Penny Pepper's Blog
Penny Pepper has been a writer and activist within the disability arts movement for 20 years. She has written articles for dao, Arts Disability Culture Magazine, Disability Now and Ouch! She has also written short stories for DAO and is the author of Desires (2003), a controversially unique collection of explicit fiction focusing on disabled people, relationships and sex.
12 February 2012
Diversity and Devilment!
Please let me tempt you to be challenged and entertained by my guest slot at Soho Theatre, Feb 20th 7.45pm, where I am performing with acclaimed comedy troupe Abnormally Funny People. Reviews,...Comments: 1
5 October 2011
Splitting Penny: the ups, the downs and Ruby Wax.
I've been poorly and bogged down. Staring at the walls and wondering why I painted them like I did. One is red. Looking at the news and thinking this is all so crazy. This is a big brew of...Comments: 0
4 August 2011
New York, Old London, Same Battles
I did it. Amazed myself and survived to tell the tale, crammed with feverish stories and kaleidoscope memories. All roasted and shaken in the rich, brash, varied flavours of New York. I say...Comments: 1
4 July 2011
Many Many Penny Adventures
It’s all go. Go, go, go. Where to begin? Ok, firstly, on Wednesday, you can hear me do my bit on Radio Four, for Four Thought. This was recorded two weeks ago at the splendid RSA off the...Comments: 2
14 April 2011
Films, moods, protest.
Life is busy at Penny towers with much planning – and worrying – going on since I heard I had been successful with my Grant for the Arts. Of course I am excited and bouncing off the walls...Comments: 3
10 March 2011
Penny blogs. There's a little sunshine and lots going on
The sun licks across my window and lures the blossom to bloom. At last! I’m bouncing off the walls, full of seesaw moods, happy-sad, melancholy-joyful, and dripping with creative sap....Comments: 3
23 January 2011
Penny on protests... then and now!
It’s Sunday, late evening as I write this. I’m preparing myself for the protest in London tomorrow, as we take to the streets to show our anger at the savage cuts about to hack us hard....Comments: 3
2 January 2011
New Year, New Hopes, Old Battles
I doubt any of my pals are surprised I didn't manage to post a DadaFest write-up part two. Distraction, distraction... That's my problem. Sometimes I fire so many simultaneous thoughts that they lead...Comments: 1
10 December 2010
Penny Pepper's DadaFest Part One: Fun, Frantic, Provocative
I'm pulling my guilty face as I write this because I didn't manage to blog while I was working at DadaFest, and I really wanted to share this amazing experience. I've read the blog by...Comments: 0
7 November 2010
Penny Pepper on leading a jigsaw life
I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling life is a series of often poorly fitting pieces which have to jog along with each other somehow. Of late it's been a massive balls-in-the-air act of creative work,...Comments: 3
19 October 2010
Penny Pepper blogs her ups, downs and creative urges
There is a lot going on for me at the moment and I can hardly dare whisper that much of it seems positive. Not only is the novel ‘Fancy Nancy’ Out There now, at least being...Comments: 2
11 October 2010
Fancy Nancy, the novel, is finished!
Amid painful chaos and the world falling in I did a wonderful if tortuous thing. My thoughts still go through a cruel mangle and bits of me come out the other side in jagged fragments. A lot still...Comments: 3
8 September 2010
My Happy-Sad See-Sawing Life, part 97
I survived the big 5-0 drama remarkably intact and with a beautiful party organised by lovely friends. I am not so sure about the outcome of my traumas with my council as detailed desperately...Comments: 0
10 August 2010
Penny Pepper on the dawn of her half century
It leaves me incredulous every passing day now, as the big event hurtles closer. That is, on 16 August I am 50. Oh my. It's as unreal as the recent diagnosis of Borderline Personality...Comments: 5
6 July 2010
Penny Pepper is surviving and sunning
It's a very strange place I find myself in this week. An uncertain placing in the world. They, the faceless, have given me hints of another diagnosis - borderline personality disorder. I've...Comments: 2
21 June 2010
Penny Pepper urges people to go to the Islington Film Festival
I've been away. Not sure where. Wandering inside my head I suppose. Best to save details of that for another day. I'm trying to come to terms with 'major depressive illness'. That's the label now,...Comments: 0
14 April 2010
Penny Pepper urges you see her next Wednesday at Rich Mix, Hackney, London
Super fast blog! I am manic, manic, manic, today and feeling like the whole world, or maybe dao world at least should come and see me do my spoken word stuff as a featured act, next Wedsnesday. It...Comments: 0
14 April 2010
Penny Pepper is looking for an actor - super fast
This is an attempt at a fast blog, haha. I can be pithy when I want. Poetry and film demand that especially. Tight precision I mean. So right now I am fighting as per, and feeling like Drowning not...Comments: 1
28 March 2010
Penny Pepper is looking for some actors for a short film she is making.
At last I've written a film script and I'd really like to get some good actors for this 5 min short, which is for a competition. Naturally, this is an EXTREME micro, micro budget. It's me doing...Comments: 0
21 March 2010
Penny Pepper is looking forward to sunny days and hopefulness
This is going to be a quick blog. I hope, I intend. I shrugged off the suit of blues, for a bit, as the sun appeared. The Up has to come, doesn't it?. I want to mention now that I am performing on...Comments: 4
10 March 2010
Penny Pepper blogs a chaotic world, sudden crisis, and some creative struggle
Tonight I am doing an Open Mic slot with Jo on cello at the Apples and Snakes for women. I believe the lovely Liz Bentley is MC-ing too. Liz is a joy to watch and experience if you ever get the...Comments: 2
10 January 2010
Sex and Drugs and Baby Punk Me: memories of Ian Dury
I've just left a comment on the editor's blog concerning the new Ian Dury film. and it made me feel a wave of nostalgia for Ian and my baby years as a punk. It was hard being a punk when so few...Comments: 4
8 January 2010
Disabled labelled or not. With or without toothache.
Happy new year and all that. But without snow, please. Yes it's pretty. But, of course, not accessible. It makes me apathetic. I have so many projects on the go, and I feel frustrated many are stuck...Comments: 0
1 December 2009
Bonfires, bugs and being creative
I look at my last blog and wonder if there's a conspiracy against me concerning time. It really is relative. Ok I don't know what that means exactly, but I have a twinge in my guts that it's related...Comments: 1
21 September 2009
Penny Pepper reflects on Liberty 09 and the state of spoken word events
The Penny who needs Nine Lives to Do Everything I don't need the Nine Lives as do cats because I am reckless and have close shaves - well only a little - but because I always make a point, indeed a...Comments: 2