The Story of Blow-Ink. First zine GIFT
Blow-ink. started after Matthew, attended a translation workshop in Cork. There, he not only encountered poems in other languages, but also Cork-based writers writing in Spanish, Italian and more. He realised that there must be other similar writers throughout the county who had little or no platform for their work. He proposed a series of Creative Writing workshops specifically for those for whom English was not their first language, and was delighted when Cork County Library and Arts Service agreed to support it.
We met on Tuesday mornings at Clonakilty Library, and it became immediately obvious that there was a hunger for these sessions. The group was small but deeply invested in sharing work, translating and writing new work in both English and their mother tongues. We had participants from France, Spain, Poland, Pakistan, Mauritius, Israel and Ukraine. This zine is the result not only of the workshops, but also the energy, enthusiasm and artistic talent of the group.
We are grateful to Cork County Library and Arts Service and the wonderful staff at Clonakilty Library for the space and time to develop this group and to be able to showcase these writers as they contribute to the diversity and high standards of the literary community in the county.
Guided by Naomi Fein, the illustrations in Gift were created by the writers themselves, each one etched into recycled tetrapaks (yes—milk cartons!), inked by hand, and pressed through a pasta machine before being scanned and printed for the zine.
