Local Spotlight: Belfast and Beyond

On the last Saturday of every month at 2pm on the corner of Elmwood Avenue in an unassuming café not far from Queens University there is a gathering.  An intersecting group of writers, illustrators and literary translators assemble in this quiet leafy suburb to top their cups with inspiration, support and community.  It is a picturesque scene from their regular booth. A full aspect window looks out on to All Souls Church where the funeral of Irish poet Michael Longley took place earlier this year. 

Coincidence?  I think not.  For this is a place of words.  Just down the road The Crescent Arts Centre, home to the Belfast Book Festival, readies itself for another creative writing workshop in a small room adjacent to conversational French and Irish language for beginners.  On a nearby corner students of the Seamus Heaney Centre accompanied by local literati emerge, blinking into the light, after a lunchtime talk by their favourite BAFTA award winning writers and directors who are now looking skywards checking for rain.  They are filming ‘Blue Lights’ here today.  A photo exhibition is taking place on the lawn of Botanic Gardens and the Ulster Museum grounds breech with academic chat, artists, cyclists and walkers.  With so much to take in it’s a wonder the Belfast & Beyond networking group stay focused, but they do because today our literary dramas far exceed theirs and for that we need each other.

Northern Ireland hosts two local groups: Derry & Beyond on the north coast and of course Belfast, each boasting a friendly, informal opportunity to connect and chat with local members.  Eighteen months earlier they were fledgling groups, entirely new to the SoA but not anymore.  Today the Belfast group eagerly anticipates visiting attendees from the John Hewitt International Literary Festival situated 40 miles further south in Armagh.  They happen to be in Belfast for the day and are keen to connect thereby reducing one of the larger challenges for Northern Ireland – our proximity to each other.  Our membership while vibrant is geographically dispersed and some locations are harder to reach, less populated or demand an all-day travel commitment to attend a simple two-hour coffee chat.  Our members often work in isolation and as a result, these regular in-person meet ups are fast becoming essential connection points for this creative artistic community.  Members also straddle the UK and Irish publishing markets which can require additional support and clarity at times. It is not unusual for members to reside in one jurisdiction and for their agents and/or publishers to operate from another.  Access to grants, mentors, bursaries and critical communities of support are often impacted as members ebb in to and out of their geography as it relates to their contracts, finance and resources.   On these occasions opportunities for a face-to-face conversation can be invaluable. 

Excitingly, at the heart of this challenge lies one of our greatest strengths.  From this agile mix of attendees an enthusiastic welcome is guaranteed for everyone who decides to drop by.  Simply put we are absolutely delighted you came.  Attendance here is not taken for granted.  Time, effort and trust are the key components that make this community work.  What is vulnerable to us, the submissions, the rejections and the challenges are safe here, and when good news arrives, which it does, regardless of scale we share in that joy together.  At our cultural roots we are storytellers and true to form there is no end to our chat.  Our contributors are a blend of traditional and self-published writers, experienced authors and emerging. They write scripts, plays, podcasts, short stories, songs, poems and novels.  They are fiction writers and non-fiction educators, linguists, memoirists and photographers who love to talk about crime, trills, history, travel, romance, fantasy cos-play and everything else in between.  They are intergenerational mentors and technology advocates.  But most importantly of all they are resilient, supportive and a joy to be around. 

For more information about Northern Ireland meet ups check out the events page at https://societyofauthors.org/events/.   

by Frances McVeigh