One Magpie

I met Emma Escurier because she emailed me.

More specifically, she emailed me in my role as Events Officer for the Society of Young Publishers South West, asking whether we’d like to be involved in the first Bristol New Writers Festival. A few months later, I was sat on stage in an arm chair talking about publishing to a room of new writers alongside representatives from The Society of Authors and Writers and Artists.

Emma is a French-English literary scout, programme manager and translator, but she’s also one of the people behind Bristol New Writers Festival: a volunteer-led experiment in creating more space for new writers to meet, learn and actually make things together.

After my time on stage had ended, I sat with Emma to chat about where the idea for the festival came from, why creative communities matter, what they learned from year one so far and whether Bristol New Writers Festival might have a future beyond Bristol.

Finding somewhere to write

Having moved to Bristol four years ago from London, Emma just wanted to find somewhere to write. “Sometimes when you’re on your own, things go very wrong very quickly,” she says, “because you get in your own head, you overthink everything. While if you have other people next to you to keep you on track, then you’re not going to get distracted”. Her place to write, and people to write with, came through the Bristol Writing Collective, founded by Bristol author Sylvia Bishop. It’s a monthly meetup hosted by an individual member, typically at the Watershed, where “you don’t need to pay anything, you just turn up with something to write on, and there are people around you that are right there with you.”

Making space for new writers

True to a writers’ collective, the Bristol New Writers Festival developed as an idea among the members to create a space for new writers. “It came with the idea of creating an anthology of short pieces that all the members of the collective could write and publish together.” Emma says of the birth of the festival, “and then with these came the idea of creating an event.” With Emma’s background in event planning, it seems natural that she decided to take this on, but she wouldn’t be alone in this undertaking. Along with Bristol author Francesca Ramsay, who spoke on the second day of the event for her “Write for Play” workshop, the festival was brought to life by the on-site organisers I met: Dr. Carmen Power (a Bristol-based clinical psychologist and researcher), and professional playwright, actor, and poet Adam Elms, who also ran the festival’s poetry open mic.

Emma says that other writers in Bristol’s writing spaces have pitched in to help make this a safe and successful experiment. “If it completely flops, then, you know, at least we’re all still alive and, you know, it’ll be fine.” It certainly wasn’t a flop. By the time we spoke, Emma said half of the programme had sold out, I’d say this inaugural event was a success!

Why Bristol?

“We called it the Bristol New Writers Festival just because we are from Bristol!” She noticed coming from London, that “people outside of London still have a life.” She sees it more as the southwest festival rather than strictly Bristol creatives.

“What I like about Bristol is the fact that the city looks like there’s a lot of artists here, a lot of people who think a bit unconventionally, who have different ideas, different opinions, and have the space to express them.”

There is also, she says, more of the time and peace needed to write outside London. And perhaps most importantly: “Something needs to happen here.”

An experiment worth repeating

The panel I was asked to be a part of for SYP “So you want to be a writer?” was an experiment to see if the writers were interested in the publishing side of things, too. “The ones I prefer personally are the ones when someone tells you more about how they came to finishing that project. How the idea came, how they write, what’s their routine, et cetera.” The festival is also open to bringing other publishing professionals into future events and has received plenty of interest from local bookshops. But the heart of the festival is for writers to “find a space where they can talk about their writing.”

What comes next?

“We haven’t really discussed the future because we thought, well, we’ll see if we survived this one!”

Emma and the team are interested in developing other events around new writers in Bristol and the Southwest, whether those eventually sit under the Bristol New Writers Festival or become something separate. She’s also considering a newsletter or wider network that could share opportunities, submissions and events with local writers.

For now, though, her invitation is much simpler: get involved.

“Don’t hesitate to reach out to us,” she says. And for writers who just want somewhere to begin, she points back to the Bristol Writing Collective. “Especially if you’re just starting out, don’t be shy… You don’t need to write very good things very often. We always have a good time when we meet. It’s very open.”

We’re all in this together

It’s nearly been a week since the event concluded and I truly hope Emma and the team have some serious down time to themselves! The publishing industry can seem like a dark and lonesome place, rife with intimidating emails and hours of social-media content-making (wasn’t writing supposed to be about writing and not social media?!) but the more authors and publishing professionals I speak to, the more I realise that we are all in this together.

We’re all sweating under our imposter syndrome despite our accomplishments, whatever the size. We’re all doing our best to bolster our friends while trying to remember to include ourselves in the praise. It’s so lovely to see people come together to create a community and a space for publishing hopefuls and new writers to spread their wings together.

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