Solstice Shorts 2020 Tymes goe by Turnes

This year’s Solstice Shorts Festival will be held on 21st December. the Actual solstice is at 10.02am GMT but we are aiming for a more civilised hour- 8pm!

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The current plan is to have some of the material pre-recorded, and some performed live. Tickets for the live interactive Zoom event are now available, (£5) which will cover everything, including Q&A with as many of the authors as can join us, and an open mic. The pre-recorded elements will be premiered on YouTube and Facebook and our Website slightly later the same day so that if you can’t make the live event, some of the material will be available more or less immediately.

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I’ve seen prerecords on Zoom and the picture and sound quality isn’t as good as it could be, so it’s important to us that the material is available in as high definition as we can achieve. We will also record the Zoom and edit that down into little films to get up on the website etc later, so that there will be a permanent record of the whole thing.

(Thank you to the people who answered our survey questions about online events and what has worked for them.)

Get your ticket here

Our crowdfund is still live for donations only if you would like to help us fund the festival and pay our performers.

Frustrated by working under lockdown and worried that the 2020 festival might not happen, Arachne Press decided to continue as though everything would be alright, and asked writers to provide work that was inspired by a sixteenth century poem that editor Cherry Potts has always found comforting in a crisis: Robert Southwell’s Tymes Goe by Turnes.
The poem observes the ebb and flow of fortune, nothing stays bad for ever, nor anything good – so get on with it while you can.
This isn’t exactly a response to Covid-19, but there’s an echo there – in Kelly Davis‘s The Saddest Birdes a Season find to Singe, Katie Margaret Hall‘s epic train journey, New Orleans To Vancouver, and Jackie Taylor‘s Rewilding; but there is also concern for the environment, and relationships and lives in need of nourishment they are finding hard to find.
As with Southwell’s poem there is a fine balance between dread and hope.

The poem, read for us by Math Jones https://arachnepress.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/tymes-goe-by-turnes-robert-southwell-read-by-math-jones.m4a?_=1

Preorder your copy of the anthology  NOW – because the supply chain for bookshops is still a little unreliable we are limiting our initial print run to preorders, plus a sensible number for sales resulting from the festival (21st December!!) and initial trade interest, so if you want to be sure of a copy, order now! £8.99 pre-orders will be sent with an invitation to join the festival for free.

Poems

A J Bermudez Ni de aquí, ni de allá
C L Hearnden, 179cm
Claire Booker, Piano Lessons, and Bringing in the Fruit
Elinor Brooks, Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Cat
Jane Aldous, Sirius
Julian Bishop, Slow Burn
Karen Ankers, In Dark
Katie Margaret Hall, New Orleans To Vancouver
Kelly Davis, The Saddest Birdes a Season Find to Sing
Laila Sumpton, Cronos
Lynn White, In the Rocks
Ness Owen, Beach Clean
S.B. Merrow, For Ellen
Sean Carney, A Memory Forgotten

Stories
Brooke Stanicki, A Felled Tree
Jackie Taylor, Rewilding
Jane Mclaughlin, Sketchbook
Keely O’Shaughnessy, When Naked Plants Renew
Linda McMullen, Deep Blue Sea
Margaret Crompton, Turner’s World of Twirls
Neil Lawrence, Return
Patience Mackarness, Roots
Pippa Gladhill, Twelve Point Plan

Songs

Kevan Taplin, Dancing with The Green Man (In 4:4 Time)
Rebecca Askew, Times Go by Turns
Sharon Lazibyrd Martin, Sea of Fortune