Wordstock sketch of chat during arrivals
"You can actually tell the story of the 20th century just by focussing on Berlin." - Berliners discussion
Audience listening to Berliners readings
"My mother still lives in my garden." "How growing and gardening helps one spiritually." - Reading from And So We Grow
"Marram grass – it kept a community in shoes." - Reading from And So We Grow
Human flipchart
Fiona's workshop in progress
"Heat. Grating din. Requiem for fallen tresses." - Writer reading from 26 Neurodiversity Project
"Today my fingers close on nothing" - Writer reading from 26 Neurodiversity Project
Writer reading from 26 Connections project
Pair of writers reading from 26 Connections project
Introduction of 26 AI project, lectern and interior of Conway Hall Library
Kaye Brennan from The Wildlife Trusts reading an Emily Dickinson poem
Audience listening in closing session
Pamphlet formats with facing pages
Sewing machine, stitching pamphlets
Multiple pamphlets made for sketching the collective elements of Wordstock

Sketching 26 Wordstock at Bloomsbury Festival

Listening through drawing…

I’d said yes to sketching at last year’s Wordstock for the chance to draw in the beautiful Conway Hall Library.

This year, I said yes because of – well – Wordstock. It’s a welcoming afternoon of conversation, writing and sharing around words. To draw it, I have to be quick and because I annotate my sketches, to listen intently.

My sketching being rooted in my design practice, I think beyond the drawing itself to what I’m drawing on, in and with. Last year, I responded to the library by making bookmark-format sketchbooks and to respect the rules of a library, I drew only in pencil.

This year, I had booked for the launch beforehand of John Simmons’ poem Berliners, published in pamphlet format, with readings from the Dark Angels collection of poetry And So We Grow. So pamphlets were my starting point: for Berliners, unfolding to Berliner newspaper format and a pamphlet the size of a seed packet for the readings from And So We Grow.

I had added the Bloomsbury Festival theme “Human.Kind” to my pamphlet formats for Wordstock. For Fiona Thompson’s workshop on storytelling for charity appeals, I made an unfolding seed packet sized pamphlet, a pamphlet sewn with gardening twine (and there was the raptor challenge – a speedy flipchart-sized bird sketch for Fiona’s prompt). For 26’s Neurodiversity Project, I chose shades and textures of white, hand stitched quietly in white. For the paired call-and-response of 26 Connections I made a pair of facing pamphlets bound into one cover and drew on pairs of pages simultaneously. And for arrivals, introductions and the collective writings of the day I had made an ambitious series of pamphlets machine-stitched into a concertina – which I very nearly filled…

Sketching in pencil again, as I listened I looked at how others listened, at huddles of collective writing and at the variously still and expansive ways in which writers did their readings, to note down the character, and characters, of the day.

In the generous spirit of the festival, I encouraged anyone who wanted one of the pamphlet sketchbooks to take it away. Some walked into the evening with a handful of drawings; I wandered out with a head full of words.