Sunday 27 January 2013

Literary festivals

I haven't been to a literary festival, but apparently they're taking over from music festivals as the go-to event. Or so Maggie Womersley says in her blog here

I'd love to go to one, but I'm not so sure I'd find it all that thrilling. What do people get from going to these things? Now conventions, I understand. I understand the thrill of meeting other people who enjoy the things you do. But it's the variety of responses that excites me, the people who are into cosplay, into the collecting, into fanfiction, into talking about the ideas. The gamers, the crafters, the dreamers and the party-goers.

Will I have all that at a literary festival? After some of the conventions I've been to (and some of them have been truly spectacular) wont they just be a let-down? I'm thinking particularly of the Redemption convention, run by and for volunteers. The whole range of events from book launches (yes, those too), to morris dancing, lectures about science, debates and the good old Blake's 7 drinking game

We're engaged with the process, not lectured or sold to. We have a real stake in what goes on. How many literary festivals can say that?

Friday 18 January 2013

Irish language - choosing words

Language is not a thing that comes easy to me. The specifics, I mean. I grasp for words sometimes, and the correct one to use. I can sense what the word feels like, maybe what it sounds like, but the exact word escapes me

This makes it difficult when trying to find the right Irish word for things. It's not just the words that have changed, but the order and meaning too.Take hunger, for example. If I want to eat some food, in English I'll say: I am hungry.

In Irish I would say, tá ocras orm. Is it the same thing? It means "the hunger is on me". So there are two different ways of experiencing the hunger, but two different ways of experiencing it.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

Hello coFWD

Hello!

And welcome to my first blog post. I am sitting at 161 High Street Rochester, in the exciting CoFWD workspace in Rochester. Can you guess what I'm doing here? I'm learning how to blog.

This is the customary "how to blog" learning post. It's all uphill from here! Or do I mean, upwards? Upstream?