Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa & Connie Broadbent.
Hi Lisa & Connie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
We are a mother and daughter-in-law team that started typing poems at a local Halloween event. While we started on a whim, we quickly fell in love with the process and decided to create a business around this idea. Now we are “poets for hire”. We travel with our typewriters and write improv poetry based on the prompts we are given by our customers. We are wrapping up our third year, and love it just as much now as we did on our first day.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We generally work very well together, so most of our struggles have had to do with our typewriters. While we love all typewriters, we can only really use manual ones with cases for our gigs. We’ve also had to learn how to repair these machines on the fly, so that we are not impeded from creating poetry by a jammed key. There was also a learning curve to understand what equipment was needed for different gigs. We now bring back up typewriters and battery operated lamps. Truthfully, however, it has mostly been smooth sailing. You might now expect that from a team like ours (mother and daughter-in-law), but we are grateful that we work well together as people as well as family and business partners.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Many people do not interact with poetry outside of school. This “side-hustle” of ours gives people the chance to not only interact with poetry, but to be a foundational part of the creation of poetry. We find that many of our patrons are deeply touched by being “seen” through this art form. We feel like vessels for their own creative expression. There have been a wide variety of prompts from patrons over the last three years- from deeply personal wrestles to cinnamon toothpaste. We value the opportunity to explore every topic given to us, and hope our poems inspire and bring joy to those we write them for.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
Because we are a two person team, we would have different answers. However, we do draw on our own pasts when trying to connect with the topic requested by a patron.
Pricing:
- Available upon request.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @justmytype.ut
