Thank you to everyone who nominated their favourite creative ventures in Birmingham over the last 2 months. The nominations period is closed now, but we have a fine haul of 117 nominations and to date over 3200 votes. The voting will remain open for another month while we compile the content for the book and [...]

Today I’m pleased to launch a new Creative Republic project for the summer. The project - titled Invisible City - has been designed as a championing of Creative and cultural achievements in Birmingham with the goal to promote these projects, people and events to new and wider audiences, breaking out of the many existing networks [...]

Since taking over as Chairman of Creative Republic I have been working on identifying the purpose and goals for the organisation in 2010. Along with the building of a new team and a few other initiatives is the main project concept for summer 2010. I have outlined the initial conversation starter below that the team [...]

Saturday 29th May 2010: Birmingham Book Festival Spring Thing: A Festival in Day - Carol Ann Duffy (Poet Laureate), Helen Dunmore (novelist and winner of the 2010 National Poetry Competition), Stuart Maconie (travel writer and broadcaster), Jo Bell (poet and performer), Jenn Ashworth (novelist, blogger), Aifric Campbell (novelist), Samantha Harvey (novelist) and Amanda Smyth (novelist) [...]

The ACRE project is a collaboration between 13 leading European research centres, set out to identify what features make a city a centre for creative and knowledge-based industries.
I’ve been very happy to have been involved in this project for the past four years and look forward to what final outcomes will come out of it.
Not [...]

If you know me pretty well you’ll already be familiar with the fact that every year myself and two good friends collaborate on a story together. They’re by no means literary masterpieces but they serve an entertaining purpose, for us at least. It began six years ago when we decided to try writing a book [...]

This year we are pleased to be featured in British Design 2010 in the Design for New Media Category. It was hard to know what to put in it really, so much on screen stuff loses it’s impact when limited to the 2 dimensions of static print, unlike designs that are designed specifically with print [...]

Last night there was a cracking Halloween party at Fazeley Studios in Birmingham, luckily for us, where we work at Adhere. The evening consisted of;

the overly ornate and elaborate reception of the studios converted into a dark, candle lit dungeon of a room with cobwebs, hanging bodies, spiders and so forth
a spooky live band, dressed [...]

Today Louise came across a double page spread in Visit Birmingham’s Pocket Guide for 2009. It basically gives you an example 48 hour itinerary for a weekend in Birmingham. Reading it reminded me just how much to do there is in Birmingham, but looking at it in more detail I considered; could I afford this [...]

For those of you following the war coverage on ITN of the Fazeley Dog War you will be sad to hear that recent peace talks have broken down. In an unprecidented move from the right a barbed olive branch was put before the Dog Owners Association, only to be declined due, not to the content [...]

This morning a dog war has errupted at Fazeley Studios. Due to some anonymous complain(s) the landlord decreed that dogs are to be barred from the building. A procession of emails have come forth, mostly from outraged dog owners protecting their constitutional right to bear dogs, as well as some people supporting the ban. I [...]

My plan is to get people collaborating on stories online, with multiple branches from one initial chapter…
For 5 years now I have been writing collaborative fiction with two good friends of mine. We’ve stuck rigidly to one per year, around 1000 words per ‘chapter’ and a two week turnaround on each and every chapter. It [...]