Happy Publication day Anna and Jennifer!

We’ve got a bit ahead of ourselves with launches this month, launching Jennifer A McGowan’s How to be a Tarot Card (or a Teenager) at Oxford Poetry Library last week,

and Anna Fodorova’s In the Blood at the Czech Embassy on Tuesday, with Jude Cook chairing and Lisa Rose reading the excerpts, but it is actual publication day TODAY – Congratulations both!

Thanks to Phoebe and team at the Oxford Poetry Library.

Thanks to Jude and Lisa, and the Janas at BCSA, the Czech Centre and Czech Embassy for hosting, and Lutyens and Rubinstein bookshop for handling the sales, and to Erik Weisenpacher for video and photo and audio recordings; it was a novel experience to just turn up, introduce and sit in the audience!

If you missed either or both, do not despair, as there is a joint launch 6.30 next Tuesday, 1st November, at Keats house, with readings by Carrie Cohen. You can get your free tickets from Eventbrite – there will be cake and soft drinks

 

Happy Tour Ending…

The final full reading from Happy Ending NOT Guaranteed was at West Greenwich Library on 4th May.  Here are the videos of Liam Hogan reading in company with Lisa Rose.

 

Your final chance to catch Liam reading is at The Story Sessions on 17th May in Brockley.

 

How to choose a story for a reading

When you are touring a book of short stories, and it’s an anthology, it’s usually fairly simple – who can get there to read? and then a bit of tweaking, so that we don’t end up with wall-to wall-fantasy from a book that is less than 30% that genre.

When it is a single author collection however, with 27 stories to choose from, it is more complicated. The discussion goes something like this:

Author: these are my favourites. (list of 12 stories)

Publisher: Yes. This is my favourite, let’s have this one too.

Author: Or this one?

Publisher: It’s a bit long, what about an extract? No more than 10 minutes.

Author: So from here – until the cliff hanger?

Publisher: Yes, but leave out that paragraph, it doesn’t make sense without the beginning,

Author: I love this one too.

Publisher: It’s a first person narrative of the opposite gender. But I can get an actor.

(long conversation full of stereotypes about the people likely to come to each reading, which stories are most representative of the book, balancing light and dark, how often the author is willing to read the same story… leading to a long short list)

Publisher: OK, so which do we read where? I think this one is a shoo-in for Greenwich, it’s set there. And this one is about werewolves so the reading that’s up the road from Monster Supplies?

Author: Yes, and the Alice in Wonderland one for Oxford. Do you think the Art installation is too obvious for Hackney?

Of course, on the day, sometimes, we change our minds – but a lot of thought goes into preparing a reading, to make it a professional enjoyable evening out for the reading (listening) public.

So here is a little quizzette for you.

Which stories are Liam Hogan, Carrie Cohen, Lisa Rose and Annalie Wilson reading where?

Match the story to the venue!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Stars
Temp
To be a Hero
Worming Advice For Werewolves
Miscellaneous, Spooky, Weird
Late
Feathers
Bring Rope
The Burden
Greenwich, Noon

Tuesday 25/04/2017 7pm Lewisham Library, Lewisham High Street, SE13 6LG with Carrie Cohen reading one of the stories (free)
Wednesday 26/04/2017 7.30 Burley Fisher bookshop, 400 Kingsland Road, Haggerston, E8 4AA with Carrie Cohen reading one of the stories (free)
Friday  28/04/2017 7.30  Albion Beatnik Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6AA (£2 on the door)
lisa rose
Thursday  04/05/2017 8pm West Greenwich Library, Greenwich High Road, SE10 8NN with Lisa Rose reading one of the stories (free)

 

 

annalie wilsonWednesday  17/05/2017 7pm The Story Sessions, Brockley Deli, 14a Brockley Cross, SE4 1BE with Annalie Wilson reading one of the stories. (free)

 

Launching The Other Side of Sleep: London, Lauderdale House

We’ve already posted some of the video from the London Launch of The Other Side of Sleep for Simon, Alwyn and Kate.

Here are snippets of the other performances from the evening.

Adrienne Silcock, Rhythms

Jeremy Dixon, In Retail (XXIII)

Sarah Lawson, Revenant

Anne Macaulay, I went to the market and I bought…

Lisa Rose reading Troy: Seven Voices on behalf Jennifer A McGowan

Videos from Other Worlds – Weird Lies

More videos from our celebratory Brockley Max evening at Misty Moon, readings this time from our Saboteur2014 Award Winning anthology, Weird Lies.

Sarah Feathers reads from David Malone‘s The Love Below

Lisa Rose reads from Christopher SamuelsTouchdown

and Tony Bell reads from Lee Reynoldson‘s Haiku Short, Parakeet Prawns, Konnichiwa Peter

Other Worlds at Misty Moon

other worlds email version

As part of the Brockley Max festival, we are reading at Misty Moon Gallery, behind Ladywell Tavern, 80 Ladywell Road SE13 7HS, 7pm 1st June at 7pm.

We were rifling or is that riffling*? through Lovers’ Lies and (Award WINNING) Weird Lies for stories as yet unread to a live audience, and look what we found!

Weird dreams that might become real, loneliness-eating goldfish , gravity-challenged adolescents, a modern take on The Flying Dutchman, Buddha interferes when the air-con breaks down, and (not in either book, but just for fun) a fairground exhibit answering back.

Haiku Short, Parakeet Prawns, Konnichiwa Peter by Lee Reynoldson, read by Tony Bell
The Love Below by David Malone, read by Sarah Feathers
Touchdown by Christopher Samuels, read by Lisa Rose
Surf & Turf by Mi L Holliday, read by Sean Patterson
This isn’t Heat by Richard Smyth, read by Silas Hawkins
The Real McCoy by Cherry Potts, read by Carrie Cohen

find out more about the readers

Can’t wait til the 1st June for your fix of live science fiction? come to The Story Sessions on Wednesday 21st May as well! Different stories and mostly different writers, but the same weird stuff.

*The spell check doesn’t like it, but it’s what you do with books isn’t it: riffle – as in to flick rapidly but gently through the pages… word of the day!

 

More Photos from LSE Space for Thought Branching Out Festival

I’ve just been sent the photos from the official LSE photographer, so I thought I’d put them up, together with a few I took on the day. (Mine are the slideshow and are copyright Cherry Potts I assume the others are copyright LSE as they didn’t give me the photographer’s name.)

16_LiveStorytelling

Summer all Year Long and Will Everett singing Only Remembered

Summer all Year Long and Will Everett singing Only Remembered

Gloria Sanders reading Birdland

Gloria Sanders reading Birdland

lit13_051 lit13_052 lit13_054

SAYL

SAYL

lit13_059 Live storytelling 2 LiveStorytelling 1

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Will Everett reading FROG

Will Everett reading FROG

LSE Branching out festival part 4

Part 4 of our LSE Space for Thought Branching Out festival work.

We collaborated with Summer All Year Long, our singing friends, and actor friends from Liars’ League to match songs and stories to the themes being explored by the festival.

Finding stories for Art Curation was easy Martin Pengelly‘s Girl with Palmettes (from London Lies, read by Lisa Rose) and Rob Walton‘s Lenny Bolton Changes Trains (Stations, read by Ray Newe) were obvious choices – finding a song was not so simple. Many (lovely) songs were considered and discarded by SAYL, until Patrick came up with Crash Test Dummies’ When I go out with Artists. A couple of hours of footling until it was in a key everyone could manage, and we were away.

Apologies for the sound quality here, the battery on the video camera went flat, and the backup was struggling even more than the respectable camera with an odd background hiss from the PA system.

Arachne Press at Branching Out LSE Space for Thought Literature Festival 2013

LiteraryFestivalBannerLSE Space for Thought Festival 2013: Branching Out runs from Tuesday 26th until Saturday 2nd March, and everything is FREE (Including a workshop from Katy Darby on Saturday morning)!

On Saturday 2nd March Arachne Press will be providing entertainment in the foyer between the main events in the auditorium. We are going for a Liars’ League style with readings by actors, and have chosen stories from all three books to  fit the themes of the other events. Each section will be introduced by a very brief burst of (equally appropriate) song from our friends Summer All Year Long to draw attention!

Literary-fes12.30-1 (oral tradition/ human rights) Frog (Emily CleaverLondon Lies) read by Will Everett and Speaking in Tongues (Rebecca GouldLovers’ Lies) read by Sophie Morris-Sheppard

2.30-3    (Conflict/poetry/art/politics) Mirror (Cherry PottsLovers’ Lies) read by Will Everett and Rich & Strange –extract (Bartle Sawbridge – Stations) read by Greg Page.

4.30-5 (food fashions/landscape/nature) Monsieur Fromage (Rosalind StoppsLovers’ Lies), read by Jo Widdowson Birdland (Joan Taylor-RowanStations) read by Gloria Sanders

6.30-7 (art curating/ comedy) Girl with Palmettes (Martin PengellyLondon Lies) read by Lisa Rose  Lenny Bolton Changes Trains (Rob WaltonStations) read by Ray Newe