Creative Summer School Programme

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This month I met with Jonathan Davidson, Chief Executive for Writing West Midlands. I had no idea the range of stuff they were doing it is really great to see people investing their time in supporting creativity in the area. I was especially interested in the creative writing and arts education programme they do for children and young people.

I met with Jonathan to spread the word about a summer programme I am putting together with Paul Whitehouse (English). A one to two day event for adolescents which will be on the theme of Transformations and involve storytelling performances, interactive storytelling performances, discussions about folk tales and then the students will be aided in creating their own storytelling performances. We hope to host this on Warwick University campus to encourage widening participation.

Things are looking harder to get funds to support my PhD research. I am currently supporting my research with part time work. I looking for a storyteller or storytellers to volunteer to learn five folk tales and perform them to adolescents in three schools in the west midlands. The performances will be fifteen minutes long and take place in the summer term (April to May). We have a great Theatre department at Warwick however. So hoping that some students would find the work useful to contribute to their portfolio and there is also a chance to be involved in our summer school on Warwick campus.

In other news I and another PhD student are putting together a webpage about female equality. We hope to offer well-balanced articles on the range of feminism in the UK. It’s not all radical! And also intend to supply articles on gender related topics to empower women to communicate with their partners about the issues that affect them. We’ve set up a website and are currently writing and sourcing articles. So watch this space.

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