The last of the Liberty Tales events: Greenstead Library
Stories and poems inspired by Magna Carta
Cliff Chapman reading David Guy‘s The King and the Light, and three poems by Jeremy Dixon, Carrie Cohen (aka Carolyn Eden) reading her own Free White Towel and Sarah Evans‘ Bothered, Jim Cogan reading his own story, Lag and Helen Morris reading her story, The Poppies.
Essex! We are headed your way again, meet us in Colchester.
Wednesday 25th January at 6pm the final planned Liberty Tales tour date! This is the one that was delayed from November.
Join Jim Cogan, Helen Morris and Carolyn Eden in person for stories of liberation – from prison, by war and leaving an abusive marriage;
and Sarah Evans, David Guy and Jeremy Dixon virtually as their work (voting, or not; more freedom than you can cope with; the right to be who you are) is read by Carrie Cohen and Cliff Chapman.
Sarah, David and Helen are locals, so come and support them!
Greenstead Library, Hawthorn Avenue, Colchester, CO4 3QE
FREE but please phone Greenstead Library to reserve your place 01206 865758.
A rather lovely way to celebrate Human Rights Day, back in December, reading stories inspired by Magna Carta at North Kensington Library. Stories from Cassandra Passarelli, Carolyn Eden, Jim Cogan and Cherry Potts, poems from Jeremy Dixon
You can catch us again, with our final Liberty Tales jaunt, at Greenstead Library, Colchester CO4 3QE next Wednesday, 25th January 6pm, with stories from Carolyn Eden, David Guy, Helen Morris, Sarah Evans, and poems from Jeremy Dixon, some of which will be read by Carrie Cohen and Cliff Chapman
We are back at North Kensington Library with Shortest Day, Longest Night on Saturday 4th February at 2pm, with Poems from Bob Beagrie, Lisa Kelly, and A J Akoto; and Stories from Katy Darby, Liam Hogan and Pauline Walker.
The first of our new season of The Story Sessions – Freedom Tales
The headliners:
Sarah Lawson: Animal Liberation
David Steward The Last Goodnight
Annalie Wilson reading The Branded Hand by Brian Johnstone
And Liberty by Andrew McCallum
Jim Cogan Lag
We run The Story Sessions to showcase whatever we’ve published most recently, and to give authors a chance to experiment, show off and promote their work, whether published by us or not. There are three different ways of doing that: through applying to headline (see the end of this post) bringing something that is brand new, or not quite working, to the test bed to get audience opinion, or joining in with 100 words in Flash from the Floor
Test Bed: Cherry Potts Simple Girls (extract)
Flash from the Floor
David
Annalie (read by Cherry)
Music
Annalie Wilson is our Actor/Singer in residence for this season of The Story Sessions
Annalie singing We Will Be Heard, a song written to celebrate Emily Wilding Davison
and Save Me
If you’ve enjoyed these recordings, come along next time, 18th January 7.30 at The Brockley Deli 14a Brockley Cross SE4 1BE for Winter Tales, with a stories from Rosalind Stopps and probably that Liam Hogan, poems from Nancy Charley, Megan E Freeman, Karina Lutz and whatever we choose from the responses to the call out after the deadline which is…Tomorrow!!!. So if you are a writer, especially if you can GET to the event, send us your wintery offerings of under 2000 words NOW.
Welcome to the Liberty Tales Lewisham videos (yes, I got the video to work!), not posted until now because I was too busy doing other events!
so here are:
David Mathews Border Country
Jim Cogan Lag
Cherry Potts Knitting for Demons
Liam Hogan The King’s Computer
Incidentally, each time I post a snippet of video or audio, it will be a different pieces, so you can search around for more of the piece without repetition.
On which subject TODAY at 5pm, you can catch Katy Darby, Cassandra Passarelli, Liam Hogan and Carolyn Eden reading at Housmans, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DX from 5pm, and if you buy a book they’ll sign it for you.
Here we all are having a rollicking good time at Albion Beatnik in Oxford. There was a bit of discussion about the correct pronunciation of ‘C’ in Latin , and there was apparently a bona fide Classics teacher in the audience, so only one author was brave enough to read their Magna Carta clause in the original.
Here’s some snippets of video (yay! got the video to work!) to whet your appetite for TONIGHT’s event in Lewisham.
With Oxford (Thank you to Dennis at Albion Beatnik for hosting) under our belts – and some in-focus video – I think – which we will share tomorrow, our thoughts turn to next week, and LEWISHAM.
Join Jim Cogan, Liam Hogan, David Mathews and Cherry Potts for stories of day release, love in captivity, crossing borders and escaping the past, Wednesday 7pm 23/11/2016 Lewisham Library: 199,Lewisham High Street, SE13 6LG
Liam Hogan
Cherry
David
Which will be perfectly lovely.
HOWEVER: COLCHESTER, we are going to have to let you down for the time being! Sorry! Greenstead Library are temporarily unable to host us, and we are looking at rebooking in Mid January. Just co-ordinating author diaries now.
Thanks to a grant from the Arts Council we are able to take Liberty Tales a little bit further than we have taken some of our books, and we will be visiting Oxford, Colchester, Newcastle and Bath, as well as several dates nearer home in London.
So first up:
OXFORD!
Join us on Friday 18th November at 7.30, at Albion Beatnik Walton Street Oxford OX2 6AA for some Magna Carta inspired readings.
Stories from Jim Cogan, Carolyn Eden, Katy Darby, Nick Rawlinson, Poems from Bernie Howley, Elinor Brooks, Jeremy Dixon. Explore an unusual Gaudy Night, fish weirs, walking out, when it safer to appear witless, finding yourself in San Francisco, religious intolerance, and exactly what the value of a passport really is.
The first of the new season of The Story Sessions is getting close now, as is the launch and tour of Liberty Tales, and we are going to have to practice ‘power napping’ in the afternoon to cope with all the late nights.
So what can you expect from The Story Sessions, and Freedom Tales in particular?
Stories! the food and drink of the evening, although there is of course food and drink too – we are in a Deli.
Before the interval: a song from resident actor/singer Annalie Wilson, followed by a story from David Steward and a poem from Andrew McCallum Liberty read by Annalie, and a short TestBed story from Cherry Potts, Morality for Simple Girls (mainly so that people get an idea of what that’s for.)
INTERVAL – replenish your glasses/plates, write us 100 words on freedom, give written feedback on the TestBed session.
After the interval: another song from Annalie, then FLASH FROM THE FLOOR, your chance to wow us with 100 words on theme.
Followed by a story from Jim Cogan, Lag, a poem from Brian Johnstone The Branded Hand read by Annalie, and finally a story from Liam Hogan,Stalemate
Freedom is never out of fashion. Wednesday 16th November 2016 7pm Brockley Deli 14a Brockley Cross SE4 1BE.
Closest station Brockley (Southern, Overground), and on bus routes: 171, 172, 484.
Magna Carta was well and truly celebrated in Greenwich last night, with a substantial and enthusiastic audience, vigorous singing and fine readings.
I don’t know whether it was a comment on the standard of stories, reading and singing but the video camera overheated last night. As a result I am gradually piecing together our records, from recovered video, audio files and other people’s video (Liam, thank you.)
So the beautifully crafted links between stories and songs aren’t quite as neat as I’d hoped. Here’s as far as I’ve got:
Jim Cogan reading his story Lag
Stuart Crossman reading Nick Rawlinson’s Into the Blue
and Owen Townend’s Stopped by a Busker
Carrie Cohen reading Sarah Evans’ Bothered
Summer All Year Long singing fit to bust, a number of songs, listed on the video apart from the title and credit ones which are The Almanack by Richard Brown, and Step by Step by the wonderful Anon. Thanks to everyone who gave up their time to read and sing it was very definitely worth it!
More tomorrow, when I’ve worked out why the sound and pictures on Liam’s video won’t sync.
