What the fuck is a 'reverse Q&A'?
Reflections after our first open call and night at The Glitch, plus some updates.
Before the we begin reflecting, a quick reminder to get tickets for our next event, Overexposed, an industry Q&A about working in writers’ rooms with Daniel Marc Janes (The Crown, Netflix) and Sorcha Kurien-Walsh (Rivals for Disney Plus, one of the Messy Women).
Wednesday 27th September at The Glitch (SE1 7AE), Tickets can be purchased here.
The premise of our Live Reads is simple; writers submit raw, unpolished work around a theme, to be read in front of a live audience by professional actors. We then host a reverse Q&A, where the writers get to ask the audience (and actors) specific questions about their response to the work, in the hope that this will help evolve the work for a future draft.
We host the events at The Glitch in Waterloo, in their intimate underground space. Perfect for late night mingling and discussions about ‘our art’ with other writers over a glass of wine or cocktail.
We were so inspired by our inaugural reading event that we are delighted (and slightly terrified) to announce that Live Reads will now happen every other month at The Glitch!
The words we write live off the page, and Live Reads is an attempt to make live work a part of the messy creative process, where writers get the chance to work with producers, directors and professional actors, sometimes for the very first time. And to have some fun while we’re doing it.
Our submission windows will always be short because these events are intended to help writers improve existing work, not force them to write something new. Our themes will always be specific because that’s how we think we’ll get the most cohesive, useful and beautiful discussions after. Our events will always be safe spaces with no recording; this will give writers the chance to experiment and take risks.
We’ll be announcing the next theme (and every theme) right here on Substack ~ and with such short submission windows we really recommend subscribing to stay ahead.
This newsletter (lol, ‘newsletter’) is being written by the Messy Woman also known as Jess. I had a short script read at our inaugural session. I say ‘read’, but the actors are so talented it really did feel more like a performance. The reverse Q&A was incredibly daunting, but has also helped me develop my work already. I was able to ask if the tone worked (it did), if the metaphor was too vague (it was), and then moderate a small symposium of brilliant brains workshopping solutions (they found me some). I did not anticipate how useful it would be to have access to all of this creative genius in one space. I really recommend it to all writers.
We also know the importance of having the time and space to write, too. So we are also proud to announce that we now host a weekly Morning Writual, also at The Glitch. These take place Every F*cking Saturday, 10am-2pm. ‘Perfect’ is the enemy of ‘done’, and the best words in your head are ‘bullshit’ compared to the ones on the page. It’s a messy process, but that’s why we’re here. So if you want to kickstart your weekend by getting some words out, know there’s always somewhere you can go for productivity, accountability, and maybe some new friends.
A couple more reflections on Live Reads: Hot Topic
Before we move on to the next one… As a bonus we’ve been given permission to include one of the pieces we didn’t have space to produce but thought was brilliant. Read it at the bottom of this email.
How do you feel about the climate? It’s one of the messiest feelings to dissect.
As shared in the latest of the brilliant Climate Spring newsletter, 7 in 10 Americans are looking for ‘climate friendly' behaviour’ on screen. (In the same newsletter, they shared this piece on how stories really do have the ability to generate action - a detailed and informative read that you may innately know, but can help to remind you on the days it feels tough to tell tough narratives.)
Climate Spring are just one of the organisations offering frequent opportunities for developing writing about the crisis. Quite rightly, it’s a HOT TOPIC. And that’s why we chose it for the first of our Live Reads at The Glitch. It’s something we’re all thinking about.
Seven pieces on climate from emerging writers, read by five brilliant actors (with our very own Isobel Bruce on the stage directions).
We opened with Gaar Adams reading the opening of his work-in-progress novel exploring the ethics of international baby adoption for queer couples, The Earth Mothers, with an authorial voice so developed that it felt like an audiobook. Gaar quizzed the audience on the narrative perspective and how it serves as introduction to the world, and the audience quizzed Gaar on when it would be finished.
Next up was Fires Elsewhere, writer-director Jessica Mackie Hunter’s funny and intimate portrayal of two lesbians deciding between the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis, the opening of a short. Her questions for the audience centred on the effectiveness on juxtaposition of these two parallel crises, and led to as many debates on the nature of burning wood and electricity meters. Read by Megan Prescott and Mollie Semple.
After that we had Sam Moody’s genre piece, Solstice: a spooky sci-fi set in a fictional dystopian based out of a real brutalist part of Birmingham. Fittingly for Sam’s horror writing prowess, the extract ended with a jump scare, and the reverse Q&A focused on the effectiveness of the world-building and the character motivations. Read by Mollie Semple, Jacquetta May and Michael Parr.
Then was Jess Moore’s powerful monologue, Then, a captivating, heartbreaking and humorous reflection on our present from the potential future. The audience discussion was essentially everyone trying to force Jess to develop into other work. Read by Megan Prescott.
This was followed by an extract from Nathan Lucky Wood’s play, The Levellers. A humorous and cerebral reflection on the place of God in all of this, the audience Q&A dug into the importance of character voice and perspective. Read by Michael Parr and Jacquetta May.
The penultimate piece was mine (Jessica Riches, hi). Rescue is a short that I plan to shoot soon, hopefully as proof-of-concept for a feature, about a family reacting to their father getting lost up a mountain in a heatwave. The audience were very kind and have all but written my next draft for me. Read by Megan Prescott, Lola Knight, Jacquetta May and Michael Parr.
And we closed with Charlotte Newman’s Two Tails Tied, a powerful extract from a short story in her collection based on the zodiac. Combining mythology and modernity in a tale of motherhood, the reverse Q&A focused on how this combination works with and without its cultural context. Read by Lola Knight.
To find out more about our writers and actors, read our original post here. Special thanks to Mollie Semple who stepped in to read at the last minute.
Your very own Live Read at home
We found it fascinating to see the variety of responses to such a vast theme. We truly had so many brilliant submissions that we really struggled to narrow it down for the event. So we are delighted to have permission to publish Decommissioned by Molly Anne Sweeney, a piece we really responded to but weren’t able to produce for this event, here.
Molly Anne Sweeney - Decommissioned
Grieving climate expert Gwen returns to the small Welsh community she grew up in weighed down by a secret: in the next thirty years the village will be surrendered to the encroaching sea.
Read here.
Lots of love,
The Messy Women