Ros Fry
Dorset is a rural county with no motorways, no glitzy lit fests and not much money to spend developing audiences for literature. There’s a sparse population of which the proportion of retired people is much higher than the national average. There are, however, 39 libraries (including 5 mobiles), over a hundred writers and readers groups and a part-time literature development officer (one of only two in whole of the Arts Council, south west region).
Pat Pryor, the county’s literature development officer, moved to Dorset in
1994 after a long career in the BBC, working mainly in radio, and latterly in the literature department based in Bristol. She discovered a county where lots of literary type activities were happening in far-flung corners but there was no way for literature lovers to find out about them. When she was appointed in 1997, her first activity was to start Literature Live in Dorset, a quarterly bulletin listing as many events and opportunities she could discover. Everywhere she went she encouraged people to subscribe to the free service - a promotional tool that simultaneously acted as an enviable piece of market research about potential audiences.
Having looked at audiences, Pat decided to work at improving the product, acutely aware that without the lure of serious subsidy, she couldn’t dictate what arts centres, libraries or community groups promoted. To encourage them to organise more live literature events she had to offer them something in return. So four years ago she hired me to run a marketing training day and invited anyone who’d ever considered organising a poetry reading, workshop or any kind of live literature event to attend for free. I live in Dorset, working across the UK as an arts marketing consultant and trainer. I’d been press officer for the South Bank Centre when the Poetry Library and Voice Box first opened and, as a freelancer, had been involved with marketing a wide range of arts events and venues. At the end of an intense Saturday examining what are selling points and the marketing mix the participants were so enthused they wanted to meet up again. They spontaneously formed the Dorset Literature Network to, as it says on the tin, "provide a means of inspiration, motivation and co-ordination for literature in Dorset, and to support a framework for the joint promotion of literature."
The group successfully applied to Awards for All to run their first festival in 2002. The £5000 grant covered the cost of producing a festival brochure and hiring some outside PR. Right from the start the artistic direction was set by the Network members. Financial necessity and an egalitarian ethos meant the absence of an artistic director. No one was in charge - everyone had to be responsible for their own events.
The success of the first Dorset Word Week encouraged Pat Pryor and her network to ask for more and a funding application was put into the Regional Arts Lottery Programme to run a £60,000 development programme. The new programme aimed to develop the professional skills of the network and find new audiences. With more funds the network could pay for performers from outside of the region and pay for some more professional marketing and co-ordination so back I came. As the second festival was eighteen months away there was time to organise projects leading up to the festival and make overtures to new partners such as the county’s outdoor education service and various health and social service providers.
Although the money was there, the Dorset DIY democratic ethos was firmly in
place so there’s still no artistic director (and never will be). As a marketeer not a literary type, my approach to programming is unconventional. I ask the network members "who do you want to attract to literature in your village or town and what would they like?" Not "let’s book this poet / play / workshop" followed by "how do we find an audience for it?"
During 2003 the Dorset Literature Network has organised three major projects in schools, hospitals and arts centres, delivering dozens of workshops and events, and I have hosted Talk Shops on storytelling, writing in health and social care, and marketing as well as days devoted to more familiar literary techniques. Speakers came from outside the county to inspire or explain, and network members learned to present their own skills to each other - a big step for many, especially the poetry writing accountant!
With no pretence of literary know-how on my part (apart from co-founding a reading group in my town) my role is always to ask the idiot questions: why is this poet good? what’s the point of storytelling? how do writers’ groups help mental health service users? At times it’s been uncomfortable but no more than being appointed top PR at the Royal Festival Hall not knowing how to spell Beethoven or ever having heard of Schoenberg!
Playing the dolt means permission to challenge. Co-ordinating the second festival, scheduled for March 2004, I argued strongly against the title Dorset Word Week (it sounded too much like worthy events such as Back Pain Week, and it was going to be ten days anyway). I argued even more strongly about using photographs of writers – they’re boring, bald and only work if the subject is incredibly well known. So we’re calling it Blah di Blah, Dorset’s festival of words and voices and we’re only using photos of ourselves which means at least our relatives will come!
The festival is not about writers, it’s about the experience of listening to, talking about or creating literature. During a copywriting training session, members forced each other to define selling points of events in the festival. Here’s a few:
it touches your emotions, it’s living someone else’s life; it’s about restoring some credibility to language which is frequently debased; choosing to communicate with neighbours, friends or fellow enthusiasts; a unique experience between you and the performer.
In this session I encouraged participants to talk aloud about the events they were planning. Writers often produce very dull selling copy so we tried to record the words they used exactly as they were spoken –understanding that the way we speak is persuasive and direct. My technique of "catching copy" reminded Pat vividly of her days producing sharp radio scripts or cue sheets and teaching radio production - the spoken word is more credible and more focused than any written blurb so we all need to find ways to write the talk. BBC Radio presenters learn to broadcast as though they were "speaking to one person" and we need to market live literature in a similar way. We are expecting people to leave their comfy homes, enter an uncomfortable and unfamiliar venue, buy a ticket, arrange a babysitter, give up the telly, to take part in some kind of activity which has no clear outcome or purpose.
Selling to one person may be uneconomic but selling to one person who is part of a network isn’t. We all appreciate that word of mouth is the most
powerful promotional tool so with our network we need to find the people who will spread it and tell them about it in our own words.
With over forty events Blah di Blah is a big festival but there are very few famous names. Wendy Cope is about as big as it gets. Most events are important to the people who are making them but would not tour elsewhere or even mean anything in a conventional literary festival. Blah di Blah is not la di dah! It is, however, vital to the Dorset Literature Network. It links together isolated pockets of creativity in a county where every where seems to be forty minutes drive from every where else (and that’s when the weather’s good)! It’s giving literature enthusiasts and writers an infrastructure to cling onto and enjoy. It provides new perspectives and opportunities and, in its own modest way, is getting Dorset conversant with live literature - without a single mention of Thomas Hardy!
Dorset is rich in readers. The Dorset Literature Network is getting them off the sofa. In Dorset we use networks out of necessity – there just aren’t enough people to sustain a conventional literary festival. The necessity creates ownership and makes marketing less of a science and more of a service.
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