Lytham Lives launches at last!

Amazon link



Woo hoo!!!!
At last - Lytham Lives - A Community in Writing launches today at a special launch at Park View Community Centre in Lytham. 

Lytham writer Alexandra O'Toole and I have had the most unbelievable palaver with our original choice of publishers - so we gave up and did it ourselves, and I have to say the finished product is cracking! :oP

The anthology is a part of the forthcoming Lytham Festival of Stories, a project dreamed up by Alex O'Toole and developed in conjunction with Cath Powell at Park View 4U, and with fantastic support from Lancashire County Council, Fylde Borough Council, and Arts Council England.

We ran writing and conversations-in-the-community workshops in Lytham at Park View and at St. Bede's High School to get the ball rolling, and opened out the invitation to anyone connected with Lytham to submit their contributions to the anthology, and then chose the final pieces to be included.  With specially-commissioned photographs from local photographer Ruth Brooks-Carter, the finished anthology is a fantastic slice of life writing, memoir, and poetry, and a fittingly resonant slice of Lytham past, present, and future - a real festival of stories. 

You'll be able to buy your own copy of the anthology from Park View Community Centre, Plackitt and Booth bookshop on Clifton Street in Lytham from 15th July, and from Amazon by clicking on the image of the book here:

Amazon link

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eKlectic Writing - Official Live Launch of The Book of Shadows!

Following the grand tradition set by my friend and

award-winning poet Terry Quinn, I'm

launching the final Witherstone book, The Book of Shadows,

with friends!

 

 

It'll be a fabulously eKlectic night mixing prose and poetry - and it will be great to catch up with my fabulously-talented friends!

It's FREE too, and is forming part of the NEW monthly live literature nights LexiKal at the fabulous Korova Arts Café Bar just off Fishergate in Preston.

 

See you there!

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I am a Laydee, and I do Ladies Things.

Thrilled to have been invited to join the line-up at Korova Arts Cafe for this Friday's LadiesKlectic night in support of LadyFest Preston 

- supporting Preston Domestic Violence Services with loads of fab events 11th - 13th October - 

and I'll be joining Kiri Pritchard Mclean, Grace Ashworth, winner of the LimeLight Film Competition at Korova, Katie Ryan, Beth Norwood and Kerry Carrol, three fantastic emerging talents from the world of music, theatre and film, and the fantastic Avital Raz - 

"To call her magical is to miss the point. This is real and very potent self-expression."- Nick Burbridge.
- AND latest news just in: Guild competition winner Lorna Smithers.

F.A.B.

So all in all, a good night out then! See you there, where I will be a Laydee, and do Ladies Things. 

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Book Launch reading

Really chuffed to have been invited to read at Terry Quinn's latest book launch this week! I took Terry's first collection Away - literally! - when I sailed across to Denmark and Norway, and it was the perfect poetic companion for that journey so I'm really looking forward to his latest collection.

Terry has been on the road launching his new collection The Amen of Knowledge, and his Preston launch is going to be a fantastic feast of live literature with the talents of Rebecca Charnley, Martin Domleo, Sue Hicks, Ron Scowcroft, Lorna Smithers, and Dean Taylor, and of course, Terry Quinn will be reading selected poems from his latest book! Oh, and I'll be performing my ha'penny's worth too as Terry has asked me to read! Really looking forward to a great night amongst so many fab writers :o) - come sup with me at this feast of delights!

In Conversation With ...

'Conversations with the Community'
for The Festival of Stories.

Check out The Festival of Stories blog with an update of the most recent community event in the lead up to The Festival of Stories, a brand new four day festival planned to take place in Lytham later in 2013.

I'm dead excited to be involved in this project, and the ‘Conversations With The Community’ at St. Bede's High School in January was a fabulously enjoyable event for the Festival build-up with members of the community sharing their stories.

Organised by local Lytham writer and resident, Alex O’Toole, in collaboration with community organisation, ParkView4U and with the aim of using storytelling and story sharing to connect generations within the community, twelve members of the Lytham community shared their memories of growing up in Lytham with a class of Year 9 pupils from St. Bede’s.

Organisers of The Festival of Stories are currently working with Lancashire County Council to bid for funding from The Arts Council in order to bring the event to the public.

And in the meantime, the deadline for submissions for The Lytham Lives Anthology: A Community In Writing is 5pm on 28^th February.
Some of those at the ‘Conversations With The Community’ event have been inspired to submit some of their creative writing, life stories, and poetry to The Lytham Lives Anthology so if you have any writing on the theme you can submit, get cracking because there's only 21 days to go...!

For more details about how to submit your poems, short stories or pieces of life writing go to: http://lythamstories.wordpress.com
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