Our second year of events and happenings in and around Kingston and Surbiton led to some extraordinary explorations of what literature can be, live, as a community. And this is our purpose, to create a community of writers, from every background and approach, from students, uni staff and people just living in the vicinity, or even those visiting just for one night. How do we go about doing this? It cannot be forced, with overt ambition. One can only create the space let people come into it, and make sure, invisibly, the space is welcoming while the work is of quality. The latter is rare when the former is present, but in this year, our second time round, we began to establish our identity, as a place welcoming to all, where real experiment, bold statement and literary thinking could flourish.
Our guest speakers were brilliant, Max Porter, Damian le Bas, Joe Dunthorne et al brought to our audiences their extraordinary writing and its consequent success. Our student poets were wonderful, from Helen Artus’ pamphlet written entirely in sign language, poems made of pictures of hands, to Marcia Knight Latter’s ebullient and generous debut readings and publications. Once again, our arguable highlight was the annual Museum of Futures exhibition, which was bookended with two amazing nights in Surbiton. to be continued