Sharman Macdonald
The writer of new film The Edge of Love starring her daughter Keira Knightley talks to us about her work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/sharman_macdonald2.shtml

Writer Journeys - Keith Brumpton
The creator of M.I.High talks about how BBC writersroom helped get his show off the ground.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/keith_brumpton.shtml

Sharps Diary - Paul Horsman
Successful writers on our recent Sharps scheme were sent on a week-long residential course. One of them tells us about his experience.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/sharps_diary_paul.shtml

Frank Cottrell Boyce
An interview with Frank Cottrell Boyce, writer of Millions, 24 Hour Party People, and Welcome to Sarajevo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/frank_cottrell_boyce.shtml

Gaby Chiappe
An interview with Gaby Chiappe of Lark Rise to Candleford and Survivors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/gaby_chiappe.shtml

Writing Short Films
Read our collection of tips on writing short films.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/tips_shortfilm.shtml

New Scripts
We’ve got a batch of new scripts for you to download and read. The scripts are in PDF format - if you can’t read them, download Adobe Reader from http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/categories/plug/acrobat/acrobat.shtml?intro

M.I.High: The Cold War (previously The Inside Job) by Keith Brumpton
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/downloads/scripts/mi_high_the_cold_war.pdf

White Girl by Abi Morgan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/downloads/scripts/white_girl.pdf

One Chord Wonders: Damned, Damned, Damned by Frank Cottrell Boyce
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/downloads/scripts/damned_damned_damned.pdf

Or browse through all of our scripts in the script archive.

Submitting your script to BBC writersroom
Want to write for the BBC? Find out what to send us on our script submissions page.

Blog
Micheal Jacob tells us about the best shows he saw at the Edinburgh Fringe and Abi Bown considers the difference between US and UK dramas. Join the conversation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/

Opportunities
4talent
Deadline: 29 August 08
Channel 4 are looking for new talent under the age of 30.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/4talent.shtml

The Alfred Fagon Award
Deadline: 31 August 2008
£5,000 award for a new stage play by a playwright of Caribbean or African descent.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/alfred_fagon.shtml

Summer Challenge
Deadline: 26 September 08
Open writing call for unagented writers offering representation and a development deal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/summer_challenge.shtml

Red Planet Prize
Deadline: 30 September 08
Red Planet Pictures are looking for pilot scripts for TV - with a prize of £5,000, representation, and a script commission.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/red_planet.shtml

High Tide
Deadline: 01 November 08
HighTide Festival are looking for full-length plays from new and emerging writers.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/high_tide.shtml

Or, in other words, it’s Words Aloud next Tuesday 26 August, the day after Bank Holiday.

Remember, if you’d like to read something, in your own words or someone else’s, you can email us at info@wordsaloud.org or turn up on the night and we’ll stick your name on the blackboard, space permitting.

That’s it! See you there!

The WA team

Spoken word, poetry, live literature events in the Sheffield area for
the coming month. For information on forwords, listings and
subscriptions, visit http://www.access-space.org/forwords.

NEWS

——————————–

The Lost Voices.  What happens when our bodies have become technology
and our voices channelled into the network?  Don’t wait to find out,
come and tell the story yourself!  Robin Vaughan-Williams will be
running a series of workshops over September and October aimed at
producing a performance for Life 2.0, an exploration of words and
technology on 17 October.  If you are interested in taking part, please
email for dates and more info: robin@lowtech.org.

LISTINGS

——————————–
Monday 25 August

-Spoken Word Antics Radio Show
6-7pm, Sheffield Live 93.2FM or www.sheffieldlive.org

Poetry, storytelling, interviews…and a whole lot more… Podcasts &
more info via www.access-space.org/antics.

——————————–
Tuesday 9 September

-Spoken Word Antics: open mic
8.30pm, upstairs at the Red Deer on Pitt St, Sheffield. Turn off West
St. onto Mappin St, and Pitt St is the second on the left. £2/£1 donations.

Guest writer to be comfirmed. Open slots are also available for
anything from poetry and stories to urban fairytales and beautiful lies.

If you’d like to perform, your own work or just stuff you like, let us
know when you arrive. More details from www.access-space.org/antics.

——————————–
Tuesday 26 August

Words Aloud
7.30-10pm, Lescar Pub, Sharrowvale Road, Hunters Bar (£1)

Three mins to read whatever tickles yer fancy…a celebration of the
spoken word for writers (old hands and first-timers, dabbling poets,
bloggers, copywriters, journalists…all wordsmiths), readers, speakers,
or anyone with a passing interest in words. Email us to book a slot
info@wordsaloud.org or just turn up early and stick your name on the board.

Psychedelic middle-aged dread
With a Sex Pistol lyric like a bomb in your head
Used to be playtime now its time for bed
Get older, get poorer, get sick, get dead!

Say what you want,
Hope you live to regret it
And all that you earn’s
Another link in your chain.
Bling out your dead
For a sparkling finish
Cash in your karma
Take an astral plane:

Psychedelic middle-aged dread
Don’t follow leaders – you’ll just get led
Throw up all the lies you feed and get fed
Never forget what the Lizard King said
(“No-one gets out of here alive”)

Whatever you want
You won’t like when you get it
You’ll never reset it -
This year’s on all day.
Drop down a menu
Life clicks and it drags
Press shuffle, sit back –
Its on random play:

Psychedelic middle-aged cook
Look up all the chemicals that you took
Add more ingredients to the soup in your head
Simmer and boil, leave to cool – drop dead!

If none of these then (AOW)
Any other white background
Thoughts like these then troubled me
As splashing through my gene-pool I found:

I’m CAR (there’s no box for that I see)
Celtic Anglo-Saxon Roman
Fifty-third generation
This history’s who and what I am:

Captured punk slaved here
Made Freedman of the Roman Empire
Then vorsprung Northumbria
Till the Normans acquired.

Kept good books - fierce good looks
That blade took some beating
You look wet – why not
Dry your tapestry on our central heating?

I’m CAR not A, B or C
Celtic Anglo-Saxon Roman
Invaded island racing made me
Exactly what I am

Born to be wild in woad
But growing Italian tomatoes
Rode with Harald’s Kingdom Seven
Joined Robin Hood became a villein.

There’s CAR in my DNA
Celtic Anglo-Saxon Roman
Those genes come out to play
And that’s why I’m who I am:

Dolce vita, invent Ryvita
Don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got bling
Build a road straight, pillage and rape
Then write a poem about it.

I’m CAR – drive on the left
To keep my sword arm free
That’s what you’ll get
Allegedly, if you run into me.

There’s a CAR-man
Waiting in the sky
And now I’ve been to meet him
I think I know my mind:

Didn’t know what kind I was
What box to tick –
This melting pot has stews
I can’t believe how thick!

So put me down as CAR
Its one of the AOWs –
Any other white background?
Celtic Anglo-Saxon Roman.

Mr & Mrs Library persons
Why’d you need to know, then?
If an Essex chariot-racer turned bowman
Wants to borrow your books?

I Don’t Believe in Ghosts
I don’t believe in ghosts
Especially ones that don’t believe in me!
I am dispirited
Salieri less the bitterness
Immersed in my own misery

The patron saint of mediocrity
Speaking directly to me!
Anxiety lines
Enigmatic smile
Spouting harsh realities

Never was your everything
That equates to nothing
In my eyes
Three candles, exposed & naked
Wishes that were denied

My opposing angel
How can you sit there
Unruffled, stage-lit
Parading your wings
Secure in your skin?

As for myself
I am at odds with the world
God knows an impostor
One final performance
Before I relinquish this chair

So straight through you I stare
Pincers clutching a cross
Scant protection
All courage is lost
My vision is blurred

You are not of this world
Love’s apparition
Thrice I will deny you
My death-bed confession
Before the cockerel stirs

A torn curtain falls
Final round of applause
The lady vanishes
Into the ether
May she haunt me no more

24/7 All Alone
Let in the New Year
The same way I came into this world
& the same way you left me
Alone

Wanted to bless you
Send you midnight kisses
But I knew deep down
They would end up as someone else’s
You would not be alone

Walked the lonely mile
Armed with this brutal known
Through a war zone of revellers
Seeking life’s simple pleasures
Most of whom would go home alone

Such a cacophony of strangers
Intoxicated union of the ages
Falling over hedonistic gestures
I found their happiness oppressive
What a time to be alone!

Called in at my ex’s
To afford her birthday wishes
My arms olive branches
Her eyes broken mirrors
For she too was alone

Bade her adieu
All that we can’t fix with glue!
My thoughts turned to you, Lady Lazarus
& your childless resolution
Just leave me alone!

I staggered back to my coffin
Number 247
Oh the irony!
An ascetic reminder
Each time I pass through the door
24/7 all alone

The Very Thing that Cheapens Me
Hang me from a butcher’s hook
& parade me in Orchard Square
If that’s all I am to you
Just another Benito
One-quarter Italiano
Three-quarters disappointment

Skin me like a Bartholomew
With the palate knife of martyrdom
à la Michaelangelo
August 24th, 2007
Rub salt into my veins & sinews

Gouge-out my ‘bedroom’ eyes
& preserve them in formaldehyde
For it is their viridity that attracts
Not the Alighierian poetic soul
Imprisoned behind the glass

Carve my effigy in plastic
A scaled-up 1:Owenesque preferential
Three inches added to girth & height
Smother my lips with silicone-sealant
So that I can’t answer back

Bury my heart with a weeping willow wreath
Beneath a bleak blank canvas sky
Empty promise - Evasion - Lie
That condemned me to this infernal hell
Lover’s last rites denied

Edit: check out photos from July’s Words Aloud now!

The WA team x

Email info@wordsaloud.org if you’d like to perform, or just turn up and we’ll stick your name on the board if we’ve got space.

See you then!

The WA Team

x

I smoothed my lapels, shot my cuffs just a fraction
My loafers on the grass didn’t give me much traction
Descending the embankment, nearly fell down on my arse
I thought: “What other let downs might soon come to pass?”

It was then that I realised…

I’d got the wrong shoes on and the suit didn’t help
Reached into my pocket and I let out a yelp
I’ll need a couple of drinks I thought to get me going
While I do a total rewrite on my latest, greatest poem.

But then…

I met a multimedia chief executive in a great big hat
Thought to myself: “It does nothing for you, that”
He asked if I was reading, I said its just the way I’m stood
I said I’d see him later and he said “Good!”

And then I remembered…

I’d got the wrong shoes on, and I’d brought the wrong poem
When I finish my drink I thought, I’d best be going
I came to this festival by mistake
I don’t know how much peace and love I can take!

Rehearsing by the tent I met another poet
We discussed how fear and anguish comes from thinking you might blow it.
He told me how its overcome with just three cans of cider
I said I’d need a crate of that and three groupies on the rider

Because…

When you’ve got the wrong shoes on, and the wrong poem
Don’t even go near a stage – just get going
I came to this festival by mistake
There’s a limit to how much peace and love a man can take!

But then talking to Pussy Galore things were getting a bit more thrilling
Until she introduced me to her very own Bond villain
We looked each other up and down for what seemed quite a time,
I said do you expect me to talk? No Mr Bond – I expect you to rhyme.

And straight away I said:

I’ve got the wrong shoes on and I’m packing a deadly poem
When I’ve finished my dry martini I’d best get going
For world domination this ain’t the stage to take
A few more sessions of peace and love and eventually I’ll break!

I met the man on the mike and bike – Mr Au Fait
He asked me what a time I’d had on my holiday
I said: “Recollecting my past requires an imaginative leap
I can’t remember yesterday, let alone last week!”

And never mind that anyway! Because, now – at this very moment I have more pressing problems…

I’ve got the wrong shoes on and I’ve got the wrong poem!
Couple more Cheeky Vimtos and then I’ll have to get going
I came on this festival by mistake
You have to want peace and love – its not something you can fake!

Then a young fellow asked had I seen on You-Tube
That loopy Russian guy who took an axe to his cube?
He said:“Its all too well in shot though, so I think it’s a fake.”
I said: “Reality’s not real –I’ve made that mistake!”

Take now for instance –

I’ve got the wrong shoes on and I’ve got the wrong poem!
Another bottle o’ vodka and then I must get going
I looked on the internet and make no mistake
I’ve found a nice cheap multicultural weekend break!

Then standing by the posh loos, Brazilian martial artists getting keener
I talked to someone else about which style of Yoga’s meaner
She told me: Ashtangi’s hard – two hours of it’ll flatten yer
I said: “I’ll live with that if it helps me kick somebody’s asana!”

And solve other tricky problems in my life – like now where…

I’ve got the wrong shoes on, and I’ve brought the wrong poem
Six more tequilas then I think I’ll get going
I came to this festival by mistake
I don’t know how much more love and peace I can take!

Finally, at gunpoint, I ascended to the stage
Audience were mean I thought they won’t be amazed
They looked me up and down, arms and faces crossed
Like a Christian to the Lions I felt like I’d been tossed

And this is what they said – can you guess?

They said you’ve got the wrong shoes on and you’re about to read the wrong poem
After everything you’ve drunk you really should be going
If you came to this festival by mistake
Take a left outside the tent and then go jump into the lake!

So now you know – as I stand here dripping – well, metaphorically anyway..

I went to a party in a sloping park
I don’t go out by day I usually wait until its dark
And loads of alternative people kept looking at me
I was definitely out of place, everybody could see –

I’d got the wrong shoes on and in the suit I didn’t blend
But I’m never down for long, I soon was on the mend
A couple of drinks were all it took to get me going
And I did a total rewrite on my latest, greatest poem.

Day light. Ray Bans

Straight across Old Brompton Road past the second hand car dealer – nothing less than the cost of the average UK house here. I eye up a Lambourghini Murcielago. It’s in pearl with Grigio Sirius Q-Citura Leather, Hercules Titanium Rims, Carbon Ceramic Brakes, Transparent Engine Cover and integral Satellite Navigation – of course! Some work hard for this kind of stuff – so they can find their way in a Murcielago.

I walk an easy mile or so in the fresh morning air, past small flower shops proclaiming: “Spring is here – buy your own bunch of it here”. I step over the threshold of Christies. Plate glass doors close quietly and automatically behind me sealing off one realm of artificiality, and marking the start of another. Sensation and its meaning is everything here and I step forward into the comfortably chilled and conditioned air onto the baby seal skin, just raked carpet. It’s soft beneath my shinny shoes and a young woman called Cynthia steps forward towards me and smiles warmly with her eyes. The projection of sensual appeal and business charisma is measured – a conscious construction. Perhaps it was learned during her corporate induction. She may even attend refresher courses in bleeding edge seduction techniques – surely its cost effective?
Can I show you anything Sir? Anything in particular?
I smile.  Could you take me to the Egon Schiele?
Of course. My pleasure.
Cynthia’s wearing Jimmy Choo’s “Tell” on her feet – A patent leather court shoe with low heel and cut out detail just where her toes meet the main body of her foot. Cynthia’s shoes lead the way. The knap of the baby seal skin carpet is pressed towards the warm white halogen as she canters quietly towards Egon’s drawing. The soles and tips of her heels leave a trail of pale pressed triangles and dots in the carpet behind her – like a form of reverse out Braille. I can see but I have no idea where this is going. Should I get down on my hands and knees and feel the impression? She’s spelling something out for me. Her Choo shoe prints in the thick carpet are speaking to me:
I know that you want me. As charged as all of this however – you know, you, me these fine surroundings, all of this… tasteful (and expensive) expressionism the question is: Are you a voyeur or a voyager?
We arrive at the Schiele. Girl kneeling, resting on both elbows. 1917.
Cynthia asks me if it’s my first time. I nod.
This beautifully gaunt, bony, long limbed girl is half dressed and her sensuality pours from her body. She’s about the same age as Cynthia and has similar shoes.