Welcome to the fifth in our new series of writers meetings offering an informal, critical space to test out new work. Our featured writer is James Hatton, presenting from a novel in progress, Outside a Cigarette Walking.Told through its narrator's faltering memory, James' novel stitches a detective story into the murky backcloth of a global pharmaceutical conspiracy. The second half of the meeting will be an open mic session.
Welcome to the fourth in our new series of writers meetings - offering an informal, critical space to test out new work. Our fourth featured writer is Natasha LaForce, whose poems featured in our series of handbills in 2014.Drunk and sober, ecstatic and terse, Natasha's writing occupies the thin space between bodies and minds caught up in an endless process of pairing and parting. The start of the meeting will be an open mic session.
Welcome to the third in our new series of writers meetings - offering an informal, critical space to test out new work. Our third featured writer is Giulia Loi, joining us from Rome, whose short story, A Filmmaker of Our Time, was published in DS 3.Working between performance, writing and mental health activism, Giulia's work has featured in Hysteria magazine, Dandelion journal and Contributoria. The second half of the event will be an open mic session.
Welcome to the second in our new series of writers meetings - offering an informal, critical space to test out new work. Our second featured writer is activist and curator Hamja Ahsan, presenting Shy Radicals.Shy Radicals draws together communiques, interviews, drawings and underground histories in an exposition of the surprising power of introverts. The second half of the event will be an open mic session.
5 years in the making this collection of unedited piano improvisations by Zac Gvirtzman began recording in 2012 and was accompanied by the long poem of the same title in our 4th issue. DS writers join a night of performance and improvisation to celebrate.Movement by Seke Chimutengwende, images by Jim Glover, readings by Different Skies and piano by Zac Gvirztman. 5 pounds early bird tickets / 8 OTD.
An evening of hard shoulders and hedgerows, scratched out paths and drone-eye views, barbed wire, chicken wire, incinerators, leisure centres, glass towers, concrete bunkers, ancient monuments and modern ruins.Readings, discussion, slide talks, performance and spoken word. Drinks served.
An annual residency that forges links between emerging artists working in urban and rural settings. Different Skies presented a night of readings during the final weekend.Residency organised by Jocelyn McGregor, Louis-Jack Horton-Stephens and Stephanie Farmer. Readings by Josie Pearce, Merlin Fulcher, Lizzie Porter, Alistair Cartwright, Natasha LaForce & J.W. Siah
A night of readings and performance celebrating Different Skies publication's fourth issue, a year and a half in the making.with Ricky Tucker, Leonore Schick, Skye McDade-Burn, Zac Gvirtzman, Ming Lin, Phoebe Eustance, Merlin Fulcher, J.W. Siah, Helene Kazan
DS4 Launch Party
8th July 2016
St Anne's Church Community Hall, Hoxton, London, N1 5LF
An evening of conversations on the breeze, lectures past the bell, jokes missing their punchlines, red herrings, rattling tea trays and trip hazards.with Alistair Cartwright, Merlin Fulcher, Rob Howe, Beth Jellicoe, Skye McDade-Burn, Jocelyn McGregor, Maya Osborne, Talita Soares, Jack Scott, J.W. Siah, Geoff Tibbs
Speakeasy 2
12th March 2016
The Bonnington Centre, Vauxhall, London SW8 1TD
Readings round the campfire hosted by Different Skies, part of a week-long residency featuring art, film and performance at Kurt Schwitters' Merz Barn in the Lake District.with Merlin Fulcher, Geoff Tibbs, Alistair Cartwright - residency organised by Jocelyn McGregor, Steph Farmer and Louis-Jack Horton-Stephens
Doremifasolasido
31st October 2015
Merz Barn, Ambleside, Cumbria LA22 9JB
An evening of warm company, hot debate, close reading, long-distance howls, sideways thinking and off-script performance.with Jack Scott, Andrea Phillips, Skye McDade Burn, Merlin Fulcher, Natalie Long and Jon Siah
Speakeasy 1
23rd October 2015
The Bonnington Centre, Vauxhall, London SW8 1TD
Street haunting SE1 and surrounds - from Vauxhall to Elephant and Castle - documenting London's housing crisis in photographs and poems. A series of postcards generously supported by The Poetry School, culminating in a walking tour with special guests.with John Boughton, author of Municipal Dreams blog, James Hatts, editor of SE1 newsletter, Mary van der Water from Save Knight's Walk campaign, Silvia Rothlisberger from the Latin Elephant and Richard Reynolds, aka the Guerilla Gardener. Tour led by Merlin Fulcher.
Buildings Plant Like Grew
11th September 2015
A Walk Around SE1, from Vauxhall to Elephant & Castle
Writers may attempt, like Michael Taussig, to write 'in the trance of the other' without succumbing to romance or trivialisation. Or they may decide, like a painter returning again and again to the same view, that 'real travel is downwards travel.'
Writers Meeting: Travel Writing
23rd May 2015
Mayday Rooms, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH
Different Skies's publications have always been full of images, many drawn from cinema. For us, this meeting is a chance to weigh the importance of images in writing - not as ciphers, symbols or referents, but as the ground of writing itself.
Writers Meeting: Moving Images
14th March 2015
Mayday Rooms, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1DH
Writers meetings are back with a new venue for 2015: Community run library New Cross Learning. For the nineteenth Different Skies writers meeting, we're asking people to consider a line from our new about page (the closest we'll ever come to a manifesto).
Writers Meeting: How to Describe the Shape of a Broken World
31st January 2015
New Cross Learning, London SE14 6AS
This meeting considers the famous principle of second wave feminism, 'the personal is political', picking up unanswered questions from our last meeting on politics and poetry.
Writers Meeting: Feminist Perspectives on 'The Personal is Political'
27th September 2014
45 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PD
Celebrating the launch of DS issue 3: Siriol Joyner, fresh out of workshops at the Siobhan Davies Dance Studio / Hannah Meszaros Martin’s parables of rivers and violence in Colombia / And songs from the music hall and coal mine by The Chinatown Traditional Song Groupwith Siriol Joyner, Helene Kazan, Victoria P, Natalie Long, Hannah Meszaros Martin, JW Siah, Merlin Fulcher, Ben Hunt and the Chinatown Traditional Song Group
DS3 Launch Party
13th September 2014
The Island Cafe, Flat Iron Square, London SE1 0AB
For this writers’ meeting, we're asking writers to consider artist Francis Alys' suggestion that 'sometimes doing something poetic can become political and sometimes doing something political can become poetic.'
Writers Meeting: Poetics & Politics
09th August 2014
25 Wardour St, Chinatown, London W1D 6PP
An evening of radical poetry, spoken word and storytelling hosted by Different Skies. Part of Dangerous Times festival.with Keston Sutherland, James Massiah, Giulia Loi, Wilf Merttens, Merlin Fulcher, Sean Bonney
Answers to the Rented World
31st May 2014
Rich Mix, Shoreditch, London E1 6LA
Email us your text in advance and we'll find someone else to read it, or bring your own willing accomplice.
Writers Meeting: Your Words in Someone Else's Mouth
22nd February 2014
25 Wardour St, Chinatown, London W1D 6PP
Come party under a Waterloo sunset. A night of readings, music, videos and paintings at one of London’s oldest community centres.with Merlin Fulcher, Wilf Merttens, Jon Siah, Dan Poulton, Hamja Ahsan, Dan Poulton, Hannah Meszaros Martin, Geoff Tibbs, Zac Gvirtzman, Ed Hiller
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
18th October 2013
Waterloo Action Centre, London SE17
An informal space to share works in progress and finished pieces. Come join us in Chinatown on Saturday 17th August for chow, readings and discussion. Look out for 'Enjoy Health' on Wardour st, just off Leicester sq, near the M&Ms building.
Writers Meeting (the first Chinatown gathering...)
17th August 2013
25 Wardour St, Chinatown, London W1D 6PP
Bring notes, scraps, fragments - legible or illegible. A poem scrawled on the back of a time sheet, a covert post-it note, an email to a friend, or a twitter feed screenshot.
Writers Meeting: On Method
6th June 2013
Geoff's Boat, Brentford, London
Different Skies will be in the thick of the Christmas madness in Covent Garden on December 14th. If you're shipwrecked in London, come in, we'll give you shelter.with Alistair Cartwright, Tiff Chan, Merlin Fulcher, Zac Gvirtzman, Hannah Meszaros Martin, Dan Poulton, Jon Siah, Fred Stidston, Geoff Tibbs
Winter Tales
14th December 2012
Double Shot Coffee Co., Covent Garden, London WC2E 7PB
Come hear them howl it from the rooftops: I'm My Own Bitch - a performance by Fred Stidston / Diary from the Leningrad siege - a translation by Galya Stepanova / After Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowland - a lyric by Dan Poulton / Cats, Plays & Home Office - a lucky escape by Volkan Aranwith Volkan Aran, Alistair Cartwright, Merlin Fulcher, Taka Goto, Zac Gvirtzman, Hannah Meszaros Martin, Dan Poulton, Jon Siah, Galya Stepanova, Fred Stidston, Billy Tang
DS1 Launch Party
28th September 2012
El Vergel, London, SE1 0QL
