Writing and Regeneration - Free resource

A free resource pack introducing writers and literature organisations to the complex and exciting field of regeneration is available to download from the literaturetraining website. An UrbanWords commission from literaturetraining and the National Association of Literature Development.

(Re)generating change: writing the public realm

A fantastic new article by Rosa Ainley, commissioned by UrbanWords, is now up on the A Place For Words website.
Rosa reflects on Leysdown: Rose-tinted, a Visioning project for Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey, in collaboration with muf architecture/art and local people, which has been nominated for numerous awards and has had a tangible impact on the regeneration of the town.

Ballooning, Balancing, Balconies and Birds - texts installed

I've just installed four texts in Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, prior to the story walks I'll be leading there on Tuesday 27th July.

Please visit the Cremorne Gardens sections of the Word Garden blog and answer the four related questions - answers will be incorporated into the walk. You can also read the texts and download your own copies if you'd like...

Unforgettable Lessons

The Erith Marshes project I've been running with year 8 students at Trinity School, Bexley, is featured in CABE's Unforgettable Lessons exhibition at The Discover Centre in the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The exhibition showcases each of the 12 Engaging Places best practice projects and is well worth a visit. It's on until the end of August.

The exhibition was launched yesterday. Jody and Jacob from Trinity School came along to talk about their experiences of the prjoect and show off the fantastic guide to the marshes they made with designer Esther Yarnold from Interim.

The Bexley project continues.... we are currently collecting oral histories from local people to inspire a series of new text pieces to be installed in the marshes. Watch this space!

Story-Swap Workshop

Story-Swap Workshop, 6-8pm, Thursday 1 July
Beaconsfield, 22 Newport St
, London
SE11 6AY

One man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure; one person’s annoying relative is the heroine of another’s novel. Come take part in a relaxed two-hour creative writing workshop led by Sarah Butler, which translates the concept of free-cycling onto the creative process.

Come with a donation – a character, an idea, a memory, an overheard conversation, a family secret: something you’re prepared to offer up to other people’s imagination. We will do a series of writing exercises, exploring participants’ offerings and finding ways to transform them into new gems of writing.

This free creative-writing workshop is part of SpaceShip Earth, 2010, a residency by artist Dafna Talmor at the Beaconsfield Gallery, 22 June – 18 July 2010. Over four weeks, Dafna Talmor will utilise Beaconsfield as centre for recycling, production and community workshops – a training ground for a better world elsewhere. The documentation of this activity will form the basis of Talmor’s TestBed film commission. Spending as little money as possible, the project will be fuelled by collaboration and audience participation -–borrowing, swapping, recycling where possible. Based around the idea of exchange, various practitioners provide free workshops to the general public, volunteering their time and skills in exchange for offerings-material or in the form of alternative services provided by participants.


PLEASE NOTE ALL WORKSHOPS WILL BE FILMED

Places are limited so please book by e-mailing your full name and mobile number to TestBedBeaconsfield@googlemail.com including the workshop title in the subject heading.

Balloons, spies, asparagus and other Wandsworth Stories

I have been loving wandsworthstories.org. It's a quirky and accessible heritage project, sharing snippets of history from across the borough. And they send you a postcard if you ask nicely! Mine just arrived this morning.....

Engaging Places

I am working as writer-in-residence in Lower Belvedere, in the London Borough of Bexley. It is a fascinating area, once a broad stretch of marshland, close to the Pleasure Gardens at Erith, it is now home to Crossness Sewage Works, a huge new rubbish incinerator, an industrial estate, and a tiny patch of precious marshland, some of which is designated a protected Nature Reserve.

I've been working with Year 8 students at Trinity School to explore the marshland's history and ecology. Sessions have included work with the Local Studies Department, and the council planning department. The students have responded creatively to the area, creating myths, historical fictions, and proposing a new name for one of the many drainage dykes in the area.

The project is part of CABE's Engaging Places Scheme. You can read some of the students' responses to the project so far on the Engaging Places Website.

Yesterday, I was at an evaluation day for all of the Engaging Places projects taking place across England this year. I was struck by the diversity of the projects, and the wealth of ideas about how to engage young people in learning about the built environment. Listening to the presentations I was brought back to the thought I regularly have, that learning about the built environment should really be part of the curriculum. I think it is so important to enable our society to articulate and understand their relationship with place, not least so they can have the opportunity to participate in improving towns, cities and places across the UK.

Image Copyright Alys Tomlinson