Iris Anne Lewis was among the poets presenting their poetry films at the charity premiere ‘Adventures in Poetry Film’ in Chippenham on 2nd August. Her film ‘Matryoshka’ was made as a member of the Poetry Film Collective, a group of poets who were invited to participate in an Arts Council funded initiative led by Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery of Elephant’s Footprint.

This event was the start of the Collective’s mini-tour of the South West, with further shows planned for Bristol, Shepton Mallet and Swindon.

Stephen Connolly’s radio play ‘The Destiny Of Shoes’ was broadcast on Corinium Radio last week. The play features fellow Somewhere Else member Grame Bruce Fletcher (playing both left and right of a pair of ageing Desert boots) and was recorded before the play was accepted by Off The Rock Productions in  York.

The play was inspired by a writing exercise from a radio drama workshop given by experienced former-Radio 4 Producer/Writer Paul Dodgson.

As a pair of shoes reach the end of their careers, can they settle their differences, prepare to meet what comes next and answer the greatest question of all: is there an afterlife for shoes?

Iris Anne Lewis is a member of the Poetry Film Collective which will be presenting their films in an event in Chippenham on Thursday August 2nd, 7 – 9pm at the Old Road Tavern.

Poetry film brings together words, images and sound to create a new experience – part poetry, part artwork, part short film. A good poetry film aims to be more than just the sum of its parts… as if somehow the words, pictures and sounds talk to one another and come alive in fresh, sometimes surprising, ways.

The Swindon-based Poetry Film Collective was set up in 2018 as a six-month project funded by Arts Council England to explore how people from different artistic backgrounds might approach poetry film-making. We are all poets. Some of us are also performers, film-makers, musicians and visual artists. Some of us have lots of experience in one area while others are just starting out in another.

All of us have made a poetry film and we’d love to share them with you!

Each film is short-short (around 2-3 minutes) and there’s a real variety of work.

We’ll screen several films, then have an interval to grab a drink and have a chat, then screen several more.

7pm for a 7.30pm start.

We’ll finish by 9pm. You’re very welcome stay and chat / relax / enjoy a drink until pub closing time.

FREE ENTRY. NO NEED TO BOOK, JUST COME ALONG.

Somewhere Else member Iris Anne Lewis is thrilled to have won 1st prize for her poem ‘A Ghost of a Girl’ in the Graffiti Magazine competition.

Joining her in the next issue of Graffiti will be fellow Somewhere Else Writers Grame Bruce Fletcher and Clare Finnimore.

You can also listen to Iris as she explores her home village with fellow residents, in ‘Kempsford Voices’ the latest of our half hour radio shows.

The programme is being broadcast on Corinium Radio on Sundays August 5th, 12th and 19th at 4.30pm. Alternatively,  you can find it in our ‘broadcasts’ section.

Congratulation to Frank McMahon who has just had three more poems published in the poetry magazine, “The Cannon’s Mouth”. 2018 is becoming a productive and satisfying year for Frank with poems published on-line in America on “The Poet By Day” and other poems accepted for publication later this year.

His poem “A Lark Ascends” is dedicated to the memory of Ralph Vaughan Williams and includes the lines:

“But I grasp the drive to capture bird-song,
wind-howl and the cries of the bereaved,
to work; no slackening before death took you

plans for weeks and months ahead, the only way
to face each day before the void. Melodiesdrawn thread by gossamer thread:”

Frank has also just recorded his play “A Death In Flanders” for Corinium Radio .

He said: “There is no doubt in my mind that being a member of Somewhere Else Writers Group has been a real stimulus to my work.”

Plotting for television, the possibilities of mosaic novels – and the difficulties of asking an artist to illustrate the line: ‘He runs towards the door and slams it behind him’ – these were just a few of the topics covered by writer Paul Cornell when he visited Somewhere Else  this week.

As a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, comics and TV – and one of only two people to be Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, Paul was brilliant person to talk about the differences in writing such varied forms.

It was also lovely to welcome members of Cirencester’s Catchword Writing Group to the session.

Paul talked about the experience of moving from fan fiction to actually writing episodes of Doctor Who for BBC TV. He has also written for Casualty, Primeval and Coronation Street, and is the author of  Shadow Police – a series of supernatural crime novels and the Lychford series of novellas. He writes Action Comics for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his television. It was a fascinating talk.

Paul also organises the annual Fairford Festival of Fiction. To find out more about his work, the festival and to sign up for his weekly newsletter do visit his website at  https://www.paulcornell.com

If you are asked about literary characters, pigs are unlikely to be among your first thoughts but they take centre stage in the latest broadcast from Somewhere Else Writers this Sunday ( June 24th). With his tongue firmly in his cheek, Richard Lutwyche presents a range of poetry and prose in which our porker friend is very much the hero – from children’s nursery rhymes through to Shakespeare.

The programme is broadcast on Corinium Radio at 4.30pm and will be repeated at the same time for the following three Sundays. If you miss it, it is also available in the ‘Broadcasts’ section of our website along with many of our previous programmes. Do listen and enjoy.