By Jayne Stead
So, here we go. 6th May 2021, 7pm. Online – of course.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the-walls-tickets-148936060767
The Beyond the Walls launch is here for 2021. After the most trying of times, the most difficult, screen led, frustrating and challenging year, we have finally arrived.
Year 2 creative writing undergraduate students have been curating, editing, designing and commissioning work submitted by fellow students to bring yet another eclectic and moving compilation of stories, observations and poetry to the YSJ annual anthology.
I write as one of the contributors to this year’s collection. I feel honoured to be included but, more than that, I am absolutely certain that this gathering of minds, compilation of feelings and expressions of life has a bit more resonance than usual. We have not had the usual contact, the splitting hairs, the advice from our peers or even the privilege of being in the same room as each other.
And yet; we have managed to write.
Many of us have formed strong bonds where we have been pinging work back and forth to each other. Editing, encouraging and proof reading. Our very own mock literary agency almost. Needs must, and the brilliance of this means that we get to see each other’s admirable efforts. We marvel at ideas, concepts and conceits. We salute syntax and sentencing, add commas and help with phrasing. Working in this makeshift community has been an honour.
Now published by Valley Press the anthology is in its ninth year and is an important, and much anticipated, part of the Creative Writing team’s calendar.
So, now the editing is over, the submissions refined. The launch of the anthology is this Thursday 6th May at 7pm. Please make sure you have your tickets so you can join us! Invite family, friends, colleagues and agents!
Attendance is by ticket only so get yours here:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/beyond-the-walls-tickets-148936060767
(Design by Selling Layla Duzenli)