Inkerman Writers
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Darlington for Culture
News Release: 15 April 2011
Arts programme starts to take shape
Darlington for Culture (DfC), which was set up late last year to help save Darlington Arts Centre, has started work on planning a programme of events at the Vane Terrace building.
Darlington Borough Council, which owns the centre, has agreed that DfC, whose supporters come from community and arts groups across the borough, can stage some of the events at the Arts Centre on Monday and Tuesdays. Arts and community groups will not be charged for hiring rooms but will need to demonstrate that events can generate income and run them themselves.
DfC held a programming meeting at the Centre on the evening of April 14 and groups started putting together a programme including events for writers and readers, film enthusiasts, lovers of music and followers of crafts. DfC has also established a working group with the area’s visual artists to see how they can stage events at the centre. The programme has not been finalised yet and DfC is keen to hear from other groups with ideas for events at the centre.
Paul Harman, DfC Chair, said: “Things are really taking shape now. We have been working with a number of very committed individuals and groups to put together an arts programme. It has been very encouraging and we hope to announce the programme within the next few weeks. These are exciting times.”
DfC was established after the council announced late last year that budget cuts meant that it would have to withdraw its subsidy from the Arts Centre. It was feared that the decision would mean the closure of the Vane Terrace centre but it has been given a stay of execution by the council until at least April next year.
If you wish to find out more about arranging an event, contact Paul Harman, Chair DfC: 01325 483259
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About
DfC
The Inkerman Writers are members of Darlington for Culture (DfC), which was set up in 2010 to help save Darlington Arts Centre from closure.
Its members include representatives of arts and community groups.
DfC was established after the centre’s owner, Darlington Borough Council, announced that budget cuts meant that it would have to withdraw its subsidy from the Arts Centre.
Although the centre closed, the organisation remains active - more at www.darlingtonforculture.org
Publications
Welcome to the site created by the Inkerman Writers to showcase our work.
Based in Darlington, North East England, and having celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2013, members have enjoyed success in a variety of arenas, including winning, and being shortlisted and highly commended, in short story competitions, having novels published and publishing the short story anthology A Strawberry in Winter, which can be obtained by visiting the website www.blurb.com
The group's second anthology of short stories, Christophe's Farewell and Other Stories, can be obtained, cost £4.95 plus postage and packing, from
The Inkerman Writers’ latest book, Out of the Shadows, which was launched as part of the 2013 Darlington Arts Festival, is on sale. The book can be ordered direct from
http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4204019-out-of-the-shadows
The group also produced The Last Waltz, a double CD of short stories, available by contacting deangriss@btinternet.com, cost £5 plus p and p.
Several of our writers wrote original one-act plays in a collaboration with the Green Theatre company, which were performed at Darlington Arts Centre early in February, 2012.
Darlington-based Inkerman Writers have produced their latest anthology of short stories, Inkerman Street, based on the demolition of a fictional northern street and the stories of the people who lived in it.
The book, which features a variety of stories ranging from horror to comedy, was launched to a large audience at the Darlington Arts Festival Literary Day on Saturday May 26 and begins like this:
“Inkerman Street is still and graveyard-hushed tonight, the terraced houses cold behind boarded-up windows, silent sentinels among a sea of wasteland. No one lives here now and tomorrow the bulldozers will move in to flatten the houses to make way for the Council’s Grand Plan.
“Although the people are long gone, the houses still have life. Peek into one of the bedrooms and see on the wall a painting of a seaside scene, brightly-coloured boats bobbing in the harbour, fishermen pipe-smoking in the noonday sun and seagulls wheeling high above the choppy waters. In the roaring silence of the night, you can hear the screeching of the birds and taste the salt air, acrid and herring-sharp at the back of your throat. It is an illusion; the bedroom is empty and the blooms on the faded wallpaper have long since wilted.
“The air in the houses is musty with neglect yet but a few months before, these were bustling homes filled with frying bacon and steaming irons, whistling kettles and playing children. The houses witnessed all these scenes for more than 150 years. Behind their curtains were enacted a thousand stories but tomorrow they will be destroyed because Inkerman Street is the last of its ilk.
“Now, on the eve of the street’s death, the people who once lived here have returned, gathering solemn and silent in the mist, the ghosts of the past come to pay final tribute….”
The anthology can be purchased at http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/7524452/bae89c993c98ec8c8b37b12d6b9b37ecced5dec3
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