MockTales and Blogging (by sarah)

My left hand isnot behaving at the moment but we have resurrected Mocktales - this was our fortnightly writing night we just did in the house and invited people to join us so especially with NanoWrimo being no more we decided it was time to bring it back properly. So far we have mainly been blogging. We've been doing MockTales just for us again for a while and have including admin for writing and poetry stuff so if I have a load of slam performance requests I will reply to them or funding for storytelling etc... but mainly I want to write.

Before covid we were having to cap the nights so everyone got a chance to just sit and write but I don't think that is going to be such an issue these days. We have done some weekend ones mixed up with CreativiTeas but nothing like the numbers we used to have.

Anyway this week I did not blog what I did was try and retrieve stuff I had written on a stupid choice of plateform - not the plateforms fault it was never designed for writers and the writings had kind of been accidental. I do have a copy of these writings but it will mean typing it all out again 🙁 Boo! But doable. The result of my search was all my images are still there but the projects with the writings in are not - sigh.

On the plus side there may be a text reading short cut but it is in a silly font that might not be so readable to the reading devices so we shall see.

This has lead me to ponder weather I want to record this story - I am not sure how to do that as my microphone was broken yrs ago now by over enthusastic kids and grandmothers. It is probably fixable but will it still be compatable with my tech? It was bought from Maplin which no longer exists or at least is no longer round the corner!

I need to investigate microphones.

OF course I invited people round and then had a horrendous migraine so spent most ofthe day asleep whacked out on pain killers and not really functioning whilst awake so only after people left did I realise that the bunny supplies where all in soak in the bath and I hadn't emptied the bathroom bin and these things shouldn't really matter but I do fret about these things but the house will never be perfect for visitors so they get a dining room of half taken down halloween decks and a kitchen where weights are being primed to paint them metallic purple to match my living room gym as I battle with the high risk of osteoperosis and so on. And I boiled milk all over the oven just before hand too!

Anyway - I hope you are all enjoying our attempt to put the blogs all back in order! And hope a few more of our writing friends rejoin our little writing parties! Also you might need to tell us you want to know about them as the social media channels we had been using are getting more unrelable and they weren't brilliant to begin with!

Alaric has written a blog post that will go live tomorrow and is now back on working on the novel/series we concieved on our first date - a mash of the two novels we were writing at the time.

We are hoping to really get going again with our writing - for Alaric they would love to write another technical book but the chapters for collections and the book he wrote are now so long ago everything has changed including who the publishing companies are!

But all of that is the grand stuff - for now we are just spending Tuesday nights writing andhaving nice drinks and snacks.

The drinks this time were:

Toffee Apple Matcha Latte made with oat milk and served with a homemade siced apple toffee apple - the toffee needed more sugar

Spiced Pumpkin Pie Sticky Chai - hot with no milk and made about twice as strong as the instructions

Pumpkin Spice Malted Hot Chocolate with pumpkin marshmallows

Didn't mean for them to all be hot brews but it was tipping it down outside!

InkWell (by sarah)

This year thanks to the sponsorship of the Gloucestershire Poetry Society I am running a monthly workshop called InkWell at The Folk of Gloucester. The sponsorship pays for room hire allowing me to offer the 2 hr sessions at an affordable rate (or more affordable than they would have been without it). £10 fall price and £5 concession and I am happy to include low wage, benifits, retired, college student, blue badge holders, blue light discount and so on.

The workshops are 1-3 pm on the first Thursday of every month except January - they will cover subjects such as scrapbooking, visual poetry, journalling, dairy keeping, creative writing, zines, chapbooks, junk journals, ugly sketchbooks, illustration, zentangles, card making, ink work and so on.

There will be a theme for each month starting with Sakura or Cherry Blossom for the first session Feb 6th 2025. We will cover making your own blossom themed note books using binding combs or fabric and ribbons. There will be themed paper, tape and stickers plus other little accessories. There will also be writing inspiration and room for people to work on their own projects using the resources I provide.

The name is a triple word play as The Folk is a 500 yr old timber frame building or rather buildings built in the Tudor era and like a lot of older buildings it has its own well which since the renovations is now viewable.

(backblogged from social media posts to keep a record of InkWell)

One, Two, Three… Blast Off (by sarah)

Before covid we were running a story telling night called The Moving Story Telling Cafe but it was derailed and not just by covid - we sadly lost one of our trio to cancer. So last month we relaunched but this time without the Moving - The Folk of Gloucester have kindly offered us a permanent home and also house one of the other Legacy projects of Chloe The Midnight Story Teller... The Story Telling Library.

Last month was a special launch and opening of the library with lots of guest story tellers who all knew Chloe personally - that means the this month is going to be the first actual Gloucester Story Telling Cafe and it happens to fall on May the Forth. One of the reasons the three of us... Chloe, Jane and myself worked so well was that we are unashamedly geeks but perhaps not so obviously geeks to those with narrower ideas of what a geek is. We love our sci-fi and fantasy and I had a request from the Gloucestershire Poetry Society to have an event that geeky poetry would be welcome... well how could we resist such a set up.

So we are blasting off with a Starwars joke and a sci-fi author whizz reading a poem from their sci-fi novel!

Chris Hemingway is a poet, prose writer and musician from Gloucestershire. His book “The Future” was published in 2016 and was described by Cheltenham Poetry Festival as ‘darkly witty, like “The Man Who Fell to Earth “ meets “The Office”’. He has also had published two poetry pamphlets ‘party in the Diaryhouse’ and ‘paperfolders’. That’s a lot of ‘p’s’…

I have used a picture of my dad dressed up an explorer of space when he was a little boy - my Granddad took arty pictures and with my Nanny loved to make outfits for my dad and I am so lucky that copies of this one still existed in Australia and that a cousin kindly sent a copy to me.

Doors open at 7 on May the 4th 2013 at The Folk of Gloucester 99-103 Westgate Street Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 2PG

There is a cafe and bar. Entry is free but we will have a pay what you want pot out!

We are open to all story telling types from traditional to memoirs, to flash fictions, to novel extracts, to oral and of course narrative poetry!

Our Moto is "story telling for all/everyone" and as such not only do we have some fab guests lined up as well as music but we have an open mic were we would love people to come and share. Open mic slots are a max of 10 minutes.

This is the years itinerary - first Thursday of every month except January as lets face it - it is nearly always going to be too close to New Years Eve for most people and I can't be dealing with that!

Here is the Facebook event for tomorrows: One Two Three... Blast Off! and May the Forth be with you!

event

I am very excited about where this is all going - Story Telling and Gloucester have a long history and I hope a longer future!

Mad but Lovely Times! (by sarah)

Things have been pretty mad here! There have been Science Festivals, poetry festival, scare acting and a whole host of other things! Last week saw SMASHfest at Gloucester Library which was super super amazing and Cuddly Science had a fab time.

The Wiggly Pet Press launched the Gloucester Poetry Societies first book Poetry without Pretension at the The Gloucester Poetry Festival and Salaric Art and Craft have been out and about doing Upcycling projects and drawing like fiends!

And of course all three of those things are me plus the acting! This last week alone saw me filmed for TV, interviewed for radio and though I wasn't in the photo Cuddly Science was photographed for the newspaper. I have so many photos and things to share and November is looking pretty exciting too with more acting, Christmas craft workshops, archaeology digs, singing, Diversity, literature and poetry Festivals, craft fayres, community outreach and museum gigs! I am no longer taking bookings for 2017 sorry about that but I really am full!

And that's without all the domestic stuff like my hospital appointments and halloween/fireworks events for kids etc... not to mention Nanowrimo and stuff.

Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! (by sarah)

The first ever Gloucester Poetry Festival is almost upon us - Saturday (21st Oct 2017) sees events starting off with an extra special Food for Thoughts at the Cafe Rene 2-5 pm. This is followed by the Gloucester Waterstones Villanelles on Sunday 2-4 pm complete with Poetry Roulette and me co-hosting!

Then on Thursday the Festival proper begins with a plethora of events 🙂 So check it out!

And then of course there is the really exciting news! The Gloucester Societies first ever poetry collection has arrived and is a gorgeous book!

Copies of Poetry Without Pretension will be at all the festival events and are also purchasable from my publishing group The WigglyPet Press.

Poetry pouches containing limited edition Poetry Festival 2017 badges will also be being given out at events until we run out!