Work Experience

On Monday 17th of August, I started work experience for Midland Creative Projects, who are currently preparing for the Birmingham Book Festival in October. I was set to work proof-reading the brochure and checking it against the website. Later, I was asked to start updating the Facebook page by adding the events for the Festival; owing to the sheer amount of talks, discussions and performances planned, this was to take quite a while! Also, consulting the brochure, I compiled a list of relevant books and authors which would be of interest to Festival-goers. On the last day, I was given a video camera and charged with filming first Festival Artistic Director Jonathan talking about a Festival event (Spilt Milk and Speedboats) and secondly his daughter Mollie on a family writing workshop which was certainly not a one-take process! I also created a fan page for Dutch writer Tommy Wieringa’s new book, Joe Speedboat. Of course, interspersed were more normal office work experience tasks: stapling, label-sticking, posting parcels, but overall I had a great time and will definitely be attending the Festival in October.

Ben Gambles