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.          

The Stables Café at Ryders Farm Equestrian Centre

I stumbled upon this café through Streetlife. This is therefore also a good recommendation for Streetlife as a really useful piece of social media. It puts you in touch with your neighbours and stops some of the isolation. 

This café is actually a ten minute drive from where I live.

I visited on a Friday afternoon. The knitting club, Knit and Natter, was in full swing. There was much laughter, lots of cups of tea and some brightly coloured woollen items emerging.  

I paid just £2.00 for a decent mug of tea and a wonderful slice of something very chocolaty.

There is most certainly plenty of Creative Café Project activity going on here. There is art work on the walls, artisan cards for sale and news of a reading group. The owner is looking to extend activities.

It helps if you like horses as you have to walk up through the stables to get to the café. That just adds to the atmosphere as far as I’m concerned. It can be a little draughty in the café as the door opens and shuts frequently as riders wait for lessons to start or for parents to collect them. However, it’s all part of the fun.    

Elizabeth Gaskell House

84 Plymouth Grove
 Manchester
M13 9LW
0161 273 2215

 

Elizabeth Gaskell House

Creative Café Project  Activities 

Book crossing 

Book groups

Literature workshops 

Live music 

Writing group  

 

 

The Urmston Bookshop Revisited

It’s that time of year again. I need to top up my supply of “further reading” for my second year undergraduate course “Intro to Children’s Literature”. To some extent I do this as I go along and meet new books throughout the year.  Yet a visit to a bookshop gives a real sense of what’s available and what is deemed to be popular. We’re always on the lookout for the next classic.  In children’s lit the boundary between the classic and the popular is a little less well defined as in adult literature. So, it’s good to see what people are buying and what the bookshop is risking. It’s particularly good to do this at an independent bookshop. That’s where true book lovers go.

The Urmston book shop, of course also has an excellent little café, providing good tea and coffee and locally sourced cake.

So, what better way to spend an afternoon: select a few books, then select a piece of cake and a pot of tea and settle down to start reading the books. I can really recommend the carrot cake. 

The café has changed since I was last there. It has moved into the events room so is a little bigger that the two tables set up in the corridor to the room. The cake display and kitchen is still there.

There are still plenty of events and book clubs.

Really worth a visit. I’m just looking for the next excuse. I’m very tempted by a couple of the events anyway.            

The Writeblend Cafe

124 South Road
Waterloo
Merseyside
L22 0ND 

0151 924 9616

The Writeblend Cafe

Creative Cafe Project Activities  

• author events  
  
• book events 
  
• story time for children