Carmarthen Book Fair: FACEBOOK LIVE

Hello Friends,

I had such a great time at Carmarthen Book Fair yesterday, organised by the lovely Sarada Thompson, that  I thought I would share with you here, the FACEBOOK LIVE posts that I made during the day. Interviews with authors, the organiser and a glimpse at all the loveliness ... 

    


Lazarus Carpenter

A Lifetime of Nursing

I had a lovely email today from Kathy, a retired nurse who attended one of my Parc Howard Museum Creative Writing Workshops at the weekend. 

She sent me a poem that she had written some time back, whilst she was still nursing. I have made it into a Poetry Poster for her and asked her if I could share it with you.

In her email she talks in a very moving way about the last rites that she performed for people and how she felt so privileged in being able to do this for them. It really moved me. She spent her whole life nursing others as they became old and now she is an older person herself.

I have said that I think she should write a book of all her stories.

The Power of Publishing

Having made time to deeply reflect upon my work, ground myself in this new now and open my heart to new intentions, I have been working on my website for Parlour Press Publishing. 

I set up Parlour Press Publishing 17 years ago when I was approached by Caerphilly Youth Service to tour Youth Clubs facilitating Creative Writing Workshops. I drafted a plan to extend the project from workshops so that it had a celebratory outcome, a platform from which the young people could have a voice as writers in their own right and to inspire each other. I was taken aback at the power of publishing in terms of its ability to raise self esteem and touch the hearts of many.

Tales from Two Valleys was a retelling of all the local folk tales of the area and won a National Youth Excellence Award from the Welsh Assembly. What I had intended as one project that I essentially ran from my front parlour (and still do to a certain extent) has now facilitated 49 Community Groups to write collections short stories and anthologies of poems, supported in my workshops and then to publish their work into soft back books or more recently, ebooks. 

In addition, Parlour Press has recorded and edited more films and digital stories than I care to remember. This year alone I have been contracted to edit 21 inter-generational digital stories and 2 major website based storytelling projects, one for

Storytelling for Health International Conference and the other for West Wales Sound Healing Centre

Parlour Press has won Best Practice at the International Mental Health Conference held at Cambridge University, a Gold National Care Award, a further Youth Excellence award ... 

I am really very proud of such a huge body of work that has literally changed lives and fed into national policy regarding education and care in Wales.

But I am so busy out there doing the work that I never get time to reflect or design materials to tell anyone about it! It's all grown via word of mouth. So, it gave me great joy to spend time on the website. 

Feel Free to on come over and have a look ... see what you think. I've kept it as simple as possible. I think sometimes less is more when storytelling through a website. 

Oh and if you you'd like to know more about me, you can visit my Cheryl Beer website ... it's also having a major overhaul at the moment so some pages are not quite ready ... 

CUBES: One step at a time

Quite a big step forward for me today. I have been tending to avoid gatherings due to my hyperacusis. When a large group of people are talking at the same time, it is painful and I can physically feel myself withdraw like a hedgehog when it sees a human.

However, my Audiologist gave me a stern talking to this week and explained that my hyperacusis is due to my brain trying to make sense of my hearing loss. He said that if I keep retreating from sound, my intolerance will get worse and worse. He has seen people with my condition end up 'prisoners in their bedroom' as their sound intolerance gets wider and wider.

He advised the best way for me to re-train my brain is to place myself in the environments that I find hard, for short bursts to start with and then build up.

So, what better opportunity to test his theory then the first meeting of CUBES a new and exciting collective arts project being set up by visionary, Rachel Stelmach in Lampeter.

As an Arts collective, we are now working together with the owner to change a long term empty shop premises into a Shop/Gallery for local artists and crafts people.

I am going to rent a cube for my project Parlour Press Publishing, Books and CD's. Up until now Parlour Press has published community publications, where I have supported folk to write & publish but now I am shifting so that it also embraces my own work. This will sit well with having fully stepped into my life as a writer.

See how the Universe helps you out? 

I was just thinking how I could have a local point of contact and/or sales outlet for my work, and I receive the e-mailout from Rachel inviting me to the meeting.

I  had replied that I couldn't come due to my hyperacusis but I thought if anyone is going to be understanding of my needs it will be Rachel, as she is the West Wales Disability Arts Cymru Officer. 

I am so pleased I plucked up the courage to go. She managed the group so well. One person at a time spoke, so I could just about manage to get the gist of what folk were saying. I got to meet lots of new people and friendly like souls, as well as see their work and listen to them enthuse about it.

What a great turn out for a first meeting. Can't wait to see where this journey leads.

Once the meeting had ended and everyone was talking at once, I made a sharp exit. One step at a time. 

Editing Queen

 

 

A thousand thank you's to my lovely chum Jacqueline Anderson who has very kinldy offered to help with my grammar!!! I have finished my story book to accompany the production, but, to be honest, I'm getting a bit tied up in knots by the grammar ... ,;.':::...;;;;..... """"") (.....:::'''',,,,?!

I find it quite easy to edit other people's work, but it's a nightmare doing my own! I'm too close to it.

Jacquie is a grammar whizz! It's one of her many strengths. We grew up together, me and Jac. She lived opposite me, and me opposite her. Actually, Jacuqie is gifted in many creative ways. She can sing and act and dance and write poetry ... I always thought she would be famous! She's also very funny!

Life takes many twists and turns and Jacquie hasn't followed her creative path as yet.

 

2 years ago I was approached by a writer as part of a community project called Celtic Women, where I was Creative Director. Grethe Gillman asked me to help her publish her series of 7 books. I advised her to publish one book at a time and gave her all the contact details of how to go about making it so.

 

Grethe was 90 at the time. Whilst she was putting the 1st book together, she asked me if I knew anyone that could edit. As luck would have it, Jacquie had just told me that she faniced editing books, so I paired up my 2 friends.

I thought I'd write to Jacquie on facebook and see if she would do a grammar edit of The Dragon Tree for me. She very kindly, didn't hesitate. Thanks chum xx

I'm hoping that in editing my book and seeing how bad my grammar is, after reading my little story, Jacquie will be inspired to write the things that have been waiting to fall out of her for years!

 

I leave this video clip from Youtube here for Jacquie because, when we were 10 years old, singing into our hairbrushes, following these dance moves, Rock Follies is who we thought we would be ...