We all spend hours at our desks, filling our heads with characters and situations of our own invention, and writing them onto the page. If you're really on a roll, you can spend hours or days at a time without really speaking to another human being about what you're doing. There are lots of writing circles in the city, and a few writers clubs. But the originators of Fictions of Every Kind, who bot
h have a background in the city's DIY music scene, wanted to create something a little different. Keen to provide a regularly community of writers with inspiration and encouragement, and to dissolve the boundaries between being 'a writer' and 'somebody who writes', we decided to start Fictions of Every Kind. It struck us that all writers face the same sort of challenges. Every writer experiences dark times when he or she genuinely doubts whether what he is doing is really any good. From Stephen King and EM Forster, to the unpublished writers who regularly come to Fictions, every writer has asked himself the question: “Is anybody ever going to actually want to read this rubbish?”
With this in mind, we started working towards developing a night that flattened the ground between writers. The DIY ethic is important to us: the aim of Fictions isn't to make money, or to launch anybody's career. The aim is to support a writing community, and to be part of a social life for imaginative, bookish people who might otherwise spend their whole time indoors writing. Most of the nights follow the same sort of format: an open mic for writers, a musical act, and a couple of invited speakers. Over the past few months we've been lucky enough to have a range of interesting writers speak: from literary fiction, through science fiction, to hip-hop poetry – the audience has welcomed them all, and gone home afterwards with a smile on its face. Writers have been able to meet writers, to read their work, and to get into conversations with others who understand what it's like to write.
