I feel the need to gush... As a few people will know, I was really a performer before I was a writer. Even though it's not a part of my life in the way it was when I was at college, being onstage still means a hell of a lot to me. There's nothing like the rush of performing and getting a good reaction from your audience - especially when it's your own work. For me, Scratch Club runs a perfect line between satisfying the writer and the performer in me. Scratch is a once-a-month spoken word/rehearsal/creative space club, put on by Apples and Snakes, and run by the lovely Kirsten (and, as of next month, the equally lovely Rowan). Each month is different - sometimes we just perform our work to each other for critique, sometimes we have mini workshops with special guests. But every month, I come away feeling like I am a better person creatively for having gone along. Scratch, to me, is a perfect "safe place" to work on your craft. There's this weird cyclical feeling among the regulars; we feel comfortable around each other, so we can help each other through our creative struggles and triumphs...so we feel comfortable around each other, so... I will admit, a lot of the time we are just a bunch of shouty, slightly naughty idiots. Yesterday we were dancing around the room and slapping each other's hands. If one person starts giggling during an activity, we will probably all get set off by it. But when we actually get to work, we always find out something about our art, and we always support each other. I've never, ever seen anyone at Scratch get shot down, or told their work is shit. No one is better than anyone else, we all are there to learn. Sometimes, I feel like I'm waiting to be "caught out" at Scratch - because it's technically a poet's workshop, and I am not really a poet. My few stabs at poetry are more like prose with line breaks. But when I think about it, we have so many different genres of spoken word - feminist ranting, surreal poetry about chickens, quirky wordplay pieces, emotional rawness, hysterical comedy - all coming together in the same room, having fun together, and working together to improve. It's probably the best place for a weird little writer like me to thrive.