Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Unfortunately Brittle Star doesn’t quite have enough subscribers for
us all to give up the day job. I currently help to keep my kitchen
cupboard stocked with tins of mushroom soup by working on a
project called Talecatching.

   Talecatching is the outreach arm of the writing website ABCtales.com. ABCtales.com was started in 2000 by John Bird from The Big Issue, Gordon Roddick from The Body Shop and broadcaster and social entrepreneur, Tony Cook.

   The idea was to create a place on the internet where anyone who
wanted to could publish their writing for free and could also discuss and critique each others’ stuff. The site now has over 13,000 members, over 30,000 pieces of writing published and a flourishing
online community focussed around its discussion forums.

   The strap line of ABCtales.com is ‘everyone has a story to tell’
and the aim of the site has always been to give inspiration and
opportunities to people who’ve got lots to say but wouldn’t naturally
choose to, or have the chance to, use a writing website.

   That’s where Talecatching comes in. The project involves training
volunteers – people who are good at writing but most of whom don’t currently write for a living – to be Talecatchers.

   Talecatchers are ‘creative mentors’ who work with groups of socially excluded people to give them the opportunity to tell their story through creative writing and, eventually, to post those stories on the ABCtales.com website.

   There’s lots of ideas about what ‘socially excluded’ means but, for
the purposes of Talecatching, it means people who live somewhere
(society) and are unable to access opportunities (jobs, housing, money, recreational activities) that most people can access, for reasons that are beyond their control.

   Groups we’ve worked with so far include people with alcohol
and drug problems and homeless people but also groups who don’t
necessarily have ‘problems’ but who can be excluded in other
ways such as older people, unpaid full-time carers and minority
ethnic groups.

   While helping someone to do some creative writing is highly
unlikely to provide a direct solution to long-term drug addiction or
homelessness, we reckon that finding your voice and being able to
articulate how you feel and what you think about things can make it
easier for you participate fully in society (or the bits of society you’d
like to participate in).

   If you want to find out more about Talecatching you can email
me – [email protected] or call 020 7209 2634.