The last of the Liberty Tales events: Greenstead Library
Stories and poems inspired by Magna Carta
Cliff Chapman reading David Guy‘s The King and the Light, and three poems by Jeremy Dixon, Carrie Cohen (aka Carolyn Eden) reading her own Free White Towel and Sarah Evans‘ Bothered, Jim Cogan reading his own story, Lag and Helen Morris reading her story, The Poppies.
The longest title we had for Shortest Day, Sarah Evans‘ magnificent A Ten-Point Temporal Sample of One Hundred-Thousand Unanswered Questions
read by Katy Darby and BSL interpreted by Martin Fox-Roberts at Solstice Shorts Festival 2016: Shortest Day 21st December 2016 at West Greenwich Library London #ACEFunded
Essex! We are headed your way again, meet us in Colchester.
Wednesday 25th January at 6pm the final planned Liberty Tales tour date! This is the one that was delayed from November.
Join Jim Cogan, Helen Morris and Carolyn Eden in person for stories of liberation – from prison, by war and leaving an abusive marriage;
and Sarah Evans, David Guy and Jeremy Dixon virtually as their work (voting, or not; more freedom than you can cope with; the right to be who you are) is read by Carrie Cohen and Cliff Chapman.
Sarah, David and Helen are locals, so come and support them!
Magna Carta was well and truly celebrated in Greenwich last night, with a substantial and enthusiastic audience, vigorous singing and fine readings.
I don’t know whether it was a comment on the standard of stories, reading and singing but the video camera overheated last night. As a result I am gradually piecing together our records, from recovered video, audio files and other people’s video (Liam, thank you.)
So the beautifully crafted links between stories and songs aren’t quite as neat as I’d hoped. Here’s as far as I’ve got:
Jim Cogan reading his story Lag
Stuart Crossman reading Nick Rawlinson’s Into the Blue
and Owen Townend’s Stopped by a Busker
Carrie Cohen reading Sarah Evans’ Bothered
Summer All Year Long singing fit to bust, a number of songs, listed on the video apart from the title and credit ones which are The Almanack by Richard Brown, and Step by Step by the wonderful Anon. Thanks to everyone who gave up their time to read and sing it was very definitely worth it!
More tomorrow, when I’ve worked out why the sound and pictures on Liam’s video won’t sync.
We have our final line up for next Thursday, 18th June, 7pm
at West Greenwich Library SE10 8NN.
We are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta with songs, stories, and a poem; all of which are free.
Books will be on sale in the interval, and wine, tea and coffee are available for a donation. There may be snacks as well, depending on whether we have time to source them on the day along with everything else.
Stories
The King’s Computer by Liam Hogan read by the author Promotional Samples by Carolyn Eden read by the author Lag by Jim Cogan read by the author Into the Blue by Nick Rawlinson read by Stuart Crossman Poppies by Helen Morris read by Louisa Gummer Stopped by a Busker by Owen Townend read by Stuart Crossman Bothered by Sarah Evans read by Carrie Cohen
Songs from Summer All Year Long, an informal gaggle of friends who sing together and collaborate on projects when the mood takes them.
West Greenwich Library, Greenwich High Road, SE10 8NN
When we first had the idea for Liberty Tales, (chance meeting at Canada Water Station, it’s a long story) we thought we would be celebrating 800 years of Magna Carta, with, perhaps some historical fiction, and some rousing songs
Well, no, not exactly.
That’s the fun of an open call, you get what you get; and what we got in response to the call out for stories about Liberty, was mostly about living outside the system, and self-expression and choice; and the songs have turned out to be about making things work by not judging others, and working together to get the bright fair future, although they fit surprisingly well with the stories – you’d almost think we planned it!
So we’ve called in some favours to vary the flavour, and now have a rather bleak piece of fantasy, and a story about very much being IN the system…
Our BSL interpreters wish it to be known that this is not what they consider performance standard signing, they needed a chance to rehearse with the performers for that, but you will be able to follow the story.
(Trumpets, drum roll, searchlights… you know, that sort of thing)
Congratulations to:
Andrew Gepp
Cindy George
David Mathews
David Turnbull
Deschaney Tate
Emma Timpany
Helen Morris
Jayne Pickering
Pippa Gladhill
Sarah Evans
Tannith Perry
William Davidson
We are delighted to congratulate our twelve winners, who will receive various prizes including a surprisingly untacky trophy, and whose stories will be read at the festival, and published alongside a story from each of the judges in the forthcoming anthology, Solstice Shorts: 16 stories about time.
Five Judges Special Recommendations will be announced at the festival at SUNSET.
Thanks to everyone who took part (all 106 of you), we appreciate your interest in our festival which we hope is the first of many, so there will be other opportunities in the future.
Short-listed writers will receive brief feedback sometime next week.
