Tag: erin farley

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A Morning in the Library Archives

Thanks to an invitation from the Amps network at Creative Dundee, I was invited to explore the archives at the city’s Central Library on Saturday morning. This should have happened back in March, but plumbing problems forced the place to close for the day.

While there is a wealth of historical documents on public display, there is far more behind closed doors, viewable only by appointment.

It proved challenging to squeeze ten people around the tightly-packed shelves, and it’s just as challenging to describe the breadth of stored material. It spans three centuries of historical newspapers, self-published poetry, local maps, building plans, posters for pantomimes, &c. Each piece tells its own story and can’t always be slotted neatly into one category or another.

A narrow aisle lined with red shelves filled with historical documents and bound books at the Central Library, with a cart containing various bound materials in the foreground.
Some of the shelves at Dundee Central Library.

My pal Dr Erin Farley led the tour, giving answers to every question posed throughout the two-hour visit. When booking the tickets, Amps members were invited to request any special documents they wanted to see. I seized the opportunity to mention my interest in railway infrastructure.

In response, I was rewarded with the original proposal for the first Tay Bridge, bound in a booklet of broadsheet-sized paper and listing Thomas Bouch as the author. As we know from history, the structure collapsed in 1879. Meanwhile, another member enquired about whether there was an LGBT+ collection. Erin explained that efforts were actively underway to develop one.

After the visit, we were treated to coffee and an overdue catch-up with others. Since most Amps events take place during office hours, I’m rarely able to attend, though this scheduling suits many of the self-employed creatives with more flexible routines. I especially miss the wonderful virtual breakfast events at 9am on Tuesdays, so I was keen not to miss a rare Saturday outing.

There’s so much more I could add about the organisation, but I’ve written so much over the past there years that it’s easier to read the relevant back-entries. Indeed, if you’re local and you think this might be for you, here’s how to sign up.

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Local Stories in the Global Room

Let me address first of all why you’re seeing this post on a Sunday when I’m accustomed to making them on a Tuesday.

I forgot to update on Tuesday, so my self-imposed punishment was to make two further entries this week: one on Friday just gone and one today. From Tuesday, we’ll go back to weekly posting.

In this entry, let me take you back to last Sunday.

Every year, the University of Dundee runs the Being Human festival, in celebration of the humanities. I’d signed up to join their Talking Bus tour, driving a round trip of approximately 75 miles to places in Angus. During the trip, we were told folk tales by Dr Erin Farley. She’s someone I’ve known for a long time, and last year she launched a collection of these stories.

This book has proved to be rather influential in my poetry group, the Wyverns. The group is not normally open to the general public, but we do have a history of tie-ins with the Being Human festival, so this is the one time of year we can showcase our work. Tuesday saw the launch of our seventh pamphlet at the university with accompanying readings.

In common with our previous publications, this took place in the Global Room on campus, used for social and cultural events rather than lectures. Each of the Wyvern poets stood up in turn to perform our poems, and the words were also displayed on a TV behind us for the audience to read along. The best perk, in my opinion, was the bowl of posh chocolates that was passed around the crowd to accompany the tea and coffee. Erin and a few others were in attendance, and it seemed to go down well.

In all that excitement, I simply forgot to update this blog. I only remembered early on Wednesday morning, when the moment had long passed.

After the event, the group exchanged a few emails on our discussion list. One member reported feeling exceptionally nervous about performing, which reminded me that not everyone is comfortable standing on a stage to read. I sometimes forget this because I read to an audience at least once a month, and I rarely think anything of it. While this is a subject I’ve addressed before on the blog, a casual search suggests I haven’t updated my advice since 2018.

I reckon that’s a topic to revisit next week, but in lieu of a more comprehensive entry, the best general piece of advice I can give is to treat it like learning any new skill.

Let’s say you know nothing about snooker, but you read up on the rules, buy a table on a whim and find a regular willing opponent. If you play three frames a day for twelve months, that’s well over a thousand matches. Within a year, you’ll know which moves work and don’t work, the optimum spin to place on the ball, how to block the other player effectively, and so forth.

In short, you’ll be pretty good at playing snooker by this time next year, just in time for our potential eighth pamphlet.

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Two Festivals

There are two major festivals happening concurrently this week.

The first is the popular Book Week Scotland, an annual festival of books and reading across the nation. The organisers produce a promotional paperback containing short stories from contemporary writers that are given away at literary events. As such, I ordered a box for my open-mike night Hotchpotch, and we had just enough for each member to take one.

What is less well-known is the Being Human festival, a commemoration of the humanities across the UK, and it’s that one I’d like to focus on in this entry. Until Saturday 23 November, there will be events held in Lincoln, London, Sheffield and Swansea – as well as in my native Dundee.

I’ve previously mentioned my poetry circle, the Wyverns. In 2018, we created our first booklet as part of Being Human. This was inspired by the 200th anniversary of the novel Frankenstein, all the more appropriate since Mary Shelley was living in Dundee when she started to write it. The booklet was then launched at the University of Dundee.

We’ve now been given an opportunity to do the same with this year’s theme: discoveries and secrets. Our circle took inspiration from the nearby River Tay, more than a mile and a half wide at its mouth, with plenty of physical and metaphorical space for secrets waiting to be discovered. Incidentally, only one poet wrote about the obvious connection with the RRS Discovery, which was built in Dundee and visited Antarctica in the early 20th century.

To me, it’s lamentable that Book Week Scotland tends to grab the headlines and overshadow Being Human, as there are so many potential connections to be made between the two that they deserve an equal footing.

For instance, my friends Erin Farley and James Barrowman have been temporarily resurrecting The Poets’ Box in the Wellgate shopping centre. The original Box opened in the 1870s and stayed open for more than 70 years, albeit in different locations around the city. It not only sold poetry and sheet music, but had a printing press on the premises to distribute work by local writers.

Despite the overshadowing, I’m looking forward to taking part in Being Human this year, and if all other factors remain equal, in years to come.

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The Long and the Short of It

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) officially ended on 30 November, freeing up time to make more detailed entries here. And what a great deal has happened over the last seven days.

Let’s start off with NaNoWriMo itself. I’m pleased to report that I hit the 50,000 word-target on day 29, although I’m still writing the story. Our Tuesday meet-ups will also continue off-season, but not before a Thank Goodness It’s Over party tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’ve been asked to write a guest blog post for NaNoWriMo on the theme of the ‘Now What?’ months, when the contest is finished and the novel needs to be edited. I found it more difficult than an ordinary blog entry because I wanted to stick as close to the theme as possible. I’ve yet to find out when the guest post will be published, but I’ll point you in that direction when I know.

Speaking of other blogs, I took a snap decision on Saturday to start using Tumblr again after a gap of four years, roughly when I began to use WordPress. I used to keep a weekly video blog there, but I gave it up because I didn’t have the time to generate content. The videos have disappeared because my Flickr account is closed, but the transcripts remain. Tumblr will now serve as an outlet for my Instagram photos, interesting content from other people, and original long-form blog topics that aren’t related to writing.

[Insert fangirl squee]
 

Another place I’m active is Twitter. Some weeks ago, the allowed number of characters was doubled from 140 to 280. Having had the chance to try it out for a while, I’m ambivalent about the change. On the one hand, a sense of Twitter’s core identity has been lost as you’re no longer forced to find inventive ways to comply with the cap. On the other hand, the relaxed limit comes into its own when I’m advertising our Hotchpotch open-mike events, and it’s now possible to squeeze in all the core points without relying on users clicking the link to our Facebook page.

As well as WordPress, here’s a summary of the places you can now follow me: Google+, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter.

But what about offline activities? There have been plenty of these happening too.

On Thursday, I was invited to a St Andrew’s Day celebration at the Dundee Maggie’s Centre to read Scottish poetry. My friend Erin Farley had pointed me towards, among others, a poet called Violet Jacob from the county of Angus. It was a challenge to read work written in her dialect, but I found it an ultimately rewarding experience.

On Friday, Erin was part of a line-up telling stories related to food while the audience enjoyed soup and bread; hers was a folk tale from Shetland. This event was held in the library – not a place where food and drink is normally encouraged – as part of Book Week Scotland. I wish I’d been able to take part in more events over the week, but it overlapped with NaNoWriMo and then I needed to complete tasks that I’d put off because I was writing.

I could go on for pages and pages about Saturday, but the condensed version is that I met the author Brandon Sanderson in Edinburgh and bought his short story collection Arcanum Unbounded. Unlike the two friends who came with me, I’m new to his Cosmere, the universe in which all his sci-fi novels are set. When I mentioned this, he pointed out which stories I should read first. He seemed such a genuine man and I can’t wait to start reading.

And yesterday, a little light-hearted relief at the University of Dundee as I watched the LIP Theatre Company present their retelling of the classic Cinderella tale in If the Shoe Fits. A hilarious, highly self-referential treat.