Watch this space...

Check out this dynamic cover art for the Dostoyevsky Wannabe Cities anthologies, the Manchester version of which is out later this year, edited by Dodo Ink Editorial Director and Minor Literature[s] Senior Editor Thom Cuell, and which I've been asked to contribute to! Lovely, isn't it?

Pretty in print

Just before the year of 2017 faded away, I was pleased to find one of my very short stories make its way into an anthology of numbers all started in workshops at the inaugural Flash Fiction Festival, which took place in Bath over a not-so-warm early summer's weekend. My creation - about a trapeze artist, natch - took shape during a session in which micro fiction maestro Vanessa Gebbie provided some rather awkward prompts - but, hey, they worked! More about the festival and the book here, including a link so you can get your mitts on a copy for less than ten of your British pounds.

Science and fiction and other stuff

So, Manchester International Festival is in full swing, and I've managed to snaffle some comps and have had my first MIF 2017 event review published on Manchester Confidential. It was for the world premiere and for-one-night-only concert-come-film Last and First Men, at The Bridgewater Hall; created by Johan Johansson and adapted from the sci-fi novel by Olaf Stapledon. This book, I noted happily, was at the Blackwells pop-up store at bluedot festival at Jodrell Bank (pictured), which I went to yesterday, courtesy the Centre for New Writing. You can read all about what I thought of Last and First Men here.

Re/Place(d) - site-specific storytelling

New creative writing project Re/Place(d) just launched! Read all about it here.

Word search

Manchester's best avant garde poetry night, The Other Room, recently celebrated its ninth birthday, with a temporary shift of venue to the King's Arms in Salford in order to accommodate a choir. There were noises, repetition and bubbles, as in the kind kids blow about. The rather excellent event also saw the launch of the experimentalists' ninth anthology, which brings together work contributed by all the artists who have performed at The Other Room over the last year, including yours truly. Loving the word search-inspired cover. Get a copy here. One third of TOR organisers, Tom Jenks, will be reading at the official launch of David Gaffney's new novel, All The Places I've Ever Lived, on 18 May at The Wonder Inn. See more here.