LORE & The Dark Room: Rachel Seiffert

Not to be missed!

This Saturday author RACHEL SEIFFERT introduces West Side Cinema's screening of LORE, the film based on her Booker-nominated novel, THE DARK ROOM. And she will be there at the end too for a Q&A.

Earlier in the day, Rachel will be leading a writing workshop in Stromness Library on Character & Story. The workshop is currently fully subscribed, but we may start a reserve list if more folk express an interest. E-mail: alisonmiller67@btinternet.com

Bringing Rachel to Orkney along with the film has been a collaboration between Orkney Library & Archive Reader in Residence, West Side Cinema and The George Mackay Brown Fellowship.

See details of the screening at the top of the poster.

And click on the links below for more information about the film, the novel and its author.

Rachel Seiffert, The Dark Room, Lore

ORKNEY'S YOUNG WRITERS: WIRDSMIT'S WORK

Wirdsmit Group members at the Brownie Cottage

By the time the lottery funding had ended, it was clear that the Wirdsmit Group should continue and the obvious home for it was the George Mackay Brown Fellowship. GMB himself gave encouragement to young writers who approached him, and many did. For some months now Wirdsmit has received support from the group set up in his name, particularly from Pam Beasant, as well as from Louise Graham of Orkney Library & Archive, who applied successfully to OIC's Culture Fund to allow the group to carry on.

And it is no wonder the group continues to attract interest and support, for the quality of work that they produce never fails to impress.

Below is a small selection of clips from the two workshops members of the group have taken part in in the past few weeks. Thank you to those who have given permission for your work to be quoted. 

May the group grow and flourish and the young folk continue to develop their writing. 

'The Fin Not the Shark'

In the workshop in Stromness Library, Alan Bissett led a session on holding back in writing, keeping your reader guessing and wondering, so that they will go on reading. More effective, he told them, citing the film Jaws, to 'show the fin not the shark'. Here are two beginnings that show the young students learned the lesson well. 

Fire licked at Orion’s feet, and yet he still did not move. Smoke billowed around him, rising far into the sky, tainting the clear mountain air. A crow screamed, shooting out of a burning tree. Orion stood still, rooted to the spot, feeling the flames creep up his torso, lighting up the forest round about him. Eventually the raging heat engulfed his head, and he was plunged into darkness. Aisling Philips

***

The question I had wanted to ask my parents for years pounded inside my head.

‘Mum?’, I asked cautiously.

‘Yes dear?’

But that was it, my confidence gone.

‘Doesn’t matter.’

I twisted a lock of hair around my fingers in discomfort. I guess I was scared,

scared that my life would change forever. Ruisa Connolly

Writing Orkney Nature

A large part of writing is really looking at the world and paying close attention to detail. Two weeks ago a group of twelve young writers went to the Brownie Cottage to do just that, including those moving to Wirdsmit II.  For them it marked the final time they would spend with the younger group members. 

The trip fell within the week of the Orkney Nature Festival and with some help and advice from Sydney Gauld of OBRC and Gaby Barnby from Stromness Writing Group, Amber Connolly brought the youngsters to Orphir to look closely at Orkney nature and write about it.  

An unknown flower and seed head

Tall yellow flowers, they feel soft and smooth. They look like they only opened recently because at the top of the plant there are still buds. The leaves look like small broccoli leaves. There is a gentle, soft, sweet smell. It might have been wild though I doubt it.

I can remember when we first moved to Orkney I was fascinated by flowers, after all there weren’t many in London! When I was seven I loved finding dead animals and having funerals for them in the back garden. I would always put flowers on the graves. Most of the time they even had grave stones! I would always pick the prettiest flowers I could find, as long as they weren’t mums. If I had found these flowers I would have used them. Maya Tams-Gray

PS The flower/seed head was from a brussel sprout plant, so a good guess!

*** 

Hen Harrier

Silent bird of prey

Swarming over our heads

Large and hungry, ready to strike

Down, down, further into nothingness.

A rat, no a hare

Captured in talons,

You clutch on, not letting go

Then disappear into the clouds.

Will you return one day?                         

Ellhana Welbon

***

Writing about a shell from the ‘lucky dip’

Shells

The hollow frame of the shell is cold and crumbles to the touch.

It used to contain energetic life, the tiny animal exploring the sea bed. But now it is no longer supporting life, it is dead and dry.

It has been trampled underfoot without a thought and has been mingled with the sand.

One day a young girl picks up the shell, takes it home, and puts it outside her window.

Every day as she opens her curtains she looks at the empty, lifeless husk.

Every day the vicious wind and rain lashes the old shell, wearing it and crumbling it to pieces.

Every day the shell patiently waits.  Finley Tams-Gray

***

Writing about a stone

Stone cold

Too cold to touch

Open to a new world

Nestled in the ground

Energy gone.

Megan Card 

***

AMBER & THE WIRDSMIT GROUP

Amber Connolly

As is often the way, the idea for the Wirdsmit Group was born at a kitchen table where two friends drank tea and chatted. Amber Connolly and Alison Flett both had daughters who were keen writers. Why, they wondered, was there no writers' group for children and young people in Orkney when there was so much provision for adults who write? And who would set up such a group? Could they do it themselves? Yes they could.

Alison Flett

The idea grew arms and legs over more cups of tea round Alison's table and they were all set to start it up, when Alison had to go to Australia.

But help was at hand. Louise Graham, Children's Librarian, Orkney Library & Archive, being a passionate advocate of children's reading and writing was warmly supportive. In turn, she sought the support of Gary Amos, Orkney Library & Archive Manager, who was equally enthusiastic. This allowed the group to start up and attract lottery funding. To begin with the group was aimed at 8-12 year olds.

Louise Graham leading Chatterbooks

And the timing was good, because Nalini Paul had just finished her year of the George Mackay Fellowship and was able to do three of the twelve workshops that got the group going.

And from these work-shops emerg-ed a very im-pressive pub-lication called Wirdsmit: A Sea of Stories, which Nalini edited along with Amber and the group.

But as those of us who have run groups know, it is fine at the beginning when everything is new; more difficult is to sustain the momentum as time goes by. But Amber, Louise tells me, has never once wavered in her enthusiasm, her energy and her commitment to the group and to nurturing the creative writing of young people in Orkney.

Nalini Paul

It was about two years ago that the 8-12 year old group began. And now some of those who have been in the group from the start are outgrowing it and Amber has had to think of the next phase: a group for 13-15 year olds.

Alan Bissett and the Wirdsmit Group in Stromness Library

Cue Alan Bissett! 

As Reader in Residence I secured some Scottish Book Trust Live Literature funding to bring visiting authors to Orkney. Look at the Live Literature database, I said to Amber, and write a list of authors you would like to come and we'll see if they are available. When Alan Bissett came top of her list, I kept my doubts to myself. Not in his ability, but in his availability. Alan is one of Scotland's busiest authors, producing plays, one man shows, novels and stories, as well as being very much in demand via Live Literature. I seriously doubted that he would be free to make the journey to Orkney. But with that serendipity that has cropped up so often in this residency, it turned out that Alan was already intending to travel north for something else and the timing worked perfectly. 

On Sunday the 12th of May, some of the older young folk from Wirdsmit gathered with Amber and Alan upstairs in Stromness Library for a workshop to kick start the 13-15 group.

They were really engaged, really good writers ... far better writers than I was at their age ... so [the] group is working. And they were really nice kids, really pleasant.

All of them wrote stories that demonstrated what we'd been talking about. Very exciting pieces of work - quite sophisticated ideas for 13 year olds - yeah, I was really proud of the stuff they did. 

Alan Bissett on the Wirdsmit session 12.5.13

Amber was delighted with Alan's work with the group. He pitched it just right, she said, and engaged really well with the young folk. He was wonderful!

To hear more of how Alan led the group, tune in to this brief interview on soundcloud. He also talks about the importance of books and libraries in his life.

The following weekend, during Orkney Nature Festival, Amber brought a group of twelve young writers to the Brownie Cottage in Orphir for that most valued time-out for writers, a retreat in the country offering the peace and quiet to write in the company of other like-minded people. 

With the help of Sydney Gauld of Orkney Biodiversity Record Centre (OBRC), Amber drew up a list of examples of Orkney Nature that she would talk to the young people about. She encouraged them to consider the place of these things, not only in the landscape, but also in literature. The list included the primula scotica, the Westray black rat, the hedgehog, the pheasant ... Amber also had the help of Gaby Barnby from Stromness Writing Group, who provided a lucky dip of natural objects for the children to choose and then write about.

To hear more details of Amber's experience with the Wirdsmit group, listen to the interview on soundcloud.

And look out for the next blog for some samples of the great writing the young Wirdsmit members produced in both of the workshops.

  

Robert Rendall, Orkney Poet

The handsome volume on the left, Robert Rendall Collected Poems, contains a unique collection of the work of Robert Rendall, one of Orkney's most interesting literary characters.


In his day job he was a draper and worked in the family shop Rendall's on the corner of Albert Street and Bridge Street in Kirkwall. (Now Grooves music shop, this is where the book was launched at the end of last year.)

But in his time off, Robert Rendall was one of those remarkable self-taught Orcadians who wrote poetry, criticism and essays; painted in watercolour; studied Orkney's shores and discovered new species. One shell he was the first to identify looks like a butter curl! I found one in Stronsay once on the Rothiesholm sands.

Orkney Book Festival has had the chance this year to celebrate and honour Robert Rendall with an event to present his poems - well known and unpublished - to a new audience and readership.

It was Brian Murray and John Flett Brown who did the painstaking work of scholarship and editing to gather all the poems together into this one volume. John Brown is away, but Brian Murray will introduce the poet and a handful of Orkney Readers will read the poems.












Brian Murray on Robert Rendall
Orkney Library & Archive
Saturday 13 April
4.00-5.00 pm

ONE WEEK TILL THE ORKNEY BOOK FESTIVAL

Orkney Book Festival kicks off one week tonight with Margaret Tait's film, Blue Black Permanent to be shown in Stromness Town Hall by Westside Cinema. See below for details.

THU 11 APRIL 'Blue Black Permanent' (PG)

plus Q + A with lead actress GERDA STEVENSON

Orkney Book Festival

present

Margaret Tait's debut feature from 1992.

Gerda Stevenson

7:30 doors for a 7:45 start.

£5/£4 concessions (school age children free). Bring your own refreshments.

'A haunting and magical film about a daughter’s attempts to come to terms with her mother’s mysterious death, not only through examining her own childhood memories but also going back further in time, to tales of her mother’s own childhood. With an allusive structure filled with flashbacks and dreams, this is a delicate and poetic work of intense emotion'. —luxonline.org.uk

Gerda Stevenson received a Scottish BAFTA Best Film Actress Award for her performance in the film and we are delighted to welcome her to the screening in conversation with Dr. Sarah Neely, author of  Margaret Tait: Poetry, Writings, Stories.

Supported by the short film

'that now'

by Sarah Forrest

An artist's film made in response to a six week Margaret Tait residency in Orkney. Sarah will also be in attendance to introduce her film.

Time for Reflection

Two blog-free weeks and I feel I've lost the knack! It's not easy to live your life AND write about it. When I'm busy it seems like there's no time for reflection. 

And then there's what to write about? There's a lot going on now: groups set up and running as part of the residency; input into Orkney Book Festival which will happen in April; the ongoing work of promoting services; the eventual relaunch of a service in the library aimed at using books as ways of helping readers out of the doldrums. And much 
more!

There has been a couple of weeks of absolutely glorious weather. The photograph above is of Stromness harbour at sunset on the 17 February. I was there to join the George Mackay Brown Fellowship Group to discuss the upcoming Orkney Book Festival. Much of the festival is being run in collaboration with other groups - the Pier Arts Centre, Westside Cinema, Glasgow Women's Library. 

There are several strands to it: Margaret Tait, the Orkney film maker and poet will be featured through her films and her poetry. I will publish the full programme nearer the Festival, but meantime, here is a taste of what's to come:

Margaret Tait

There will be a screening of Blue Black Permanent, Margaret Tait's only feature length film, introduced by Sarah Neely and Gerda Stevenson, who stars in the film and knew Margaret Tait well.

Gerda Stevenson

The George Mackay Brown Memorial Lecture will be about Margaret Tait and will be delivered by Dr Sarah Neely of Stirling University.

Sarah Neely

Sarah also edited a book of Margaret Tait's poetry and other writings and there will be screenings of some of Tait's shorter films as well as readings of her poetry.







And another treat in store is Glasgow Women's Library's film: Margaret Tait: Film Poet by Marissa Keating, Michael Thomas Jones and Laura Dolan.

If you click on the link in the film title above, you'll see a fabulous trailer for it. It attracted four star reviews at its recent outing in the Glasgow Film Festival.

The film is being brought up to Orkney by Magi Gibson, Glasgow Women's Library's Reader in Residence. Magi will be playing a big part in the festival along with Ian MacPherson, Canadian novelist Struan Sinclair and many more!

See the blogs in the next few days to read more about the visiting writers and the organisations collaborating to bring you the festival.