Participants benefited from workshop opportunities, platform showcasing, contact with a wide range of professional and internationally known writers and spoken word artists as well as visual and sound artists and the opportunity to explore new venues. The programme also brought new audiences to literature-related activity. Audiences also had the invaluable opportunity to experience a broad range of cross art forms and creative work in unusual and transformed settings.

Creating Opportunities for Writers

The Lyric Lounge has been integral in developing and nurturing writers at all levels of their writing career and creating new opportunities for writers in the East Midland region. Poet Alyson Stoneman, who was commissioned to work with a group of young mothers at the YWCA for the Lyric Lounge Nottingham 2010, found being involved with the Lyric Lounge fundamental in her development as a writer. Through the Lyric Lounge Alyson benefited from the opportunity of mentorship from the eminent poets Jo Bell and Cathy Grindrod, who not only supported her through the project but also helped Alyson evaluate her own practice and create a 3 – 5 year personal development and writing plan. Working on the Lyric Lounge also presented Alyson with the invaluable experience of devising and producing a showcase of the original writing created in the YWCA workshops, inspired from museum artefacts.

Spoken word artist Joseph Coghlan, who was commissioned to work on Lyric Lounge Derby 2010, also found working on the Lyric Lounge to be invaluable in his development as a writer. He states that:

‘My experience and abilities as a writer and performer were stretched in all areas whilst working on the lyric lounge project. This included creating a project for a large number of consecutive workshops with a group of young people I had to find. I had never done this before but succeeded in delivering the project i think due to the constant support and encouragement through-out by the writers east midlands team. I went through a high level of professional development which affected my belief in my ability to make a sustainable career of being a writer.

Having Jean Binta Breeze as a mentor was a once in a life time experience that I will never forget. Jean first of all found out what I could achieve as a writer and performer and then set about encouraging me to push the boundaries of my comfort zone and beyond so it could reach a greater professionalism. Jean gave up a large amount of time to truly understand not only my writing but who I am this then lead to her knowing better than myself what I needed to grow. With constant encouragement and well planned out exercises Jean pushed me to be more confident in my writing and my performance.’