November was a real whirlwind! The excitement of the past month has further proven the astonishing level of talent in our community. We hope you managed to catch some of our Black Writers Conference, with incredible speakers including Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Yvonne Battle-Felton, Seni Seneviratne, afshan d’souza lodhi and so many more! For those who weren't able to attend, the conference panels will be available to watch on our website very soon. But the fun doesn’t stop there… At Commonword HQ we already have events in the pipeline for the new year, 2022. We hope you can join us, whether you are in Manchester or further afield.
Thank You for Dreaming with Us!
A message from Commonword's Co-Artistic Director
Cheryl Martin
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who came to our National Black Writers Conference on 20th + 21st November, 2021. It was a blast! We had such wonderful panelists, and those in the audience were so lively, so welcoming, so supportive, it made it easy for us to create an outstanding weekend. It was so good, we recorded all the panels and readings, and they will be available in a few weeks on our website. This year people came from Trinidad to India, Berlin to Bolton, from the USA to Scotland – and we want to reach many more places and people over the next two years, for when our next conference takes place in 2023. So proud of all our artists and panellists.
Cultureword ran two competitions as part of this year's Black Writers Conference: Going Digital & We Want to Dream. The creativity and quality of the submissions we received was incredible. We hope you enjoy watching the winning films below.
Going Digital
Artists explored the potential of digital technology as a medium for telling stories, conveying emotion and context, whilst capturing viewers imaginations.
'I Know this Face' by Lucy Sheen
'she_asks_a_dying_god' by Xhi Ndubisi
An Instagram story told across nine posts using video, spoken word and photography
'Drapetomania- Lucid in a Mad World' by Princess Arinola Adegbite
We Want to Dream
Writers composed a piece on the Black Writers Conference theme 'We Want to Dream', which itself was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr's 'I Have a Dream' speech delivered almost 60 years ago.
The results? Stunning poetry conveying our modern anxieties and hopes for our future.
From l-r: Jane Adelakun (1st Prize), Muli Amaye (2nd Prize), Alexandra Stewart (3rd Prize)
Commonword & American University of Beirut
Project Update
Our British Council project is developing in a promising way. We now have three completed edited stories which have been ‘born-digital’ written especially with the Twine interactive digital storytelling source in mind. We also have 18 illustrations of those stories including illustrations created by our collaboration partners in Beirut, Lebanon, and are now starting to programme the stories so they will work online. Users will be faced with choices. Each story has multiple endings!
Workshops
Identity Update
Identity writers workshop for emerging writers of colour is thriving. Participants include two who are close to finishing first drafts of their novels, some emerging poets including one who has recently won a prize for her video-poem, and others working in the creative non-fiction and short story genres.
Last workshop / meeting this year = 15 December.
We meet again after the Christmas break on January 12th
If you are interested in joining the group please e-mail info@cultureword.org.uk
Commonword's Black Queer Book Club have read a huge range of books since they started meeting in August 2018. The group convene on the fourth Thursday evening of every month (currently via Zoom).
Our next few selections:
December -- We take the month off, but might meet up for some virtual hot chocolate -- watch this space...
January -- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, 2019 Booker Prize-Winner -- twelve characters' personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years.
If you would like to attend, please email cheryl@cultureword.org.uk or join our Facebook group by clickinghere.
Thank you to group member Roy for the above collage.
Share Your Feedback
Audience Finder Survey
Sharing your feedback helps us to continue putting on workshops and events that serve our community of writers and readers. Please complete our Audience Finder survey if you have attended events/workshops at, or run by, Commonword. We are very grateful for the time that is spent completing this survey and we love to hear from you.
The link directs you to Audience Finder, a tool which enables us to understand, compare, apply audience insights across the UK, and benchmark ourselves against other organisations.
The results, of course, are all anonymous. Thank you in advance.
Jobs & Opportunities
Manchester City of Literature's Rainbow Libraryproject applications are now open. This is a very exciting opportunity for young people (aged 16-25) from Manchester to get involved with the creation of a book from start to finish, gaining skills, knowledge and experience to shape their future lives as writers or illustrators. The project aims to make more books for children and young people that include LGBTQ+ identities and experiences.
Curtis Brown Creative, the UK’s only agent-led creative writing school, has announced an exciting opportunity for budding writers of colour...Their two-week intensive Zoom/online novel-writing course will act as an inspirational catalyst to help exhilarate your writing journey, and is entirely free for eight talented writers of colour with limited financial means.
Discoveries invites unpublished women writers from the UK or Ireland to submit the opening of a novel in English, of up to 10,000 words. Writers are not required to have finished their novel, and Discoveries is completely free to enter.
The winner will be offered representation by Curtis Brown Literary Agency and a cash prize of £5,000.
Lancashire County Council are looking to commission 10-12 writers to create a short story of between 3000-5000 words about or connected to Lancashire that can be read or listened to in one sitting.
This is an exciting Lancashire-wide programme where a unique collection of 10-12 amazing stories will be brought together into one special book. A fee of £1,700 will be paid to each selected author.
