Tag Archives: Creative writing

Clear Lines was a success!

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So the festival I decided to launch in April ended up happening July 30 – Aug 2 — and I’d say it was a success!  The Clear Lines Festival had an estimated 500 people involved over the four days, including 60+ speakers and artists who wanted to help us start a new conversation about sexual assault and consent.  People cried at our Theatre Night and laughed at our comedians, including the brilliant Tiff Stevenson, Josie Long and Bridget Christie — and there were heated discussions at many of our panels.  A number of events were filled to capacity, and Channel 4 News even aired this nifty segment on us:

Overall, there was a lot of press generated about the festival.  We were covered by The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, Time Out London, The Huffington Post, among others.  And I had a live television interview on London Live and some live radio interviews on various local BBC stations.  Check out our press here and you can read our wrap-up blog post on Clear Lines here.

A special shout-out to my festival Co-Founder Dr. Nina Burrowes, to our sponsors On Road Media and McAllister Olivarius, a dedicated Planning Committee, a great team of volunteers, and our 138 Crowdfunders… without whom the festival could not have happened!

Just launched the Clear Lines Festival

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After two months of hard work and a lot of enthusiasm, I’m very pleased to announce the launch of the Clear Lines Festival, the UK’s first-ever festival dedicated to talking about sexual assault through the arts and discussion. It’s something I co-founded in April (coincidentally, on the anniversary of my own rape) —  over coffee with Dr. Nina Burrowes and a group of other amazing women, all of whom are passionate about wanting to change the public conversation about sexual abuse and assault.  I personally believe the arts are one of the best ways to approach the issue, by bringing to light the human stories that underpin these experiences.  So we’re putting together an exciting programme of artists, writers, comedians, performers, and filmmakers, who will be exploring the topic through their art — along with panel discussions and workshops featuring psychologists, experts, social workers, journalists, and survivors, among others.  Nearly all events will be free to the public. The festival will run July 30 – Aug 2 in Central London.

At the moment, we’re busy crowd-funding so we can have enough funds to make the festival possible.  We’ll need £3,500 for that — and if we reach our stretch target of £9,000, we’ll be able to film the events and post them online so others around the world can access them.  So please do consider pledging if you can!  You can watch a video of me talking about the festival here.  Join us and together, let’s see if we can replace the silence and stigma that cloud this issue with insight, understanding, and community.

 

Shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger

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A quick update, which is that I’ve now made the shortlist for the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger 2015, for my upcoming novel Dark Chapter.  Which means I can now officially use that nifty logo you see right here.  Other authors shortlisted for the Daggers this year (albeit, not the Debut Dagger) include Dennis Lehane, Kate Mosse, and Dashiell Hammett… so overall, not bad company to be in!  (Yes, Dashiell Hammett’s been dead for a while, but some short stories of his were recently discovered and published for the first time.)

You can read the full shortlist here.  The winners will be announced at the CWA Dagger Awards on June 30th in London, to mark the the end of National Crime Reading Month.  Which reminds me, I should probably read a crime novel this month…  Does Crime and Punishment count?  I THINK SO.

Longlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger!

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Another surprise recognition in the genre world… I’m thrilled to have been long listed for the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Debut Dagger Award 2015.  This is for the opening of Dark Chapter, my debut literary novel which I’ve been working on for…oh, a year and a half now. (The re-draft is 85% finished.)  So it’s good to be getting some recognition for all my work on it!  You can read more about the long list here.  The CWA is perhaps best known for the Gold Dagger, which in the past has been awarded to Val McDermid, Sara Paretsky, and Ian Rankin, among others.  Anyway, the shortlist will be announced May 15th at CrimeFest. Fingers crossed…

Also, a flash fiction piece of mine is now available to download on the nifty Quick Fictions app.  I wrote ‘Nabateans’ after my trip to Jordan last summer, and it’s now one of the many bite-size stories you can download and read while commuting, waiting, or for random in-between time. Each story is 300 words or less!  Quick Fictions is supported by Myriad Editions, and can be downloaded for only 79p here.  (Apparently, it’s ranked No. 5 among the UK’s paid apps.)

Shortlisted for The James White Award!

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Some very unexpected news here — my short story “White Fur” has been shortlisted for The James White Award!  This is kinda surprising for me, especially since the competition is for science fiction, and… I don’t tend to write in that genre (even though I am a fan).  But encouraging to know that people think my stab at sci-fi is decent!  I guess you can say “White Fur” is a dystopian ecology tale and yes, it involves polar bears (my favorite animal).  Anyway the winner of the competition will be revealed Easter Sunday at 6pm, at Eastercon 2015 (the British National Science Fiction Convention).  The competition is named after  James White, the prolific sci-fi author behind the Sector General stories, and is a collaboration between the British Science Fiction Association and Interzone, the UK’s leading and longest-established science fiction magazine. Congrats to the other short-listed writers, and for the official announcement, click here.

A few theatre projects

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I’m pleased to say the London performance of my short play “Everything’s Normal” was sold-out!  Thanks to everyone to came, and especially to a great cast and to Tessa Hart at Goblin Baby Theatre Company for making the whole thing possible.  Here’s a few photos from the night at the Bread and Roses Theatre:

Photographer: Kenneth Jay

My play was part of the UNHEARD 2015 Festival, exploring themes of sexual abuse and violence through performance.  Proceeds from ticket sales went to nia, a non-profit dedicated to ending violence against women and children.  More importantly, it was great to meet other artists committed to exploring the many angles and human aspects of this issue through storytelling.  The various plays were

Photographer: Kenneth Jay

diverse, funny, often heart-wrenching, and powerful — and I hope to see more theatre like it.  For my HuffPost article on the creative process behind the festival, click here.

Another short play of mine will be performed on Saturday, March 21 at The Space Arts Centre in London. This one’s just a silly exercise I knocked off during the 28 Plays Later Challenge, which kept me occupied in February.  Yes, me and a bunch of other ambitious/insane writers decided to a write new play every day in February (hence the 28 plays). A creative prompt was emailed out every night, and 36 hours later, we had to send in a new play responding to that.  Needless to say, my play on March 21 is a response to: ‘Write a play that rhymes.’ Actually, that one was pretty fun to write!

Anyway, enough with theatre for now (though I hope to do more with writing drama in the future).  I’m back to re-drafting my novel at the moment…

Two new collaborations: a play + an urban design project

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Happy Holidays, everyone!   Hope you’re all enjoying the festive season, wherever in the world you are.  Just wanted update you on two artistic collaborations which I’ve been involved in as a writer.  Exciting stuff.

In February, a short play of mine “Everything is Normal” will be performed on a scratch night in London, as part of Unheard 2015, a new writing festival exploring themes around sexual abuse and violence.  The Festival runs February 19-22 and will also feature three V-Day benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues.  My play will be at 7:30pm on Saturday, Feb 21 at The Bread & Roses Theatre in Clapham, and you can buy tickets for a mere £7 online here.  A portion of proceeds will also go to a relevant charity (TBD).  Hats off to the curiously-named, activist theatre company Goblin Baby for promoting writing about this important topic!

In November, I contributed a short story to Sense of the City: London, an intriguing urban design project that encourages a multi-sensory exploration of the Clerkenwell/Smithfield area of London.  What?  Basically, members of the public were invited to wander around that neighborhood, capturing their experience of the sights, smells, sounds they encountered.  As writers, we then had to take those reactions and create an artistic response in the form of a short story.  Then, actors recorded our writing, and the audio files of those performances can be heard online here.  Or you can download the PDF of a newsletter which featured our stories and was distributed throughout the neighborhood.  My short story is called “West Smithfield.” If you’re familiar with the area, Smithfield Market, St. Bart’s hospital, Fabric nightclub, and the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew the Great all feature in the story.  Hope you enjoy it!

 

MA Portfolio FINISHED & Research in Ireland

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Ah, the big news is I handed in my portfolio (aka dissertation) for my MA in Creative and Life and Writing at Goldsmiths — and am now DONE with all the requirements for that course!  The deadline was at 4pm, and I handed it in at 3:45.  (I consider this progress: as an undergraduate, I would have been frantically racing down the department corridor at 3:59.)

Here’s a nice literary shot of my final portfolio, with some of the random books that influenced it.   However, I think I’m most proud of somehow managing to cite the Moscow car chase scene from The Bourne Supremacy in my Critical Commentary.

The portfolio was comprised entirely of extracts from my upcoming novel, Dark Chapter, which I have been researching heavily this summer. In August, I made my second 2014 trip to Belfast and ended up staying for nearly two weeks, living with a very hospitable family on the Falls Road and hanging out at the Feile an Phobail, the annual West Belfast arts festival.  Lots of great debate and discussion, where I got to learn more about the fascinating (and harrowing) history of that part of Belfast, plus literary readings and a very diverse line-up of musical acts.  There’s nothing quite like watching Boyzone perform in a circus tent, when you’re in a crowd of 4,000 Irish women going mental!

More importantly, the trip was a really genuine way to soak up the atmosphere of West Belfast, where much of my novel is set.  I had a lot of illuminating conversations with forensic psychologists, social workers, solicitors, community organizers, the West Belfast Partnership Board, the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland, the Probation Board, the Belfast Travellers Support Program, and I went to visit The Rowan, the spanking new SARC (Sexual Assault Referral Centre) in Antrim, which serves all of Northern Ireland. Now I just have to make sure all this somehow makes it in to my novel.  Wish me luck!

 

Details for My Spoken Word Performance at L A Noble Gallery

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On Wed, July 2, I’ll be doing a spoken word performance of my new short story “Felsenbaum” at L A Noble Gallery in Dalston.  The work was inspired by Johanna Ward’s photography in the gallery’s current exhibition, Capturing the Narrative: A Visual Exploration of Fact & Fiction. Starts 6:30pm, and to book a place, please email hello@lauraannnoble.com – More details are below:

At the start of the evening, there’ll be an Artist Talk from Johanna Ward herself, and you’ll also get to hear from my fellow Goldsmiths writers, Charlotte Barrow and Nick Burbidge. 5 pound entry and I believe there will be wine…. Hope to see you there!