Main content

Stella Duffy: Doing the Lambeth Write-Walk

Join Stella Duffy on her 11-stop library crawl in Lambeth - it's all in the name of Fun

1 October 2015

Stella Duffy is a Lambeth resident, a novelist and short story writer, and the co-director of Fun Palaces, the weekend of community engagement through arts and sciences, run by and for local people, happening right across the UK on the weekend of 3rd and 4th October.

While her colleagues will be visiting Fun Palaces from Sunderland to Scotland, Cornwall to Kent, Lincoln to Lancaster, she’s staying home to lead a creative writing library crawl to her local libraries, all of which are also making Fun Palaces.

Carnegie Library, Clapham Library, Durning Library

Stella Duffy, Co-director, Fun Palaces:

Stella outside her parents council flat in Woolwich in the 1960s
the library has been a core of my life – a way into reading, into writing, and into community
Stella Duffy

I was born in a council estate in Woolwich, South London and grew up in a small timber town in New Zealand. Even though we didn’t have many books, my parents were prolific readers, and the local library was a vital part of our life.

From the quiet spot behind the old wooden staircase in Woolwich library, to the children’s corner with Saturday morning stories in Tokoroa, the library has been a core of my life – a way into reading, into writing, and into community.

There are many libraries making Fun Palaces, in New Zealand and Australia, as well as across the UK – but only one borough where every single library is creating a Fun Palace, with their local community, for their local community.

Fun Palaces believes that public spaces should belong to all of the people, all of the time – so it’s thrilling to see the range of activities on offer at Lambeth’s libraries, all showcased on one single day – workshops in comics, bicycle repair, entrepreneurship, coding lessons and LEGO swap, yoga, fire engines and a city farm bringing animals to join in the mayhem.

At Brixton Tate Library Fun Palace you can learn to be an astronaut with the Astronaut Academy run by Louie Stowell, author of Usborne's The Astronaut's Handbook and Lambeth archives plan to open their door to a treasure trove of local curiosities.

Fun Palaces also believes in everyone an artist and everyone a scientist – so on this library crawl I’m also going to write a story, with anyone who chooses to walk with me, as we go – and one of our WriteScience poets, Dr Vivek Nityananda, whose research focuses into how animals sense the world – useful for the city farm, perhaps?

People are welcome to join in for some or all of the walk, or to come along from any of the libraries.

At some stops we’ll join in with the activities, at others we’ll probably be helping to set up – all very Fun Palaces.

Maps displaying Stella's route through Lambeth

Map data © 2015 Google/ Dale Arndale/ Richard Blandford

Times are bound to change due to weather, traffic, how many are walking and how we’re doing with talking and writing (and we might hop on a bus if we find we’re getting too late), so I’ll tweet and send photos as we go from @stellduffy, with the hashtag #funpalaces so anyone can join us – or follow the route of our walking, talking, writing Fun Palaces library crawl from the comfort of your laptop.”

Taken from the Usbourne Official Astronaut's Handbook

Link to the walk page on Fun Palaces site, with times/locations :
http://funpalaces.co.uk/discover/doing-the-lambeth-write-walk-fun-palace/

Related Links

Stella Duffy, co-director Fun Palaces
A young Stella in Woolwich c1967
Carnegie Library Fun Palace will have Lambeth Fire Brigade and fire engine

Everyone an artist, everyone a scientist

At the heart of the Fun Palaces campaign is the idea of arts and sciences working together - both to bring people together in local events, and also to create new work.

In 2014, 138 Fun Palaces popped up across the UK in gardens, tents, woodlands, shops, car parks, schools, theatre, arts centres, libraries, public squares, town halls, a butcher's shop and a swimming pool. All made by local people for their own communities, bringing together arts and sciences.

The Fun Palaces manifesto: "We believe in the genius in everyone, that everyone is an artist and everyone a scientist, and that arts and sciences can change the world for the better. We believe we can do this together, locally, with radical fun – and that anyone, anywhere, can make a Fun Palace."

Plan of houses to be built in Burgoyne Rd, Stockwell, 1869 (Lambeth Archives)

More from Fun Palaces