'Sirens, Smartphones and Stilettos'

Thursday afternoons see me tutoring the 'Ox-Pen' Writers, a community education creative writing class in Edinburgh.  It's a small but perfectly formed group (always open to new members!) with a lot of talent and a great group dynamic.  We've spent the last few months looking at the whole concept of 'collaborative writing' whereby we've taken a specific scenario - a wet Monday morning in February, on a street in Edinburgh - and developed a number of characters whose lives are (perhaps) destined to cross...

So, 'Sirens, Smartphones and Stilettos' was born, in which the reader is introduced to: Dennis the rat; Jacqui with the pink shoes; Nancy, owner of Nancy's Cafe; Molly-the-lolly, Kathy and her little girl, Suzy; Micky the bus driver; Kirsty, a girl in labour and  Niall the paramedic; Reg the postman; Malcolm the texting teenager and Alison the minister.

Intrigued?

Last Thursday, the exhibition of work went up in Oxgangs Library (where it will remain for about 3 weeks if any of you locals want to visit), we launched the booklet full of stories and poems, and we had a (very well attended) public reading event -

As you can see, the hard work paid off - and this is a tribute to Georgia, Joan, Liz, Elspeth and Nikki for their talent and enthusiasm - and for brightening up miserable Thursdays!

Here's to the next one....!