Chapter One Books, Manchester UK

Chapter One Books

Chatsworth House

19 Lever Street

Manchester

United Kingdom

M1 1BY

Review 

One cold and frosty morning 

Creative Cafe Project Activities 

• Books 
• Networking  
• Wi-Fi

The Home of Honest Coffee, Future Artitsts, Chapel Street, Salford

77-79 Chapel Street
Salford,
M3 5BZ

HOHCEVENTS@GMAIL.COM

 

The Home of Honest Coffee

Creative Cafe Project activities:

book events
networking space
rent-a-table    

Cafe Limelight and Sir Galsworthy Gurney

We visited this delightful café on Good Friday of 2016, the first sunny spring-like day of the year. The holiday-makers were out in force and the cafés that cluster around the beach, canal and river were full and twice as expensive as this one.  Yet it is clearly visible from the path that runs along the canal and has fabulous sea views. It’s pleasant and cosy inside.

We think we spotted a food critic.  He ordered one of the delicious–looking cream teas and hardly touched the cream, jam and scone. He asked the staff a lot of questions about where they sourced their products. All good. This helps to keep up standards.

The café is actually in the heritage centre. It gets its name from the invention of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney of Bude who invented the BudeLight, a form of limelight. Poor Sir Goldsworthy seemed to be upstaged all of his life.  Often his inventions were earlier or better than more successful ones. Nevertheless, he survived well.

The Heritage Centre boasts two galleries, one of which spills into the café. We took great delight in looking at the work of The Absurdists in the Willoughby  Gallery.

The food was excellent.  I had the soup and was pleased that there was a choice of four.                           

Cafe Limelight Bude

Bude 
EX23 8LD
01288 357300

Cafe Limelight 

Creative cafe activities:

The cafe is used as a gallery.

Review  

New idea: The Writers’ Café

We got talking about this at our SCBWI North West meeting yesterday. We’d spent the morning critiquing and the afternoon enjoying a free-writing exercise. I personally now have fodder for three new short stories.

We have an interesting arrangement with Waterstone’s anyway, s o I guess their café should be in the Project. We have their events room for four hours. We all order coffee on arrival and lunch, which is delivered to the meeting room at 12.30. 

Wouldn’t it be nice though, if there were a café that provided prompts like the ones we were given? One where the whole atmosphere was conducive to writing. Maybe it could be “rent a table”, a little in the spirit of the Viennese cafes that inspired the Project in the first place. There is café already in Manchester that charges for the amount of time you stay there rather than for what you eat and drink. Would this be a model? Or a bit of both?

What else?

·         Perhaps Shaun Levin’s writing maps could be available. 

·         Notebooks, pens and other stationery on sale

·         A book exchange of craft books

·         Plenty of power sockets and nooks where you can work on your laptop or tablet

·         Events for writers

·         Reading groups

·         Writing groups

·         Book events

·         Networking opportunities for writers

·         Writing classes if there is an events room

·         Critique groups 

Do you have any more ideas? Do you know of a café that might like to become a Writers’ Café?

We talked as well of that way writers often like to work on cafes and indeed on trains. It’s a way of remaining anonymous but still being surrounded by people.  You feel as if you are still a part of things. Of course you still have real life on tap as well.   

Shall we give it a go?  

The Wooly Knit Cafe

Unit 5, Warth Mill,
Huddersfield Road,
Diggle,
Saddleworth,
West Yorkshire,
OL3 5PJ
Emails:
Café enquiries: cafe@woolyknit.com 
General enquiries: info@woolyknit.com
Wholesale enquiries: sales@woolyknit.com 
Telephone:
Café enquiries: 01457 878 660
Shop: 01457 877 984
Wholesale enquiries: 01457 879 400

Creative Cafe Activities

• craft work shops 

 The Wooly Knit cafe

The Creative Café Space

At the moment we seem to lack cafés, so any help in finding more will be greatly appreciated. I’ve also been a rather a little too busy recently to visit cafés. So maybe this gives me a little time to reflect on why these spaces are important to creative practitioners. Interestingly, I’m currently sitting in the Escape lounge at Manchester airport waiting for a flight to Malaga. I’m writing, so it becomes a Creative Café.  There are free newspapers. A bonus.

Interestingly, at home and in my study at the university I write facing a blank wall and any noise, even the birds twittering, can put me off. Yet I write happily here, on a Virgin Train to London from Manchester and in any sort of café. I still haven’t worked out quite why that is.

There’s piped music here and because of the time of year a lot of it is jolly and Christmassy. It’s not disturbing me. It would at home or in the office. 

Two very useful things happen here. The writing takes my mind off the wait for the plane. Writing here makes me feel part of the world.  I guess some full time writers may welcome the change of space.