I’ve been very absent from this site recently (holidays and too much work!) but am going to do a cheeky plug for a training day I’m running for NALD in a couple of weeks….

The course is aimed at literature professionals who are thinking about setting up a literature project in a regeneration context. The day will introduce you to the world and language of regeneration, and show how writers and literature organisations can develop projects that engage with regeneration and urban change.

I’ll be joined by guest speakers: Anita Nadkarni, a trained architect, and experienced arts and regeneration professional, and Kate Cheyne from Architects in Residence.

As well as presentations and group discussions, there will be the chance for you to think about how your own work could fit into regeneration contexts and agendas.

Course attendees will be supported by online activity in the 6 month period after the workshop, allowing you to continue to access expertise, advice and support while you are developing your ideas.

10.00-16.00 Thursday 24th September

Venue: The Poetry School, Lambeth Walk, London

£30 NALD Members £60 Non members To book a place mail admin@nald.org

Hi all

I hosted an event on Tuesday, which the lovely Jay Bernard came to, along with other writers, architects and etc. to discuss how writers might work with architects, developers etc. to unpick, explore, communicate about, think about, place.

It was a really interesting discussion and it is being continued online at www.shapingplace.ning.com. I’d encourage anyone who’s interested to visit the site and take a look. You have to register but it takes about 5 seconds to do so : ) There’s a review of the event up there and the chance to take part in discussions about issues raised at the event, and on broader topics.

Look forward to seeing some of you there!

Chris Meade will be presenting his paper A Place That Makes You Go ‘Ahhhhh’ at Shortwave, Bermondsey, London, this evening, and will then be in conversation with myself and Kate Cheyne from Architects in Residence.

We have set up a social networking site so that those at the event, and those who were unable to make it, can continue the conversation about writing and regeneration online. The site is open to anyone who wants to join, at: www.shapingplace.ning.com. It’s easy to get to grips with, but to help you along, we’ve written some notes on getting started below. It would be great to have some of the My Place Or Yours bloggers and readers involved in that conversation….

Hi all

So much to read on here! I haven’t got time to catch up today, but will have more of a look over the weekend. For now though, I wanted to tell you about a new article I’ve commissioned from Chris Meade drawing on his experiences of working with designers and public artists, Snug and Outdoor. It’s an engaging read, which offers concrete examples of how writers can facilitate creative consultation and make a valuable contribution to the design process. The article – “The place that makes you go ahhh..” is free to download from the Articles and Critical Thinking section of the A Place For Words site. There are lots of other bits and bobs written by me there too : )

Chris will be talking about the issues and examples he raises in his article at Writers Shaping Places, on Tuesday 30th June, 6.30-8.00pm at Shortwave, Bermondsey Square, London, and will then be in conversation with Kate Cheyne from Architects in Residence, and myself. There are a handful of (free) tickets left. Please call Spread the Word on 0207 735 3111 to book a place.

I’m setting up an online networking site to enable people to continue the conversation after the event, and to bring in people who cannot make the event, but are interested in the issues raised in Chris’s paper, and in broader ideas about writing and regeneration. The site will be launched on 30th June and I will let you know how to access it once it’s up and running.

I spent yesterday at a conference in Manchester called  A Place For Creativity?, organised by RUDI (The Resource For Urban Design Information) and PlacesMatter (an organisation focused on generating a strong sense of place in environments throughout the Northwest).
It was a good day – lots of interesting presentations, and a couple of arguments! I wanted to blog about 3 things that came out of it that I think relate particularly to writing/literature/performance.

Michel de Certeau is a French Philosopher whose work has been very influential in theories about space and place. I studied two chapters of his book, The Practice of Everyday Life (Walking the City, and Spatial Stories) at University and I keep returning to his ideas today.

De Certeau makes a strong argument for a democratic view of space, and makes a link between city and text which I am particularly interested in. He writes: “… space is a practiced place. Thus the street geometrically defined by urban planning is transformed into a space by walkers. In the same way, an act of reading is the space produced by the practice of a particular place: a written text.”

I love this distinction between designed place and practiced space. It suits my politics to think about places as being made into spaces by the people who operate within them. And I like the connection with reader reception theories (something else I studied at University and a theory made very ‘real’ in Reader Development work) – this idea that the reader plays a creative role in the creation of a text.

I’ve just got back from Lit-Up at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal.
The highlight, for me, was the keynote by Helen Marriage of Artichoke. She’s half of the brains and the determination behind the Sultan’s Elephant in London 2006 and has done a whole host of other interesting and brave projects.
She gave a captivating account of the negotiations required to basically shut Central London in order for the Sultan’s Elephant to happen. They weren’t asking the authorities to do anything they hadn’t done before, she said, but whereas roads had been closed for sporting events and royal ceremonies, they had never been closed for a story before. The thought of her sitting in meetings with TFL, the Met Police etc. and telling them this story about an elephant and a little girl, I just find extraordinary.

She talked about her desire to ‘invade spaces’, to use buildings and places in unorthodox ways to create fantastic art that makes people look at the world in a new way. I love this idea of invading space, of using public space as public space – a space to ’surprise, delight and challenge’.
She also had a refreshingly broad idea of place and space: not only in terms of buildings, squares, parks etc. but also shop windows, the sky, and then virtual spaces – the internet, radio programmes, etc. She spoke about a poetry project, I think in Salisbury, where they commissioned 100 poets to create poems about particular places in the city and then put those poems in those places – dragged behind a low flying aircraft, in the butcher’s window, etc. So invading place became not just about shutting streets and walking a spider through Liverpool, but invading the places and spaces of our imagination, our leisure, our minds, in order to create moments of surprise and delight.

‘A sense of place and community is central to my own creative writing. I’ve found having the opportunity to work with redevelopment professionals as well as local people has been inspiring, thought provoking and deeply rewarding. It’s also reminded me of just what a powerful tool creative writing can be for myself and others.’
Aoife Mannix

I wanted to let you all know about an event I am organising in London on Tuesday 30th June. It poses the question: How do writers work with architects, designers and planners to explore and interpret people’s relationship with and aspirations for a particular place? There are more details below – it would be great to see some of you there.

Tuesday 30th June
Shortwave, 10 Bermondsey Square, London, SE1 3UN
6.30 – 8.00pm followed by networking

Join writer Chris Meade, UrbanWords Director Sarah Butler and architect Kate Cheyne, at Shortwave, a new cinema, cafe bar and production facility within the Bermondsey Square regeneration scheme, for an evening of ideas, discussion and the opportunity to network.

This event will also launch a new web piece by Chris Meade, sharing his experiences working with artists/designers Snug and Outdoor, and the conversation will be continued online after the event.

An opportunity for writers who teach or run community projects to explore new ways of working, and for regeneration professionals to see how writers can add value to their work.

For more information contact: sarah@urbanwords.org.uk
Entry is free but places are limited, please call 0207 735 3111 to book

My name’s Sarah Butler, and I’ll be guest blogging for the next couple of weeks. I’m a writer – novels and short stories mainly, but starting to do more residencies and public art projects (see www.sarahbutler.org.uk). I also run a consultancy called UrbanWords (www.urbanwords.org.uk), which I set up about 3 years ago now with the support of Arts Council England funding, to look at the field of writing and regeneration.

I’ve been on quite a journey since setting up UrbanWords, navigating this fascinating, frustrating, rich and complex field we sweepingly call ‘regeneration’. The more I read and think about how our towns and cities are regenerated, who makes decisions and why, the more politicised and often angry I feel about it all!
My interest is in how writers and writing might be able to work within this context of regeneration, to positively affect how places are changed. I’m interested in how writers can use their skills of empathy, investigation, and articulation to unpick people’s emotional relationship with place and express it in a useful and meaningful way. In a world chock full of jargon, that’s a skill indeed!
I could write for ever about this (!) but I am a fan of short blog posts and am keen that this is the beginning of a conversation, rather than a monologue. If you want to read more about my ideas, visit www.urbanwords.org.uk/aplaceforwords. This is a site I launched 2 years ago, which outlines some critical thinking, gives some case studies and offers practical advice. There are also a series of downloadable articles I’ve written on the subject. I’d be very interested in any thoughts, feedback, agreements, objections to any of the ideas there!
I am fascinated in how place can inspire new writing. I am also interested in how writing can inspire/influence/change place. So my question to the My Place or Yours writers is: Has your residency had an impact on the place you’ve been working in? If it has, what has that been? If it hasn’t, does that matter, and/or how might it have if you’d done things differently? I find myself constantly negotiating a balance between projects that enable writers to work in a participatory/community development capacity and (at the same time?) find ways to push and develop their own creative practice. So my question doesn’t come with a judgement attached (that writing residencies have to ‘earn their keep’ by ‘benefiting’ the ‘community’), but it does come from a genuine interest in how writers and their writing might act upon the places that inspire them.