All posts by martynb

Have You Ever Thought About Writing Your Life Story?

Thank you to all the ladies and the gentleman students who worked so hard on this intensive two night residential course and began writing their life stories. What a wealth of different experiences we were privileged to have in the room. We heard and wrote about our amazingly diverse lives. Working and/or growing up in … Read more

Winter Writing Retreat

Thank you to the group of talented and enthusiastic writers and poets for their contributions to the Winter Retreat. With writers from Norfolk Federation and elsewhere we enjoyed working on short stories, sketches, a novel, a first journalistic project for a W.I. President, and some memoir writing. Several students were inspired to write after discovering … Read more

Creative Writing for Well-being

Thank you to all the talented students who produced some fascinating pieces of creative writing, including the gentle art of letter writing, memoir, and a performance piece during this course and were so generous to each other when sharing and commenting on work. It was great to meet you all. Keep writing! — Research tells … Read more

Summer Writing Retreat

Thank you to all the Writers who made this such a wonderful creative experience. What a diverse and talented group – a real privilege to work with you all. The creative writing talents ranged from scripts, memoirs, stories and songs. Congratulations to everyone on this memorable Writing Retreat. — Escape to Denman – it’s the … Read more

Have You Ever Thought About Writing Your Life Story?

Thank you to all the life story writers who worked so hard on this course and generously shared their stories with each other. What a diverse group we were, but everyone had fascinating tales to tell, and we enjoyed hearing each others unforgettable tales . Well done to everyone – it was a privilege to … Read more

Winter Writing Retreat

Thank you to all the talented writers who worked so hard on their novels, short stories, memoir, family history, poems and sketches, and supported each other with thoughtful intuitive critiques. The group also happily volunteered to be cast, and to take direction from the experienced sketch writer, bringing her writing from ‘page to stage’. Delighted … Read more

Creative Writing for Articles

Thank you to all the talented and enthusiastic students who worked so hard and became such a supportive and inspirational ‘team’ sharing ideas, knowledge and comments as we developed our articles. — In this practical writing workshop we’ll enjoy applying our creativity to writing light-hearted easy-reading features/ articles. We’ll look at popular local and national … Read more

Arts and Heritage Creative Writing Workshop

To celebrate a decade of arts and creativity Erewash Borough Council are offering an exciting programme of creative arts activities at a variety of venues throughout the Borough. Join us at Erewash Museum for a relaxed friendly and informal half day creative writing workshop led by local writer Chrissie Hall. We will be finding inspiration … Read more

Have You Ever Thought About Writing Your Life Story?

Thank you to all the talented students on this course. What an amazing diversity of life stories. From an East End childhood during the London Blitz, to a Cyprus village of the 1960, tiger spotting in India, homes, hobbies, gardens, holidays, colourful grandparents, schools, teachers, friendships, adventures, disasters, washdays in Scottish tennemants, and visits to … Read more

UNEXAMINED LIVES

A Community History Project. 20th Century Lives in a Derbyshire Village Chrissie is delighted to be part of the team involved in this innovative ongoing Heritage Lottery funded project studying 20th century life from the perspective of ordinary people connected to the Derbyshire village of Borrowash. The project, is partnered by local arts organisation ‘Wash … Read more

Performance – ‘The Women from Number 17’

The Woman from Number 17 (pdf) A superb evening, thank you to all the guests and VIP’s for being such an appreciative audience, and thanks to the actors for their amazing performances. The ‘Unexamined Lives’ local history project, funded by the Heritage Lottery, will be celebrating an amazing three years of community engagement with an … Read more

Unexamined Lives – There’s no Such Thing as an ‘Ordinary’ Life.

Thank you to all the visitors to Erewash Museum who added their stories to those featured in the exhibition. Special thanks to SJ for sharing her story. SJ visited the Unexamined Lives exhibition with S her young son and baby daughter. She lives locally and is a regular visitor to the Museum. I had brought … Read more

All Write Erewash ‘Art in an Empty Shop’ Free workshops

Thank you to all the participants who came to the rEvive shop to ‘Write Something – Make Something’ as part of All Write Erewash. We had a great time talking, writing and trying out new arty things – and we all surprised ourselves with what we achieved. The project reached so many people with the … Read more

Summer Writing Retreat

Thank you to all the talented writers who came on this summer writing retreat. You made it a truly memorable event and covered an amazing amount of work. We had a wonderful time working on a fascinating variety of projects, biographies, memoirs, children’s stories, articles – so many different genres. Wishing you all every success … Read more

Creative Writing – Characters Come First

Thank you to all you talented writers for working together to make this practical course such fun. You created some really exciting characters – wishing you all every success with your creations – keep writing and keep in touch. — Think of any great story and what you remember first are the characters. Love them, … Read more

Have You Ever Thought About Writing Your Life Story?

Thank you to all the lovely and talented students who worked so happily together writing their life stories. An unforgettable week. Special congratulations to Life Story Writing student and inspirational poet Mary Collins on the publication of her wonderful poetry collection ‘Sunshine and Shadows’, (£5) all proceeds to reg. charity Neuroendocrine Tumour (Nets) Patient Foundation … Read more

Derbyshire Eisteddfod

W.I. Centenary – selection of winning entries 100 Presidential Perils (or thereabouts) – by Adele Abbott, Duffield Cumberhills What if the speaker doesn’t turn up? Or if he does and no one is interested in Conservation around the Thames Barrier? Or, if he turns out to be a carrier Of some dreadful lurgy, and everyone … Read more

“Number 17”

Number 17 – a hundred year history of a Borrowash house. Chrissie’s commission was to write a play using every ‘custodian’ who had lived at Number 17, an Edwardian Villa in Borrowash, to capture the social, economic and personal circumstances affecting families and individuals throughout the 100 year history of the house. The script was … Read more

Creative Writing Workshop – Living with BPD

Thank you to all the talented and creative participants who joined us at Borderline Arts for this one day creative writing workshop. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and best wishes to you all with your writing projects Look forward to working with Borderline Arts again in the future. — On … Read more