Thank you to all our wonderful speakers and attendees for last night's event 'Speaking Out: Voices Celebrating LGBT HIstory Month'. We had amazing people in the house - artist Aliyah (Come see her exhibition Home And Away - it's on till Mar 11 in our gallery), Cllr Mark Gettleson, publisher/writer Helen Sandler (Tollington Press), filmmaker Campbell X (watch out for Stud Life, coming soon to cinemas near you), author/aerialist Will Davies, award-winning author Paul Bailey (who shared about his early days in theatre opposite Christopher Plummer, among his many recollections on being 'queer' in the 50s), poet/performer Andra Simons - and wonderful sharing. Many thanks goes to Southwark LGBT Network for their support towards the event and exhibition. Do check out their website (http://southwarklgbtnetwork.com/) and the services they provide; membership is only £1, so join up to enjoy the many events and activities they organise. Thank you everyone so very much for making the event a very special one!

An enchanting evening with author Peter Clark on Dickens' London, whose talk focused on Bermondsey in Dickensian Literature.. (Sorry Bermondsey folks, the only characters from Bermondsey in Dickens' works were nefarious sorts, think Bill Sykes.) To celebrate Dickens' Centenary, artist James Matthews also dropped by with a bust of the great man himself. It was awful sweet of two guests, who happened to have roses on them, to ask at the end of the night, whether it would be okay to leave the roses in front of the bust as a homage :)

W&T are very grateful to survivor Leslie Kleinman, author Jake Wallis-Simons (The English German Girl), artist Gitl Braun, poet Eve Grubin, and local councillor Mark Gettleson for sharing their time with us in making this year's Holocaust Memorial Day event a memorable and moving one. Thank you also to Jewish Book Week 2012 and Holocaust Education Trust for their support. We ended this year's event with a reading of the poem We Remember Them by everyone who attended. Many of those who joined us at this commemoration event have asked about this poem, so we have reproduced it here (see below).

We Remember Them

At the rising of the sun and at its going down
We remember them.
At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter
We remember them.
At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring
We remember them.
At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer
We remember them.
At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of autumn
We remember them.
At the beginning of the year and when it ends
We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live;
for they are now a part of us
as we remember them.
When we are weary and in need of strength
We remember them.
When we are lost and sick at heart
We remember them.
When we have joy we crave to share
We remember them.
When we have decisions that are difficult to make
We remember them.
When we have achievements that are based on theirs
We remember them.
As long as we live, they too will live;
for they are now a part of us
as we remember them.

© Jewish Prayer Book/ Sylvan Kamens & Rabbi Jack Riemer

The authors event at Canada Water Library was packed with 130+ guests, who turned up to listen to Mark Haddon and Michael Rosen. W&T was on hand to sell Stop What You're Doing And Read This as well as Haddon and Rosen's previous titles. As you can see, a formidable queue formed after the talk as guests waited patiently to have their books signed :)

Bestselling authors Lesley Pearse, Adele Parks, Katie Fforde and Carmen Reid were at Canada Water Library recently for the Girls Night In event.
For more info about these authors and their latest book, please visit
http://www.lesleypearse.com/
http://www.adeleparks.com/
http://www.katiefforde.com/
http://www.carmenreid.com/

What a special treat last night! Jude Cowan launched her exhibition For The Messengers at W&T and to show his support, Channel 4 newsman Jon Snow was on hand to say a few words. Jude read from her book of poetry of the same name, and shared about her work - poetry and art - in response to the news. (She is a news archivist for ITN/Reuters.) Jude also shared raw footage of journalist Fadel Shana's last moments, when the cameraman was killed in Gaza, so that the audience could get a visual sense of the kind of materials she processes daily in her job. It was shocking and thought-provoking, to think of the 'sanitised' versions of the newsfeed we see on TV. Jude's book was dedicated to 'messengers' like Fadel and many like him; the people and lives behind the images we see which are often invisible to us. During the Q&A, Jon and Jude provided rare insight and commentary into the decisions made behind the scenes of every news broadcast. Questions raised included the role of 'mediators' played by professional news workers, the increase in mobile phone images of events taking place in real time captured by everyday people (e.g. Gaddafi's final moments), and how the latter has impacted what we have access to. Jon spoke of the pros and cons of the proliferation of such images and their importance - in the Sri Lanka tragedy for example, these images were proof of war crimes committed, something that has not been available in previous tragedies, from Bosnia, Croatia to Rwanda. But is such images were readily seen on TV, would this desensitize viewers? Would younger viewers connect the dots that this was real? Or would these images seem to be an extension of other violent images, like those in video games? Thank you Jude and Jon for an insightful evening.