Tallulah Staple
This week we are celebrating Tallulah Staple!
Tallulah is the facilitator of the St Margaret’s House Book Club, where community members read a different book each month based around a yearly theme. These sessions normally run on the evenings of the 3rd Monday each month, and involve a discussion about the book.
Tallulah & The Create Place
The Book Club started in 2010, celebrating its 10th anniversary in February 2020 - which also happened to be the last time the club met physically. Since the first lockdown began, Tallulah was quick to establish delivering the Book Club over Zoom, and it has remained a digital club ever since. In 2020 the Book Club was reading novels around the theme of ‘Migration’, including A Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, Second Class Citizen by Buchi Emecheta and My Cat Yugoslavia by Patjim Statovci. In 2021 the guiding theme will be books that are written by LGBTQ+ authors, and that explore LGBTQ+ identities and experiences. The club has kicked off the year with The Colour Purple by Alice Walker, and The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. View the current reading list here!
With an average of 10 readers each month, (with a rough 8/2 regular/newcomer mix), and some members who have been coming for well over 5 years now, members have got to know one another pretty well. Even so, the club is always open to newcomers, and there’s no expectation on members to show up every month.
Tallulah joined the book club a few months after it started, in October 2010. Having just moved to London she began working for a small charity whose office was based in St Margaret’s House. Back then, the book club was held in the Gallery Café, so she found out about it while buying lunch one day.
“I’ve always been a bookworm, and I wanted to get to know people in London, so it seemed like the ideal place to get started.”
The Book Club continued to meet in the café until 2017, but when the opening times of the café changed, the Book Club was moved to its current home in the Create Place,
“Which is really an ideal setting for our meetings.” says Tallulah.
Tallulah began attending the club just as a member, but her commitment to the club meant she became good friends with the its original facilitator, Natalie. Tallulah began supporting the facilitation of the club more and more until around mid-2017 when Natalie felt like it was a good time to take a permanent step back to focus on her PhD. Tallulah took the helm and has found it to be a really rewarding experience.
We caught up with Tallulah to hear about her experiences of running workshops during the pandemic
Tallulah Staple: In Conversation
1. For people who have never attended a book club, how would you describe what it’s like to be involved?
2. The book club has now been running for nearly 11 years. Do you think it has evolved or changed over that time?
3. How do you decide on the themes and texts that you will cover?
4. You have managed to keep the book club going throughout 2020 by very swiftly adapting to hosting it online. What have been the benefits and challenges with this new way of working? Has anything surprised you?
5. Do you have any suggestions, tips or ideas for people who want to read more, but struggle to find the time?