Word Soup #7 'Home'

Our regular Word Soup reviewer, the lovely and talented Mel Webster, had the cheek to go away on her holidays so it's only me this time. Apologies for inaccuracy, misspelling, dearth of good jokes and lack of insightful yet witty comments about shoes in advance...

Our seventh Word Soup took place, as did the previous eight, in the Continental Events Space. A slight change to our usual format meant we missed out on our popular open mike section (sorry guys) and instead hosted Bewilderbliss - a Manchester based creative writing magazine. But more about that later.

Our first performer was Mark Charlesworth - a Preston based blogger and poet who's been featured fairly regularly on the PrestonWN blog by our in-house reviewer Andrew Hurley, as well as at previous Word Soups. We were pleased to welcome him back for a selection of Home themed poems that acted as a preview to his new poetry collection, In Memory of Real Trees. Mark will be launching the collection here at the Continental on the 28th November - the event is free and all are welcome. We'll also be reviewing the collection here very shortly.

Paul Sockett made a much welcome return to our stage all the way from his home in Great Harwood with a collection of poems that examined just what 'home' actually means - emphasising that home is not always a safe sanctuary with a chilling and disturbing poem titled 'One Thousand'. Paul's a confident, charismatic performer and certainly one of Word Soup's best discoveries - an actor by profession, he prefers to be called 'an actor who writes' rather than a writer...

Rounding off the first half, we were especially pleased to welcome West Lancashire novelist Carol Fenlon - who read from her award winning debut novel, Consider the Lilies. Structured as a series of diary entries from an unusual and isolated woman living in rural West Lancs in the 1960s, her writing had the whole room enthralled - one audience member visiting from south Manchester commented that he really got a sense of a Lancashire voice from Carol's work.




After a short break and a wee bit of music from Kevin Wilkinson, we returned to the main stage with a set from Bewilderbliss. Curated by the magazine's editor Jon Davies, we heard from magazine contributors and Manchester students Holly Ringland, Mathew Hull, Valerie O'Riordan and Jonathan Davies himself. The guests went down a storm, with a varied collection of pieces that showcased the best of Manchester writing. You can read Valeries' account of her first ever live performance at her blog - here (clicky clicky).

Bewilderbliss have their own website - do pop over (but please come back) to read interviews and reviews and find out more about their magazine - now open for submissions. They accept poetry and prose and aim to showcase the very best in new writing - it would be great to have a Prestonian featured there... all issues are themed and all submitted pieces should be on the theme 'untruthful' - a theme set by yours truly. So get submitting, and tell them we sent you..

Our final two performers were certainly worth waiting for. Mollie Baxter travelled to us from Morecambe. A very experienced musician, writer and performer with pieces published by Lancaster based publisher, Flax - she treated the audience to a short story first published in Before the Rain with an alternative ending written especially for the evening - and followed up with an account of a flat that had many members of the audience nodding in recognition.





Last up we had Thomas Fletcher - Thomas is an accomplished writer and poet based in Manchester, also published by Flax and with his first novel, The Leaping, forthcoming in 2010 by Quercus Books. His editor Nick Johnston has said Tom's work

'speaks for a generation that's got the highest level of university education in history, but has largely found themselves trapped in mind-numbing temp work. He's perfectly captured the fear and violence that lurk beneath the surface of our society.'

Fear and violence were certainly in the offing for the last story of the night - an uncanny, almost supernatural tale of a woman pursued by a mysterious entity called 'home' - observed by her husband who can watch, but do nothing to help her. This was an unsettling tale - playing with our assumptions about 'hearth and home' and undermining our expectations at every turn. Tom's deadpan, highly controlled delivery perfectly suited the subject matter, and left the audience wanting more. Watch it for yourself here:




And that's all for Word Soup in November. With, as always, our thanks going to Daisy Baldwin who researched and created our performer profiles, and Norman Hadley who filmed the clips you see here, and the addition clips of the night which you can view at your leisure on the Lancashire Writing Hub YouTube Channel.

We'll be back in December with Word Soup #8 - 'Old' with appearances from Zoe Lambert, Rachel McGladdery, Peter Crompton and a showcase spot from sCribble - as well as a return to our much missed open mike section of the night. See you there!

Word Soup-beside the Sea

Better late than never, but here we are (finally) with the write-up, review and film clips of our special Word Soup - commissioned by Blackpool Library Service and delivered by The Preston Writing Network for Word Pool - Blackpool's Literary Festival.

Many thanks go to our star performer - Ann Wilson, who travelled all the way from Barrow and fresh from an appearance on BBC Radio Cumbria - to help us celebrate National Poetry Day. With an engaging, lively performance featuring poems-a-plenty from her collection Synesthetic that stole the show and impressed the library staff as well as the audience, Ann certainly made an excellent impression again.

We're really looking forward to having Ann back in Preston again for a Word Soup Presents... on the 30th October with her colleague Keith Armstrong (more about this soon!). If you can't wait that long (and who could blame you?) you can listen to Ann perform some of her poetry from the comfort of your own front room, by clicking here.

Our other performers were Norman Hadley - poet, writer, They Eat Culture volunteer and the man behind the camera. Knowing that poetry is sometimes risky, Norman opted to impress us all with a reading from his book Perspectives that focused on risky activities...



Norman will be performing at Word Soup #6 on the 20th and launching his next poetry collection Stinging the Sepia in Garstang on the 7th November - for more details on that, please click here.

Ron Scowcroft, former Blackpool Sixth form literature teacher and now poet arrived and read to us, along side Blackburn based poet Paul Sockett (you'll remember him from the open mike slot at Word Soup #5 - he'll be returning to the stage as a booked performer at Word Soup #7 - 17th November).

As always - the real stars of the show were our open mikers - Blackpool natives who came to the library to share their words and work with us to celebrate the day. We were impressed by the variation in style, subject matter and form - and rather than review it, we thought we'd film it... (all film clips courtesy of Norman)









This National Poetry Day the theme was 'Heroes and Heroines' and while we didn't ask our poets to stick to the theme, the nervous poets and experienced performers who got up with us and made some noise in Blackpool Library were the real heroes of the day.

Hooray!

Word Soup # 5: The Theme

At each of our Word Soups we’ve had a theme to pull the night together and to inspire our writers.

Word Soup # 5 falls on the 22^nd September along with the autumn equinox, when the days and nights are exactly equal. The night inspired our theme: revolve. Spinning. Turning. Changing. Or staying the same?

What do you think about when we say ‘revolve’? Are we talking about a revolution, a washing machine, spring into summer into winter, or something else?

Those revolving doors that used to be in the front of St Georges – you know, the ones you’d get your coat stuck in, or be trapped inside with someone who hasn’t washed for a week?.

Wheels. Clocks. Birthdays, anniversaries, the start of the school year. Wheels. Tyres. Engines. Records and RPM. What’s on your Ipod?

Roundabouts. Your childhood memories at the play park that isn’t there any more. The first day of school. The last day of school.

Revolve. Revolver. Someone got a gun? Stay still, no-one gets hurt? Hmmm.

There are open mike spots available – you’ve got a three minute ‘turn’ on the stage along side the best of new, North West writing. We can’t wait to see what you come up with. What will you be doing when the seasons turn at 21.18?

We’ll be at Word Soup. September 22nd, 8pm at the New Continental. £3 on the door.

Performance Wordshops

Ron Baker from Lancaster Spotlight has just got in touch with an opportunity that would be ideal for all you Word Soup open-mikers to-be (and there's a mouthful...)

On September 18th at The Storey Creative Industries Centre, Ruth Quinn will be holding a Performance Skills Workshop.

Ruth is an experienced drama, theatre and acting teacher and has been assisting people to get the best out of their performances for over eighteen years. She's also a poet in her own right, and has a particular interest in helping people perform their poetry.

The workshop runs from 2.30pm - 4.30pm and costs £5. If you want to book, email spotlightclub@btinternet.com and tell them we sent you...

Word Soup 4

Word Soup is Preston’s live lit night and this month’s was bigger than ever. Not only was it part of Preston Tringe Festival and recorded for Preston FM and Diversity FM, but it had the biggest turn out so far.

If you weren’t able to make it, here’s what you missed...

The night kicked off with Sally Murray, a musician from Manchester, who wowed the crowd with her beautiful voice and chilled out songs. And when there was a sound issue, she proved to be that rarest of things- a muso with a sense of humour.

First reader of the night was Richard Hulse, a teetotal short fiction writer, who started the evening’s tenuous connections to the booze theme. His funny and original short story charted a man’s brand new relationship, jealousy and break up in the minutes it takes him, and his new girlfriend, to fall to their deaths from a plane crash.

Next was Simon Baker, a teacher and compere of Lancaster Spotlight Club, who read a gritty and angry piece about life in a small town and a night out from hell. His odious protagonist eventually met his match in an equally small town bouncer.

Tim Woodall, a fiction and non fiction writer who claims he writes self obsessed stories around exactly the same themes (his words not mine), read a piece called booze. It featured a journalist with alcoholic tendencies walking through Soho.After the break, Jenn Ashworth, compère extraordinaire in shiny shiny shoes, introduced the second half of the night and the return of the three minute open mic slots.

The brave open mic slot readers were:
* Max Henry, who read Win Them and Wear. He blogs at Tell Me Again About Typhoon Patsy.
* Chris Billington, who read her poetry based on Greek myths and cider. She is an active member of Preston Poets.
* Cynthia Kitchen, who read three poems based on booze and a recovering alcoholic.

* Peter Crompton, read poetry on the theme of booze and violence. Stood out for being a passionate and stand out performer and writes here.
* Terry Quinn, who read his piece, The Asylum seeker. He also works for Preston FM and blogs at Broadgate Is Great.

Mollie Baxter couldn’t make the event but Norman Hadley from Garstang read in her place. He read Poets Anonymous from his third collection, Perspectives. He also read a poem about diving through a sunken village which he read entirely from memory. This really impressed and marked him out as one of the evening's most engaging performers.

Richard Hirst, author of previous Word Soup success, Dear Millipede, and blog I thought I told you to wait in the car provided free postcard artwork for the event and read a piece about the leader of the BNP being captured by slug moles and having to live underground digging tunnels. It was every bit as surreal as it sounds, as funny as his last outing and I’m sure will not be his last.

The final performer of the night was star guest, Nicholas Royle, writer, critic, and blogger who read from his upcoming novel. The first section dealt with airline conspiracy stories and whether the brace position actually works. The second section twisted to become a post modern discussion of the the first in a Manchester Lit Event.

Let us know if you were at Word Soup on Tuesday in the comments box below and what you thought of it.

There is no Word Soup next month because it is the holidays, however it will be back in September. If you are interested in performing in one of the three minute open mic slots email prestonwritingnetwork@gmail.com

All photos have been supplied by James Brunton, 23rd Parallel

This blog was written by Mel who blogs at What do you do in Preston.