The Coventry Words society was launched last year in order to create a wider fanbase and encourage participation for the magazine CovWords.
When Matt and Raef took over this year they decided to change that up, so it’s now the society’s responsibility to create the retitled magazine.
Meet Matt….
Course: English and Creative Writing
Hometown: Neen Sollars, Shropshire
Role: President
Length of time in Society: 7 months
Favourite Society moment: The super productive Flyers and Submissions day!
& Raef:
Course: English and Creative Writing
Hometown: Coventry
Role: Secretary
Length of time in Society: 1 Year
Favourite Society Moment: The open mic at The Big Comfy Bookshop!
Coventry Words:
When: Tuesday 6pm-8pm & Thursdays 6pm-8pm
Where: William Morris room 305
Joining fee: £3.50 for the whole year – first meetings are free with no obligation to join!
The society gets up to so much it’s hard to figure out how they fit it all in, but president Matt says they try to keep a good balance of business & fun.
The society puts on a range of events including open mics. Last year they managed to bag former poet laureate Andy Willoughby, for their first event at the Big Comfy Bookshop. As a whole the society’s focus is around building professional working relationships and networks, whilst doing the things they love. However, they still find time to be social!
Their latest project is one they’re really looking forward to. In collaboration with our very own Lanchester Library, poems chosen by Coventry Words, written by their members and other student poets previously published in the magazine, will cover every wall of the Library. The society have been getting the poems ready for display; working hard in Photoshop to select backgrounds for their work. This has which ended up with these wonderfully bizarre ideas!
Matt and Raef agree that their highlight of 2014/15 has been seeing how the society has been able to come together and achieve so much in their first 12 months of leadership. They have big plans to expand the society, with campus wide magazine distribution and more events planned. These include a trip to the Student Writers Toolkit event in Worcester – organised by Writing West Midlands. They’ve got a few more open mic events in the pipeline, and plenty more plans to make CovWords bigger and better over the next few years.
New Members:
Top 3 reasons you should join Coventry Words Society:
– Invaluable experience in the magazine market
– The opportunity to get yourself published
– Have a lot of fun whilst doing something productive and useful
What new members can expect from this society?
Plenty of opportunities to get involved in the magazine production, from marketing and distribution, to editing and creative writing!
What advice would the society give to anybody that wants to join?
Drop into a meeting and get a taste of it! People are more than welcome to attend a meeting for free to see if its something they’d like to get involved in – and pick up a copy of Coventry Words – see if it takes your fancy!
