The Mass Observation Archive is celebrating its 85th anniversary this year! As part of the anniversary festivities, we are running a series of creative writing workshops in collaboration with The Keep and the Mass Observation Archive.

The workshops aim to celebrate the everyday through archival research and writing practices. As a group, we will look at Mass Observation Archive from the last 4 decades to reflect on the collective experiences of people in Britain. We will look at archives that focus on a range of topics, from ‘last night’s dreams’ to ‘having a laugh’, identifying connections between ourselves and people from the past.

We will try out a few different creative writing tasks, and participants are encouraged to respond to the exercises in whatever way they see fit- this may be through poetry, prose, or even craft or drawing. The workshops will be running on Wednesday 23 and 30 March at The Keep from 1:30-3:30pm.

If you can’t make it to the workshops but are interested in getting involved, we are also keen to receive submissions that reflect on the themes of celebrating the everyday. You can find archival and writing resources to help inspire you on the Collective Every website. We'd love to see lots of different creative work, whether this be poetry, diaries, artwork or photography.

For more information or to send in your creative work. you can visit our Instagram page (@Collectiveeveryday) or contact us via email at collectiveeveryday1@gmail.com.

We look forward to seeing your work!