Here is our third collaborative “chapbook” – a small but beautiful publication made for sharing, dipping into, perhaps reading aloud. This volume holds hopeful poems, thoughts, ideas and images on the subject of “Water”. These pieces were originally performed at our third Hope Tales live event held in the Firstsite Art Gallery in Colchester – and generously hosted by the Essex Book Festival.
Hope Tales is a collaboration between the Rapid Transition Alliance, the Centre for Public and Policy Engagement at the University of Essex and the New Weather Institute, using the power of story to investigate real hope for our future.
Chapbooks were highly popular in the18th-19th centuries. A chapbook was seen as street literature and a chapman was a seller of chapbooks. They were used to publish popular or folk literature, almanacks, children’s stories, folk tales, ballads, political prospectuses, poetry and religious tracts.
Each book has been co-created during live evening events by a range of artists, writers and thinkers, who come together to share work around a theme. The work performed or shown on the night becomes the content for the next book. So far we have held live events in Crystal Palace, London (on the theme of Air); Wellington, Somerset (on the theme of Land); Colchester, Essex (on the theme of Water) and Margate (on the theme of Fire). Look out for the fourth volume coming soon.