Working on a project that taps into one of your life’s passions is a dream. Working on a project that combines two of them? Well, that’s heaven territory.
Recently two of my great loves, poetry and the sea, coalesced into an exciting PR project. I had the pleasure of working with a Cornish women’s poetry collective, Mor Poets, on the launch of their latest poetry anthology – Mordardh. Taking its name from the Cornish for ‘breaking wave’, the collection creatively captures the relationship that Cornwall’s surfers have with the sea, their personal experiences of surfing and the irresistible pull of the waves.
To create the anthology the eight Mor poets tracked down surfers from across Cornwall and talked to them about their stories, memories and philosophies of wave riding. They then created poems based on these surfers’ words and voices.
Funded by Arts Council England, it was important for the Mordardh project to reach new audiences, particularly women and surfers, with poetry. The poets had launched a Crowdfunder to help fund the publication of the book and wanted to get the word out to help generate awareness, funding donations and pre-orders.
My first meeting with Mor Poets founder Ella was, appropriately enough, in the sea! We met for a swim at Swanpool beach in Falmouth, followed by a call where we dug into the story behind the collective, their audiences and goals for the Mordardh project.
To complement the workshops and live events that Mor poets were running to promote the launch, I developed a plan of media relations activity to help drive awareness of the poets, their collection and the stories behind it. This plan focused on outlets that reached their key audiences, with bespoke angles for each outlet. The core press release and pitch was adapted for these different media homes, and I got pitching!
The coverage kicked off with a segment on BBC Spotlight evening news and an interview on BBC Radio Cornwall. Additional coverage included the Muddy Cornwall lifestyle blog, Surfgirl Magazine (online), St Ives Times & Echo and the Cornwall Woman podcast. The combined reach of the coverage was more than half a million people, across Cornwall and beyond! Surfgirl also shared the story on their social media channels several times, amplifying the message to their global online community of 250k surf-lovers.
An article with Longboarder Magazine is also in the works, as well as a couple of follow up pieces with Surfgirl, to tie into the launch of the Mordardh audio book later this year.
This was a very collaborative effort with the Mor Poets team, the best way to work. In addition to my own input, some of the poets had great local media contacts and recommendations, as well as securing some of their own interview opportunities.
Ella shared this lovely feedback with me, on behalf of her and the other Mor Poets:
“I felt that Bryony completely understood both the team and myself; she took time to learn about me and my goals in terms of the project, could see which audience we were aiming to attract and how we wanted to engage with the communities we were targeting. Clarity of a shared vision is key to success and Bryony went the extra mile to make this happen. I would say without hesitation that she brought our poetry to a wider audience than we would otherwise have had without her help.
"I felt incredibly well-supported by Bryony at all times [and her] innate positivity and enthusiasm for the project has boosted my confidence and shown me how much hard-working publicity can work masses for a team. Thank you, Bryony and I hope to swim with you again.”
You can get your hands on your own copy of the Mordardh surf poetry anthology at the Cornwall Writers’ website, and the audiobook will be out this summer.
If you're looking for PR support for your creative arts project or organisation,
get in touch! bryony@tellmemor.com
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