Online Event ‘Coney Island Baby’ Thursday 18th August, 2022, 7-9pm
This Thursday we make a return to online literary events with a night entitled ‘Coney Island Baby’. It’s a chance for our three writing groups to come together, but also an opportunity for a couple of other writers to join us.
The task is to write a 300-word story about a day trip to the beach. It could be based on real events or completely fictional, or just whatever you want it to be. It could feature a character stuck in a traffic jam, trying to get to the beach, or thinking back to a seaside visit many years ago.
Maybe think of city-dwellers going for a daytrip, like the way New Yorkers go to Coney Island, or Glaswegians go to Largs or Troon. Of course, in popular culture Coney Island has its own status. Maybe you can play ‘Coney Island Baby’ by The Excellents as you write your piece. Next play ‘Coney Island’ by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Then put on Lou Reed’s album ‘Coney Island Baby’. Here’s a wonderful piece to read about that record: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9477-coney-island-baby/amp/ And in this context you might think of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s ‘A Coney Island of the Mind’.
“I once started out
to walk around the world
but ended up in Brooklyn,
that Bridge was too much for me.”
But the beach you write about could be anywhere in the world (or the mind). It could even be an ideological or metaphorical beach. Will you focus on a moment of joy or sadness at the final destination? What like is the weather? Is it raining again? Who are the characters in the story? Do they ever make it back from The Beach?
Write about the topic from any angle, just as long as you tell your tale in no more than 300 words. It’s one story per person this time.
Check out thi wurd’s twitter @thiwurd to see how you can get a space at this online event.
Here to inspire you is a Spotify playlist I threw together (rather quickly), mindful of the fact that it could easily be 1,000 songs-long.
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Don’t forget your sunblock. And if you’re reading this in Scotland, don’t forget your raincoat. Maybe see you at the beach on Thursday ..
(Images above of Coney Island & Asbury Park, USA)