Arachne author Carolyn Eden‘s story Free White Towel from Liberty Tales
is up on Once upon a Quarantine
read by Heather Bleasdale
Lots of other stories by famous authors and read by famous actors. So that’s our Carrie famous too now!
Carolyn
Videos from the first half of the Departures launch at Brockley Brewery on 21st November 2019
Oscar Windsor-Smith reads This England
Carolyn Eden reads My Daddy
Joan Taylor-Rowan reads from Three Sisters on the Edge
more tomorrow…
Here they are in all their glory – videos of the readings from Thursday’s launch of We/She
Smoking Ban by Jennifer Rickard read by Carrie Cohen
A Crowing Hen by Arike Oke
Comeback Special by Katy Darby (this one is pieced together – the camera battery died…but our belts have braces so all’s well)
The Real McCoy by Cherry Potts read by Carrie Cohen
Destiny’s Children by Rosalind Stopps
Some Carpets to Remain by Carolyn Eden
Ugly Duchess by Fiona Salter
Cages by Joan L M Williams
The Dead Wives’ Club by Ilora Choudhury
One Beautiful Day by Elizabeth Stott
That was quite a party! Wonderful readings a HUGE audience and we set a new record for Blackwell’s ‘most books sold at an event’.
Here are a few photos, I didn’t take many on account of doing all the other things a publisher does at an event. If anyone has more they’d like to share let me know!
Today is International Women’s Day, in the centenary year of partial suffrage for women.
So an important day for women, but, you know, women are women every day, and there’s still plenty of work to be done, on all sorts of fronts, so celebrate and then roll up your sleeves…
Our small contribution is to do what we do anyway, but do more of it. We are publishing a number of books over the next nine months and most (not all) will be by women.
April
Kate Foley Poetry Collection: A Gift of Rivers
Kate is reading from the collection at Gay’s the Word on 5th April and we are investigating a launch in Amsterdam.
May
Cathy Bryant Poetry Collection: Erratics.
Cathy and Kate are taking part in a seminar on diversity and inclusivity in the poetry world at London Book Fair on 10th April at 17:30 at the ‘Poet’s Corner’
June
The final installment of The Naming of Brook Storyteller: Wolftalker arrives from Ghillian Potts.
Also in June we have the official launch of Dusk which will also kick off thinking about 2018’s Solstice Shorts festival, Dawn!
July Five by Five: 5 short stories each by Katy Darby, Joan Taylor-Rowan, Cassandra Passarelli, Sarah James, Helen Morris
August
We are teaming up with Liars’ League for our official #womensvote100 anthology, We/She featuring stories about women by women. Final line up yet to be finalised but expect stories from:
Carolyn Eden, Katy Darby, Elizabeth Hopkinson, Elisabeth Simon, Elizabeth Stott, Fiona Salter, Ilora Choudhury, J. A. Hopper, Arike Oke, Jennifer Rickard, Jenny Ramsay, Lucy Ribchester, Peng Shepherd, Rosalind Stopps, Joanne L. M. Williams, Swati Khurana, Uschi Gatward.
September
Vindication: an anthology of up to 10 poems each from
Sarah James, Sarah Lawson, Jill Sharp, Elinor Brooks, Adrienne Silcock and Anne Macaulay
November
We are commemorating the end of WWI with poetry and short story anthology An Outbreak of Peace.
It has been a busy time, another set of videos I’ve only just had time to edit and post:
We took part in the Archway With Words Festival back in September, reading from a variety of books at Archway Library. (5 books, 5 authors, for our 5th anniversary…)
Carolyn Eden, Free White Towel, Liberty Tales
Cherry Potts, Mirror, Lovers’ Lies
Wendy Gill, A Little Favour, Shortest Day, Longest Night
Katy Darby, The Horror, the Horror, Stations
Liam Hogan, Crossroads, Happy Ending NOT Guaranteed.
We had a lot of fun at Sussex Yacht Club in Shoreham for Shoreham WordFest on Thursday, lovely crowd, great acoustic and though we say it ourselves, some marvellous poems, stories and songs.
Poems by Bernie Howley, Elinor Brooks, Brian Johnstone, Jeremy Dixon, Kate Foley and Andrew McCallum; read Carrie Cohen, Elinor Brooks and Greg Page
Stories by Carolyn Eden, Cherry Potts and Liam Hogan read by themselves.
Songs by Sydney Carter, Ali Burns, Albert Nyathi, George Loveless/ Joe Stead and James Oppenheim; arranged by Melanie Harrold messed around with and sung by a small subset of Vocal Chords Choir, (Cherry Potts, Alix Adams, Bea Jackson, Caroline Dunton, Denise Mueller-Brown and Maria Kirby)
The Privilege of Departure, or Dover Bound, But Delayed by Bernie Howley, read by Carrie Cohen.
Singing We Raise the Watchword Liberty in full with the audience
The second half – stories, and a certain amount of difficulty with the camera cutting out.
Carolyn Eden:
Cherry Potts:
Liam Hogan:
Here’s some feedback from the audience on what they liked (you can hear them joining in on some of the songs)
Well constructed programme, the segues from music into poetry and back again, the variety of interpretations given to the theme of liberty. Bread and Roses, Free White Towel and the promise of a free badge!
Here is an interesting evening, full of fun, wisdom and wit. Hear some moving poems/ stories from those from the past and present combined with our essential liberties.
I love being read to. A very mixed programme which really stimulated my mind and imagination.
relaxed
variety – the spice of life
I enjoyed the flow of the first half
Loved the storytelling
Singing – chance to join in
Celebrating freedom – and keeping socialist history alive – good songs poems and stories too!
Witty and original writing. Very lively material, good singing.
Carolyn Eden reads at our #Arachne5 5th anniversary party, from her story Free White Towel, which is in Liberty Tales. Just audio for this one as the camera had packed up.
Here’s a picture of Carolyn reading it at another event.
Carolyn
Being busy people we can’t always arrange our own events as regularly as we might like, so we are very happy when we get asked to take part in other people’s.
Next Friday 22nd September 7pm Liam Hogan is reading from Happy ending Not Guaranteed at the launch of London Writers’ Eclective at Waterstones 11 Islington Green, N1 2XH
On Wednesday 27th September 18.15 we are at Archway with Words at Archway Library, Hamlyn House Highgate Hill N19 5PH where Liam is reading again, alongside Katy Darby, Cherry Potts, Carolyn Eden, and Wendy Gill
On Saturday 30th September we are at Free Verse Poetry Book Fair at Conway Hall where we will have a stall all day, and are reading in the Red Lion Square garden cafe at 4.30, with Jeremy Dixon, Lisa Kelly and Sarah James.Experience a flush of openness in San Francisco, a long day on a till, an even longer night in a hotel, and time shifting about the three occupants of a house.
In October we are off to the Shoreham Word Fest with a Liberty Tales/ Songs of Protest evening at the Yacht Club on Thursday 12th at 19.30 (£10) with Elinor Brooks, Greg Page and Carrie Cohen reading poetry and Cherry & Liam reading prose, and Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd and some of Vocal Chords singing. We will be teaching two very simple protest songs!
Followed on the Saturday Morning at 11am with a Children’s event in the Library, (Free) with The Old Woman From Friuli by Ghillian Potts being read by Tash Fairbanks, and a kind of demonstration of woodcut printing from Cherry Potts, because we couldn’t get hold of Ed Boxall, the illustrator of the book, to join us. No sharp objects will be let near children!
More from the Arachne 5th Anniversary Party – Summer All Year Long singing songs of protest, Liberty, and Bread and Roses, followed by Carolyn Eden reading from Free White Towel, her story in Liberty Tales
