October Events and Stuff! (by sarah)

September was frantic and wonderful - the Gloucester History Festival was amazing and has started me down the paths of several new and exciting things for the future! And I have a lot of events photos and sketchtember pictures to share with you all.

But for now it is October the 1st 2018 and this new month hold even more in it that September did! Namely The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Gloucester Poetry Festival and Frightmare Halloween Festival! I am involved in parts of all three of these over lapping festivals - wish me luck!

And then as my fun/de-stress there is Inktober - a drawing challenge that was one of the major factors in me actually producing the art work for Love: A Stranger Dream.

And then there is GothNoWriMo which is a writing challenge and shall see me writing yet more of the Punk Universe (which I will be releasing parts of properly next year!).

So here are the current confirmed dates!

Sat 6th Oct 7 pm Frightmare Preview Night at Overfarm Gloucester - ticketed event (prices vary)

Tues 9th Oct 7pm Operation Beehive in Swindon part of the Gloucester Poetry Festival and a Gloucester take over of the regular Ooh Beehive Night

Thurs 11th Oct 7:30 pm - Hammer and Tongues All Star Poetry Slam in Cheltenham, part of the Cheltenham Literary Festival at The Bottle of Sauce tickets are free and can be booked here

Fri 12th - Sat 13th Oct Young Gods showcase at Elmbridge Primary School 6:30 pm Jean and Mary's Drama group

Fri 12th - Sat 13th Oct Frightmare Scare Attraction Over Farm Gloucester from 7 pm

Sun 14th Oct 2-4 pm Poetry hosted by Sarah at the Gloucester Waterstones part of the Gloucester Poetry Festival - free event including goody bags as part of Books Are My Bag

Tues 16th Oct 2-4 Book Wyrms at Gloucester Library a poetry event with guest poets hosted by Sarah - part of the Gloucester Poetry Society and free event

Fri 19th - Sat 21st Oct Frightmare

Sun 21st 2-4 pm Poetry at Gloucester Waterstones as part of the Gloucester Poetry Society hosted by Sarah

Wed 24th Oct 2-4pm Book Wyrms free poetry event at Gloucester Library part of the Gloucester Poetry Festival hosted by Sarah

Wed 24th - Sat 31st Oct Frightmare Halloween Festival at OverFarm Gloucester

Word Fest (by sarah)

So Gloucester is about it have it's first ever Literature Festival in the form of Word Fest organised by the Cathedral. The line up looks amazing (I should probably say at the point that I am now involved with performance and stuff at the festival and I am notorious for getting excited and carried away with events! And am therefore not impartial! But seriously...).

I am hoping that my hospital appointment doesn't clash with a few things I want to go and see on Friday including a talk on Aethelflaed - hence me taking in Puppet Aethelflaed this weekend to tell people about poetry 🙂

Also I am continuing with my Aethelflaed Quest and Search for All Things Anglo-Saxon so really really hoping 🙂

There are lots of ways you can link history to literature - Anglo-Saxon monarchs are excessively easy to do this with as they were still running on the bardic tradition of getting epic poems about themselves published. And that's before you then have like a thousand years pulse of stories being written about them!

I like how you can follow the political trends of the day by how figures such as Judith from the bible is depicted in literature and art through out time. Aethelflaed is one of the Queens who was associated with this even more archaic symbol and Judith is very much a symbol - her name means lit. Jewish Lady O.o

I am running a little preview event this weekend at the Quays shopping centre to tell people about the festival, wax lyrical with poetry (and not just mine) and pester people with puppets! I will also have some writing workshop stuff with me and have the first proper outing for the Pandora Prose Story Cubes which I am very excited about and have been working on for months. I have been chugging away at the old WigglyPet Press 🙂

We will be by the Nike shop on Sat 30th of June 11 am to 2 pm and Sun 1st of July 11 am to 1:30 pm followed by the Gloucester Poetry Societies monthly session at the Waterstones in town. This is one of the regular poetry events that I host 🙂

The actual festival is the 6-8th of July - again we have the space in the Quays from 11 am - 2 pm, because bizarrely I am in more demand than I ever thought possible I am then wizzing over to Ledbury Poetry Festival which is also AWESOME and AMAZING and performing there. This means I am missing not only the Gloucester slam but, Poetry, Pie and Pint with one of the Stroud Poets I love - seriously Eley Furrell can send goose bumps down your arms with his word craft and performance. There are workshops and talks and Elvis... got to mention Elvis McGonagall - I have a claim to fame - he once said he liked my poem - can't remember which lit fest it was now or even which poem! (Ok so it's not a big claim to fame but still!).

Sunday I am hoping to get to a story telling workshop and take part in the Story Telling Slam - I love Chloe The Midnight Story Teller's work - when we first moved to the Cotswolds I was struggling to find creativity and inspiration that wasn't bloody water colours of landscapes or slightly more pagany hears :/ But we went to story telling night in the Village of Edge I think and there was Chloe and an American lady and they set my blood on fire again and I started writing again - this was at a point where I had been severely ill with Jean's pregnancy and moved away from all my friends and family - I needed that creativity - but more I needed the determinate fire and that is something Chloe is very good at giving to audiences. A few years later I met her again at a local poetry night in Cheltenham and she encouraged me to be getting up and performing and at that point I needed someone to say that to me.

Since then I have caught her story telling antics for both kids and adults when ever and where ever I can 🙂 Both the kids love her work and Jean even bought her audio book/CD with her own pocket money!

And lo! She is doing story telling for kids on the 7th - a free event so I know where my kids will be 😉 Nightshade's Tales of Tooth and Claw.

Then the Sunday - if I am not too worn out from Ledbury I plan to go to her Storytelling workshop - Hot off the Tongue and take part in the story telling slam.

Last I checked there is still space in both the poetry slam (sadly clashing with Ledbury) and the story telling slam - so knowing other performers and writers out there in the local environs - if you are interested you should email helen.jeffrey@gloucestercathedral.org.uk.

Summer Event AWESOMENESS!!!! (by sarah)

The first half of the summer was pretty EVENT FULL with Women's History Month in London, Pride, The Aethelflaed Festive and general shenanigans but the second half looks to be even more... WOOP!

Sat Jun 30th 11 am - 2 pm - WordFest preview weekend - The Gloucester Poetry Society and WigglyPetPress will be hosting a little performance space in Gloucester Quays by Gap, giving out info and having some little workshop bits for people to join in with. Aethelflaed the Puppet may well be in attendance! Free

Sun July 1st 11 am - 1:30 pm - WordFest Preview Weekend - same as above 🙂 Both events are free! Sunday's is followed by our normal Waterstones Presents event. Free

Sun July 1st 2 - 4 pm - Waterstones Presents The Gloucester Poetry Society - this is our regular monthly poetry event in Gloucester Waterstones Cafe - come and share a poem it can be your own work or something that you just admire. Free

6-8th July - WordFest - some free events and some you have to pay for - lots of stuff to do.... I'll be running the area at the Quays again on the Sat. 11 am - 2 pm. And be in the Story Slam. Currently there are still spaces in both the poetry and the story slam if you want to compete.

Sat 7th July 8-10:30 pm - £9 entrance - Ledbury Poetry Slam part of the Ledbury Poetry Festival.

14th-15th Art In the City - Free Events - I will have a stall for the whole weekend for both WigglyPetPress and Salaric Art and Crafts. I will also be live drawing for the competition on the Saturday and have art work on display in the library. Exact dates and timings of my exhibition to be called.

Sun 5th of Aug - £3.50 entrance kids go free - True Believers Summer Variant Comic Book Festival at Black Friers Priory

Thurs 9th of Aug 11 am - 3 pm - Upcycled Bunting free craft workshop at Gloucester Cathedral

11th - 12th of Aug - Cranham Feast - it's a couple of quid to get in and is full of games, entertainment and there is cricket plus the deer roast, possession on the Sunday.

Thurs 23rd Aug 11 am - 3 pm - Upcycled Crowns - free craft drop in workshops at Gloucester Cathedral.

Plus of course all the normal things like Villanelles, Food For Thoughts, Stroud Out Loud, Buzzwords, Poetry Cafe Cheltenham, Drink and Draw Chelt, Piranha Poetry etc... which I get to as an when I can and are open mics or community gatherings so not me being booked to do a specific thing unlike the stuff above!

Happy Day (by sarah)

Yesterday was pretty varied - I went to Laptop Friday Gloucester which is a local business networking/co-working etc... thingy, they were setting up a great creative business workshop run by Louise Jenner, I made price tags out of colouring in sheets for my arty stuff and put it out on display in Cookes, Coffee & Curios including Wiggly Pets 🙂 I took photos of yet more funky architectural features I found in Gloucester including the guano crying Hermes from the post office and the lovely concrete moulding and mosaic stuff behind Sainsburys, I then worked on some illustrations (sorry can't share they aren't for my own stuff so aren't mine to share!) and went to find/look at books - in the Medieval times books used to be so precious that they were chained down - the book I wanted to look at about medieval stuff is out of print... so was metaphorically chained down and I was very lucky to get a look at it 🙂 Thanks to my friend 🙂 - also the books I requested had come through so I now have a little light reading to do! Then it was kids off to drama and Al making daal soup for me whilst I sorted out all the bits for my stained glass kids workshop idea (spoiler - it doesn't involve glass but did involve going to Office Outlet) <3

Mad but Lovely Times! (by sarah)

Things have been pretty mad here! There have been Science Festivals, poetry festival, scare acting and a whole host of other things! Last week saw SMASHfest at Gloucester Library which was super super amazing and Cuddly Science had a fab time.

The Wiggly Pet Press launched the Gloucester Poetry Societies first book Poetry without Pretension at the The Gloucester Poetry Festival and Salaric Art and Craft have been out and about doing Upcycling projects and drawing like fiends!

And of course all three of those things are me plus the acting! This last week alone saw me filmed for TV, interviewed for radio and though I wasn't in the photo Cuddly Science was photographed for the newspaper. I have so many photos and things to share and November is looking pretty exciting too with more acting, Christmas craft workshops, archaeology digs, singing, Diversity, literature and poetry Festivals, craft fayres, community outreach and museum gigs! I am no longer taking bookings for 2017 sorry about that but I really am full!

And that's without all the domestic stuff like my hospital appointments and halloween/fireworks events for kids etc... not to mention Nanowrimo and stuff.