Just stepped out of the salon

You'll be pleased to know that the Flash Mob Literary Salon was a roaring success. Well, I enjoyed myself, at least, and other people seemed to, including your Toms Fletcher and Jenks, your Chris Killen, your Joe Stretch. Either that, or they were being polite. Oh well. I had fun. I drank copious pints of Hell and I liked wearing my new frock (that is, until Ben suggested it might be see-through, which was a little offputting given that I had to go up on stage another two times. Personally, I don't think it was. And if it was, at least the audience got some cheap thrills). Anyway, other people have written about the event, so I suggest you read what they've said so I can go off and eat some cake.

The evening's been written about by Bad Language's Dan Carpenter on the Chorlton Arts Festival blog (a fantastic innovation by my Chorlton Arts Festival colleague Sarah) here and Nici West here. Our special guest star Nik Perring has written about it here as has my fellow Flash Mobber Dave here. You can now read all twelve of the shortlisted stories in an anthology which we have published online. Whizz on over to the Flash Mob website, and it's all there in glorious technicolor.


Look, I even have pictures. Look, there's a picture of the wonderful Helen from Didsbury Life taking a picture of me. And look, there's Helen's picture of me.


Being gluttons for punishment, the Flash Mob gang, who will henceforth be known as Flashtag (don't ask: this must be the fifth name we've had), are now working on some more events and projects. First up is the Flash Language Literary Pub Quiz we're running in conjunction with Bad Language for the Not Part Of fringe to the Manchester International Festival. That is on Wednesday 6 July at 7.30pm at Barcelona in the Northern Quarter. We're also hoping to be collaborating with Bad Language again for the Oxfam Bookfest later in July.

At the moment we're also putting together an application for September's Didsbury Arts Festival. Our current intention is to possibly run a smut night (my idea). Going on our track history, however, that could all change. Fingers crossed it doesn't.

Wider reading

Following on from that last missive, may I suggest some wider reading. I direct you to the blog of the wonderful Nik Perring, who is quoted in my Creative Times piece (now complete with at least one nice comment, which is most pleasing). As well as being very lovely about me and my feature, Nik has posted his full thoughts on flash fiction (he kindly sent me all this, but I was limited to a strict 500 wordcount so couldn't include anywhere near enough of his wiseness). I also asked David Gaffney to furnish me with sage words for my piece, and indeed you can read more about his take on flash fiction in an interview with the very same Nik and also by downloading a PDF of his Tindal Street Press Writing Masterclass, Be Short. This includes some rather fine tips for writing flash fiction; perhaps useful before entering a certain competition you may have heard of? Anyway, more on and from both Nik and David soon, so watch this space...

Abra-cadaver

Crivens, it's busy in my life right about now. Me and the #beatoff boys (just call me Nancy Drew, yeah?) are up to our eyes holding crisis talks and frantically emailing about names and logos and dates and photo-shoots and plenty more exciting things, details of which will be revealed next week, if you play your cards right (and we finally come to a decision on stuff). I've also been attending meetings about blogging and talking about blogging and writing about blogging, and you know what? I just haven't had time to do any blogging.


So I'm going to make it easy on myself here. I'm going to temporarily direct you to another blog, for an exquisite corpse is underway and, if you have been listening closely, you'll know that I am rather partial to an exquisite corpse. The game is afoot at The Endist, blog of the delightful Didsbury-based author Tom Fletcher. In exchange for contributing to the consequences, a glittering prize could be yours: a copy of Tom's new chapbook, The Field (a great story), out on the equally lovely Nicholas Royle's Nightjar.

These two, plus other fabulous local writers Jenn Ashworth, David Gaffney, Peter Wild and Tom Jenks, are currently paving the way for Station Stories, taking place 19-21 May in conjunction with Manchester Literature Festival. More on that soon, promise.

Not bad at all

Last night Dan, Joe and Nici hosted another marvellous Bad Language evening at The Castle Hotel on Oldham Street.

Dan opened with a poem about the now ramshackle, onetime competition to Coney Island (which will in my mind forever be linked with Cloverfield), then gave up the stage to #beatoff's very own Dave Hartley, with a concoction about the Bridgewater Hall in space. The next #beatoff member, er, up was Tom Mason with a slightly longer version of his 2nd Violin from 330 Words. Also in the first third was Bugged co-creator, prolific poet and fellow boat person Jo Bell, who raised more than a few laughs with Coming, and one of the Bugged contributors, Calum Kerr, with a short short story about one man's innovative solution to writer's block. Nici rounded the section up with a dark tale of seeing in the New Year at Beetham Tower, though not in the traditional way.

After an interlude for recharging our glasses, star-of-the-show David Gaffney gave us The King Of Powerpoint, which I'd seen him perform on Short Story Day, but went down a real treat with the Bad Language crowd. He also read from his new Salt collection The Half-Life Of Songs, which is reviewed by Peter Wild on Bookmunch (where I've also written some reviews, if you're remotely interested). This was the third time I've seen David read (the first time was at the Bad Language Literature Quiz back in September), and I'm worried he's probably starting to think of me as some kind of Gaffney groupie. Or a stalker.

Talking of which, after another break (the drinking is as important as the readings), Joe gave us a stalker story, then, as if by magic, Bad Language newbie Joely "@thecharmquark" Black read Psycho, another 330 Words story, which she even got into character for. #beatoff's Fat Roland also "performed", extracting the letters making up his story, Despondent Correspondent, from various parts of his anatomy and vestments (as well as penning the award-winning Fat Roland On Electronica, he posts creative writing here). Another short story came courtesy of Guy Garrud, a regular (along with #beatoffers Dave and Ben, and John Andrew Hutchison, who I also had the pleasure of meeting last night) at the Manc Spec Fiction group at Madlab.


Then there was little old me. I read one of my new stories, White Rabbits, which involves a character called Alice, a John Tenniel artwork (above), a looking-glass and a life-sized bunny. I'd gone for this as today happens to be the birthday of Lewis Carroll (who, according to Wikipedia, pretty much invented Scrabble, coincidentally the board game of choice on the Bad Language logo). Thinking about it, I should have dedicated the story to rabbit-watcher extraordinaire and natty waistcoat-wearer Mr Hartley (the story even includes the phrase "natty waistcoat". One day I'll share it with you. Maybe tomorrow, who knows).

There were also loads of poets, so once again the evening offered a good mix. In no particular order (largely because, having consumed copious amounts of strong Dutch lager and not bothering to take any notes, I can't remember) the poets included: Dominic Berry, with his vegan-coming-out poem; a (possibly Spanish) lady called Mercedes (@cedered on Twitter); Scouser Gerry, who gave us a great poem about fighting girls on the Scottie Road in Liverpool; Heather, who read last time and this time treated us to the fantastic line "scum of clothes"; Anna Percy, who runs the night (which I think is on Mondays at Sandbar) Stirred: For Women Who Write, and Anna's pal whose name alluded me. Forgive me if I've missed anyone: as you can see, it was quite a roll call.

Finally, news on the night was that, 1) the next Bad Language shindig is on Wednesday 23 February at The Castle, and 2) following the success of I Know Where The City Has Wings and Scattered Reds, submissions are now open for the third Bad Language anthology. All the details are here and the closing date is 2 March. Ace.