In May 2022 I was awarded a grant from Bristol City Council to create Stone the Crones.
Stone the Crones is a monthly spoken word night in Bristol featuring older/aging/elder women, plus accompanying monthly workshop to create material, develop skills, build confidence & community.
Stone the Crones is about finding our voices and reclaiming the concept of crone as a fierce, strong, wise elder woman.
Dates
Dates for the first six months of events are already mapped – put them into your diary!
- Saturday 11 June 2022
- Saturday 9 July
- (no August)
- Saturday 10 September
- Saturday 8 October
- Saturday 12 November
- Saturday 10 December
To book tickets for Stone the Crones spoken word night or a workshop space go to the Stone The Crones Eventbrite page.
Spoken word event
The monthly evening events will be held in the beautiful café at Windmill Hill City Farm, south Bristol, on the second Saturday of each month.
Hosted by Beccy Golding, there will be open mic slots (with priority going to women who have attended the morning workshop), 2 sets from more established older women writers and some silly fun audience participation, ending with an 80s disco – a chance to dance, relax and connect in a welcoming space.
Saturday morning workshops
Workshops will be held in a shop space in Broadwalk Shopping Centre, Knowle. Small, welcoming, informal 2-hour sessions open to 6 women per month. Hosted by Beccy Golding and facilitated by expert writers and group leaders, participants will be supported to create a new poem to perform in the evening (if they wish).
Funding & future
Bristol City Council Originators Fund is supporting the first six months of Stone the Crones – for that I am massively grateful. I see this as the beginning of an ongoing, bigger and wider project and will be looking at ways to make it continue into the future, reach more people and support the creativity of older / aging / elder women in Bristol and beyond!
Stone the Crones socials
Cartoonist & activist Kate Evans created the Stone the Crones profile pic, as part of a cartoon strip celebrating International Women’s Day back in 2013. I have always loved the energy, vibrancy and sheer RARGHH of it – this is what I want our monthly events to be like (maybe not with the running off into the sunset naked, but who knows…)
Thanks to Cartoon Kate for giving us permission to use the image.
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Stone the Crones premier, Saturday 11 June
The first Stone the Crones was a ROARing success – those who were there will know about the ROAR! At the beginning of the spoken word event in the evening I read out a poem I’d written some time before but adapted especially for Stone the Crones, incorporating a ‘chorus’ which the audience could join […]
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Fungal Architecture
This poem was written for the Hot Poets participation project, linking poets & scientists together to imagine a better possible future. During a six-week programme a group of poets were tasked to research the spark of an idea with a positive environmental impact, then connect with a scientist working in that area to find out […]
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Writing a bio
It’s a bit fraught, isn’t it, writing a biography? First person, third person?Too self-effacing, too egotistic?Too tongue in cheek, too earnest? I’ll be one of the scratch poets at the wonderful Tonic spoken word night next week – they offered a bit of advance promo if I could supply a short bio. So I dashed […]
