On 8th November 2018 Collab Writers, a new start up launched their collaborative creative community at The Century Club, Soho, London, England.
The launch saw creatives of all kinds networking and writing stories together. We played the old parlour game ‘Consequences’ by writing stories across a number of genres.
Where did the idea come from?
Co-founders Jennie Griffiths and Anjali Alford wrote a crime noir book together on their commutes.
I had the idea to reinvent the old Victorian parlour game, ‘Consequences’. Fortunately Jennie loves a challenge, and trusted my idea of us taking on two murderous protagonists. We decided to take one each and write from their perspective. We collaborated on our commutes and a year later we finished the first draft.
– Anjali Alford, Co-founder
[Anjali and Jennie’s collaborative work is currently with an editor in the States.]
After finishing their work, Jennie had the idea to build a community to encourage collaboration and disruption in the arts. They’ve also collaborated with Pippa Kay, a London photographer who’s photos of ‘The 7 Deadly Sins’ will feature in the book.
“The idea of Collab Writers came to me in shavasana on a yoga retreat. When the class finished I ran to my room, grabbed a notebook and mind mapped the vision. At first it was a dream but the idea kept bugging me until we did something about it. Last week, we launched to a room of 100 writers and other creatives.”
– Jennie Griffiths, Co-founder.
Who are Collab Writers?
We are writers by night with day jobs. We’re disrupting the traditional world of solo writing, editing and publishing by collaborating and doing it for ourselves and others. We’re also screenwriters. Our next collaborative mission, once our book is published is to turn our book into a film. Our Founder Partner who taught us the craft is Elliot Grove, London’s king of indie film and the Raindance Film Festival.
“When Anj and Jen pitched the idea of Collab Writers to me, I got on board right away. Their passion and vision reminded me of when I started Raindance. I love the way they want to disrupt and help others do the same. Collaboration is the future!”
– Elliot Grove, Founder Partner.
As well as Elliot, we’re also filling a virtual ark of Founder Collaborators to help establish the community. Ali Mashayekhi of Landed Entertainment, a Canadian producer and director has already confirmed his collaboration on Collab Writers’ projects. Ali is bringing fellow actors along with him. We’ve also got poets, bloggers, photographers, musicians and illustrators. And, a PR representative!
On top of Founder Collaborators, we’re also open to Founder Members who can join via our Kickstarter campaign until 17 December 2018. There are also opportunities for Founder Patrons.
What’s Collab Writers all about?
It’s pretty simple – we collaborated in writing ‘Consequences’ together. We’re planning on publishing our work off one of Collab Writers’ publishing arms, Dark Art Books and we want you to collaborate to create so that we can get your work out there too!
CONNECT – COLLABORATE – CREATE
“It’s our tagline. It’s an extremely simple concept of bringing people together to collaborate to create.”
– Jennie Griffiths, Co-Founder
Every stage of the creative process can present stumbling blocks and hurdles to overcome for writers, illustrators and other artists.
- First you have to get over writers block and actually finish something.
This is where collaboration helps because it shares the pain. - We plan to hold regular networking events to hook creatives up and by the middle of 2019 we want to design an app to help artists to collaborate to create on the go. (Commute2Create).
- As you can never have too much education, we will be holding training and pop-ups to help hone your skills and work on your craft.
- Once you’ve written your work, you have to find an editor. When there’s two of you collaborating, you can take it in turns to edit one another’s work. Professional editors will be part of the community to help you edit.
- As for publishing, this is where many writers give up. We will have two publishing arms – Dark Art Books and Light Work Books.
One of our founder Collaborators, Shiva Sawyer, a former publisher will be guiding us through our debut publication of ‘Consequences.’
Last but not least, this is a community and we need your help to build it.
Our first goal is to get our collaborative work of fiction out there. Please pledge your support by pre-ordering a copy of our book and bringing our baby to life.
Whilst you’re there please do have a look at our other rewards, from limited edition Collab Writers notebooks to being the brains behind our future stories.
Collab Writers 