The first WRITE Festival at The Word took place between 21 – 25 June 2017.
There was a whole range of unmissable events over the 5 days, including writing workshops, performances, storytelling, songwriting, poetry slams and more.
We are currently working on the below section so that you can read all about the festival and to find out everything you want to know about each event which took place, including photographs and interviews.
On the first day of the WRITE Festival 2017, Wednesday 21 June, John Prebble and Degna Stone ran various sessions as part of The Poetry Exchange which aimed to encourage the attendees to share their favourite poem with the duo and discuss what it meant to them. This sell-out event allowed John and Degna to meet a wide variety of people and get to know them by listening to their meaningful poem - a poem that they later go on to record and send as a gift to the attendees...
The Cuckoo Young Writers @ The Word programme, which meets weekly, offers young writers aged 12-19 a chance to share their work, learn new skills and give and receive feedback in a creative and supportive atmosphere. Over Spring 2017, the group worked with Matt Wesolowski and James Whitman (the group deliverers) exploring dark fiction and as part of an end of term project involving this, they created the Story Trail...
Acclaimed playwright, screenwriter and author Michael Chaplin visited The Word on Wednesday 21 June as part of WRITE Festival. He spent the night introducing a number of selected True Stories written by local writers following a prior submission process...
The Word and its visitors were in for a treat when Celia Bryce came for breakfast during WRITE Festival! On Thursday 22 June, Celia sat down with a sold out room of attendees and talked all about the fundamentals of writing for magazines as well as giving advice on what magazines look for in their stories and how to get published...
Have you ever wanted to write a letter to your past, present or future self? Throughout WRITE Festival everyone who visited The Word had the opportunity to do just that as Becci Sharrock, writer and theatre-maker was handing out letter writing kits to those who wanted to share their stories and experiences....
Performance poet Kate Fox hosted the Pro Poetry Demonstration Slam on Thursday 22 June which saw top poets from around the North show off their slam skills! Jenni Pascoe, Kirsten Luckins, David Jarman, AJ McKenna, Sky Hawkins and Steve Urwin took to the stage to perform their poems. Some were outrageous, some were funny and some were straight out controversial but each showed their personal style and passion...
Surrounded by passionate budding writers I slipped into my seat as Nancy Revell began speaking about her inspirational transition from tabloid journalist to novelist. As she smiled at the people around the table she began telling her story of being young journalist who thought she would just settle for working for her local paper, The Banbury Cake. That was until staffing changes made her rethink her decision and she began looking for a new job....
On Friday 23 June, Mark Billingham and Chris Brookmyre came to The Word with their ‘indiscreet’ show and those who attended were in for an evening full of laughter. The duo began by discussing their books and the inspirations behind them...
Andy was commissioned as part of our WRITE Festival programme to produce an 8 to 12 page comic about life in The Word. He spent several days working in the building and launched his finished comic on Saturday 24 June. We got the chance to ask him a few questions after his launch...
Acclaimed children’s author and artist in residence Faye Hanson welcomed families into the immersive StoryWorld for her fantastic story The Great Pirate Plot, on Saturday 24 June for WRITE Festival. ..