Well, now we've got that wretched wedding out of the way, let's get back to stories. May is apparently Short Story Month 2011, and there are a few events coming up which have caught my eye; I thought I'd quickly sum them up as A Moment Of Fiction (no submissions stuff, for the moment, I'm afraid; my brain is awash with Flash Mob).
This Thursday (5 May) sees new Manchester-based publisher Pandril Press launch Panopticon, a collection of short fiction by seven emerging writers. The free event takes place at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on Cambridge Street from 6.30pm. Nicholas Royle will be manning a stall selling Nightjar chapbooks; might I recommend The Field by Tom Fletcher? Comma Press will also be there.
The following Tuesday (10 May, 6.30pm, free - sorry, this originally said Monday, but that's incorrect), the IABF plays host to a joint book launch from The Other Room/If P Then Q poet James Davies (whose collection Plants is published this month) and flash fiction author, novelist and Station Stories creator David Gaffney, whose Edgehill Prize-shortlisted collection The Half-life Of Songs recently came out on Salt. You can read more about David in my flash fiction feature for Creative Times - oh look, here's a link; there's more on the Station Stories project, which takes place later this month, below.
Friday 13 May sees Station Stories contributors Jenn Ashworth and the aforementioned Tom Fletcher combine forces at An Outlet on Dale Street in the Northern Quarter to celebrate the launch of their second novels: Cold Light in the case of Jenn and The Thing on the Shore in the case of Tom. They'll both be reading from 8pm, as will some of their friends from the Northern Lines Fiction Workshop. Jenn promises: "There'll be wine and possibly Twiglets."
Station Stories itself takes place on Thursday 19, Friday 20 and Saturday 21 May, with three performances a day to choose from (midday, 3pm and 7pm). It promises to be a really varied and interesting event, with six writers surreptitiously and not so surreptitiously reading specially commissioned tales of trains and tracks and other things beginning with "tr" around Piccadilly Station. The writers are: David Gaffney, Nicholas Royle, Tom Fletcher, Jenn Ashworth, Peter Wild (of Bookmunch; see more below) and Tom Jenks (also of The Other Room and If P Then Q).
On Tuesday 24 May, from 6.30pm, literary quarterly Ambit Magazine will be holding an evening of poetry and fiction (free), again at the IABF. After an introduction by Ambit editor Martin Bax, there will be poems from Joan Poulson and Edmund Prestwich, and David Gaffney and Nicholas Royle crop up again to read some short stories.
Thursday 26 May sees the Flash Mob Literary Salon, starting at 7.30pm at Dulcimer in Chorlton. There will be readings by the winners and runners-up, something special courtesy the judges (including my good self), and a special appearance from flash fiction author Nik Perring. Part of Chorlton Arts Festival 2011, it's free and will be fabulous; see the Flash Mob website for more.
Stacks of other literature events are taking place as part of this year's Chorlton Arts Festival. Keep checking the website to see what's on; details of the full programme should be released this week. Sneak preview from proofreading the brochure: I'm looking forward to hearing Salt writers Robert Graham and Heather Leach on Monday 30 May, 7.30pm, Chorlton Library (free). Robert will be reading extracts from his new Salt Modern Voices chapbook, A Man Walks Into A Kitchen; Heather will read So Much Time In A Life, included in Salt's new anthology, The Best British Short Stories 2011, edited by Nick Royle. You can read my review of the collection on Bookmunch here.
02 May 2011
28 April 2011
Mind your Language
Right then, let's get back to more literary pursuits. Last night saw another splendid spoken word event hosted by the Bad Language writing collective at The Castle. Once again, I was scarily scheduled in the first open mic slot, after BL's very own Nici West did the intros and a couple of poems. I read, not The Luck Department, as previously threatened, but my new, slightly saucy, story about electromagnetics (such a geek!), I See Electric. I like this story and it seemed to attract some admiring comments, so let's hope someone somewhere picks it up and publishes it. Ever the optimist, I won't be holding my breath.
After me was my Ask Ben & Clare and Flash Mob colleague Benjamin Judge, himself with a sexy story plus a poem, about Bradford. Not sexy. Ben was followed by Calum Kerr, plugging his new book 31, which contains 31 stories, one written per day in January, and Word Gumbo, the new e-zine from Gumbo Press, which aims "to promote the very best in stories, poetry, flash fiction, scripts and non-fiction" and of which Jo Bell (who cameoed alongside Calum) is poetry editor. Submissions for the first issue close on Saturday; they should be on the theme, aptly, of "beginnings".
Next up was Fat Roland, who read a very serious story in five parts, employing his usual performing flair - this time screwing up each of the five pieces of paper to "represent" each of the five sections. This guy kills me. He also reminded everyone that tomorrow (Friday 29 April) is the closing date for the Flash Mob Writing Competition and introduced everyone to the Literary Salon we'll be running on Thursday 26 May as part of Chorlton Arts Festival.
Nija Dalal was next, with a very personal story about 24-hour diners and Walmarts and her mom back in the States. She has a nice delivery; it's like listening to someone chatting when she reads. And she was there with Stuart Maconie: him off the radio. Stuart Maconie heard us read! Yowzers. The first section was then rounded off with Bad Language's Dan Carpenter, reading some of the poetry he's been writing for NaPoWriMo, which has been running throughout April.
The middle third saw poet Rod Tame take up the mic with a proper rehearsed set of jokes and poems about being gay, coming out, being gay, and not being gay enough. After another break, there was more poetry. Obviously by this point, a certain amount of the Grolsch had been quaffed, so my notes are somewhat limited and I didn't catch some people's surnames and, even when I did, can't find some of them in the interwebs. Third Bad Language host Joe Daly introduced the final round, and was followed by Steve, Dominic Berry (with some material from his upcoming Wizard show, starring the aforementioned Rod, at the Contact Theatre on Wednesday 25 May; which, incidentally, is when the next Bad Language night is - fight!), Kieran King (whose Whatever Happened To The Heroes I quite enjoyed), Jane Birch (who was persuaded by a certain Jo Bell to read some rude words, to much acclaim!), then a short story interlude with Flash Mobber Dave Hartley and Garment Feud from Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf, then finally another poet, called Ben.
After me was my Ask Ben & Clare and Flash Mob colleague Benjamin Judge, himself with a sexy story plus a poem, about Bradford. Not sexy. Ben was followed by Calum Kerr, plugging his new book 31, which contains 31 stories, one written per day in January, and Word Gumbo, the new e-zine from Gumbo Press, which aims "to promote the very best in stories, poetry, flash fiction, scripts and non-fiction" and of which Jo Bell (who cameoed alongside Calum) is poetry editor. Submissions for the first issue close on Saturday; they should be on the theme, aptly, of "beginnings".
Next up was Fat Roland, who read a very serious story in five parts, employing his usual performing flair - this time screwing up each of the five pieces of paper to "represent" each of the five sections. This guy kills me. He also reminded everyone that tomorrow (Friday 29 April) is the closing date for the Flash Mob Writing Competition and introduced everyone to the Literary Salon we'll be running on Thursday 26 May as part of Chorlton Arts Festival.
Nija Dalal was next, with a very personal story about 24-hour diners and Walmarts and her mom back in the States. She has a nice delivery; it's like listening to someone chatting when she reads. And she was there with Stuart Maconie: him off the radio. Stuart Maconie heard us read! Yowzers. The first section was then rounded off with Bad Language's Dan Carpenter, reading some of the poetry he's been writing for NaPoWriMo, which has been running throughout April.
The middle third saw poet Rod Tame take up the mic with a proper rehearsed set of jokes and poems about being gay, coming out, being gay, and not being gay enough. After another break, there was more poetry. Obviously by this point, a certain amount of the Grolsch had been quaffed, so my notes are somewhat limited and I didn't catch some people's surnames and, even when I did, can't find some of them in the interwebs. Third Bad Language host Joe Daly introduced the final round, and was followed by Steve, Dominic Berry (with some material from his upcoming Wizard show, starring the aforementioned Rod, at the Contact Theatre on Wednesday 25 May; which, incidentally, is when the next Bad Language night is - fight!), Kieran King (whose Whatever Happened To The Heroes I quite enjoyed), Jane Birch (who was persuaded by a certain Jo Bell to read some rude words, to much acclaim!), then a short story interlude with Flash Mobber Dave Hartley and Garment Feud from Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf, then finally another poet, called Ben.
27 April 2011
My work is never done
Mum was complaining that I hadn't posted for, like, two whole days, and now it's been even longer. I think, therefore, I'll cheat and do a little round-up of things what I have wrote elsewhere in the last few weeks. (Sorry about that: I've been attending to the "part-time adventuress" bit of my profile; normal blogging service will be resumed shortly.)
First up, short stories... dystopian tale The Luck Department appeared on Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf on 12 March (and may appear in spoken form at tonight's Bad Language shindig at The Castle), while White Rabbits (a slightly abridged version of the original) found its way onto 330 Words a month later.
Next, features... I was commissioned to write about flash fiction for the magnificent Creative Times, and did so in no more than 500 words. It was fun! (Hint: more people should ask me to write features; especially if they want to pay me.) I've also spent the month of April residing as the featured blogger in issue 33 of Blankpages, which has been lovely.
Then, reviews... A review of Gaynor Arnold's short story collection, Lying Together, out on Tindal Street Press, was published by the fabulous Bookmunch, and I have also this weekend filed copy reviewing Salt's new anthology, The Best British Short Stories 2011, edited by Nicholas Royle. Keep your eyes peeled on Bookmunch for that over the next couple of days.
Finally, marketing material... I've been (and remain) busy working on various projects and for various clients, ranging from copywriting flyers and supplying web copy to editing brochures and proofreading posters. I've also been up to my eyes doing quite a bit of press and PR for Chorlton Arts Festival and the Flash Mob Writing Competition and Literary Salon. I'm just a slave to my art...
First up, short stories... dystopian tale The Luck Department appeared on Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf on 12 March (and may appear in spoken form at tonight's Bad Language shindig at The Castle), while White Rabbits (a slightly abridged version of the original) found its way onto 330 Words a month later.
Next, features... I was commissioned to write about flash fiction for the magnificent Creative Times, and did so in no more than 500 words. It was fun! (Hint: more people should ask me to write features; especially if they want to pay me.) I've also spent the month of April residing as the featured blogger in issue 33 of Blankpages, which has been lovely.
Then, reviews... A review of Gaynor Arnold's short story collection, Lying Together, out on Tindal Street Press, was published by the fabulous Bookmunch, and I have also this weekend filed copy reviewing Salt's new anthology, The Best British Short Stories 2011, edited by Nicholas Royle. Keep your eyes peeled on Bookmunch for that over the next couple of days.
Finally, marketing material... I've been (and remain) busy working on various projects and for various clients, ranging from copywriting flyers and supplying web copy to editing brochures and proofreading posters. I've also been up to my eyes doing quite a bit of press and PR for Chorlton Arts Festival and the Flash Mob Writing Competition and Literary Salon. I'm just a slave to my art...
21 April 2011
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...
20 April 2011
Book it, book it real good
This is happening tomorrow. I am going. You should go too. It is free. All the other details are on the flyer. David Gaffney is a flash fiction writer and also a novelist, and he will be reading some short stories from his latest collection The Half-life Of Songs (up for this year's Edge Hill Short Story Prize) and maybe presenting some of his Destroy Powerpoint slides. I can't recommend this enough. James Davies is the organiser of experimental poetry night The Other Room and editor of If P Then Q. He will be performing some poems from his new anthology, Plants. The event will be compered by "the incredible" (apparently) Tony Trehy, text-poet and founder of Text Festival, currently on the go in Bury.
After that, I'm hotfooting it to the Kings Arms in Salford, where my friend and Flash Mob colleague Mr Dave Hartley is co-hosting a Flash Mob quiz with his brother Mr Rick Hartley. Some of the questions will be about books. Benjamin Judge has written a round. I expect that will be about cheese. Or books. It's a quid per person and there are prizes. See Dave's blog for more.
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