The Nib Crib

21/05/2026

From our friends over at Thrive, here's another inspiring writing session to take part in;

Sugar, spice and all things.... AI?!

What are you feeding into your writing ecosystem?

THRIVE, Food Futures' community magazine based in Lancaster, is running a workshop on how to feed your writing ecosystem and make sure you are nourishing it correctly.

Tuesday 26 May
5.30-6.30
Cost: free!
The Cornerstone
Sulyard Street
LA1 1PX

To book your place, email [email protected] or just turn up!

Visit foodfutures.org.uk/thrive to have a browse through the latest issue.

The nineteenth edition of THRIVE North Lancashire will be launched at the Seasonal Market on 12 June 2026.It pulls together a collection of local stories, citizen journalism, knowledge sharing and research around how we can move toward FoodFutures’ vision of ‘A thriving local food system that is...

19/05/2026

Are you interested in becoming a trustee or chair of the board of directors at More Music Morecambe? It's a great opportunity to help continue the great work woven by one of our local artistic hotspots.

Details here:

A music and education charity based at the Hothouse in Morecambe

18/05/2026

04/05/2026

02/05/2026

02/05/2026

Creative writing, printmaking and bookmaking workshops with writer Anne Caldwell and artist Jo Gorner.

18/04/2026

CALLING ALL Q***R WRITERS ACROSS THE UK!

We are delighted to announce a 5-part online Q***r writing course, in partnership with Kalamos Creative, led by Paul Burston and Gordon Urquhart. Learn more and apply here: https://litfest.org/workshops26/

During the online workshops, participants will consider various different approaches to writing, including fictionalised memoir and narrative non-fiction, leading on to various types of fiction (literary fiction, flash fiction, fan fiction, speculative, fantasy and romantasy) and non-fiction (memoir, discursive), depending on the interests of the participants.

Read on below for a taster of the exercises used at the workshop that took place in person at Litfest 2026.

What’s in a name?

We started with everyone introducing themselves by writing a short piece about their name – why it was chosen (e.g. named after a parent or relative), how they feel about it, whether they’ve changed their name, etc.

A lighthearted exercise to warm up.

I remember…

Then we talked about the power of memory, and used Joe Brainard’s ‘I remember…’ automatic writing exercise, where you quickly write a series of sentences each beginning with ‘I remember’ and create a list of personal memories.

This went down extremely well and everyone wrote a lot.

Then we focused on the strongest memories and developed these into longer personal pieces of memoir.

What’s your story?

Finally, we focused on turning memories into fiction and how changing the perspective / point of view can spark stories. So they wrote about the same memory from someone else’s point of view, or created fictional versions of themselves as characters in a piece of narrative fiction.

10/11/2025

Just read a great (imho) piece: https://midwayjournal.com/florida/?fbclid=IwdGRjcAN9lbpjbGNrA32ViGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHgD0KFBni7axdGhUUDBcpl8trtBGjFLBmZfZFWFyrRTmg4VxKRAeGDHrZoKe_aem_DpfoMaUd-aR6TdMY3lT97w

06/11/2025

04/10/2025

Our writing session will be on tomorrow as usual, folks, 1200-1400hrs 😊 Hope to see you there, but only if it's safe to do so what with this storm flying about 👍🙏❤️