon or maybe they need a quick review of a local boozer for their food and drink guide- to prove their not Londoncentric. You’ve now got your foot in the door as well as a contact. The downside of course is that your Editor is most likely to take these perks (note to self: start a newer, better magazine and become an Editor).

There’s still hope because now you’ve written some online articles the whole world has become your audience. If you’ve written something topical or of interest, other publications may contact you to reproduce it in their magazines. For example, the Independent just paid me for an interview I did with Alan Sillitoe in 2008. They wouldn’t talk to me when I pitched ideas to them directly but the internet brought them to me. Now I’ve got the opportunity to pitch other ideas to them whilst fresh in their minds. The internet may be killing print journalism but it has the capacity to save it as well. You just need to be committed and patient and have a little faith in serendipity. But let’s get back to pragmatics.

Now you’ve developed a calming interview technique that you weren’t even aware you had, approach radio stations. How about a ten minute slot about local writers? Or compiling your podcast recordings and making a documentary for Radio Four? Perhaps you could even host a panel at a writing conference now people know you have experience of interviewing.

So I assure you, it’s not all doom and gloom. Things are just different. The rule book has been ripped apart and stuck back together in the wrong order. But we’ll figure this Rubik Cube out, even if we have to cheat a little and peel the stickers off to put them back in their rightful place.

James Walker is the Literature Editor at LeftLion. If you’d like to pay him for his words, see www.jameskwalker.co.uk

To hear the latest WriteLion podcast and hear how journalist Paul Reaney has survived as a freelance writer, see http://www.leftlion.co.uk/audio.cfm/id/86

Helen Jaeger interviews a happy librarian, Jan Snow about the how libraries and librarians make a difference.

Jan Snow is my local librarian. We first met when she asked me to lead a writing workshop at the library, where she is Reader Development Librarian. I’ve been intrigued by the state of libraries in the recession and the age of the internet and whether they can truly thrive, so I thought Jan might be a good person to ask about the changes that are happening in my local library.

Jan has been a librarian since 1985, starting out at a community library in Basildon, where, she says, the focus was ‘entirely on outreach’ and with lots of work in schools. Three years later, Jan moved to a library in Warwickshire, which she says was ‘completely different.’

“The emphasis was on the library and staying in there. I found that a bit odd after being involved in outreach,” she explains

Having experienced both styles of being a librarian, however, Jan is still as passionate now about the library service as she was then.

“I think we’re essential, now more than ever,” she says. “We’re the gateway to so much. It’s not just about the building or about ‘just books.’ Part of our future is going to involve being more like a county service. We’ll be there to help people with information services and local services. People said e-books would kill books, but people still borrow books. I don’t see the internet as a threat. In a recession we’re an opportunity.”

Fortunately, Jan’s library is well-supported by the local council and its head of customer services, who oversees the libraries. Jan says her boss is a ‘visionary’, a person who sees libraries as an extension of excellent customer services. Jan agrees this is probably a change from the traditional ‘shush, you’re in the library now’ model, but thinks that isn’t a bad thing.

“When I look at where we are now, I feel very positive. We’ve had no library closures. The changes we’ve experienced have been to help us as librarians to be more free to help. I love being out and about with people.”

And, says Jan, the library is welcoming more people in, with new offerings such as a ‘knit and natter’ and craft clubs, with the library offering tea and biscuits at a cheap fee for groups.

“We’re trying to open our libraries to people and help them to say ‘this is our space, too,’” explains Jan.

Jan sees this as a direct extension of being a service to the community and hopes that it’s not just the library telling people what they think they want, but listening to the community’s needs as well.

“As well as being customer-focussed, we’re very much into the consultation – we’re keen to know what people want. We want to invite people to become friends of their local library,” says Jan. ” The old way was that public services were ‘done to you’. We want to move  on and listen to what people say. We need to create a service that people can question and influence.”

“I didn’t go into the library service to stand behind a desk and stamp books. I wanted to make a difference,” concludes Jan with a smile.

What do you think? Is your local library changing and do you see the changes as positive? Thoughts, comments, experiences welcome in the comm box.

Supported by Writing East Midlands

Helen Jaeger is a social marketing consultant based in the UK. She works with charitiable and arts clients. She is an internationally published author, journalist and photographer. Her books are: As Night Falls, Paths Through Grief, As Day Dawns and A Treasury of Wisdom.

Ross Bradshaw puts his money where his mouth is and decides to spend a year reading only books published by independent presses. How will this epic adventure end?

One of the more annoying, but endlessly fascinating trends in the current book trade is to do something, or do without something, for a year. Write the book, get in the colour supps, and then go back to normal life. Recent examples include having sex every day for a year with your partner, living according to the Bible, living entirely without money.

I don’t fancy any of them, besides they have been done. The literary version is Susan Hill’s Howard’s End is on the Landing: a year of reading from home, where the author spent a year re-reading from her book collection.

I thought of this when noting down the first books I read during the year – the first seven were all from indie presses. Right then. No book deals, or colour supps, but this year I’ll only read books from indie presses. For years I’ve banged on about indies, this time I’ll put all my book buying money where my mouth is. There will be sacrifices. Sorry, no, I have not read the new Andrea Levi, and – dammit – I was going to finally read Madam Bovary, but it is published by Penguin. And not just buying new; second hand, library and personal borrowing will only be from indies.

So far I can’t say it is a hardship. There have only been two occasions when I struggled to find a book from the right type of publisher. In the WH Smith Carlisle station, the much reduced bookstock indicated that the long journey ahead would include reading every word of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Herald (“Firm’s Haulage Depot Appeal Rejected” looked an interesting story) and a dog-eared solitary New Statesman. Fortunately I remembered that White Tiger, which won the Booker Prize last year was published by Atlantic.

The second time, also journey related, was trying to find an indie book in a British Heart Foundation charity shop. Well, the Bedside Guardian of 2008 seemed expensive at £2.50, but needs must. Shame it was an Olympic year but the rest of it was good.

There are big indies – Verso, Bloomsbury, Faber, Granta as well as the groundlings, so I’m hardly going to be spoilt for choice. And look, Quercus has the Stieg Larssons. Nae bother. I’ll report back sometime.

Supported by Writing East Midlands

Ross Bradshaw runs Five Leaves Publications, the region’s “biggest small press” and jointly organises Lowdham Book Festival. For ten years he was Nottinghamshire’s Literature Development Officer, and, earlier, spent seventeen years working in a radical independent bookshop – http://fiveleavespublications.blogspot.com