A Walk on the Wild Side: We meet the Wild Writers

In a climate of persistent arts cuts with intense competition for the little funding available, the arts sector is an uncomfortable collective to belong to, especially as an emergent artist, also known as (to quote a recent Bryony Kimmings blog rant) a 'poor fucker.' It is therefore no surprise that there is a veritable tsunami of self-funded, self-organised and self-promoted events currently invigorating the Northwest arts scene. And why not? After all, there is nothing to stop a musician from playing a set at an independent coffee shop, or an artist from turning an abandoned, uninspiring space into a rousing exhibition. Indeed, a playwright can breathe life into a script by – in the wise, if slightly illegal words of Mike Bradwell – squatting a building or stealing a van. But what about those writers who belong to a different literary genre: the poet, the novelist, the crafter of those bite-size delicacies that declare themselves short stories? What kind of event can they create? Does the solitary nature of creative writing condemn authors to hide behind the unresponsive façade of an A4-sized page, faceless and removed, never to interact with their intended audience?

So many rhetorical questions should be countered with an answer, an answer which materialises in the form of Liverpool literary collective the Wild Writers. Promoting grassroots writing and armed with a DIY attitude, the Wild Writers are changing the visual relationship we have with literature, one event at a time.

It is an onerous question to consider: literature is certainly a visceral instrument but can it, outside of the realms of the reader’s imagination, embody the visual? Poetry nights and spoken word evenings can be well attended but they rarely offer much in the way of ocular delight. When it comes to producing an event, literature is perhaps the most difficult artistic medium in which to work. Michael Fowler, founder and leader of the Wild Writers (though he admits to his position with dignified reluctance), agrees.

“First and foremost we understand that going to a literary night is not like going to a gig; there is always the assumption that you will be expected to sit down and be quiet. In truth, that isn’t what most people want to do – especially not everyday people who do not while away the hours reading poetry. We try to make it visual, interactive – we want to give something back to our audience.”

I greet gang members (does a literary collective constitute a gang?) Michael Fowler and Sinéad Cooper at an upstairs table in the thankfully quiet Liverpool café Leaf. There is a touch of the ‘wild’ about them: Cooper has pink hair and Fowler a pierced ear. Apparently there are 13 Wild Writers in all, a number – it is revealed later – that was decided upon because it felt cool.

---

"We smash things together – a bit of art with a bit of writing” – Sinéad Cooper

---

Introduced to ‘Wilde Towers,’ a Toxteth-based dwelling in which the Wild Writers live (“and when we say 'dwelling,' we mean old-fashioned manor”), I am vocally guided through a fictitious maze of haunted corridors, obligatory oversized library and secret whisky cellar. “Writers have to have wine and whisky you know,” Cooper says seriously. “In abundance actually,” Fowler interjects. “We ship it in from all around the world – it comes in a secret truck in the dead of night.” It seems Napoleon was right, imagination does rule the world.

The concept of the Wild Writers was prompted by an open call for participants for the writing festival In Other Words. “Four of us decided to submit something, so we had a meeting,” Fowler explains. “Instead of focusing on the festival the meeting spurred me to do something else: I went away and created a name, a website and an idea, all of which became the Wild Writers. I’m the only one left of the original four, they are too busy now to do silly, arty things.”

It is almost one year since the aptly titled Imaginarium (the collective's exhibition/knees-up at Slater Street gallery Drop the Dumbells) became the “first and favourite” outing of the newly launched Wild Writers. Inspired by Jeff’s Brain – the unarguable highlight of the 2012 Everyword programme – an ingenious concept in which playwright Jeff Young physicalised the accumulated flotsam of his mind, Fowler describes being gripped by its interactive quality. “You physically go inside his head, you pick up his books – it’s alive. It made me think about the things you can do with writing. Suddenly it didn’t have to be someone standing there reading a poem or a piece of prose, which I kind of loathe in a way.” He stops himself, recalibrates. “Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I can be engrossed in that, but sometimes it’s just not for me. To see something that I love doing – writing – outside of watching a man standing on a stage reading was refreshing.”

Infiltrating Drop the Dumbells with prints and projections, head shaving and a poetry vending machine, audiences were enthralled by the Imaginarium’s interactive aesthetic. (If you’re slightly confused by the orchestration of this highly intelligent vending machine, it’s because it wasn’t an actual machine: “[It was] just me sitting in a cardboard box,” Cooper confesses.)

When it’s suggested that the extremity of the head shaving nudges towards the domain of Marina Abramović, Cooper agrees enthusiastically. “That’s what I like about what we do; we smash things together – a bit of art with a bit of writing.”

Smashing things together is an amusingly apt comment in the context of the collective's approaching event, Sancho Panza. Inspired by Lucha Libro, a Peruvian literary competition that marries writing and wrestling and results in a hefty publishing contract, The Kazimier will contain a 14-square-foot wrestling ring in which some of the city’s fastest, strongest and, dare I say, bravest writers are invited to battle it out for the title of ‘Sancho Panza World Heavyweight Champion.’ Literal and literary wrestling. Now that’s a mouthful.

The masked writer luchadores face each other one-on-one to write the ultimate short story in five minutes, projected live for all to read and keep up with the action. Each round will be decided by an independent panel of judges that will send the victorious writer through to the next round to continue their fight, before forcing the loser to face the ultimate forfeit: the stripping of their ceremonial mask.

“Sancho Panza is the name of Don Quixote’s squire,” explains Fowler. “We thought it was the perfect name for a South American themed writing/wrestling night: Spanish with a literary connection.” Ironically, Sancho Panza is an illiterate character, but we won’t mention that.

With live music from Spanish Announcement Team (who specialise in wrestling covers) and the possibility of an appearance from the formidable ‘steel chair’ it all sounds rather bizarre. They laugh. Loudly. Bizarre, yes. But innovative? Inventive? I cannot help but think so.

“Not wanting to sound arrogant,” laughs Fowler, “but I don’t think there is anything like the Wild Writers.”