One Night Stanzas

The Making It Home Project officially “ended” in June 2013 (I put “ended” in quotemarks because of course such a project never ends — our films are still being seen by interested eyeballs and there are still ideas for events and other exciting follow-up things in the works. Hopefully more on that soon!). I’d meant to write this post then, as things wrapped up. Then life got in the way, as life likes to do. But I didn’t forget about the post…

Mainly, I wanted to share some of the photos I took at the various MIH events in June, when we took our inspiring band of powerhouse women on the road to showcase their work. For folks not involved in the project, these just look like photos of people… but they’re a testament to the great achievements of everyone involved in the project.

Up at the top there, for example, is Sheena, one of our fabulous filmmaking women. In the photo, she’s addressing the Scottish Storytelling Centre’s cinema/lecture theatre, full of folks who came to their screening of our films. In this photo, she looks like the world expert in her field… because she is. All the women who took part in our project can now call themselves experts in the field of filmmaking. How cool is that?

Some of our women hanging out at our various events. Only a year ago they’d never met, and many of them were daunted by the prospect of working together, especially when filmmaking was such an unknown quantity. In next to no time, however, they formed a hugely productive creative community, achieving gobsmacking things. They — heck, we! I include myself here 100%! — have also formed friendships that, I hope, will last lifetimes. I want to thank all of them equally for their hard work, their courage in the face of the scary cameras and sometimes-tricky conversations, and the wicked humour and energy they deployed throughout. You guys made films that changed the way people (myself included) looked at the world. AMAZING!

Here’s Rema Sherifi, who’s of the most impressive women I have ever met. (Seriously. Just look at her story.) Rema runs the Maryhill Integration Network, where she’s made a difference to hundreds of lives. Without Rema’s expert guidance and great wisdom, our project could never have happened.

Here’s Esa Aldegheri, our brilliant project leader and another super inspiring woman! Throughout the project, she’s been a quiet but vital presence, doing constant hard work behind the scenes, tirelessly plotting and preparing so that the rest of us could carry out our work with minimal disruption. I wish I had even a tenth of her patience and calm… I’m basically convinced that Esa could (and should) run the world! Can we make this happen, please?

Lynda Peachey (left) was my closest “co-worker” on the project, and basically, my rock (I mean it) whenever things went wrong. She was always ready with a cup of tea, a filthy joke, or some sage advice whenever and wherever it was needed. She was also there with hugs and smiles when things went right, which is just as important! I’m starting to keep a mental list of the various Wise Women in my life, and Lynda tops that list.
And Vilte Vaitkute (right) is just a sickmakingly talented filmmaker and facilitator of all-things-film-related. While the rest of us get all nostalgic about this great project coming to a close, Vilte’s still working hard to keep our films in circulation, and to get new eyeballs in all sorts of exciting places to see them. Her colleague Catherine Weir — who managed to avoid all my photos! — also deserves tons of credit for this work. They’re a fearsome and brilliant team!

A few more fine folks who deserve praise: first up, Jane McKie, who some of you may already know as a bloody excellent poet, winner of the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize and all sorts of other accolades. Jane worked as my opposite number on the project, working her magic in Maryhill while I kept an eye on things in Pilton. I feel really privileged to have worked with such a fine poet and such a genuinely lovely person. Thank you, Jane!

Next up, Rachel Farrier — who looks like a 1940s movie star all the time, incidentally, not just in this photo! Rachel was another vital presence on the project, working away tirelessly to make our lives as straightforward as possible. She also co-ordinated much of our events tour in June, and got loads of real actual human beings to come and sit in seats and watch the films the women made. Massive props to her partner in crime David Farrier, too — another person who apparently avoided my camera at all times, but who deserves to be warmly thanked and celebrated here nevertheless!

Lucinda Broadbent is another of these women who’s so impressive you feel like you ought to be a bit frightened of them. Look at all the amazing stuff she’s done! However, being frightened of someone so warm and smiley is rather tricky. Instead you just feel chuffed to have met and worked with such a total pro.

And last but by no means least is Alison Hughes, who was at my side almost every minute of the project, making sure that the women and I had all the help and support we needed. Without Alison’s presence, I would have felt considerably less confident in our various workshops and discussion sessions — lady, you really were invaluable. (PS: Alison is also a GREAT yoga teacher, and if you’re in Edinburgh, you should go to her classes!)

Finally, I need to thank everyone else who was even vaguely involved with making this project work — staff from Maryhill Integration Network and the Pilton Community Health Project; all the folks from our partner organisations who aren’t mentioned here; Alan Lennon, and all our Sponsume donors, who helped make our book a reality… and any friend or family member who supported anyone involved as we worked through our exhausting and rewarding year!

Here we all are, dancing with proper, unfettered joy at our final screening and farewell bash. If you’ve read this far, you surely want to see what all the fuss is about… please do scroll down and take the time to watch the four films that the fabulous folks above all worked incredibly hard to create. (You can also watch the Making Of Making It Home right down at the bottom.) If you like what you see — if these films make you laugh, cry, think differently about the world — please do pass them on, share them, and widen the conversation. The wonderful women of Making It Home made these films for you. I hope you love them.

“The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs,” by Team Sami, Maryhill

“It Could Happen To You,” by the Dream Team, Pilton

“Choice,” by Team Choice, Maryhill

“Come Home,” by The Sweeties, Pilton

The Making of Making It Home

Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

An update on the Making It Home Project, which I blogged about a few days ago: YOU ARE ALL WONDERFUL PEOPLE.

On Sunday, we reached our funding target of £1,000, which means we can make our magical book a reality. Thank you so much to anyone who read about the project, shared the link, sent folk in our general direction or best of all, donated a tiny little bit or a whole great big lot to help us make our book a reality. YOU ALL ROCK.

However, we’re not done!

There is still time before the funding deadline passes. There is still time for you to give us some money.

But why? I hear you cry! You’ve already got what you need! And yep, you’re right. We have the money we need to create our book and print a few copies and distribute them about the place, hopefully for free. BUT! There are various ways that, with your help, we can make our magical book even more magical. They are as follows:

– Right now, we’re only able to budget a very small amount for graphic design, which means we’re having to call in favours from our pro graphic design friends. We’d love to be able to afford more, so a) the book can look fancier and b) we can pay the people involved a proper rate.

– More money means a larger print run, which means more folk can get their hands on free books. FREE BOOKS are what make the world go around, amirite?

– While the fundraising‘s been going on, we’ve been busily collecting quotes from printers and other book-creation folks. If we raise more money, we’ll be able to go for the option that’s best for us and our book, rather than just the cheapest options.

– Fancy binding! Fancy papers! END PAPERS! Basically a much more fancy, pretty, lovely book for all of YOU to read!

Convinced? Click on the title in the widget below (or click here) to head to the donation page! Not convinced? Click it anyway — it’ll take you to a video that shows you some of the amazing work our two groups of women have been doing. You can also read more about what we hope to achieve with this project, and that might help you to make up your mind about donating. Can’t afford to donate? Please don’t worry. You should still click on the link, because there are other ways you can help. Below the video are a series of tabs that will allow you to tweet or Facebook details about the project, or share them via email. Spreading the word is just as important as giving money… really!

Here’s the link:

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Budding writer? Creative person in need of a fun job? Check out the various resources and services at Bookworm Tutors. Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!

Hey ONS-ers. I have a big, big favour to ask.

I don’t often ask you guys for stuff. I’ve never run ads here, and I even took down my tip-jar ’cause I felt bad about it. But now I’m asking for your help, because I know you’re all super-cool individuals who know a damn good cause when you see one.

I’ve spoken a bit before, here (scroll past the inevitable cake pictures!) about the totally life-changing (really!) work I’ve been doing over the past year with a thing called The Making It Home Project. I won’t say too much about it here, because I want you to go and read all the details at this link instead, but I will say: this is the sort of creative work that I deeply, passionately believe in. Forget fancy book launches, forget big anthologies, forget even the humble poetry slam. This is what poetry ought to be doing with itself: opening up amazing new creative possibilities to people who might otherwise never have read a poem in their lives.

I’m being mysterious, so go see what I’m talking about! But first, listen to the following, heartfelt plea…

You guys all know the power of books — you wouldn’t read this bookgeek blog otherwise. You know there’s something about a book: they’ve got a special sort of magic that no other object has. And a lot of you know how much more magical a book becomes if it contains something that you yourself wrote… right? Well, we want to make a really, really magical book. It’ll be a book we can give to the incredible women we’ve been working with, so they can also experience how awesome (literally) it feels to hold and read and share a book that has your words in it. It’ll also be a book we can give to all of you — for free! — to show you the amazing work these groups of women have been doing.

I’d like to ask you to do three small things.

One: watch our video.

RST Poetry Film taster from media co-op on Vimeo.

Two: click on the link in the image below, go and read more about what we’re doing, and how we plan to make our book.

Three: if you can (and only if you can), donate a pound or two to our cause. Any donation over £5 gets a reward… the more you give, the bigger and cooler your reward will be. If you can’t afford to donate, that is totally OK. But I’d be super grateful if you could spread the word around to anyone you think can help us.

These three things will take you what? Five minutes? If that. But your five minutes will make a massive difference and I promise, I will be very, very grateful to you!

Thanks guys. You rock.

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You can also visit Read This Press for more poetry (and typewriter paraphernalia!). Alternatively, check out Edinburgh Vintage, our sister site. If you want to get in touch you can follow OneNightStanzas on Twitter, or email claire[at]onenightstanzas.com. I reply as swiftly as I can!