"You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all."
James Baldwin
Blood Beats is a trans-led, cross-disciplinary LGBTQ+ writing group launched in November 2022, by award-winning stage and screenwriter, Conway McDermott. For the last two years, monthly meetings included a social check-in to share highs and lows, an optional writing activity or prompt, quiet or collaborative coworking time and time to share opportunities and upcoming work. Responding to writers' needs, we offer bespoke creative workshops and special events.
Evolving the group, we're now launching Blood Beats: First Press...
Blood Beats: First Press Zine Launch
& Creative Jam
Thursday 3 July 7pm @ The Yard Mcr
Join us for the Launch of First Press - an LGBTQ+ Zine created by a Blood Beats members supported by Box of Tricks. Across 8 fortnightly sessions, a collective of poets, playwrights, artists and actors worked together to produce Blood Beats' first ever Zine exploring the theme: How loud do you want to be?
Celebrate with us as we share our creative adventures with the world. Not only will the First Press gang present extracts of their work, but you'll have opportunity to get creative yourself: make your very own mini zine, create your own unique badge and join our Creative Jam!
Creative Jam is a space for artists to explore the magic of collaboration and we'll be asking LGBTQ+ artists and allies to respond to the themes of the zine. Creative Jam welcomes artists of all kinds - musicians, writers, visual artists, designers, spoken word poets, actors, dancers, everyone! - to come together and create unique, 'in the moment' connections.
Tickets are Pay What You Can and include a copy of the Zine.
Blood Beats Manifesto
“Community is the end goal…”
At its core, we want Blood Beats to be a place where we can grow in solidarity with other queer writers. We want to find future collaborators. We want to to support each other outside of the group, to be each other’s cheerleaders! We want to build networks that are based on genuine passion and enthusiasm for each other’s work.
"We are anti-perfectionism"
First and foremost, we’re here to meet in community and grow together. Turning up is enough. We believe in progress over perfection! We want Blood Beats to be a space where people can try things and fail. Test them out, even if we flop! We want a space where we can support each other in coming fearlessly to the blank page! We want to trust each other to give honest, constructive feedback that isn’t about tearing each other down.
"Queer Joy / Queer Experience!"
Sometimes we just want to enjoy being around people like us. At Blood Beats, we want to revel in queer joy, build each other up, and celebrate one another’s wins! We want this space to be non-competitive, where we can use our experiences - of the industry and out of it - to help each other. We want to build a space of care and understanding.
“Permission to be Authentic”
We want to meet in a place of openness and honesty, where people are able to share the lows as well as the highs, and where we’re able to commiserate as well as celebrate. As LGBTQ+ artists, we are often forced to curate the version of ourselves that we show to the world, forced to present an acceptable version of ourselves, or risk our careers, our families, and sometimes our basic safety.
“Time and Space to write...”
In Blood Beats, we aim to facilitate a space where all participants are safe to be authentic in themselves and their experiences, without fear of punishment, prejudice or shame. Ultimately, we all want Blood Beats to be a space which helps us to elevate our craft! Whether it’s a space to pitch ideas, seek feedback from peers, share or discover opportunities, learn from experienced workshop leaders, or just a nice warm room and a plate of biscuits to buckle down and work on our own projects, we are all here because we want to grow and improve as writers.
We respect each other as fellow creatives, and want to be a source of accountability to keep writing and pushing ourselves!
“Sharing credit, building self worth, and validating each other”
Impostor syndrome can get all the way in the bin! We want to be generous in crediting each other for our achievements. We want to recognise the value of our work as writers, we want to advocate for ourselves and each other, and in an industry that is rife with free labour and economic and emotional insecurity, we want to be a voice insisting that we deserve better!
“Keep on questioning…”
Finally, many of the things our group brought to the Blood Beats Manifesto were questions, rather than statements… we wondered if we could do anything to foster connections between various creative orgs in the North West? What do we want to contribute in an enduring way to the LGBTQ creative community in Manchester? How do we connect writers with resources, and push for better paid work? What opportunities can we create for ourselves and others?
