Well, the Manchester Literature Festival is in full swing.  This year has seen some fascinating events – a real mixture, from Afternoon Tea with Jennie Murray at the Midland Hotel to the Northern Poetry Grand Slam Final at The Northern. I was sitting in the Corner House the other evening and what really struck me was that aspiring writers in Manchester have such a wealth of resources. There’s festival itself, of course, which provides a unique forum to interact with writers like Russell T Davies and people in the industry, we have the Blog Awards (tonight), the Manchester Poetry / Fiction Prize and new initiatives starting all the time, such as Rainy City Stories and the Manchester Review. In fact, we’ve never had it so good.

There are still a number of events left to go, including Saturday’s ‘The Behaviour of Moths‘, which I’m particularly looking forward to.

For more info and to see the full programme go to www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk.
And if you’ve missed any of the events, there are lots of reviews at www.manchesterliterature.blogspot.com.

As part of the community reporters scheme I was invited to blog about a Thinking Women event which took place in Manchester last week.  I was a little wary at first.  I don’t normally go to women only events and I’ll be honest, I had a few doubts.  Why do women need their own events?  What would women say about men only events? What kind of women go to these meetings?

The last question is the easiest to answer and so I’ll start there.  There were around 30 women from different backgrounds: entrepreneurs, students, housewives, performance artists and many more.  We sat in a circle in The Friends’ Meeting House and listened to guest speaker and Well Heeled Diva, Jane Kenyon. The subject of the seminar was ‘Finding Courage, Losing Doubt: Strategies for Life’. A tough gig for anyone to tackle but Jane talked frankly and honestly about her own life and this filtered through when we split up into smaller groups to discuss some of the issues.

I’ve been to lots of seminars, workshops and lectures – some good and some bad. For me the mark of any successful event is if I can take away one valuable thing. This could be advice, an idea or a contact. Last week I learned a number of practical tips but the one thing that stayed with me was the idea of deconstructing negative beliefs and substituting them with positive ideas.  It’s too complex to tackle here but if you’re interested in learning more take a look at the sites below.

And the other two questions? Well, I still don’t have comprehensive answers to those but I think I know two women who do.

Jane Guest – dynamic entrepreneur, motivational coach and one of the founding members of Well Heeled Divas.

Jessica Symmons – social entrepreneur, creative thinker and one of the founding members of the northern strand of Thinking Women

Further Info:

www.thinkingwomen.org

http://wellheeleddivas.typepad.com

I’m off to the New Islington Urban Folk Festival next week.  Judging from last year’s photos it promises to be a grand event with music, art, theatre, film, food, drink and dance.

Here are some pics from last year.

This year’s events include Sketch City gets Arty, Yarn Bombing, Knitting Circle, Pimp my Barge and Knot Crazy.

It takes place on Saturday 6th September between 2 and 8 pm at Old Mill Street, New Islington, Manchester.

For more information Visit the NIF Facebook Group or go to www.newislington.co.uk.

More next week . . . .