One of the most constructive things to come out of the Verve poetry Festival was establishing a relationship with Writing West Midlands.
WWM head up many literature events in the midlands including the Birmingham Literature Festival and Room 204 writing development program.
Overhear have partnered with WWM for a second Arts Council England bid the result of which I will hear about in June. If successful we will be recording and releasing a poems and flash fiction during Moseley Folk and Arts Festival at the end of August, and the Birmingham Literature Festival through October.
I am excited to say that Overhear will also be working with Birmingham Literature Festival in the mean time a bit further from home with Punctum Magazine's Literature Festival in Riga, Latvia.
I have been asked to record 5 poems by Anna Lawrence and travel to the Baltic in order to pin them to the appropriate places in Riga through the Overhear app. Anna's poems are all "Postcards" in answer to various experiences from her recent trip to Riga through the lens of her own individual history. Punctum Magazine notes the poems are: "autobiographical, fragmented narration in prose and poetry about how personal, national, and international history influences the experience of British visitors in Riga."
Anna is a British writer and a lecturer at Birmingham City University. Her novel, Ruby's Spoon set in 1930's industrial Black Cross is written in the Black Country dialect. She is part of a collaborative project with Andris Kuprišs who will be joining us for the Birmingham Literature Festival in October.
The festival runs from the 20th-30th of May celebrating its 5th Birthday by honouring the centenary of Monta Kroma "one of the most innovative representatives of modernist poetry and perhaps the most important author of 20th-century urban poetry in Latvian literature" Find out more here.