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.
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!
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.
Ian Kennedy and Sarah Lloyd sing a short song about that paragon of good husbandry, the shepherd. Well, that depends on what’s on offer – breakfast and lunch can’t sway him from the care of his sheep, but when the night comes round it’s a different matter.
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 song.
Imogen Robertson was one of our judges for the Solstice Shorts Short Story Competition. As she mainly writes historical detective novels, when we asked her to contribute a story to the festival (and book) we were vaguely expecting something historical, but instead we got this brilliantly understated ghost/time-travel story, Grange Lodge.
I have crossed that very road – and shall look extra carefully in future…
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 and song.
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