As part of Con
temporary Visual Arts Network North West’s Critical Writing programme, initiated by Rosemary Shirley and Elaine Speight, I did a talk in Preston yesterday. Hopping and skipping and jumping through a range of publications I’ve worked on over the years, I talked about editorial considerations, and different ways of writing, and conceptual issues to take into account.
The next step of my involvements with the scheme will be working with several writers. Each participant will be partnered with a mentor and gets support via two one-to-one sessions and feedback on two pieces of writing. Having read all the applicants’ motivations to take part in the series of workshops, I was struck by the wide range of writing activities many are already engaged in. While they are all wanting to improve and hone their skills, and consider different ways of writing and getting it published in the first place, a shared concern that came to the fore was how to actually start to make a (partial) living by writing. Other contributors to the series are Bob Dickinson, Laura Robertson, Sinead Nunes, Susie Stubbs, Sophia Crilly, Chris Sharratt, and Joanne Lee.
It also proved a great opportunity to catch up with In Certain Places: after the talk, I had a quick catch up with Charles Quick. They continue to get Subplots to a City out there: most recently during a conference in Birmingham, organised in collaboration with IXIA.
No book pictures this time: lovely endless rapeseed fields along the train tracks.
Gerrie van Noord 