Writers are invited to become part of a collaborative project on Women and Warfare
© Jason Britton
Noel Williams, the resident artist at the Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield, is calling for submissions from writers with a point of view on war, as part of his Arts Council-funded “Poetry off the Page” project.
“I’m looking for writers who’d like to contribute no more than 50 words to a collaborative audio installation,” Noel says. “The focus of the piece is women’s perceptions, views and experiences of warfare. I want lots of different perspectives, so listeners experience contrasting ‘dialogues’ that emerge from different viewpoints of war being set against each other.”
The audio installation will run as a temporary exhibit in the Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield, within October 2009’s Off the Shelf Literary Festival. If it succeeds, Noel plans to take the piece to other festivals and galleries.
You need no credentials to contribute: just the ability to create an interesting short text. It may come from a personal or family story, or a realisation of a historical persona, or an imagined projection into the plight of people oppressed by recent war, in Afghanistan, Rwanda or Iraq.
And it doesn’t all have to be frontline stuff, as Noel is as keen to receive insights into, for example, the exhilaration of women Spitfire pilots or surviving as a woman soldier in the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan, as he is to hear about the woman keeping a family going at home, coping with a damaged man returning from the front, or gaining friendships with other woman in the shared privations of war. As Noel says: “A vast range of stories and experiences might be expressed.”
The submissions may be in any form, including snappy one-liners, haikus, brief dramatic monologues, and lines plucked from poems. He also says he isn’t particularly looking for explicitly “literary” text: “Although this is not an oral history project, often the real and immediate words of those who’ve been there can be just as powerful as any well-crafted stanza.”
Word files, text files, or pdf documents will all be accepted for consideration, along with mp3 files recorded in women’s voices. He will also be asking readers and actors to record the selected written texts, gathering as many different voices as possible.
If you’d like to contribute but have no ready material, you may find inspiration through a set of resources listed on the project website at http://poetryoffthepage.wordpress.com/women-and-war/sources/
Your credit for your work
If you submit Noel a piece of writing to this project, you will, of course, retain copyright of it, so will be able to use it in any other context you like. However, contributing to the project means you give Noel the right to use some or all of your piece in any way he thinks fit as part of any audio works emerging from the project.
This would mean that your piece would effectively be published, and so might, for that reason, then be rejected by magazine editors or be ineligible for some competitions. Please bear this in mind if you’re thinking of sending Noel something. It’s unlikely to be important for a single line, but a complete piece might be a different matter.
All contributions that Noel uses will be credited in the catalogue, and on the website (unless you explicitly wish to remain uncredited). As it is possible that more than one audio project may eventually appear, and you’ll be credited in any future context, too. If it’s helpful to you, Noel will also add a link for you on the project website. He will also log all performances and use on the website, so you can keep track of how your contribution might be disseminated in the future.
You can find further details at: poetryoffthepage.wordpress.com
Please send your submission to Noel at n.r.williams@shu.ac.uk by October 1st 2009.
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