A part of something special. . .

Ann Penn, Inspire Librarian and passionate book lover, shares what it’s like to be part of a project with readers at its heart, and tells us about some of the groups our writers will be working with.

A seed grows

I first heard about the seed of a project all about readers and reading several years ago, travelling with my colleague Michelle on a late-evening bus after a library author event.  We were so excited talking about all the possibilities that I nearly missed my stop!  When I heard that Inspire had been successful in gaining funding to bring this project to life, you can imagine how happy I was.  A good library is a community and the heart of the community is always the people in it.  Our libraries could stock the best books in the world (and I believe we do!) but if nobody was there to borrow them, we would have failed.  So, a project that highlights how important readers are to the literary process, that focusses on giving a voice to our readers, is one that is dear to my heart.

Special groups

I’m particularly happy to join up with some of our brilliant partners to ensure that all readers have a chance to be heard in some targeted groups.  I’ve worked with Chris from Broxtowe Women’s Project (BWP) for a few years now, and it’s been really moving helping in their aim to empower domestic abuse survivors to rebuild and lead positive and fulfilled lives.  I love the fact that we’re able to offer an I Am A Reader group to women from BWP and can’t wait to find out their thoughts on books and reading in the new year.

I’m also excited to hear what our Neurodiverse readers think!  The idea for this group came from our partnership with Writing East Midlands’ Beyond the Spectrum project, which involves creative writing workshops for autistic people, led by autistic writers.  Beyond the Spectrum has shown that one of the myths that autistic people can’t be creative is well and truly false, and I look forward to exploring neurodiverse creativity more in our own I Am A Reader group.

Excitement

One of the things about this project that is so exciting to me is that we don’t know exactly where we’re going.  Everything depends on the people taking part, and the direction we go in will be directly led by them.  As someone who likes to plan everything down to the nth degree, this is both slightly nerve-wracking, but also exhilarating!  It’s something new, and as someone who loves reading, loves speaking to others about reading, loves recommending just the right book to someone based on what they like already, I can’t wait for 2022 and the start of I Am A Reader!