A literature festival, a twinned town, and a workhouse

Autumn is always busy, it wouldn't feel right if it wasn't. As is often the case, I'll be taking part in the Ilkley Literature Festival Fringe and I'm part of a festival on Chapel FM (have we stopped calling it East Leeds FM again?) though not the usual Writing on Air. I've also been busy behind the scenes doing historical research.

This year instead of showing off what we can do, Ilkley Writers are giving four bite-sized workshops called Invite To Write at the Fringe, two on Saturday 5th October and two on Sunday 6th. Each one will feature one writing exercise that's intended to be fun, not at all intimidating, and suitable for those wanting to dip a toe in the creative waters as well as experienced writers in a rut. We like a challenge...

The night before the first workshop I'll be on Chapel FM at 8.30pm (though as usual you'll be able to listen again via the website) reading flash fiction that I wrote for the 50th anniversary of the twinning of Leeds and Dortmund. It has nothing to do with either Leeds or Dortmund, or anything high-minded like bridging the continental divide. The theme was neighbours, so mine is wry humour about living in a flat. Other people involved in the festival have been more serious about it (though not all of them, naturally). You can read all the pieces on the Leeds Dortmund website.

While preparations for all this have been going on, I signed up as a volunteer researcher on a project called More Than Oliver Twist, which aims to individualise and humanise the nineteenth century workhouse. The idea is to research inmates who were in particular workhouses on the 1881 census, and tell their life stories in an exhibition next year. For me this is a natural follow-on from writing about the Bradford Female Educational Institute a couple of years ago for the Dangerous Women Project, highlighting a forgotten, overlooked bit of working class history and trying to make people (including me, perhaps - it's easy to think in broad terms when you're reading about the past) think about classes and categories of historical figures as individuals. I've researched a few workhouse inmates before while looking into mine and OneMonkey's families, but not in Leeds so I'm straying into new territory here.

Incidentally, the Dangerous Women Project is crowd-funding a book. I'm not entirely sure why they're doing a book when they've already got a website (and my piece is not going to be in the book) but if you're interested, head on over there and support them.

Also, as an aside, some or all of this arose from me working through The Writer's Plan that Carmen Marcus kindly shared. I wanted to give more back, with teaching or mentoring. I wanted to dare to try (like, getting involved in a Chapel FM festival by myself. Though it turns out Roz is on earlier in the evening so we're going there together, which is a nice coincidental compromise). And I wanted to write about more forgotten history. Thanks Carmen, for giving me a shove.