Tag: Stoke-on-Trent

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Better World Festival

Caroline Butterwick

I love exploring where I live in North Staffordshire. Last weekend Gary and I went along to the Better World Festival in Hanley, which is Stoke-on-Trent’s city centre.

Photo of a sign giving details about the Better World Festival

The festival saw live music, an artisan market, inspiring talks on social issues, and lots of other family friendly events taking place throughout the city centre. We braved the rain and watched several bands over the weekend, only occasionally having to shelter from the weather!

My highlight was watching the wonderful local musician Julia Mosley and her band perform on the Sunday. She has an incredible voice, and the music has a dreamy ethereal feel. Since watching her live, I’ve been listening to her music on Spotify – my favourite is ‘Obsession at Night’.

Photo of a band with four musicians performing on an outside stage.

It was great to see lots going on in the city centre. It worked well having one of the stages on the popular Piccadilly area, where there are lots of restaurants and bars with outside seating. We enjoyed al fresco dinner while listening to one of the bands on the Saturday evening. Gary commented that it would be great if there was live music on Piccadilly every weekend, as it would give us a reason to visit regularly and give the area a really lovely feel.

Photo of a woman sitting outside a restaurant on a street with a drink

I loved being back in the city centre and seeing people having a good time. A couple of weeks ago we also enjoyed the fantastic Your City Festival in Hanley where lots of local bands performed, including Gary’s own band Skybald. Then on Friday 27th & Saturday 28th August, The Big Feast, organised by arts organisation Appetite, will see the city centre filled with fantastic creative performances.

I’m really looking forward to experience more great events in our vibrant city.

My Writing

Learn to love where you live

Caroline Butterwick

I love spring. I love that the tree outside my window is in blossom, and the pot of daffodils by my front door are so vibrant, and the unexpected patch of bluebells that has appeared in my garden. I love sitting outside to eat dinner, walks in the warmth… I’m definitely a spring / summer person!

Photo shows yellow daffodils

Maybe my good mood today is also because the latest issue of Happiful magazine hit my doormat this morning. It includes my feature “Learn to love where you live”, which is about how we can connect with our local area, from learning about local history and walking heritage trails to getting involved in community projects or cooking up a meal celebrating our local cuisine.

As well as being in the May print issue of Happiful, the article is also available to read on their website.

In the article, I talk a bit about my experience of discovering more of my Staffordshire home, like taking part in a ceramics class and enjoying the wonderful delicacy that is the oatcake. As we continue to emerge from lockdown, looking at what we have locally is a great way for us to get out again, and I hope the article helps inspire others to explore their hometowns.

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Artist one-to-one session with Appetite

Caroline Butterwick

Earlier this week I had a really useful 1:1 session over Zoom with Kat, the Producer for Appetite. Appetite is an arts programme, funded by Arts Council England, that aims to get more people in Stoke-on-Trent and the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme to experience and be inspired by the arts. Over the past eight years they’ve led a host of cultural events, from vibrant street performances in the city centre to the current Familiar Faces project that was created to capture the familiar faces and the unique welcome of Newcastle town centre through the power of photography.

Photo of someone typing on a laptop

Appetite are currently offering 1:1 artist support sessions with local creatives as an opportunity for us to talk about our ideas and get guidance on next steps around making cultural projects happen in our communities.

We had so much to talk about in the hour-long session. I chatted about my creative career so far, and what my hopes are going forward. Kat gave some really great guidance on how to think about community engagement, and we talked through some rough ideas I have for projects. I’d like to build on my experience of running community writing workshops, and I left the session buzzing with ideas, my notebook full of thoughts to develop further.

I’d really recommend other artists in Stoke or Newcastle-under-Lyme to get in touch with Appetite for a 1:1 session. Whether you’re just starting out and want to get a better sense of the local arts scene and how you can get involved, or already have an idea for a cultural project that you’d like some specific advice on, it’s well worth getting in touch. You can find out more about the artist 1:1s here.

My Writing

Article in Simply Vegan

Caroline Butterwick

Simply Vegan MagazineI’m happy to have an article in the current issue of Simply Vegan magazine about vegan friendly places to eat in Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire.

There’s nothing nicer than catching up with people you care about over food and a few drinks. I love going out for something to eat, whether returning to a favourite café for coffee and cake or trying out a new restaurant with my fiancé and our friends. I’m also passionate about good vegan food, so writing about vegan places to eat locally was an obvious choice.

The article gives my recommendations of several cafes and restaurants in the local area that are worth visiting for those interested in or following an animal free diet. It was hard coming up with a shortlist of places as there’s an abundance and ever growing list of great eateries that cater for vegans, so I tried to get a mix that showcases different types of food, from a Chinese restaurant that does amazing tofu dishes to a community café that serves cheap but delicious homemade vegan cakes. My aim was to write an article that features something for everyone and highlights some of the great vegan options out there in a part of the country I’ve been happy to call home for nearly nine years.

My Writing, Uncategorized

Article on theme park access in Enable magazine

Caroline Butterwick

Disability is something I am passionate about. As a disabled person and having worked in the sector, I find that it’s an area I’m drawn to again and again as a writer.

Alton TowersI am also a bit of a theme park geek, the sort who can debate about their favourite rollercoaster manufacture (B&M all the way), why Alton Towers needs more flat rides, and who uses terms like flat rides and assumes everyone knows what she’s talking about.

My latest feature article combines my passion for disability with my love for theme parks. Published in Enable magazine, it explores the issue of accessibility at UK theme parks. While I feel there are many issues and ways access could be improved at attractions, the article focuses on advice on making the most of your day as a disabled visitor.

It covers areas including entry prices, queue lines, getting to, from and around the park, and physical ride access.

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about theme park access – I had a feature in Disability Now a couple of years ago based on a trip I took with friends to Alton Towers. There were two disabled people in our group – me (visually impaired) and Anahita (wheelchair user). As Disability Now sadly no longer exists (it was such a great platform for disabled writers), I’m planning to upload the article to this blog soon.

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Festival Stoke Writing Workshop

Caroline Butterwick

caroline_workshop1Yesterday evening I ran a creative writing workshop as part of Festival Stoke’s Art Street line up. There was a really good turnout, around fifteen of us in the Art Stop workshop space.

The workshop focused on characterisation and using our day to day experience, such as the journey to the session, as a springboard for creative writing ideas. As is typical in creative writing workshops, I set a few writing exercises to complete during the session and then everyone took it in turns to read back their writing to the rest of the group. I always find it really interesting how much variety one exercise creates in the work that’s fed back.

I’m running another creative writing workshop as part of Festival Stoke, focusing on the show, not tell technique. It’s next Wednesday 5th July, 7pm at the Art Stop Stoke, 108 Church Street, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 1BU. It’d be great to see you there.

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Creative Writing Workshops

Caroline Butterwick

I’m running two creative writing workshops over the next few weeks as part of Festival Stoke, celebrating the arts in Stoke-on-Trent.

On Wednesday 28th June, 7-9pm, Workshop One will explore characterisation, with ideas for choosing and developing a character, using every day experience for inspiration.

On Wednesday 5th July, 7-9pm, Workshop Two will focus on the famous show, not tell technique, looking at how we can make our writing more interesting and engaging.

Both workshops are free to attend and are open to all, whether you’re an experienced writer or just want to give it a go.

As mentioned in my last blog, I’m also running a free zine making workshop as part of the festival, on Saturday 5th August, 11am-3pm.

I’ve got lots of preparations to do for the workshops, and I’m really looking forward to meeting other writers and helping them develop their work. I love running workshops – I love talking about writing, so it’s a joy to get the opportunity to do this.

 

MA, My Writing, Uncategorized, Workshop

Zine Module and Zine Workshop

Caroline Butterwick

I’m doing an MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing at Staffordshire University and last week I handed in my latest assignment in the form of a zine.

zineIn his book Notes From Underground:: Zines and the politics of alternative culture, Stephen Duncombe explains that zines are “non-commercial, nonprofessional, small-circulation magazines which their creators produce, publish and distribute by themselves” (Duncombe, 2008, p10-11). They can be on literally any topic, from a favourite hobby to a political cause to writing about your life. I made my zine Interruptions for my module about my experiences of mental ill health, drawing on a variety of techniques. The main feature of the zine is a piece of life writing, and for this I used the Surrealist technique of automatic writing, where you write freely on a topic, as this helped me to get to the root of what I wanted to say without censoring myself. I also used the Dada cut out technique, taking reports that have been written about me, cutting the words out and rearranging them, so that I reclaim what’s been said about me.

I am drawn to using zines as a medium for my life writing as I love the physicality of zines. The researcher and author Alison Piepmeier talks about a gift culture around zines, where zinesters benefit from making and receiving zines. My friend Anahita and I have exchanged handmade art before – I made her a zine as a graduation present, filled with in jokes, a recipe for vegan tiffin, collages of Simpsons quotes, and photos. I like to – because I am vain like this – imagine her rummaging through her room and stumbling on the zine which she flicks through and smiles at the memories.

Anahita and I are running a free zine making workshop together in Stoke-on-Trent on Saturday 5th August, 11am-3pm. You can find out more and book on Eventbrite, and there’s also a Facebook event page. It’ll be a fun creative session and it’d be great to see you there.

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Events For All Workshop

Caroline Butterwick

This morning I went along to the Events for All workshop in Stoke run by the lovely Iona Jones. The session was all about how to organise and run a community event and I learnt a lot, from funding to permits to marketing. Being a disabled person, I found the discussion around how to make events accessible particularly interesting and I enjoyed the opportunity to share some of my knowledge around this too.

As a writer with an interest in community engagement it was really interesting to hear from other participants about their experiences – it’s left me feeling really inspired!

 

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Unity in the Community Gig

Caroline Butterwick

I love music as much as I love literature – they’re both important parts of my life and I’m fortunate that my fiancé is a very talented musician. Gary is a guitarist for the alt-rock / metal band Skybald who performed at the Unity in the Community gig at Bunker 13 in Hanley (Hanley being Stoke-on-Trent’s city centre, for the non-initiated) last Friday. Skybald are currently sans-drummer so they did an acoustic set which worked really well. It was only their second gig and they totally nailed it. I am a proud girlfriend!

The gig was about promoting anti-racist unity in the community in a post-Brexit Britain and it was wonderful to see well over a hundred and fifty people show up for the event, which also saw other local bands perform to a lovely and lively crowd. And yes, I danced!

You can read updates from Skybald on their website, listen to them on Soundcloud (which includes my favourite song of theirs, the Oscar Wilde-inspired “Call Me Dorian”), and give them a Like on Facebook.