September saw the five year anniversary of my writer’s group, Roath Writers. I am still in awe of how the group has grown into its own kind, enthusiastic, thoughtful and creative community. My dream of carving out a small space to talk poems and write with new people has been so far exceeded I wonder if…
Category: Roath
Written Portraits
October is coming which means warm scarves, woolly jumpers, colourful leaves and Made in Roath are just around the corner! Although we’ve got an excellent poetry and literature programme planned, I am most excited to be organising another Written Portraits event for the upcoming festival. Run for this first time at Solstice in June, this…
Roath Writers Anthology Launch at RARA
Three years is not long in the scheme of things and yet there is something significant about it. When I started Roath Writers three years ago I could not see beyond the first session, could not imagine people coming again and again – the early mornings picking poetry, the late nights at the pub. I…
Solstice Festival
After freelancing seven days a week from September to May, I look forward to taking back my weekends each summer. For me these days mean lots of tea, new poetry collections, and as much writing as I can manage. Often, I also squeeze in a few walks, documentaries and drinks with friends. They allow me…
Writing Our Lives
Both Anne Lamott and Sharon Olds taught me to write what I know. Before I read their work I did this by composing journal entries and secret stories which I hid in a blue tub under my bed. After I read their work I continued to write what I knew, just more often and publicly,…
Arcades and Alleys
When I first arrived in Cardiff I had my own ideas about what its arcades and alleys would be like. I assumed the arcades were places kids went to play pinball and the alleys were something I had to steer clear from at night. I could not have been more wrong. In the four years…
(mikst)
Last year I was lucky enough to facilitate a writer’s group called MARGIN which aimed to respond to the Rapid Cycling project at ATTIC, a contemporary gallery concerned with scientific, personal and cultural understandings of the mind. Over the course of six months our group examined work from different artists, discussed the relationship between creativity…
Death Writing
My father passed away in July of this year. It was a strange experience to have someone tell me this over the phone from thousands of miles away. After I hung up I sat quietly for a while before writing “All that’s left of him is stories now” in the last page of my notebook….
Moving Stories: Made in Roath Bookmobile
When I was young I learned the hard way that I am not the most handy person. Growing up on a farm this shortcoming grew tiresome – building fences, stacking hay bales, and carrying water buckets often left me bruised, itchy, and damp. In spite of this though, I still decided to build a bookmobile…
Christina Thatcher 