I am happy to announce that the next Bad Language event will take place on Tuesday the 16th of February in the usual venue of Nexus Art Cafe in Manchester City Centre. This week we will be holding a workshop on non-linear fiction to complement our new collection of hand made chap books which will soon be created (although it is only Joe's story which will be non-linear but we thought it an appropraite topic).
I've spent this fine, cold Sunday looking for pretty paper and trying to find practical ways to make my own chap book; called Peppermint Tea. The piece is a short story based on a soldier who is tired of walking and spends the duration of the fiction trying not to think. The one thing that haunts him is the fact that he cannot remember his deceased mother's face, although he can vividly remember the smell of the peppermint tea he used to begrudgingly make her in the morning, even though it made him gag.
To complement the title I wanted the front cover of the A5 chap book to present a pop out teacup holding a real bag of peppermint tea. I spent hours in Paperchase this morning with my partner and fellow Bad Language-er harrasing all the pretty paper to see what would make a good front cover, tea cup template and inner page. I want the inside front and back page to be a layer of quaint pretty paper to match the teacup on the front cover. I found a delicate white tissue paper made with holes in it that could represent the snow which is falling throughout the story. However, I'm still considering this idea as the paper was £4.50 per sheet and would make each chap book quite expensive to make.
After arguing with my partner for half an hour over who had the neatest hand writing, we concluded that the title should not be hand written nor printed on as the card is proving too thick to make it through my elderly printer! We concluded that the front cover shall present only the tea cup, holding a tea bag and the title name shall be printed on small pieces of card which will be attached to the end of the teabag like a draw string. Although this will be quite fiddly I hope it will look good and save money on ink and extra materials. I also want to hand stitch the whole book together, although I may change my mind on this after the first attempt depending on how many pricked fingers I can take!
We've decided to make around 15 copies of each of our chapbooks; mine, Dan's and Joe's. We also have big ideas of publishing a forth chapbook full of submissions from our Bad Language writers group, but that depends how many submissions we get.
Anyway, it's been a frustrating and exciting afternoon making a trial chap book and I look forward to making the REAL copies with REAL paper! Hehe! Now to work on the workshop for Tuesday, if anyone fancies coming along:)
www.badlanguagemcr.co.uk
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Monday, 8 February 2010
Book Review - The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami has been part of my life for a while now; I've spent months savouring every moment in the hope that the story will last longer if you read slower.
The story at the heart of The Wind Up Bird is a simple one; a man who loses his wife and will do anything to get her back.A classic tale of love. The novel is spun into a series of intertwining stories set off by one seemingly meaningless event; the disappearance of a cat. My favourite thing about this book is the fact that it is enriched with stories within stories within stories.
A downfall of the book is a 2-D character called May based on a 14 year old girl who's dropped out of school. Although I believed in the character's persona at first, the novel never seemed to break through the '14 year old girl profile' and develop into a deeper person. This is emphasised later in the novel when May continues to write letters to the lead character, revealing pivotol information; which is withdrawn at the end when you realise the letters were never read.
The Wind Up Bird is full of Murakami's usual queer reasoning; where he never answers a question but always find a resolution; which is a quality in Murakami which you either love or hate. I enjoyed the journey of query after query after query until the final two chapters, when I feel Murakami uncharacteristically tried to find a satisfying resolution. It's not the resolutions that I disapproved of but the characters' actions which seemed against their personality in the final moments.
I have enjoyed having this book as being a part of my life and as a result will always sleep with a baseball bat beside my bed from now on....
The story at the heart of The Wind Up Bird is a simple one; a man who loses his wife and will do anything to get her back.A classic tale of love. The novel is spun into a series of intertwining stories set off by one seemingly meaningless event; the disappearance of a cat. My favourite thing about this book is the fact that it is enriched with stories within stories within stories.
A downfall of the book is a 2-D character called May based on a 14 year old girl who's dropped out of school. Although I believed in the character's persona at first, the novel never seemed to break through the '14 year old girl profile' and develop into a deeper person. This is emphasised later in the novel when May continues to write letters to the lead character, revealing pivotol information; which is withdrawn at the end when you realise the letters were never read.
The Wind Up Bird is full of Murakami's usual queer reasoning; where he never answers a question but always find a resolution; which is a quality in Murakami which you either love or hate. I enjoyed the journey of query after query after query until the final two chapters, when I feel Murakami uncharacteristically tried to find a satisfying resolution. It's not the resolutions that I disapproved of but the characters' actions which seemed against their personality in the final moments.
I have enjoyed having this book as being a part of my life and as a result will always sleep with a baseball bat beside my bed from now on....
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