What brought you here? Was it a backpacking ex, an accidental ferry ride, or a group of radical buddies? How did you get here? Were you even out yet? Who, or what did you fall in love with? Do you remember your first swim to the rock? Did you ever think you’d come back?

We’ve all come to the festival to dance and meet new people, to reconnect with friends we may only ever see in Skala. Each one of us carries a unique story about how we got here the very first time.

We’ll explore how these stories can be told, how we feel about them several days, months, maybe years and decades later, and put them down on a page. And if, in the process, we want to fictionalise and dramatise our own stories, let’s.

Rewriting and sharing our stories connects us to each other, who we used to be, and who we hope to become.

mélie boltz nasr is a French Lebanese almost British writer and podcaster. They prefer to write their long formats in French and their poetry in English.

Their first book, Contes d’un autre bois, came out in September 2023. It’s a collection of queer and feminist short stories retelling classic fairytales. The book plays with some of the new inclusive and / or gender neutral linguistic forms being developed in French. They are now working on a novel based on East Mediterranean mythology.

Photo credit: Nanténé Traoré