Festival season

Right, there's a lot of festival stuff going on at the mo, so here's a quick rundown of literary odds and sods you might be interested in.

First up, as part of Not Part Of, the Manchester International Festival fringe, might I suggest you swing by the Mad Hatter's Tea Party being run by the lovely ladies at For Books' Sake. It's tonight at 8pm at Nexus Art Cafe in the NQ. Emma Jane Unsworth, Claire Massey and other fab gals will be reading and there's other stuff going on to. I think it's a fiver in.

On Sunday, for Oxfam Bookfest, you can catch me reading a story about a well-to-do lady who turns to a life of crime and sauce. Also reading are the rest of the FlashTag bunch (formerly Flash Mob - we like to keep you on your toes), plus Bad Language. The event starts at 7.30pm and is taking place in Apotheka, also in the Northern Quarter. Info here and here.


Our new project, FlashTag, launched this week. Look: that's our picture above. Benjamin made that. Isn't he clever? (I think he's the brains of the operation.) We want submissions of short stories (400 words max by Sunday 7 August) on the subject of smut. You know what we're like. We're going to put the successful ones in an anthology alongside stories by our good selves, and some of our writer mates, including Miss Unsworth mentioned above, David Gaffney, Nik Perring... Then on Wednesday 28 September, we'll be holding a Smut Night as part of Didsbury Arts Festival. We'll launch the tome and have readings of some of the stories, along with a special appearance by Mr Gaffney.

Also happening for Didsbury Arts Festival and also involving David, as one of the two judges, is the annual short story competition (there's also a poetry comp). All the details are on the DAF website, but the closing date has changed: it's now Friday 26 August (not Friday 5 August), so you have a bit of extra time.

Next week it's Lassfest - literary events at the Lass O'Gowrie. Tom Fletcher and Nicholas Royle of Station Stories fame will be reading and signing Wednesday and Thursday respectively, both at 6.30pm, both £2 in.

Finally, Manchester Literature Festival will be running 10-23 October this year. If you want to get involved, check out the website. If you fancy blogging for the MLF blog, give me a shout here or via Twitter @wordsnfixtures.