The Now in Then: Contemporary Writing from History project

I was involved with this project purely as a participant, but wanted to mention it here not only because it fed directly into my work with the Wiltshire at War Community Stories project, but also because working in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre's archives in Chippenham was such a revelation to me. Access to things such as original WWI letters to their families from local men, from the Front, was for me as a writer - and a human being - a source of much inspiration. And the process of producing poetry and short stories from this original material was in itself a form of community collaboration of sorts: embracing in the creative process not just our own impressions of an era long past, but the actual thoughts and feelings of those involved, literally, on the front line.