Nominate us in the Saboteur Awards!
It's Saboteur nominations time again, and we're hoping that you'll nominate and vote for Fictions of Every Kind in the 'Best Regular Spoken Word night' category.
Why should you vote for us? Pick your reason, based on the handy guide below.
1. We help our regulars get published & find success.
Amongst the organising team itself, we can count publications in Long Story, Short (Jenna Isherwood, forthcoming in May 2016), FairAcre Press, the LS13 Anthology, and Mother's Milk Books (Claire Stephenson) and publications in Toasted Cheese, December Magazine, and Willesden Herald (SJ Bradley.) But, that's not all. We often find that our regulars get published, too. Our regulars have published in: Almond Press 'Apocalypse Chronicles'; in The Alarmist magazine; one has even gone on to apply for (and get) a fully-funded scholarship on a creative writing MA at the University of Chichester. We've also helped some of our regulars get their first ever publication - step forward Nick Allen and Debbie Coope, whose poetry will soon appear in future issues of The Cunningham Amendment.
2. We always pay our invited speakers.
Even at the very affordable door price of £3, we still always manage to pay our writers a fee for reading at our events. Not every spoken word night does this, and we consider a point of pride that we always, always, always pay our invited speakers. We have also never put our door prices up, not in 6 years. We make huge efforts to make our event friendly and welcoming, and our affordable entry fee is part of that. 3. We've brought some world-class writers to Leeds.
In the past year, writers we've brought to Leeds have included: Adam Marek, (June 2015) Kirsty Logan, Tania Hershman, (November 2015), Avril Joy and Zoe Lambert (April 2015), and Kirstin Innes (who went on to win the Not The Booker prize.) Tania and Kirsty did this rather amazing Q&A, which you can see on our YouTube channel here. For each event, we charged the princely door entry fee of £3.
We also put some amazing lesser known, and more local writers, in front of our audience. In September, we had Jacey Bedford and Martin Cornwell; in February this year, we had poets Helen Mort & Ian Harker. Every single writer got paid. (See point 2, above.)
4. We're helping our regulars get on the radio
Not only do we help our regulars get published, we're also currently helping them get their work on the radio. On Saturday April 16th at 7pm, we'll be taking part in the Chapel FM "Writing on Air" festival, along with 6 of our regulars, and musician Chrissie Caulfield. You'll be able to listen to it online at the Chapel FM website.
5. We've helped read for, and organise, the Remember Oluwale Writing Prize
David Oluwale was a Nigerian man who lived in Leeds in the 1960s. He spent a lot of his time living rough on the streets, and was systematically assaulted and taunted by two senior police officers. In collaboration with Remember Oluwale and The Big Bookend, we helped organise and read for a writing prize (and resulting anthology, to be published by Valley Press in June 2016) in his memory. David's death was a shameful episode in Leeds history, and we were happy to help bring his life & death more into public consciousness by playing a role in the writing prize in his name.
6. We don't go around shouting about ourselves very often
Unlike some other writing organisations, we don't go around boasting about ourselves, as a general rule.
Everybody in the Fictions organising team - myself, Jenna Isherwood, and Claire Stephenson - are all volunteers. We've been running Fictions for nearly 6 years now - our events are consistently of great quality, and we've all been working hard for a really long time, for no money, and it would be great to get some recognition for our efforts. Vote Fictions! (please.)
