ARACHNEVERSARY – Shortest Day, Longest Night

Solstice Shorts Festival Founder Cherry Potts talks about the 2nd and 3rd festivals and the book that resulted, Shortest Day, Longest Night. Features music by Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd, Annalie Wilson, Vocal Chords, Zac Gvirtman, and stories/poems by Mario Duarte, Tim Cremin, Bob Beagrie, Sarah Evans, performed by Ray Newe, Saul Reichlin and Katy Darby. BSL interpretation by Martin Fox-Roberts and Paul Michaels

You can buy Shortest Day, Longest Night from our Webshop.

Use the discount code (for August only) ARACHNEVERSARY

or have a poke around in the special offers for bulk buy series options.

 

Dusk: Video – Greenwich – They Said there were Pirates

Grace Cookey-Gam reads They Said there were Pirates by Kirsty Fox

at West Greenwich Library

This story and all the other unpublished poems and stories are in the forthcoming anthology Dusk.

You can preorder the print version, and buy the ebook, now!

Dusk: Video – Greenwich – Starling Time

Grace Cookey-Gam reads Starling Time by Laila Sumpton for Dusk at Greenwich at West Greenwich Library

This poem and all the other unpublished poems and stories are in the forthcoming anthology Dusk.

You can preorder the print version, and buy the ebook, now!

Dusk: Video- Greenwich Match Girl by Lisa Kelly

Grace Cookey-Gam reads Lisa Kelly‘s Match Girl for the Greenwich event Dusk at West Greenwich Library

This poem and all the other unpublished poems and stories are in the forthcoming anthology Dusk.

You can preorder the print version, and buy the ebook, now!

Dusk: Videos – Greenwich – all this

Math Jones reads John Richardson’s poem, all this

All about dusk, but not winter.

This poem and all the other unpublished poems and stories are in the forthcoming anthology Dusk.

You can preorder the print version, and buy the ebook, now!

Dusk: the videos – Greenwich – Tempus Erat

For Christmas Eve Grace Cookey-Gam reads Kate Wise‘s poem, Tempus Erat

This poem and all the other unpublished poems and stories are in the forthcoming anthology Dusk.

You can preorder the print version, and buy the ebook, now!

Dusk: the videos – Greenwich Intro

Silas Hawkins introduces the show at Greenwich 21st December 2017 at West Greenwich Library

Our BSL interpreter never made it (pre-christmas traffic and lost keys played a part) so we are captioning the videos one by one, slow, tedious, but necessary.

 

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!

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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 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)

 

International Women’s Day at Lewisham Library – videos

Here are a couple of video’s of Jennifer A McGowan reading and discussing her poetry from With Paper for Feet at our International Women’s Day event at Lewisham Library

Introduction to her fascination with witches

and her take on the witches from Macbeth, The Weird Sisters on the Make

You can next catch Jennifer reading her work at Retelling Tales,  The Story Sessions, 7pm Wednesday 15th March, at The Brockley Deli 14a Brockley Cross SE4 1BE

and 7.30 Thursday 16th March at West Greenwich Library, Greenwich High Road, London SE10 8NN