Videos from the first half of the Departures launch at Brockley Brewery on 21st November 2019
Oscar Windsor-Smith reads This England
Carolyn Eden reads My Daddy
Joan Taylor-Rowan reads from Three Sisters on the Edge
more tomorrow…
Thanks to everyone who came along to celebrate the launch of Departures at Brockley Brewery last night, it is so lovely to have a packed venue!
And huge thanks to the readers for instilling such passion and humour into their readings, and to the Brewery for hosting us.
Normally I video everything, but in the heat of the moment I didn’t hit the record button till part way through, so there are only audio recordings for the first two readings, massive apologies to David Mathews and Sarah Lawson for that, but the recordings are good.
Here’s David reading Midday Bus
and Sarah reading Through Security
More tomorrow, with actual videos…
You can buy a copy of Departures from our webshop
It’s been a total whirl since successfully crowd funding. We’ve got our funding from Arts Council England, Aberdeenshire Council and Literature Wales all confirmed (nothing in the bank but…!)
The Tshirts have arrived!
and we’ve started packing up the rewards to go in the post hopefully tomorrow.
We’ve finished typesetting the special edition book. Here’s what the title pages look like…
The book is off to the printers tomorrow, after an epically fast proof-reading by the wonderful Muireann, who turned up on the doorstep with the corrections this morning, and she says its one of our best collections.
We’ve started finding actors, and sending out material, and talking to the Shanty Collective about what additional songs could go with which stories/poems.
and we’ve designed most of the posters and flyers, just waiting for confirmation of details transfered correctly for one or two.
And next weekend we’ve got the sea shanty workshop. If anyone wants to come along, tickets are here: https://bit.ly/2MuSSv0
Our little crowdfund has safely reached harbour 2 days ahead of schedule! Thank you Thank you Thank you!
(Ship’s bell expertly rung by Katy Darby!)
Do we dare set out on an additional fishing trip, and line our coffers a bit more securely? Our other funding sources are not yet confirmed, but with this funding we can at least manage an absolute barebones version of the festival and programme the book printing. What a relief. I do feel like one of those merchants of old, with a tower on their house so they could watch the horizon for their ship coming home safe. So if anyone want to add to our funding the more the better really – it is always very tight for funding, and if we are short, its the bits I love best that have to get cut – the live streaming (what can I say, I’m a control freak – I need to know remote sites are doing their stuff!) and the BSL interpreting – a whole artform in itself, and something that we are keen to promote as a matter of course. So there are barely 2 days left – can we raise a bit more? Still lots of rewards left!
Thanks again to everyone who has supported us, especially those who increased their backing – you know who you are!
Continuing the dip into the detail of Time and tide – more first lines, this time from the Stories:
Elizabeth Hopkinson, A Madras Crossing: I thought the worst of the voyage was over when we weighed anchor off the coast of Madras.
Diana Powell, Ballast: Let me speak to you about the sea… how I always loved it.
Diana Powell, Sea Change, There are voices here.
Cathy Lennon, Casting The Stones: The party went out of the garden gate and set off along the duckboards.
Neil Lawrence, Diaspora: The man with huge whiskers is talking loudly.
Juliet Humphreys, Fisherfolk: In Quay Street, when a woman begins to moan with the coming of a child, word goes out.
Holly Magee, Granmama’s Paradise: When I was little, I slurred my syllables together.
Linda McMullen, The Fisherman’s Wife: When I met my husband, he was a modest clerk at a promising company.
Eoghan Hughes, Herr Dressler: I had left the Alma at closing time and was stumbling along the breakwater the first night I saw the light at sea.
Pauline Walker, Hingland: Constance was only just beginning to enjoy the voyage.
Roppotucha Greenberg, Listen, Noah’s Wife: He’ll install a foghorn to sound every night.
Emily Bullock, Man Overboard: All dreams of death can be forgotten on waking, except when under that final sleep from which there is no waking and only a long forgetting.
CB Droege, Metharme: I stand at the prow of the ship, one more in a long, long line of ships.
Kilmeny Macmichael, Remittance: Sir inform have not received expected amount this first of month reason
Barbara Renel, The Professor’s Daughter: Her dad locks the booth and gives her the key.
Paul Foy, The Answer, My Friend: It might be that the day takes you down to the beach with your book and wraparound sunglasses, your Beats and that blast-from-the-past playlist that you made when you realised that loss is all about finding again.
Rob Walton, The Dowager Duchess Of Berwick-Upon-Tweed: She hated the Dowager bit, and she no longer particularly cared for the Duchess part, but she had not yet decided what to do about any of it.
Maria Kyle, The Surgeon’s Mate: ’Tis no easy matter to cut off a man’s leg.
Cindy George, The Wreck Of The Kyllikki: Sea coal just washes up on the beach and no one knows where it comes from.
Sheila Lockhart, Turquoise: Every morning after breakfast Ibrahim walked down to the perimeter fence to look at the sea.
There’s some tasty morsels there to bait our hook with! Please support our crowdfund! 48 hours left
Videos from the launch of Let Out the Djinn, debut poetry collection by Jane Aldous, at Lighthouse Radical bookshop, Edinburgh, with readings from Jane herself, and friends Lindy Barbour and Simon Maclaren
part 2: from prehistory to space…
Lindy Barbour reads Doggerland
Jane reads A Dead Lamb in Polbain
Simon Maclaren reads Crow’s Eye
Lindy Barbour reads Eel Ghazal
Jane reads Goodbye Voyager 1
Videos from the launch of Let Out the Djinn, debut poetry collection by Jane Aldous, at Lighthouse Radical bookshop, Edinburgh, with readings from Jane herself, and friends Lindy Barbour and Simon Maclaren
part 1: Family and identity
Simon Maclaren reads Dave Off in Five – inspired by Jane’s Dad’s war time diary.
Jane reads Let Out the Djinn, the title poem – the title came first!
Jane reads With Meme at Mellon Urdigle Beach
Lindy Barbour reads Death Waiting
Jane reads In the New Leaf Co-op
more tomorrow…
You all know we don’t do horror at Arachne.
The closest we’ve got is Math Jones‘ The Knotsman, which has quite a bit of distressing material in it, but does it from a position of compassion – ‘this is awful’, rather than ‘oooh, isn’t this awful‘.
So if you fancy something to get the ice running down your back, Math’s your man.
It would please Math mightily if you were to celebrate Samhain with his book seeing as he is a pagan.
you can buy a copy here… and if you buy it BEFORE halloween the postage is still free. we are going to have to start charging UK customers after that.
If however, your tastes run to the more traditional halloween fair, there’s a live lit gig, Frightful Yarns, at Honor Oak pub, St Germains Road SE23 on the very night, at 7.30, raising money for our local festival, Brockley Max. Arachne authors Cherry Potts and Neil Lawrence are among the readers, with dark tales of revenge and paranoia. tickets £5
On Wednesday 11th December at 6.30, you are invited to City Writes Autumn 2019, at City125 Suite, 26-38 Whiskin Street EC1R 0JD (access via Rhind Building on St John’s Street)
Arachne Press editors Cherry Potts and Rosamund Davies will be reading alongside other Story Cities authors, Evleen Towey, Jayne Buxton and Máire Owens and there will be readings from the winners of this term’s flash writing contest Harriet Atkinson, Kathrine Bancroft, Helen Ferguson, Bren Gosling, Shabnam Grewal, Andrea Holck, Revati Kumar, Shibani Lal, Natasha Mirzoian and Angus Whitty.
This is one for the writers.
Support our crowd fund to support Solstice Shorts Time and Tide receive…
Poet and maker of hand-made books, Jeremy Dixon (Hazard Press) made us a handmade 20 page (Incl cover) A5 notebook, into which many of our writers wrote their top writing tip or exercise. Handwritten, scanned and then printed by Jeremy in his own inimitable fashion. Classy, useful and unique!
…in a very tactile cover.
