Monday 30 May 2011

The Literary Salon

I recently performed at the  live literary salon at Dulcimer in Chorlton as part of the Chorlton Arts Festival. The event was run by Flash Mob and involved readings from the judges, the shorlisted and special guest Nik Perring.

It was broadcast live on Chorlton FM so needless to say there were a lot of nerves in the air but I think that added to the quality of the night. The night followed a strict schedule which meant that sometimes the judges had to improvise to avoid dead air! Luckily they had corpses to read which the audience had put together in the breaks - A story built from writing a list of character, place, dialogue word by word as it is passed between people.


My favourite piece of the night, and ironically the winner was Socrates Adams with his flash fiction Water Pressure. The winner and two runners up had their poems illustrated by local artists and were presented with a framed version at the end of the night. 


I read my shortlisted flash fiction The Cracks which entails ominious cracks which appear over night in the earth and grow larger until they swallow half a city. This piece along with the other 11 shortlisted will soon be published in an e-book courtesy of Seabrook Associates which will appear on the Flash Mob website soon.


Saturday 21 May 2011

Electric Sky

So.... Exciting things that have been happening since I last blogged.....

Bad Language have the third anthology designed and complete and in the post! The title is Electric Sky after Fergus Evans poem The Hurricane. You can view a sneak peak of the front cover here, designed by local artist Laura Richardson. The book launch will take place on Wednesday 25th May at the usual venue of The Castle Hotel. You can invite yourself along here

Flash Mob Writing Competition have announced their short list and I'm one of the 12! The other's shortlisted are here.

The winner and 2 runners up will be annouced at the Flash Mob Literary Salon next week on Thursday 26th May as part of Chorlton Arts Festival. The event will be broadcast live on Chorlton FM! Come and invite yourself along.

And one last exciting thing just to give you a good Saturday.... Tonight is the final night for Station Stories. Station Stories is a live literature performance taking place at Manchester Piccadilly station using digital technology and improvised electronic sound. Six writers read specifically comissioned stories to a private audience through headphones.  I'm going to the 7pm viewing which I think is the very last show so watch this space for an update.

Happy weekend everyone!

Tuesday 3 May 2011

On to new things...

So National Poetry Writing month has finished for the year now, boo! But onto new things.

Bad Language will now be taking part in somethingeveryday which is a website that Max Wallis originally set up to challenge himself to write something new everyday. For 2011 he has decided to 'lease' the site to various writers, poets, small presses for them to write something new everyday.

You can follow our progress via the website and feel free to comment on it and let us know what you think!

Also just to finish, here is a video of other editor of Bad Language, Daniel Carpenter, from his performance at This is May Day last night.

Sunday 1 May 2011

Napo wrimo final day!

The End

That feeling you get in the pit of your stomach,
That taste in the back of your throat.
The sting in your eye,
The thickness in your nose
You know its about to end.

That sickness dancing deep inside,
The tingles in your throat.
The inward breath
The heavy sigh
You know its about to end.

The stiffness of your tongue,
The static in your mind.
The lasting image
The last unfinished word
You know its about to end.