Artificial Silk creates space for the imagination. By connecting people, places and objects we find ways to understand the past in the present and re-envisage our futures. Welcome to our year so far…
WRITING THAT SINGS 2025
Our collaborations between England and India are fabulous opportunities to help you discover your creativity. Read, listen, take part.
New Writing that Sings stories
Six brand new short stories that connect India and England through imagination, humour and hope include…
A rural cottage with unexplained goings-on by Belinda RushJansen (above).
A translation by Smita Tharoor of her father’s impressions of England in 1950 (below).
A Forties songbook that celebrates the joy of communal music by favourite spoken word poet Maggie Pollard.
A seaside boarding house with its long memories, and a futuristic vision of how we might hold on to human affection in the context of climate change by A.T. Boyle (below).
The 6 new Writing that Sings stories will launch in England in June 2025.
Through imaginative writing, conversation, events and unique connections in India, Staffordshire and Derbyshire, there are lots of ways to get involved…
… or sit back and watch, listen and read if that’s what you like best.
Buy a digital copy of the exObjects book of stories featuring 11 authors based in England and India.
"A tiny icing sugar dove, a sound recording, a chair made of teak, a cup of clean water, a tea-dyed kurta, blue ties, a sapphire ring, a brass candlestick, love letters, laboratory benches, childhood friends, fireflies and lyrics are some of the objects shared by the eleven authors in this collection.
Each object carries memories of people and places loved and lost but not forgotten. Journey through these reinvented lives and you won’t look at objects the same way again."
Listen to a snippet of the short story about fireflies in the exObjects book.
Workshops galore
Sign up for a creative writing session about seaside or holiday memories at the end of May 2025. Bring an object that’s important to you and leave inspired by all the memories shared.
Check out the full festival programme at Leek Loves Books.
Many Writing that Sings events are free. Drop in to see us on LEEK BOOK FESTIVAL day on Saturday 7th June 2025 from 10.00am.
Write on our creative blackboard in the pop-up Library.
Leave inspirational doodles on a paper tag and hang it along our colourful washing line. The best writing contributions will be celebrated at The Foxlowe arts centre from 7.00pm on Saturday 7th June.
If you’re a keen writer you can sign up for the exObjects workshops. Limited places so that everyone’s speaking and writing voice can be heard. Booking opens soon. Check out Leek Loves Books
Sauma Afreen (above) is a writer and editor based in the north of India in Uttar Pradesh. She’s part of the Writing that Sings production team. Sauma wrote a story about climate change and fireflies for the exObjects book. You can hear a short version by clicking below:
Artificial Silk and Leek Book Club are running other events with Borderland Voices, in a Staffordshire school, and a Derbyshire library running up to June 2025.
Keep a lookout for updates on how to join WRITING THAT SINGS in 2025.
The first book of short exObjects short stories was published in India in December 2024.
Take part in exObjects online 2025
Write an exObject story this year and it has chance to be published in the Artificial Silk web magazine.
When we look closely and use our imaginations, we can find new and hopeful ways to look at the world. Choose an object that’s important to you and write about your connection with it.
Find out how to create your own exObject by clicking here.
Check out the exObjects stories already published in the web magazine here.
Email your exObjects writing and image to us: artificialsilkorg @ gmail.com
IN PRINT
Eleven international writers met through the first exObjects anthology of memoir short stories launched at Bangalore Literature Festival in December 2024.
Shashi Deshpande
Vikram Sampath
Shinie Antony
Gajra Kottary
Jaishree Misra
Devasiachan Benny
Sauma Afreen
Ramona Sen
Jerry Pinto and Belinda RushJansen reveal the secrets of places including Ooty and Kerala and Bengaluru and southern England. A.T. Boyle writes of her experiences in Preston and Blackpool in northern England.
Thirteen international writers met through another book.
The short stories in Hell Hath No Fury by Robin McLean, Shinie Antony, Anukrti Upadhyay, Catherine McNamara, A.T. Boyle, Irenosen Okijie and more explore revenge from many different perspectives.
IN SOUND
Listen to Maggie Pollard performing her poem Old Cloths published in the exObjects web magazine.
Listen to our short story commission about the fireflies (jugnus) encountered in Uttar Pradesh by Sauma Afreen:
Listen to our HuG green arts festival soundscape that melds outdoor sounds recorded in the Western Ghats, southern India (UNESCO world heritage) and in Staffordshire, England:
WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL SILK?
Artificial silk is a fibre made from wood pulp that is made into filaments that can be given different shades and woven. Other names are rayon and viscose.
Filaments made in Lancashire from wood shipped from Scandinavia were made into silk parachute canopies, sanitary pads, clothes for M&S and much much more.
For four decades this produce was sold all over the world, from 1939 when the Courtaulds Preston factory opened to its closure with the loss of 2,600 jobs.
In 1980 the machines were shipped from Preston to India extending their life. Eighty years after that factory opened, the artificial silks have not lost their strength, sheen or vibrancy.
“Finding new ways to understand the past
and reconfigure our present and possible futures.”
Wherever you live in the world, you can take part.
Join the conversation by messaging us on…