Throwaway Lines

However, part time paper-scavengers and writers group 26 has turned these transient jottings into something rather beautiful, collecting abandoned scraps of paper from the streets of London and using them as inspiration for a series of short stories.

The Throwaway Lines project was born when Andy Hayes, client services director at Quietroom and 26 member, stumbled upon a discarded handwritten letter on Blackfriars Bridge and thought it was too good to throw away.

This led to a quest to pick up ‘discarded dockets, missing memos, and rain-stained lost pages’, says co-editor Elise Valmorbida, each of which was paired with a 26 writer.

The collection of writing, edited by Valmorbida, John Simmons, Neil Baker and Nick Parker, has been brought together into a booklet designed by Theresa Potts and with the help of 15 designers, is now a visual as well as a literary delight on show at London’s Free Word Centre.

The designers, including Jack Renwick, Steven Anderson of Smith & Milton, Magpie Studio, SomeOne co-founder Simon Manchipp, The Allotment and Alphabetical, which also designed the Throwaway Lines logo, have created frames for the scraps, drawing inspiration from their contents to create some highly imaginative displays.

Throwaway Lines  runs until 26 November at  The Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Rd, London EC1R. you can read the stories here http://www.throwawaylines.org/