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,
Jennifer A McGowan
Oxford Poetry Library Launch
and Anna Fodorova’s In the Bloodat 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!
Anna & Jude swapping books copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Erik Weisenpacher
copyright Jana Nahodilova
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
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!
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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 7pmLewisham Library, Lewisham High Street, SE13 6LG with Carrie Cohen reading one of the stories (free)
Wednesday 26/04/2017 7.30Burley Fisher bookshop, 400 Kingsland Road, Haggerston, E8 4AA with Carrie Cohen reading one of the stories (free)
Friday 28/04/2017 7.30Albion Beatnik Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6AA (£2 on the door)
Thursday 04/05/2017 8pmWest Greenwich Library, Greenwich High Road, SE10 8NN with Lisa Rose reading one of the stories (free)
Wednesday 17/05/2017 7pmThe Story Sessions, Brockley Deli, 14a Brockley Cross, SE4 1BE with Annalie Wilson reading one of the stories. (free)
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
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!
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.)
Summer all Year Long and Will Everett singing Only Remembered
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.
LSE 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!
Wednesday 17/05/2017 7pm 
