Dark Angels Note 124

Dearest Friends—

Welcome back to our weekly Friday Note. 

Observing

Today we are celebrating the birthday of Canadian author Margaret Atwood (November 18, 1939). Atwood is one of the world’s leading novelists and writes everything from poems to essays, short stories to screenplays and of course, novels. Her most famous, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a futuristic dystopian novel. Some would call this sci-fi, though she prefers the term speculative fiction, as everything within the novel already exists.In her latest book, Burning Questions, she reports on the world as she sees it over the last two decades in a collection of essays. 

Reading

“Literature is an uttering, or outering, of the human imagination. It lets the shadowy forms of thought and feeling - heaven, hell, monsters, angels and all - out into the light..” Read Margaret Atwood’s essay on why we need science fiction: ‘Aliens have taken the place of angels’ 

Writing

Do you have a burning question?It could be something specific to your life or a reaction to the world around you right now.Write that question down. Spend 5 minutes writing a response. 

Sharing

Keep sending us your poems, writings, links and writerly whatnots that you’d like to share with the wider Dark Angels family. 

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Diary

Writing With Constraints: New date – 30 November
One way to make writing easier is to make it harder. That sounds illogical, but putting some obstacles in the way of your writing can be a great way to get the creative juices flowing.Whether you are a first timer, an experienced writer or all-round creative person, this will be an enjoyable and rewarding workshop. Find out more about the Writing with constraints workshop on the website. 

Weekly Tuesday Gatherings
For November, we have a few adjustments to the schedule for the weekly gatherings. Nov 22: no gathering. Nov 29: 7pm as normal. Join us for a reflective hour of reading, writing and communing led by Neil Baker. Everyone is welcome; in fact, invite a friend along. We meet at 7pm UK time. To join us, click here on the night. There’s no need to register in advance and we’ll be using the same link every week from now on. 

Be well, keep reading, keep writing and know that we’re always here.

From everyone at Dark Angels