Following hot on the heels of National Poetry Day, Arachne Press is delighted to announce we will be at Gloucester Poetry Festival later this month with a number of the poets we have published over the last 9 years. Join us for our showcase online to hear these poets read from their work, and a brief Q&A afterwards. Readings from (in order of appearance):
The event is free, but ticketed. You can register here. If you can only use a voice line to dial in, please see the Gloucester Poetry Festival page for this event (scroll to the bottom of the page), here.
to celebrate we have bundles of 3 books by the authors available until just after the event – take a look
The closest we’ve got is Math Jones‘ The Knotsman, which has quite a bit of distressing material in it, but does it from a position of compassion – ‘this is awful’, rather than ‘oooh, isn’t this awful‘.
So if you fancy something to get the ice running down your back, Math’s your man.
It would please Math mightily if you were to celebrate Samhain with his book seeing as he is a pagan.
you can buy a copy here… and if you buy it BEFORE halloween the postage is still free. we are going to have to start charging UK customers after that.
If however, your tastes run to the more traditional halloween fair, there’s a live lit gig, Frightful Yarns, at Honor Oak pub, St Germains Road SE23 on the very night, at 7.30, raising money for our local festival, Brockley Max. Arachne authors Cherry Potts and Neil Lawrence are among the readers, with dark tales of revenge and paranoia. tickets £5
Our revels may be ended but we still have memories to look back upon.
We got a lot of poems in response to our Midsummer Shakespeare400 call out, here are just 2 of them!
Kim Russell sent us her Response to Sonnet 12 (read by Carrie Cohen), so we thought you should hear the actual Sonnet 12 (read by Saul Reichlin) before the response: it seemed only fair!
Sarah Lawson imagined what it was like to live Next Door to the Capulets. This poem is introduced with a little bit of Romeo & Juliet from Katy Darby & Cliff Chapman
There’s lots more to come, but my laptop is almost full, despite off loading vast quantities of files, so editing the videos is tiresome, and for some reason uploading is taking an age too. So patience will be required!
It’s twelfth night, and the official end of the festive season, so as you pack up your Christmas baubles, here’s something to cheer you up: your opportunity to experience the entire evening of Longest Night, in the same order as the audience, but without me waffling on in between, and without the mulled cider, unless you happen to have some to hand of course.
Wassail Vocal Chords
A Little Favour by Wendy Gill Read by Annalie Wilson
Past Three a Clock Vocal Chords
At The Hotel De La Lune by Sarah James Read by all the actors
Naughty Baby Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd
Midwinter Wife by Cherry Potts Read by Annalie Wilson
Ba Ba Lamie Noo Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd
Life Between Lives by Sarah Evans Read by Patsy Prince
Solstice Carol Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd
https://youtu.be/P9iL6VDTazk How We Know the Cold is Coming, or October by Abigail Beckel Read by Annalie Wilson
The Cold Time Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd
Mouse by David Mathews Read by Lorraine Spenceley
Dunstan Lullaby Vocal Chords
Spooning by Abigail Beckel Read by Annalie Wilson
Soulmate Annalie
Dancing To Silence by Neil Brosnan Read by Lorraine Spenceley
The Snow it Melts the Soonest Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd
The Lover.s Ghost Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd
Vigil by Abigail Beckel Read by Lorraine Spenceley
Crossing the Bar Vocal Chords
Dunking For a New Sun by Bob Beagrie Read by Saul Reichlin
Drive the Cold Winter Away Vocal Chords
What He Doesn’t Know by Frances Gapper Read by Patsy Prince
Waves Annalie
Doubting Thomas by David McVey Read by Saul Reichlin
We Will Be Heard Annalie
Left of Earth, Right of Venus by Pauline Walker Read by Patsy Prince
Here’s a gallery of pictures and the audio recording of the performance at the launch. With Kate Foley reading from The Don’t Touch Garden, and Sarah Lloyd & Ian Kennedy (and the audience occasionally) accompanying with music and song. We’ll put the Q&A up later, once it’s edited! And the video… out of focus though it is.
As it is National Poetry Day I thought it a good moment to give a round-up of all things poetical on the Arachne front: so first up some EVENTS:
Kate Foley reads the long narrative poem The Don’t Touch Garden from her about-to-be-published book of that title with integral music from Sylvia Fairley and Valerie Shelley. 9th October 7.30pm
Woodbridge Library
New Street, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1DT
Tickets £3 (including a glass of wine) Available at the library counter
Tuesday 13th October 6.30pm-ish Kate is being interviewed on Resonance FM’s Out in South London Programme, and will be available on podcast subsequently.
Wednesday 14th October 7pm, Kate Foley will be reading alongside Gerry Potter at Incite poetry, showcasing her more identity orientated poems.
We’ll be there to cheer her on and sell copies of The Don’t Touch Garden and The Other Side of Sleep so if a signed copy appeals, you know where to come…
Free! The Phoenix Artist Club
1 Phoenix Street (Beneath the Phoenix theatre on Charing Cross Road)
London
WC2H 8BU
(nearest functioning tube Leicester Square or Covent Garden)
Part of the ethos of Arachne Press is to celebrate our authors and poets even when they do something with a different publisher.
So here’s a quick round-up of what they’ve been doing (that we know about, anyway).
Cathy Bryant has just launched her first historical mystery novel Pride & Regicide, a Mary Bennett novel (yes, that Mary Bennett) Geraldine Green has been combining being writer in residence at Brantwood in Cumbria with a poetry tour of America. j.lewis has had literally dozens of poems published since his early outing with us with Grass was Taller in The Other Side of Sleep. Jennifer A McGowan had some good news – but can’t say what until mid-October. Hmm… intriguing. Kate Foley was runner-up in the Proms poetry competition and had her poem read by the marvellous Carolyn Pickles on Radio 3. The link here is good for a week or so still I think. Adrienne Silcock‘s poetry pamphlet “Taking Responsibility for the Moon” was published October 2014 and she has been reading from it hither and thither as well as “Rhythms” from The Other side of Sleep. She has just started tutoring creative writing for York University Centre for Lifelong Learning, on a part-time basis,and has instigated a small informal poetry group in Whitby.
Sarah Lawson has translated an exceptionally interesting book The Strength to Say No (La force de dire non) written by Rekha Kalindi with the help of French journalist Mouhssine Ennaimi. Rekha is a Bengali girl who refused to get married at the age of 11. . Peter Owen published Sarah’s translation from French in June here, and now it has come out in India with Penguin Viking,
A chance to join in…
Call out still live for Longest Night for the next couple of weeks – poems or short stories for performance on the winter solstice, ( a mini Solstice Shorts event) and maybe an anthology.
Deadline: 21st October 2015 23:59.
And continued call out for the Liberty Tales anthology, on the subject of liberty and or the Magna Carta.
Well I managed to rescue most of the video from its meltdown.
Here is Louisa Gummer reading Helen Morris’ story of liberation in time of war, The Poppies
and Liam Hogan reading about imprisonment and release in his story The King’s Computer
And finally, audio only for Carolyn Eden’s Promotional Samples read by her alter ego, Carrie Cohen – but you get all of it and some music to introduce it to make up for missing the pictures.
Video from our feast of food stories at the Brockley Deli as part of Brockley Max festival.
You may notice something about these videos, you may not… see below*
Snippets from the longer works, and the complete poems. Mostly the readers are the wonderful Gloria Sanders and Peter Noble, but the equally marvellous Joan Taylor-Rowan read her own story.
*A new experience for me, matching sound files to video – the aircon (or something) at the Brockley Deli interfered with the sound on the video so I had to use the recordings from my audio machine. Something of a challenge getting them in sync!
We have our final line up for next Thursday, 18th June, 7pm
at West Greenwich Library SE10 8NN.
We are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta with songs, stories, and a poem; all of which are free.
Books will be on sale in the interval, and wine, tea and coffee are available for a donation. There may be snacks as well, depending on whether we have time to source them on the day along with everything else.
Stories
The King’s Computer by Liam Hogan read by the author Promotional Samples by Carolyn Eden read by the author Lag by Jim Cogan read by the author Into the Blue by Nick Rawlinson read by Stuart Crossman Poppies by Helen Morris read by Louisa Gummer Stopped by a Busker by Owen Townend read by Stuart Crossman Bothered by Sarah Evans read by Carrie Cohen
Songs from Summer All Year Long, an informal gaggle of friends who sing together and collaborate on projects when the mood takes them.
Our BSL interpreters wish it to be known that this is not what they consider performance standard signing, they needed a chance to rehearse with the performers for that, but you will be able to follow the story/song.
Our thanks to Royal Observatory Greenwich and West Greenwich Library for hosting.
