Are you local?

Kicking off today and running until 2 October is the second Didsbury Arts Festival, just down the road. Fabulously, there's loads going on for writers and readers, from creative writing workshops to poetry speakeasies, and much of it is free! Full listings are here.


Here are some of my highlights...

Tomorrow, Nicholas Royle will be telling Bird Stories in the RSPB-linked Fletcher Moss Gardens. I've heard his story Pink, which may well feature (being about bullfinches, as it is), so I highly recommend! In the evening, Conrad Williams will be upstairs in the newly renovated Didsbury pub reading from his crime thriller Blonde On A Stick. I met him the same night I heard Nick read that there Pink; he's a nice bloke, so well worth a look-in. On Monday at 7pm, Elizabeth Baines will discuss magic versus science in the context of her short stories and slightly spooky novel Too Many Magpies (which I've just enjoyed reading). Nick is back on Wednesday evening, this time at the tennis club with, among others, The Leaping author Tom Fletcher (both mentioned in this previous post), introducing audiences to Nightjar Press. On Thursday, my poet chum Adrian Slatcher joins James Davies at a Pizza Express-based shindig, where he will be reading from his newly published Salt collection, Playing Solitaire For Money. The DAF events round off on Saturday morning with an awards ceremony in Didsbury Library for the open competitions for poetry, judged by Adam O'Riordan and Linda Chase, and for short stories, judged by Nick Royle and Adele Geras (who also judged the recent Oxfam Short Story Competition). Might see you around!