Remembering Sarah Sunflower Lundberg

The inimitable Sarah Lundberg
The inimitable Sarah Lundberg

I first met Sarah Lundberg in Bowes Pub in Fleet Street in Dublin where her ‘Seven Towers’ company had been in Open Mic session for some weeks. There would be many changes of venue  in subsequent years but her monthly ‘Last Wednesday’ would always be a fixture, presided over by Sarah and skillfully MC’d by Declan McLoughlin. It was here that many younger, and not a few of us older, poets and writers got a chance to float some new pieces and see how they sounded. And everyone was assured of a fair hearing. No heckling (although occasional shouts of praise were permitted!) and no going on and on and on, taking up more that the 7-10 minutes, a practice that afflicts so many of our city’s open mics. There was law and order and plenty of socialising, an aspect of the open mic that was never neglected by Sarah. She well understood that a writer’s life can often be a lonely Sarahlife (not many ‘ordinary’, i.e., ‘sane’ people are prepared to discuss creative writing problems) and the  monthly Seven Towers Wednesday Open Mics were great opportunities to talk with kindred spirits. As time went on, and through Sarah’s prodigious efforts, Seven Towers developed as a publishing imprint and as an event-organising company and many other things but it was the Last Wednesday Open Mic and its camaraderie and good humour that was always nearest her heart. She loved talk, laughter, cycling, good music, good writing … she really was our Sarah Sunflower who lit up our lives and we all miss her terribly. And always will.

 

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