Summer Rain

This weather is really rubbish! 

I find summer usually the best season to write in, as I like to write in my garden or visit parks and write there. A few weeks ago I visited Dunham Massey with another writer, Muli Amaye, and we sat by one of the large ponds there and both wrote short stories. It was really peaceful and such a good environment to write in. The short story may not get anywhere, but I have given it a page here. It was quite a playful piece, not deadly serious, but it’s now linked to a couple of memories - the visit to Bodyworlds that inspired it is the other.

I had a good time at the Showcase at Oldham Coliseum in mid-July. I had a great actress, Christine Mackie, playing the main part of Corrinna, and she made the whole piece come alive for me. I just have to work out what to do with the play next!

I am also now on the Writers Gallery for Lancaster University’s Moving Manchester project, so if you’d like to visit that, there’s a link on this site.

What’s happening in this summer

So, after deciding I would be better with the blog, I just plain old wasn’t! Well, I have been working very hard on my play, We’ve Only Just Begun, which is being showcased by North West Playwrights at the Oldham Coliseum on July 18th. For this piece of work I was mentored by Charlotte Keatley, and the play took nine months to write, there is an excerpt of it in my work. 

I am also still working hard on my PhD. I’ve written about half of the first draft, and I am hoping to get the first draft completed by Christmas, with the whole thing ready to submit by October 2009 - it’s ambitious, but worth a try!

Finally, I have also started working on a new novel, still very much in its infancy, but something to aim for!

What’s happening in February

Hi again
I’ve been a bit busy with my work at Lime, but I’m trying to get back into the swing of writing again. I’m reading a good book called ‘The Road to Somewhere’ which is inspiring me. So, I have a couple more community jobs - writing radio plays for a youth theatre and adapting a theatre piece for film, which should be good. My play is pretty much at rough first draft stage, and I have to write a screen play for my PhD upgrade panel in February. Alongside that, still teaching at MMU and Lancaster, and looking for inspiration to start writing something more prose based.
Will upload the play when it’s finished, and am still looking at some of my short stories to upload those.

Happy New Year!

2008 is going to be a busy year I reckon. I’ve got loads to write for my PhD and I’ve got an upgrade panel coming up, as well as writing this first full length play - that’s called ‘Affairs’ at the moment. It’s kind of about death and claustrophobia but also about families and how they can help or destroy each other.
I’ve also got to work on my dad’s writings this year, he wrote loads of stuff, and I want to try and get as much of that down as possible.
I also need to get this blog working a little better!

End of the year thoughts

So, I’ve come to the end, nearly, of a really busy year. It’s been a bit bonkers, as I’ve been project managing a film project, working as a writer on an inter-generational blog project, and working as a script writer for a community group in Rochdale as well as teaching at Lancaster University and MMU, writing my PhD [The Loser: Contemporary Masculinities in the New Millennium] and writing my first full length play. All a bit bonkers in 3 months. Anyway, there will be a selection of short stories uploaded over Christmas and some play scripts as well. I have some exciting work coming up with community groups next year too, but my main priority will have to be writing my thesis, otherwise it will never get done!

About Kim

Welcome to my blog. I am a fairly new writer, having decided to get my MA in Creative Writing in 2001, I graduated in 2003. I then decided to go for a hybrid PhD in English and Creative Writing, where I am exploring the side of masculinity I am terming The Loser. 

I write fiction and scripts, and I have done quite a lot of work in the community in Manchester, working for organisations like Lime, Lets Go Global, Breaking Barriers in Burnley and the Library Theatre Education Department. I also work at Lancaster University and MMU Cheshire teaching creative writing.