Winter Warmer Workshops 2021

These workshops, which I ran for the first time in 2020, were the best thing I did last year. I got to know and work with some lovely people, who joined in with the writing exercises, discussion of the readings and artists we looked at each week. We got to know each other over the eight weeks, and it was great fun, so I’m doing it again, once more via Zoom.

Designed to see us through the dark nights of November and December, each week there will be a different theme. We’ll explore different genres of writing, writing exercises, discussion, opportunities for reading and feedback of each other’s work and more.

Even though we are a year on, and society has opened up, many of us will still be staying inside, socially distancing and looking for community, as we move through the last quarter of another challenging year. I know I will be, which is partly why I thought this might appeal to people who would normally get together around a table in a cafe or pub, to share ideas about writing and try things out.

I can’t run workshops like this at the moment, which is how I normally do it – and how I would prefer to meet everyone. The joy of offering workshops online is that we can still meet up and do the writing and have the fun, and we can do it from wherever we are in the world – which is amazing.

The idea behind the ‘Winter Warmer’ aspect is to take us through these dark, damp nights, with reading, writing and discussion to keep us going. Creative prompts and thinking to inspire us to write. All of which will take place around our own virtual fire, where we can share stories and have a laugh together.

Each week is a 90 minute workshop, with a presentation, writing exercises, time for feedback and discussion. All in a friendly virtual space on Zoom.

Designed for keen writers working at all levels, we will try out all kinds of writing in a constructive and supportive atmosphere. You will also have a chance to send me a piece of your work, generated from the workshop each week, for written feedback, if you would like to do so.

Early bird booking price of 90 Euro / £80 until 10^th October

Full price after that is 140 Euro / £120

8 weekly sessions via Zoom on Monday evenings from 7.30pm – 9pm

1^st / 8^th / 15^th / 22^nd / 29^th November

6^th / 13^th / 20^th December

Email me to book or for further information:

words@lucyfurlong.com

Winter Warmer Workshop 2020 Testimonials

“Absolutely breath-taking journey into a world of places and people that I’d never heard of before.” Maggie

“I loved the source materials and how they all linked in, they really resonated with me. So much there to consider.” Danielle

“After doing your course I want to focus more on poetry, as you have really encouraged me to take my poetry further. Thank you.” Louise

“I enjoyed meeting other writers and hearing the work they read out as well as their comments and thoughts.” Janet

Waking Up – A Writing Workshop for Brigid’s Day

I’ve still got some spaces on my next workshop – join me! It’s a one-off for 2 hours. Friendly, no pressure and lots of opportunities to think, talk and write at your own pace in a supportive environment. I’ve always found this time of year to be a perfect time for getting projects going, germinating those thought seeds stored from the dark Winter months… message me for more info or email (address in the pic below)

Winter Warmer Writing Workshops

I promised a series of writing workshops to see us through the dark nights of November and December, and here it is! Each week there will be a different theme, we’ll explore different genres of writing, writing exercises, discussion, opportunities for reading and feedback of each other’s work and more.

Many of us will be staying inside, socially distancing and looking for community, as we move through the last quarter of this challenging year. I know I will be, which is partly why I thought this might appeal to people who would normally get together around a table in a cafe or pub, to share ideas about writing and try things out.

I can’t run workshops like this at the moment, which is how I normally do it – and how I would prefer to meet everyone. The joy of offering workshops online is that we can still meet up and do the writing and have the fun, and we can do it from wherever we are in the world – which is amazing.

The idea behind the ‘Winter Warmer’ aspect is to take us through these dark, damp nights, with reading, writing and discussion to keep us going. Creative prompts, and thinking to inspire us to write. All of which will take place around our own virtual fire, where we can share stories and have a laugh together.

7.30-9pm Every Sunday from 1st November to 20th December

The normal price for this course is £120 but I am offering an early bird bargain rate of £80 until the 10th of October! Contact me for more info and to book.

 

 

 

 

Verse Aid : Poems for the Earth

Back in January I was honoured to be invited by Poets for the Planet to run two workshops at their launch event at the Society Of Authors in London.

“Poets for the Planet is a community of kindred poets, performers, artists and creative activists raising their voices to engage with climate and ecological emergency through poetry in all its forms.”

This took place on Saturday February 8th, and was a fantastically busy day with a Poem-A-Thon taking place throughout the day, alongside other workshops from Jan Heritage, Grace Pengelly, Dom Bury, Philip Gross and Clare Pollard.

In the evening there was a gala reading featuring Imtiaz Dharker, winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, alongside acclaimed poets Mona Arshi, Hannah Lowe and Jacqueline Saphra.

My workshops, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, were based around my latest chapbook and walking project, Sward : Skin of the Earth, and aimed to get people thinking about their local green and wild spaces, how to write about them and how to value them.

Here’s the blurb from eventbrite:

Skin of the earth: Walking and Ecopoetry

Exploring family memories of and connections to local wild spaces through walking and writing about them. We will look at the writings of Victorian author and naturalist Richard Jefferies and think about the concept of deep topography.

I was delighted that both workshops were well attended and each was very different in flavour! The morning workshop was mostly a talking / thinking / exchanging ideas workshop, and the afternoon workshop was a heads-down writing workshop. As each workshop was only 30 minutes long,  a ‘micro-workshop’, I prepared a handout for people to take away with them too.

The monies raised went to two amazing charities:

Founded in 1993, Bees for Development was the first organisation to articulate the reasons why beekeeping is such a useful tool for alleviating poverty while helping to retain biodiversity. http://www.beesfordevelopment.org

International Environmental Charity Earthwatch brings together world-class scientists and individuals from all works of life to work for the good of the planet.

I also took part in the Poem-A-Thon, reading from Sward, and raised money again for Bees for Development – and thanks to everyone who sponsored and supported me!

 

Sward {skin of the earth}

My new chapbook, Sward {skin of the earth}, published by Sampson Low Ltd, is available for purchase here


£3.85 incl UK p+p

Sward represents my walks up and down the central reservation of the A240, Kingston Road, from the Tolworth Roundabout to the border of Surrey, where the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames meets the Borough of Epsom and Ewell.

Inspired by Richard Jefferies, the prolific Victorian nature writer, author and walker, whose seminal work Nature Near London contains essays about his walks and observations of Tolworth and the surrounding areas.

Outside Richard Jefferies’ Home – pic by Paul Atkinson

The Plaque at RJ’s house in Ewell Road, Tolworth

Jefferies lived in Tolworth for several years, and last year Alison Fure and myself, as part of our Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum project took between 30-40 people on a walk in Richard Jefferies’ Footsteps, aided and abetted by our friend Ben Henderson who very kindly agreed to play the part of Jefferies on the day, and did so with great aplomb, providing us with a sprinkle of magic for our journey.

The walk, which took place on a hot and sunny May Bank Holiday in 2018, was recorded for a show on Radio 4, ‘The Art of Now: Women Who Walk’,  celebrating women walking artists, and we were delighted to be involved in this.

Richard Jefferies shares a joke with Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum 😉 Pic by Paul Atkinson

Richard Jefferies takes a walk down Tolworth Broadway

Tolworth Court Farm Moated Manor, site of The Barn

This is my last walking and writing on Tolworth for now, although there may be a couple of essays lurking. My family has lived here for generations, since my grandparents came over from Wexford, Ireland during the second world war, and I have spent the last few years walking and writing and thinking and trying to engage other people in the treasures that exist nearby, before they are lost.

Alison and I documented our walks for Tolworth Treasure and the Hogsmill Hum, and were glad to meet lots of lovely local folk and make new friends, and we continue to walk, write, celebrate and try to conserve the nature on our doorsteps.

This year I decided to focus on a small patch of nature, a long, thin one, in the middle of the A240 – a narrow but important nature corridor, with grasses, 20-odd mature trees and lots of wild flowers. I named the project Sward after Richard Jefferies’ use of the word in his writing.

Last year this slim but vital patch of nature was placed under threat of being concreted over from one end to the other, as the proposed Tolworth Area Plan wished to see this an extension of the Tolworth Greenway – green stripy concrete.

This central reservation, which helps pollinators and other fauna find their way across the busy road from one green space to the other (Kingston University Playing Fields and Tolworth Court Farm Fields respectively) must be kept and properly managed. It also does an important job of mitigating air pollution – and providing beauty – something we mustn’t overlook!

I was glad that many objections to this part of the plan were received and it has been dropped, but I worry it will happen anyway in increments, as Tfl will be extending the ‘greenway’ to Tolworth Station. Although at the moment this does not mean the loss of all the grassy and floriferous ‘sward’ I have been walking up and down for the last six months – and seeing all my life, it still could be in the near future…

 

Walk with Jane on the Cambridge Estate

Ecologist, bat expert and walking artist Alison Fure

Alison Fure is leading a Soundwalk as part of her Walks with Jane project, in conjunction with The Museum of Walking, through the Cambridge Estate in Kingston Upon Thames, this Saturday evening, 7th September, 2019.

From the Museum of Walking website event page:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Soundwalk will explore the wildlife and human ecology on this large estate with 230 trees.

We will listen to the web of life from replayed recordings of bird song, talking heads and listen to bats in real time (bat detection equipment provided).

This event is free but booking is essential – Call +44 (0) 7867507086

• 19.00 start – meeting place will be revealed on booking 
• Walk with Jane listening to the sounds of a local community
• 20.00 listen to bats in real time (bat detection equipment provided)
• 20.30 finish

Me and the Witness Tree, Museum of Futures, 2018. Pic by Madeleine Elliott

I am currently writing elegies / eulogies for the trees on the estate and will be reading these brand new, site specific poems on the night. Please join us…

Sward

Meaning “sod, turf” developed from the notion of the “skin” of the earth (compare Old Norse grassvörðr, Danish grønsvær “greensward”).

Walking the central reservation of the A240 Kingston Road, from Tolworth Roundabout to the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames boundary with the Borough of Epsom and Ewell.

The project is called ‘Sward’ after reading Richard Jefferies’ works, and seeing his frequent use of it. I am walking while considering Jefferies’ writing, his prolific walking of the local area. I am also doing this in the context of the present threat of development to the precious and unique green spaces nearby – and possibly to part of the central reservation itself.

 

Hogsmill Tiddlers

Hogsmill Tiddler

At the wooden bridge, beside

the washing-willow,

under frayed dare-devil

rope-swing, we small-fry gather;

splash-paddle in the sun-filled

slipstream, our expectant

jam jars perched ready on banks

for contents of day-glo

Hogsmill Tween

nets on bamboo poles,

skim-dunked, dipped into laughing

sparkle, we seek out elusive

piscine lurkers, shoal-darters,

minnow-school pretty-carpers,

spike-backed silver-bellied

sticklebacks, shimmer and shift

in ever-changing shallow-shadows.

We graft all afternoon, rewarded

by encounters with small wildness,

iridescent scale inspection

Kids at the third bridge, 6 Acre Meadow

through jars held up to the light.

A busy day meeting our fishy friends,

our neighbours of the water;

we send them back before barefoot-flapping,

wet and toasted, up the hill home.

 

Over the Fields poetry map

Hogsmill Tiddlers was originally published as one of the poems on my now sold-out Over the Fields map, back in September 2015. It has since been published in The Countryman magazine and is also used in teaching materials for the Open University’s MA in Creative Writing.

 

 

I have just pinned Hogsmill Tiddlers to another map, showing the location of the poem, on the Places of Poetry web site. This is an AHRC and Arts Council funded project which “aims to use creative writing to prompt reflection on national and cultural identities in England and Wales, celebrating the diversity, heritage

laughing sparke

and personalities of place.”

We still cross the bridge nearly every day on our walks ‘Over the Fields’. Five generations of Furlongs and counting…

Votes For Women! Annie Kenney and the 26 Armistice Project

Last year I was lucky enough to be part of a wonderful project by 26 and the Imperial War Museum: Armistice 100 Days. This ambitious project involved 100 writers each writing a centena – a specially created form of writing for the project – about someone who was alive during the First World War. Each of these centenas would then be published, one per day, for a 100 days leading up to the centenery of Armistice Day.

I chose Annie Kenney, the amazing working-class suffragette, and this is how I went about creating the centena:

Annie Kenney, Suffragette

Annie Kenney (1879-1953), in 1905, at  a Liberal Party rally at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, stood on a chair and unfurled a banner on which was printed the legend ‘Votes for Women’. She had gone along with Christabel Pankhurst to try to get the question of suffrage for women heard, and ended up being arrested and put in Strangeways prison for three days. This was the start of the militant movement and the suffragettes.

Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst

A mill worker from Oldham, Annie Kenney was the only working class woman to be part of the executive of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and was instrumental in helping women to get the vote. In fact, by 1912 she was running the WSPU while Christabel Pankhurst had escaped arrest by fleeing to Paris, and was visiting her there weekly, as well as directing the organisation in London.

I read her autobiography, Memories of a Militant, which was published in 1924, and is sadly long out of print. What shines out of the pages of her book, is the clear voice of someone who knew exactly what she was doing and was fiercely intelligent. Her writing is passionate and energetic, showing a determined positivity, as well as great comedic flair and lyrical wit.

My intention was to create a centena that would give Annie Kenney her voice, using snatches of her book to do this, as respectfully as possible.  I needed to give it a structure, and to choose moments which would highlight Annie’s character and reflect the important part she played in the struggle for women’s suffrage.

The Kenney Papers held at the University of East Anglia added to the biographical information I had from Annie herself, and are a fascinating insight into the Kenney family.  I re-watched the film Suffragette, and saw the wonderful and recent BBC programme Suffragettes with Lucy Worsley where, amongst others, Annie Kenney was brought to life on the screen.

Millicent Fawcett’s book, Women’s Suffrage: A Short History of a Great Movement was a very useful and illuminating read on the roots of the suffragist movement, and her views on the militant movement.

Suffragettes were “like eels” is at odds with the image of the starving mouse in the Cat and Mouse Act. Of course the suffragettes were slippery customers, doing everything possible to escape capture, and- eels are very strong. This quote along with the defiant bravery of Kenney regarding prison and hunger strikes is here in the face of her many arrests, hunger strikes and force-feedings.

The start of the First World War in 1914 came at the height of the suffragette campaign, and saw the WSPU declare a ceasefire on all of their activism and a determination to do everything possible to contribute to the war effort. In 1918 Annie Kenney saw victory, with women over thirty gaining the vote. She retired from activism, married and had a child. But she was once a militant.

Here is the centena:

Lisa Andrews, me and Faye Sharpe at the IWM

I had the wonderful surprise of being invited to the Imperial War Museum, along with other members of 26 (see films of Lisa Andrews’s and Faye Sharpe’s centenas) and was inspired to dress as a suffragette for the day. It was great fun to go out with my green and purple VOTES FOR WOMEN rosette, and to be filmed in the museum’s beautiful peace garden on a very nosiy, hot and sunny day. It took many ‘takes’ to get the filming just right and the film crew were very patient and diligent.

The film above is the result of probably eighteen or so takes – I hope I did Annie some justice.  I am very grateful to have had this wonderful experience and many thanks to the 26 and IWM team!

I realised I hadn’t blogged about this when I was alerted to an interview with Liz Robertson from the Imperial War Museum, about the project, and in celebration of 26’s Armistice 100 Days book of the project winning a prestigious Drum Award.

Liz very kindly said that one of her personal highlights was: “Lucy Furlong performing her centena in full suffragette costume in the gardens outside the museum and shouting ‘Votes for women!’ so loudly that it made the sound recordist jump…”

I am very proud that some relatives of Annie Kenney saw my centena and were delighted with it. A letter from Annie to her sister was discovered in September last year, a very important historical document – a letter to her sister sent from Strangeways Prison in 1905, which is now on display in the museum in Oldham. There is a new statue of Annie, unveiled in December 14th last year outside Oldham Town Hall to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which gave some British women the right to vote.

Maxine Peake summed up Annie Kenney’s importance beautifully at the unveiling

There is so much more to say about Annie Kenney – I am glad to say that in my own research I discovered there is plenty of other research going on into her and her extraordinary family, as well as the suffragettes.

Thanks to Lisa for inviting me to be part of it! I am very glad to be a member of 26 and looking forward to the next project…

 

 

 

The Moon Over Tolworth

Harvest Moon by Samuel Palmer (1905-1881)

In the mundane modern

semi-detached suburbs

slippers, gravel, teatime tables

GCSE revision

the Moon guides me home

welcomes me to this season

with its golden corona

moonflower harvest sky

 

The Moon ~O~

 

I speed down the A3 toward

Tolworth

Tower

follow the curve of the road

there it is again on the right

above the cleared MAFF site

behind the bowling alley

 

The Moon ~O~

 

The Moon is over the fields

Giving it the full Samuel Palmer

Richard Jefferies is walking out

late to see the moonlit silver

gold of the harvest under this

crystal studded Prussian blue sky

almost cold and glowing

 

The Moon ~O~

 

I want to stop the car and see the fields

in this Autumn moonlight

but life like a kite pulls me on

a different journey

I hope darkness prevails in the fields

so I can see them like this next year