I must be brief with this post as I am currently in the middle of Staffordshire in a village called Alrewas where there is an Arts Festival in full swing!
The weather has not managed to put a dampner on the enthusiasm here (although not for want of trying!) and there has been a variety of activities going on, from film-making, drama and painting to creative writing…which is where I come in.

I am producing an anthology for the festival – a book which will include creative pieces of writing from local residents and guests of the festival. There will be a mixture of spontaneous stories written under time pressure (Five Minute Masterpieces), pre-prepared submissions and memories and stories of the history of the village.
Recently, a film has been made about the history of the Trent and Mersey canal which runs through Alrewas, and I will be including some of the stories that were unearthed though the research of that film.
The anthology will be an example of the kind of things that you can do with completelynovel – where producing a book can be so easy and fun. And of course there is no up-front cost which is great for a community project where one has to keep a tight grip on spending.

So…off now to collect some poems from the village poet and then to grab some unsuspecting victims and get them to write a story in five minutes…there have been some fantastically random ones so far!