My Writing Life: Week 12
Well, they do say that things come in threes, and the good stuff has been rolling in this week – on Thursday / Friday / Saturday, just to make it nice and easy.
Thursday: I started a new job! It’s still for Eden Arts, so not a new place of work, but it’s a new project, and gives me an extra day a week in the office. It’s about helping NHS recruitment to the area, by promoting Cumbria as a place not just to visit, but also to live and work. One of the ways we’re doing this is via social media, with images and captions about what makes Cumbria a great place to live. Not just mountains. Not just lakes. But lifestyle. (Head over and like the facebook page here. Go on, I dare you.)
Friday: I learned that a funding application I submitted was successful! I’ve received funding from the Arts Award Access Fund to work with two primary schools, to deliver Arts Award Discover workshops for over 100 children. I also had a lovely meeting with Zoe at the Wordsworth Trust and a chance to see the Wordsworth Country exhibition, and then spent the afternoon relaxing at Allan Bank (National Trust property), reading a book and overlooking the lake.
Saturday: I went to York, where I read at the awards event for the York Mix / York Literature Festival Poetry Competition. Why? Because my poem, ‘The Raven Speaks’, was Commended! Whoop whoop!
So all in all, the latter end of the week was pretty successful.
Plus, I’ve also been doing some marketing this week for the Three Inch Fools’ production of The Tempest, which will be coming to Penrith Old Fire Station in under 2 weeks! (8th – 10th April, tickets available here, by the way…)
Which has meant lots of whizzing round the county with posters & flyers. Should be a great production – come along for the ride!
Add to that some blue skies and sunshine, a stroll across the fields, spending a morning writing at the Abbey Coffee Shop in Shap, a trip to an independent bookshop, and lots of flowers bursting from the ground, and you get a pretty good week all round.
The week in books:
Just one book this week: Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin.
But if you’re only going to read one book in a week, make it this one. I’ve been absolutely bowled over by Atwood’s beautifully evocative descriptive prose. (I tweeted this at her during the week, and got a tweet back saying thanks! Yay!) Every page yielded some turn of phrase that struck me so much that I wanted to make a note of it – which I obviously I had to stop myself doing, or I would never have managed to read the book.
I enjoyed it so much, that when I hit up Carlisle’s independent bookshop on Sunday afternoon, I was determined not to come away without another Margaret Atwood. Just a little something to keep me going…
The week in pictures:
Katie Hale 
Congratulations! Got a favourite achievement of the three? 🙂
Thanks Adam! And not sure – it’s like asking someone between their favourite child (I imagine), or their favourite Harry Potter book… Probably the funding though, if pushed, because it means I’ll get to work with two great primary schools, and work with loads of children, and basically just have fun writing poetry with them! 🙂
Come now, I’m not going to give you an easy question!
I’m glad education is coming out on top. I’ve not been primary school for a little while now (!) but getting people in to do fun things back then was the best; I’m sure they’ll love it as much as I would. 🙂
Prisoner of Azkaban was the best, by the way.