Leaving Home

So long, farewell,

Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight...

I've decided to leave Blogger behind and move over to WordPress where I can make my world look prettier. Thank you for reading and putting up with my terrible poetry, and I hope you continue to follow me over to WordPress where I will be rambling about literature events, writery things  I love, and the pain of trying to study for my MA in Creative Writing.

So, here's one final farewell, and a link to my new site: www.niciwest.wordpress.com

Come and say hello and tell me what you think.

Retale

Six writers. Six stories. One shop.

Re:Tale is a innovative and exciting literature event taking place in the labyrinthine setting of Jigsaw, in Manchester. Six up and coming writers will tantalise your literary taste buds by telling six stories based around the strange and wonderful world of customer service.

Daniel Carpenter, Joe Daly, David Hartley, Nick Garrard, Nici West and Fat Roland are Manchester based writers, some of whom have come from literature collectives Bad Language and Flash Tag. Bad Language run regular live literature events and publishes a quarterly anthology of live writing. Flash Tag run flash fiction writing competitions and the occasional night featuring literary smut.

This is a first time collaboration between these six writers and a first literature evening for the clothes store in the Triangle shopping centre. They hope to mix to the retail space and fictional prose writing to bring you a night of humour, unease and surreal fun.

Thursday 17 November 7.30pm

Re:Tale

Jigsaw, Exchange Square, M4 3TR Manchester, United Kingdom ·

Tickets £4/£2 advanced tickets from: http://retale.eventbrite.co.uk/

http://retalemcr.wordpress.com/

Bad Shoes Festival

You might be surprised, or disappointed, to learn that Bad Shoes Festival is not about your embarrassing footwear.

Instead, it is collaboration between Bad Language Manchester and Shoe String Magazine, two budding young writery projects from Manchester. Their aim is to create an exciting, interactive arts festival that will bring all ages and lovers or all art forms together for one Sunday afternoon.

The event will take place on Sunday 25^th September from 12.30pm, in two venues across Chorlton, Manchester; Electrik and Dulicmer. The Dulcimer will be home to music and art exhibitions and just down the road, Electrik will host a spoken word stage, craft stalls and book stalls for you to spend your guilty Sunday pennies.

There will be secret interactive art projects, and writing competitions to get involved with throughout the day, and yes, there will indeed be bad shoes to be won.

If you wish to get involved or want to ask more questions, visit www.badshoesfestival.wordpress.com or e-mail badshoesfestival@gmail.com.

Applications from artists, musicians, zines and crafts people welcome.

The festival is free but does encourage donations.

Flash Language Literature Pub Quiz

Flash Mob and Bad Language have teamed up to take part in the Not Part Of festival and created a night of bookish questions to twist your nerdy brains! There will be questions, prizes and a few little surprises!

The quiz is £1 per person to enter and maximum team size is 6 people. You can register your interest at skiddle,facebook or just turn up on the night!

The Not Part Of festival was born in 2007 when Gareth McCann realised that what made Manchester International Festival unique, was that it was comprised of commissioned, curated work. Not Part Of is a festival for all creatives to take part in without the barriers. 


You can view the full programme for not part of here.

Flash Mob Writing Competition E- Book

OK so here it is - the e-book produced by Seabrook Associates with the full 12 shortlisted fictions from the Flash Mob Writing Competition. Go on and have a looksee...

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.

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!

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.

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.

Napo wrimo day 29

You sat,
In the corners of my mind.

Waiting,
Until time had moved.

Watching,
For when I least expected.

And then,
You came when I didn't want.

NaPo WriMo: Day 28

Near the end now, only a few days left. Here's today's poem which is taken from a short story I'm actually trying to write at the same time. 

The Cracks

Today I saw the cracks appear

The small wrinkles of the earth

They started small like maggots

Then grew longer into worms

Today I saw the cracks appear

Like lace around my feet

They sliced into the earth’s skin

Then split open like a pear

Today I saw the cracks appear

As though traced with marker pen

I stepped over them one by one

Then erased them with my feet

NaPo WriMo: Day 27

Boxes half full you carried half my things down the stairs

Whilst I stayed in the sweaty heat and tried to finish packing

Flattened cardboard around me with no celetape left

And with each lift of the box we spoke of times

That could be and forgot of the reasons why I was leaving

And loading up the van I stood in circles of

Items that didn’t look like mine anymore

Shirts sticking to our back and the taste of salt in my mouth

We ran out of words to say but only because there was too much

The engine purred on the large van as we pulled

Away without a thought of what we were leaving behind

Accept the keys that we needed to find a home for

And the new place that we didn’t quite have

The road was long and icy but luckily

No traffic blocked our roots

And as the radio hummed it’s low song

I thought of you and only you,

Nothing about the things left behind of the things I was driving to.

NaPo WriMo: Day 26

This one is about a time when I got stuck in the middle of an extreme storm in New Zealand. We foolishly parked beneath a tree below a mountain and the thunder rocketed off the edge of the mountain and felt like it was consuming our van.

The Storm

1.

Bruised sky above

Our little yellow van

Your breath soothes me to sleep

2.

The sky’s angry roar

As it echo’s around the mountain

Heart hard in my chest

3.

Motion Picture

Lighting up my view

Flashing on then off

NaPo WriMo: Day 25

That Day

Two eyes, Closed, On white face,

Not just white but pale

Rich pale

As though all soul that could bring colour has left

Two lips, Parted, As if in thirst

Or midway between saying the last word

One body, Alone, In a single bed

Soiled sheets and clothes

No last wishes or commands

Us, left beside, to misguide the truth

From his unknowing wife

NaPo WriMo: Day 24

To be Loved

NaPo WriMo: Day 23

Here's one for Day 23 which I wrote based on a little easter holiday trip to Shrewsbury. It's a first draft but isn't that the whole point of NaPo WriMo?


Summer Rain 

And when the rain came we were left with
Half finished words and undiscussed ideas
And we continued on our small talk
Until the rain became too much.

Then moving our things inside
We found we had no more words
Yet too many things left unsaid
And no way to say them


But into that evening
All I could think of was how
To express the things I never said
Only, you followed.

You always follow.

NaPo WriMo: Day 22

Today I decided to try the three worded poem. I would give it a title but I think it would be just as long as the poem.



Tonight
          Only you.

NaPo WriMo: Day 21

Nice summery one today. Sorry. It had to be done. I just couldn't resist writing about the sunshine - it's wrapped around me everywhere I go at the moment!

Forgetting You

We sat for hours at the end of the park

Watching BBQ’s cook and avoiding the smoke

Making words in the middle of our picnic blanket

And pouring sparkling wine from fake posh bottles

We sat for hours in the burning heat

You no sunscreen to wear, arms turning purple

Opening large bottles of cider

And watching kids attack trees around us

We sat for hours in our scrabble game

Comparing the themes of words in each round

Noticing when we were feeling negative,

Or tired, or rude

We sat for hours and I forgot

About everything else I needed to do

Like going to an art class

Or tidying my house

Or meeting you

And we sat for hours in the sun

Talking about nothing and everything

Eating ice lollies as they melted down our arms

And forgetting about anything else.

Forgetting about you.

Napo wrimo day 20

Another Sunday

What of? ...
No house
No job
No bed?
What of?
No place to lay my head?
What of?...
No friends
No money
No hopes
What of?
Not facing things when I cannot cope?
At least I have you.
Right?
At least I have you.

NaPo WriMo: Day 19

Bit of a depressing one today. Happy day 19 :)

Yesterday

Yesterday,
You said,
That this was something that you needed.

Today,
You say,
That this is something that you never even wanted.