Poet Michelle Penn reads her poem The End of Ramadan, from Solstice Shorts anthology, DUSK at St John’s Festival Downham
Dusk at St John’s Festival- video – End of Ramadan
Reply
Category Archives: Events
Dusk Publication Day
Happy Summer Solstice to all our Dusk Book authors and poets,
David Hartley, David Mathews, Rob Schofield, Samuel Wright, Rosalind Stopps, Penny Pepper, Rob Walton, Helen Slavin, Lucy Grace, Jackie Taylor, Sherry Morris, Pippa Gladhill, Alex Reece Abbott, Fiona Salter, Cath Bore, Kirsty Fox, Katerina Watson,
Math Jones, Mandy Macdonald, Katie Evans, Joy Howard, Jane Aldous, Alice Tarbuck, Gabrielle Choo, Kate Wise, Alannah Egan, Alison Lock, Aziz Dixon, Ness Owen, Jeremy Dixon, Lindsay Reid, Sue Birchenough, Nigel Hutchinson, Sue Johnson, John Bevan, John Richardson, Kelly Davis, Katy Lee, Laila Sumpton, Michelle Penn, Bridie Toft, Nicholas McGaughey, Lisa Kelly, Martyn Crucefix, Elizabeth Parker, Carl Griffin.
We are celebrating this evening, with readings and cake and stuff at 7pm at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery, Stockwell Street, Greenwich SE10. Everyone welcome, don’t be shy, although there is an unspoken expectation that you WILL buy a book!
Here’s a taster, from yesterday’s pre-publication event at St John’s Festival Downham. Laila Sumpton (who can’t join us tonight) reading Starling Time.
Wolftalker Video: Math Jones reads at the launch in Blackheath
Math Jones reads on behalf of Ghillian Potts at the Launch of Wolftalker at The Blackheath Bookshop.
Wolftalker is the final installment of The Naming of Brook Storyteller.
In this segment Brook (now known at Dragonfriend Wolftalker), and her storyteller apprentice, Cricket, have arrived at the city with Wolftalker’s ‘cousin’ Drinks-the-Wind, who is a wolf.
to buy all three books, visit our webshop!
Big thank you to Math for reading, and Michael and Tilly for hosting.
Launching Dusk
DUSK, the latest Solstice Shorts Festival anthology – two events…
We are doing a pre-launch event at the St John’s Festival at
St John’s Church 353 Bromley Road SE6 2RP (opposite Homebase)
with readings by Cherry Potts, Laila Sumpton, Michelle Penn and hopefully Katerina Watson
on 20th June 12 noon so if you are local, come along!
And then, the book is formally launched
on 21st June 7pm (The Summer Solstice, appropriately)
at Stephen Lawrence Gallery
10 Stockwell Street SE10 9BD
Access is via the university reception 2 doors closer to the corner with Greenwich High Road.
lots of the authors (though not all, sadly) are coming and there will be readings and drinks and nibbles – and, if I have the energy, a cake.
Closest public transport Cutty Sark DLR, Greenwich(Southeastern) lots of buses stop nearby
177, 180, 199, 386, N199, 188,
The stop you want coming from Lewisham/Blackheath or New Cross is H Greenwich High Road/Roan Street
from Deptford Greenwich Centre/Cutty Sark
Coming in the other direction, you want stop E Greenwich Town Centre/ Nelson Road or for buses heading to Lewisham/New Cross the stop after, K Royal Hill.
Provisional line up (just waiting for all the readers to confirm)
Rob Schofield Four Beaches (Extract)
Pippa Gladhill In-Between Dog (Extract)
Kelly Davis Calling Them In
Fiona Salter On the Evening Train (Extract)
John Bevan Afterglow
Lisa Kelly Match Girl
Rosalind Stopps 123,123 (Extract)
Michelle Penn End of Ramadan
Erratics launch in Manchester
It’s official!
Cathy Bryant’s collection Erratics is being launched at Manchester Blackwells on 28th June at 6.30. Huge thank you to David and team for hosting. tickets (free) on eventbrite
here’s a little taster…
Erratics
The hills and stones are drunker than us.
Someone spilled a thousand rolls of green velvet
at a party of rocks. We walk over them
and through the glissading stream with our
clompy boots and tupperware.
We’re mushroom hunting on the fells.
It’s like trying to spot a bird in a blizzard.
You have to tune in. There! Look!
Tiny freckles on the hill’s skin.
We boil, fry, make tea to get them down.
Our stomachs fizz as new perceptions kick in.
Otherworld. More dimensions than usual,
but how many is usual? Can’t remember.
There is no word in the world for that colour.
The standing stones are having a laugh.
New eyes open. We cry with pleasure
when the sun sets like concrete.
Later, someone is snoring Mendelssohn.
The stars are edible and slightly acidic.
The fire ambers then greys. In the morning
the miserable comedown is just the return
of normality, and the fact that the stones
have once more fallen silent, standing
sober and still.
Launch Dates and readings coming up – You are invited
It’s been quite tricky to find affordable accessible venues for our launches recently which has led to some of them being delayed.
The good news is we have sorted out two of them, and are on the way to another.
In order of event date:
Not a launch but, Cathy Bryant is reading from her book Erratics TONIGHT 28th May at Stirred Poetry at 3MT Manchester
Not a launch but, Kate Foley is reading from her book, A Gift of Rivers
at Sunday Night Lives, The Flying Pig, 106 Hills Road, Cambridge on Sunday 10th June doors 7pm event kicks off 7.30.
GHILLIAN POTTS WOLFTALKER
will be launched with a reading from the book by Math Jones
at
The Blackheath Bookshop
34 Tranquil Vale,
Blackheath,
London
SE3 0AX
6.30-8.30 15th June 2018
Just turn up – but it would help to know that you are coming.
DUSK, the latest Solstice Shorts Festival anthology
We are doing a pre-launch event at the St John’s Festival at
St John’s Church 353 Bromley Road SE6 2RP (opposite Homebase)
with readings by Cherry Potts, Laila Sumpton, Michelle Penn and hopefully Katerina Watson
on 20th June 12 noon
And then, the book is formally launched on 21st June 7pm
at Stephen Lawrence Gallery
10 Stockwell Street SE10 9BD
Finally (for June anyway)
CATHY BRYANT ERRATICS
will be launched with a reading by Cathy
at
Blackwell’s Manchester Metropolitan University
Nr Arthur Lewis Building,
The University of Manchester,
Bridgeford Street,
Manchester M13 9PL
6.30-8.30 28th June 2018
There will be free ticketing via eventbrite shortly, but get the date in your diary.
Bellingham St John’s Church Festival preview for DUSK
A handful of authors and poets will be previewing DUSK (the book of the latest Solstice Shorts Festival), at Bellingham Festival, lunchtime on Wednesday 20th June.
Laila Sumpton, Michelle Penn , festival director Cherry Potts and possibly Katerina Watson will read poems and stories from the book which is published the following day.
Join us at
St John’s Church
353 Bromley Road
London
SE6 2RP
at 12 noon prompt!
Free, but bring money to buy a book – you know you’ll want one.
The book of the event
Patrick Gale called Dusk
One of the most imaginative, forward-thinking festivals in recent history: a nation’s length celebration of the dying of the light at the turning point of winter.
Come and get shivers in the middle of summer…
Happy #IDAHOBIT everyone, and happy publication day to Cathy Bryant
To celebrate IDAHOBIT (INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA, BIPHOBIA, INTERSEXISM & TRANSPHOBIA) here’s a poem from Cathy Bryant‘s collection, Erratics, published today!!
We are still working on avenue for the official launch, bt Cathy will be reading at Stirred Poetry at 3MT on Oldham Street in Manchester, on Monday 28th May.
Congratulations Cathy!
Shit People Say to Bisexuals
Cathy Bryant
You’re just greedy, aren’t you?
So when do you think you’ll make up your mind?
Are you a tourist?
When you’re going out with a man, what’s the difference
between you and a straight?
You’re straight really, aren’t you?
When you’re going out with a woman, what’s the difference
between you and a lesbian? You’re gay really, aren’t you?
Do you just want to fuck everybody?
Would you like a threesome? If so, does it have to be with
one of each?
Which is better, sex with a man or with a woman?
I want you to come to more gay events, to make you more gay.
Why not just be straight? After all, you can choose.
Is it just desperation?
Do you just think that no man will want you, but you want
to keep your options open?
Ah, I’m sorry to hear that – you can never settle down or get married, can you?
Well, everyone’s bisexual, aren’t they?
You’re doubly damned because you could choose not to sin.
You are so lucky not to have to deal with any of the
prejudices and preconceptions that we do.
You have it easiest of anyone, don’t you?
copyright Cathy Bryant/ Arachne Press Limited
The Amsterdam Launch of A Gift of Rivers
A couple of pictures from last week’s launch of A Gift of Rivers at Waterstones in Amsterdam.
Kate kept everyone engaged despite feeling a bit below par, and Tim says he sold lots of books (Kate noticed some people buying more than one copy, which is always nice.) Wish I could have been there!
There are a handful of copies left in store so anyone in Amsterdam who missed it Tim will be very pleased to sell you a copy.
Also available at all bookshops that stock poetry, and can be ordered by any that don’t, and of course direct from us.
There will be more readings soon, in the UK. watch this space!
In the meantime here’s the first review, from London Grip
and the title poem
A GIFT OF RIVERS
Flying into Amsterdam
I see how a giant comb has pulled the hairs of the fields
into straight, wet lines, how the occasional hedge
runs on wiry feet away from the open,
how as the plane tilts
the edge of the water-land-water seems ghostly as the meniscus
an empty glass has left behind,
how the many transparent
voices of water thicken in canals
and the old windows in the city
are so like rolled water you wait for fish
to swim through their bubbles.
When I left the branches across our yard
were empty. Now small green fists
punch out space.
Thank you for your gift of rivers.
Science Fiction and Fantasy for The Hither Green Festival
May 18th at 7pm
Manor House Library
34 Old Road
SE13 5SY
as part of the Hither Green Festival
FREE
Meet Arachne Press authors Cherry Potts and Katy Darby for a chat about Science Fiction and Fantasy written by women, and their own writing.
The evening will include readings and an opportunity to buy books and ask questions (PLEASE ask questions!), and Katy and Cherry will talk about their favourite women SF/F writers and what got them started on writing speculative fiction. Cherry will also talk about her mother, Ghillian Potts’ young adult fantasy series The Naming of Brook Storyteller the final book of which, Wolftalker is published in early June. we have pre-publication copies, and will bring other books for you to buy. There may even be some giveaways.
