Mark Rutterford
markrutterford.com
The Writing Sett
This is me
At the age of 11, I won an essay writing competition at The National Gallery - writing about Regatta On The Grand Canal by Canaletto. That remained my biggest writing achievement for some considerable time.
Many years later, in 2008, I started to write seriously - a novel. I had a lot to learn and learned a lot from writing events, workshops, festivals and from many talented and inspiring fellow writers and performers. I started to write short stories and after a number of false starts, I finally wrote someting short enough, and with story enough, to perform in January 2014. It was a life changing moment and I wanted more.
Since then, I have been lucky enough to perform at events in Bath and Bristol, Stroud, Cheltenham, Swindon and Wells - telling my stories to paying audiences and passers by alike. I have read on stage, in pubs, cafes and bars, in Bath's Southgate shopping centre and in the changing room of a Georgian Lido. I have busked, read, gesticulated, pleaded, declared, jumped, sung, clapped, wobbled and blown my kazoo telling stories. I have done so, with pride, at Story Friday, Talking Tales, Let Me Tell You A Story, Jack, the Bath Literature Festival event Voices in the City and the Bristol Festival of Literature. I have loved every second...but still, I want more.
I have been published a few times in anthologies and am delighted to be so. But I write mostly for performance where I want to push boundaries and to keep learning. And I want to see the look on your face when one of my stories tells you something you really didn't see coming. Most of all, I want to keep writing - it is where I am myself, most of all.
Other than on this page, I can be found:
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at work - earning a living takes up a lot of time doesn't it?
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at home - in the countryside near Bath, quite probably talking to the wildlife
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making vast quantities of gooseberry and elderflower jam
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hunched over the laptop - spending too much time on social media (@writingsett and MarkRutterfordWrites on Facebook)
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with Stokes Croft Writers - a writing group I'm very proud to be part of
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and listening to music - the inspiration for much of what I write