Arachne 10th Anniversary – the Authors – a short series part 4

I thought it would be useful to give you all a bit more detail about the authors who have put together our amazing, eclectic anniversary events.

For our third week we have events on Tuesday, Saturday (two events) and Sunday

Emotion as Ignition Tuesday Jan 17, 2023 7pm with Kavita A Jindal

Kavita A. Jindal is an award-winning poet, fiction-writer and essayist. Her novel Manual For A Decent Life won the Eastern Eye Award for Literature 2020 and the Brighthorse Prize. She has published three slim volumes of poetry: Raincheck Accepted, Raincheck Renewed and Patina.  She served as Senior Editor at Asia Literary Review and is co-founder of The Whole Kahani writers’ collective. Kavita’s workshop is aimed at short fiction and poetry writers, and is about harnessing emotions for creativity. She says that her story Cocoon Lucky in Where We Find Ourselves came out of anger, and I can relate to that, as it was temper that created Arachne Press!

On Saturday 21st our first event is at 12:00, when we have the first of our looking after yourself as a writer sessions, Resilient writers with writer and coach Neil Lawrence.

Neil taught Wellbeing Education in secondary schools for 25 years. He is now a Life coach and Organisational Consultant. Keenly creative, he is a musician who has performed on the acoustic circuit as well as being an impassioned writer.Neil sent this little video to explain his workshop.

The second Saturday workshop at 3.30 is Deaf poetry and BSL translation with DL Williams, Lisa Kelly and Mary-Jayne Russell de Clifford

We had a huge BSL translation project for What Meets the Eye, and the conversations between writers and translators were fascinating and I really wanted to share them, so this is our first attempt at that. this workshop will be conducted in BSL with english interpretation and auto captions

DL is a deaf queer poet fluent in British Sign Language and English. Working with such different languages has inspired a deep interest in translation and how her work can be made accessible to signing and non-signing audiences. They have performed around the UK including at the Edinburgh Fringe, the Millennium Centre and the Albert Hall, as well as in America and Brazil.

Lisa Kelly is one of our two guest editors for our Deaf Anthology What Meets the Eye? The Deaf perspective.

We have published Lisa’s poems in Solstice Shorts Anthology, Shortest Day, Longest Night and Dusk

Lisa Kelly has single-sided deafness. She is also half Danish. Her first collection,  Lisa is co-editor of The Deaf Issue, Magma 69. She has been shortlisted four times for the Bridport Prize, longlisted for the National Poetry Competition in 2016 and 2018 and won the 2016 University of Lancaster (MA) ‘Reading’ Prize. In 2019, she read at Poetry International, Southbank Centre for d/Deaf Republic: Poets on Deafness. In 2020, she was commissioned by Nottingham Trent University in partnership with the Science Museum to create a film-poem in collaboration with other poets responding to telephony from a d/Deaf and marginalised perspective. She is currently studying British Sign Language, and is a freelance journalist writing about technology and business. Her latest pamphlet, From The IKEA Back Catalogue, is published by New Walk Editions 2021.

Mary-Jayne is a theatre maker and workshop facilitator. She is passionate about deaf / disabled theatre and empowering people through the use of theatre and drama. Mary-Jayne has a degree in Theatre Arts, Education and Deaf Studies from the University of Reading, and since graduating in 2005 has have worked as a freelance facilitator, scriptwriter, BSL storyteller, actor, stage manager, ambassador, director and BSL poet. She has taught BSL poetry, with a focus on poem translation from BSL to English rather than English to BSL.

And finally (for this week) Sunday at 6.30pm, a second looking after you workshop, What’s it about? Synopsis and Pitch with Katy Darby. Katy has co-edited several of our anthologies, teaches creative writing at City, University of London and co-runs London Live Lit series Liars’ League. I’ve heard her accurately reduce a doorstop of a book to 9 words, so she knows what you need to pitch and write a synopsis, difficult tasks at the best of times.

Arachne 10th Anniversary – the Authors – a short series part 3

I thought it would be useful to give you all a bit more detail about the authors who have put together our amazing, eclectic anniversary events.

15th January and our second Sunday, and we have two events.

First at 11am we have 14 great pickup lines, a poet’s guide to sonnets presented by Jennifer A McGowan

Jennifer A McGowan

Jennifer has been published by us consistently, from a single poem in our very first poetry anthology The Other Side of Sleep,  to her first full poetry pamphlet With Paper for Feet and her most recent collection, How to be a Tarot Card, (or a Teenager) which we published in October. Jennifer lives in Oxfordshire. She has been a semi-professional mime and performed in five countries as well as more traditional work as researcher, editor, and writer for a strategic management company. She has taught both at several universities, in subjects as varied as English, history, and heritage studies. Jennifer is also an historical re-enactor who disappears out of the 20th Century for weeks at a time. Jennifer was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome at age 16, and has had long covid for most of the past 2 years, and can still come up with a snappy and beguiling title for a workshop!

Later in the day at 3pm, we have Barddoniaeth Cymraeg Gweithdy Cyfieithu Welsh Poetry Translation Workshop with Lowri Williams.

The root cause of our bilingual anthology, A470 Poems for the Road/ Cerddi’r Ffordd was realising there were Welsh poets writing (beautifully) in English, who weren’t confident enough in their Welsh to write poetry in their native language. If ever there was an overhang of English cultural imperialism, there it was staring me in the face, and I was outraged. You can’t get specific grants for translation into Welsh, only out of it. I was more outraged! So I decided to do something about it.  So this workshop is very much in the same mode of enabling people in their goddess given right to write in their native language. My welsh is limited to Diolch (Thank You) Bore da (hello)  and what I read on road signs – appropriately – and I’m very grateful to Lowri for taking it on!

Lowri is a Creative Writing graduate from MMU, nature writer, and bilingual poet for BRAG magazine. She loves the sea and spends her spare time surfing at Porth Neigwl. During the evenings she’s a cocktail bartender who enjoys drinking Margaritas with her aunt. Lowri’s poem in A470 proved very useful when I was driving up and down that very road, touring the book to bookshops and libraries – here’s why. I pretty sure she’ll be great company for the workshop!

Arachne10 Anniversary Festival Week 2

Week 2 of the festival, continuing our author-led readings discussions and workshops, and this week we have online events on Friday night, Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday afternoon and evening.

Please register via Eventbrite to attend!

Fri 13/01/2023
7.30pm
Three Takes on Place
readings and discussion from
Diana Powell, Melissa Davies & Sherry Morris
free/donation details and tickets

Saturday 14/01/2023
11:00-13:00
Tales of Transformation: Bisclavret workshop
Elizabeth Hopkinson
£8 details and tickets

and at 3pm
Joy//us – LGBTQ poetry reading, open mic and discussion
Jeremy Dixon, Rick Dove & Cherry Potts
free/donation details and tickets

Sunday 15/01/2023
11:00-12:30/13:00
14 great pickup lines, a poets guide to sonnets workshop
with Jennifer A McGowan
£10 details and tickets

and at 3pm
Barddoniaeth Cymraeg Gweithdy Cyfieuthu/ Welsh poetry translation workshop
with Lowri Williams
participatory workshop on translating Welsh poetry into English
Nod y gweithdy hon yw cyfieuthu cerdd Cymraeg i fewn i’r Saesneg, drwy trafodaeth/cyfieuthu mewn steil grwp
pay what you can £3/5/8 details and tickets

Sicarius by Carolyn Robertson in BSL

the brilliant (and very busy) Marcel Hirshman has translated some more stories for us. they will be appearing as I have time to edit and upload them.

Here, Carolyn Robertson retells the Arachne myth as office rivalry…

from our anniversary anthology, No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book

Mamiaith gets a mention and Jeremy travels

Actually a bit more than just a mention, on Poetry Book Society blog on Translation.

head over and see!

In other Wales related news, Jeremy Dixon is heading over the bridge a couple of times this month…

Queer Words with Queer Poets

  • LIGHTHOUSE – Edinburgh’s Radical Bookshop (map)

spoken word with AR Crow, Jeremy Dixon + Freddie Alexander

 

and then

Thursday 15 August, 6.30-7.30pm
Arnolfini Bookshop, Bristol
reading from IN RETAIL, plus some new poems! FREE EVENT!