THE Hive drop-in centre in Kingswood for learning disabled and autistic adults has celebrated the launch of its new book.
Written and illustrated entirely by service users, the book is a compilation of short stories and poems covering a variety of topics. Staff member Joanna Hill illustrated the front cover pulling together different elements from the writing. The title ‘Magic Occurs’ is taken from one of the stories.
Kristen Adler, staff member, who collated the book, said: “We decided to do this book after reading the wonderful poetry written by some of our service users for a previous arts event we held. We really wanted to showcase how imaginative and creative our service users are and this felt like a great way to do so. I’m very proud of this project and how well the book launch went.”
Service user Heather Hooper added: “It’s exciting. I like that lots of us have written different things for the book. It’s something different for The Hive to do.”
As a self-funding organisation, The Hive Avon, based on Two Mile Hill, is always looking for new ways to raise money and the book has provided an opportunity to bring in funds and showcasing the users’ talents.
Shaun Trott, a friend of The Hive, and his TikTok book club generously donated the money to cover the initial printing and publishing costs.
The Hive has almost sold out of the first run, but is hoping to get more printed and set up an online shop where people can buy copies of the book.
Liz Cooke, CEO of the Hive, said “The book launch was very successful. Many service users attended on the evening, and some read out their stories and poems featured in the book. It was great to see so many members of the local community in attendance.”