Notes on a local literary festival, part five

(parts one, two, three, four, six, seven, eight, nine)

'Richmal Crompton, Enid Blyton, and Edith Nesbit are three giants of children's literature,' said Michelle Jolly.
'And like you, they all live and work near South London, Kent and Surrey perimeters of the M25,' said Lucy.
'No, they don't live there now, silly - they are all dead!' Michelle laughed to her comedienne friend, Lucy Greenwood.
Graphic Novel, (Home'Baked Books by Michael John Weller, 2010)

The Scribblers had become a marketable writers' group set up in the local 1997 UK reality of The Studio building - an experimental arts, media and comedy workshop centre in Beckenham; still under Bromley local authority control in honeymoon months of Blair's government.

In bigger national picture of arts council lottery funding for literature - Apples and Snakes' The Popular Front Of Contemporary Poetry (which included Bob Cobbing) and Iain Sinclair-edited Conductors of Chaos (which didn't) - were the two must-read anthologies for aspiring creative writers of that era.

These volumes were bookended to beginning of Smash Hits reader JK Rowling's Harry Potter books, Time-Warner America Online, Kyoto Climate Change Summit, weird religiosity surrounding the death of the Princess of Wales, and building of a celebratory Millennium Dome in England.

As reward for their success The Scribblers were given performance training by Apples and Snakes with an eye on their touring circuit. When doing character don't be afraid of putting on a different voice. Complete contradiction to what writer was to understand couple years later at Bob Cobbing's Writers Forum workshops.

Use voice to sound text.

A Bromley grouping - not wishing to participate as trained Scribblers in London's The Word Festival 1999, played a local borough library for free instead.

Writing as word. Writing as world. Writing as read. Writing as unlimited.