Highly Irregular Newsletter #6
Dear TinyLetterers,
I thought this time I’d start the newsletter with what I promised in newsletter #1: Permission Corner. I thought you might be interested in how I go about starting a new project in case it gives you some new ideas to try. Everyone does it their own way, but we can inspire each other! (Regular announcements down the bottom if you want to skip this...)
So, I was awarded an Arts Council ‘Developing Your Creative Practice” grant a few months ago to create a hybrid pamphlet colliding the neuroscience podcast I listen to with non-human characters from Star Trek to “Examine ourselves as other”. Yes, the Arts Council gave me money for this. Believe me, no-one was more surprised than me, and I hope it gives you permission to apply, especially if you've been thinking your idea might be too crazy. Nope.
And no, I am not sure what this means either, and really have no idea how to do what I said I’d spend a year (from end March) doing. What do I do when I start a new project? I do this (disinterested cat for size):
The first thing I do is buy a new notebook. And this time, I also bought a new pen in a colour I’d never used before: turquoise. I do this because it gives me a sense of ritual or ceremony. The beginning of something is very exciting, as well as fairly daunting (especially when someone else is giving you money.)
What I also do, as you can see in the picture, is put a new project’s “stuff” in a new shoebox. I mentioned this to several participants on the Arvon course in Hybrid Writing I ran two weeks ago – I picked up this idea years ago from dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp’s excellent book, The Creative Habit. I love hearing not just what other writers do, but rituals and practices by others from other art forms. (Yes, she also goes to the gym first thing every morning. I’m not saying we have to do everything someone else does...) Just because those of us who are writers work in words, doesn’t mean we can’t also have tangible items, things we can feel, things that delight the eye. On that note…
...I was so inspired by the amazing participants on the Hybrid Writing course, many of whom work across different art forms, as well as my wonderful co-tutor, Holly Corfield Carr, that I came home and bought two more books of different sizes: a plain sketch pad and this large pad with DOTS. Can you see the dots? Also, one of the participants blew all our minds by introducing us to Transparent Post-It notes. I mean. So I got some of those too. No, I have no idea what I will do with all this, but now I have my shoebox, I have started making notes in Notebook 1 with New Pen, and I feel liberated by the Hybrid Writing course not to have to confine what I do to “just” words. I may print out pictures of Star Trek characters. Oh yes. Developing your creative practice means just that: doing something different from what I have done. Sitting in the uncertainty of not knowing. Playing. What do you do? Feel free to reply to the newsletter and let me know!
Ok, on with the regular announcements:
Wonky Animals Poetry Competition
I’ve been part of the Wonky Animals Poetry Collective of wonderful poets writing creaturely poetry for the past 6 months, you might have been to one of our Zoom readings or writing workshops raising funds for the Manor Farm Charitable Trust. Now we’d like to read your creaturely poems: submit yours to Candlestick Press, deadline 30th April, we have a very loose interpretation of what “creaturely” or “wonky animals” can mean, surprise and delight us! You can join our FB group here for updates.
Interview
Apr 4 I was delighted to be a guest on Lucy Meggeson’s excellent Spinsterhood Reimagined podcast, talking about my novel, Go On, and about being a person moving happily alone through the world. You can listen here (or wherever you get your podcasts), we had a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1925427/12476848-the-one-where-i-talk-to-writer-poet-tania-hershman
Courses and workshops
Online June – Aug There are still places left on the London Lit Lab online 8-week course I’m teaching that is the one I wish I’d been offered when, as a short story writer, I began tiptoeing towards poetry: Poetry for Prose Writers! The course runs from 13 June – 7 August, and is asynchronous, so you can join from anywhere in the world, no need to be online at a particular time. More information and booking here, bursaries are available too, as always. Come join us.
In person May – Oct Final few places left on the in-person monthly short and very short story course I’ll be running in Manchester from Tues May 2nd - booking here
Events and Readings
In person, April 27th, London: I’m delighted to be one of the support acts, alongside Jess Mukherjee, reading my octopus poems at the marine-themed launch of the wonderful Rishi Dastidar’s third poetry collection, Neptune’s Projects, at Foyles bookshop. More details here, hope to see you there!
In person/online hybrid event, May 29th, Sheffield: I am looking forward to being part of an event at the Sheaf poetry festival entitled “Creatures of the Mind: Exploring human and non-human consciousness”, together with Jen Hadfield and Joe Carrick-Varty. Details and booking here.
And finally, I’ve just done a spring clean on my website and have gone enormously professional, so instead of a special secret page on my website for you to buy some of my books with your subscriber discount, I now have a coupon code. I know. Use “tinyletter10” in the shop to get 10% off signed copies of my new books and some of the other books I still have copies of. You can also pick up a copy of the FUEL anthology but that won’t be discounted because it’s raising money for fuel poverty charities. Please let me know if the coupon code doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do – I’m new to coupons!
Happy reading and writing!
Tania x