National Flash Fiction Day – May 16th 2012

May 16th 2012 is a very special day, and you might not yet know why. If you don’t know, I’ll tell you: it’s because it is the first ever National Flash Fiction Day. (Sorry if you did know.) To celebrate, there will be a whole host of events taking place during the day and evening. I’m taking part in an event that will take in readings, chat and questions at Southampton library from 6.30pm. It’s free to get in and will feature readings from flash fictioneers such as Calum Kerr, Vanessa Gebbie and others. Do come along and support the first ever flash fiction day. More details are here, including details of other events all over the UK:

http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/southwest.html

The London Magazine

I’m delighted to tell you that I have a poem in this month’s issue of The London Magazine. The poem is a sestina called ‘Bare’. If you’d like to download or buy a copy of the magazine, which, I’m reliably informed, is the oldest literary magazine in England, you can do so here.

Exposure has arrived

I woke up this morning to my postman bringing me my copies of Exposure, the prose poetry and microfiction anthology I co-edited with Jan Fortune-Wood last year. The copies look beautiful, and for a moment I felt much like a proud parent must when they leave their child at the school gates on their first day at school. Exposure, you are now in the world!

I am so proud of this anthology; the pieces inside are some of the best short pieces I have read in my many years of researching the genres of prose poetry and microfiction. It was a lot of hard work – the submissions we received were well into the thousands – but was all worth it! Congratulations to everyone whose work is inside.

Buy your copy now, by clicking here

Aur Pur/Pure Gold

The Schoolboy has been selected for the Aur Pur/Pure Gold library promotion, which is great news. To read more about Aur Pur, click here

New Narratives

If you’re interested in new forms of writing, turning fiction into film, or how writers are reinterpreting literary modes, you may be interested in attending the Academi New Narratives conference. It’s over the weekend of 27th-28th February in the Gellifawr Hotel, Gwaun Valley, Pembrokeshire.  I’ll be on a panel with Kathryn Gray and Deborah Kay Davies discussing the short story and microfiction. Booking details, the conference timetable and other information can all be found here

I’ll also be doing more readings over the next few months, so keep checking back for more information.

Readings and Launches

I’ll be reading from Dinner Time at an event in Shrewsbury in a few weeks’ time. The event is called ‘Platform’, a creative showcase, which has been running in Shrewsbury for some time. I will be reading on 6th August, and the venue is The Loft (upstairs), The Old Post Office, Milk Street. The event starts at 8.30pm, and there will be music from a live band, a full bar, and the chance to buy a copy of Dinner Time, if you haven’t already.

Secondly, I’ll be launching my new novel, The Schoolboy, at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, on the 15th September. Keep popping back to the site to have the time confirmed, and please remember to put both dates in your diary!

More readings

I’ll be reading next Wednesday, 26th November at Wrexham Library from 7pm onwards, along with poet Zoe Skoulding. Admission is £4/3 (concessions). Please do come and support me, ask me questions, buy my book… You know the drill. Phone 01978 292620 for further information if you need it. The library is on Rhosddu Road.

Report from Hay

I got back from Hay about a week ago, but it’s taken me this long to put anything up, so apologies for that. Hay was amazing, in the true and proper sense of the word. It was odd, and somehow rather wondrous to be treated like a VIP, if only for one day. Me, Kate, Mike and the Cinnamon team were assigned a PA/guide who was lovely and looked after us, escorting us to the stage and then on to sign books in the main tent. I think the reading was OK – the venue wasn’t full, which was disappointing, but there was a great crowd and there were laughs and gasps. That was great for me, because at my launch I couldn’t really hear the audience’s reaction. I also had lots of interesting questions posed at the reading, and I loved being able to discuss my work with the audience. I then went for a massive celebratory lunch of steak (steak! I know!) and felt thoroughly sick on the way home.

Oh, and note to self: don’t wear a rara dress in the wind.

I will put up pictures from Hay as soon as I have them. Unfortunately I put a bit of a ban on any flash pictures as the venue was so dark it was distracting (as it was, I could barely see to read!), so some are quite blurry.

Thanks to all who came for such a marvellous day!

News from the other side of the launch

Hello!

Firstly, I’m really sorry to those of you who read this blog avidly (you may be few, but you mean a lot to me). The site has been down for the past week or so, no thanks to my evil ex-webhost. We are no longer on speaking terms and it was a bad break-up. But it’s good to be back online.

So anyway, the launch! I think it went quite well – I was thrilled with the amount of people who turned up, and the good reaction to the book. It was pretty weird sitting up on stage and signing copies of my book. I was doubly pleased as my publisher announced that she is also taking on my novella, which is due out next year. Obviously, I have been doing one-handed cartwheels across the living room ever since. I do have some more launch photos which I will put up very soon, so keep them peeled.

Hay tickets are now available from http://www.hayfestival.com/p-110-cinnamon-press-presents-.aspx and it’d be lovely to see you there. Tickets are a mini £5 so please come and support Dinner Time, as well as Kate North and Mike Jenkins’ novel and novella respectively.

 

Launch and Hay

It’s less than a week to the launch and I’m starting to get very nervous. I can’t decide what pieces to read… I hope I don’t babble incomprehensibly. It’ll start at about 7.30pm (if I haven’t already put you off). The date is, as ever, 24th April.

The date for my reading at the Hay festival is fixed, I believe, for Thursday, May 29th at 11.30 am. More details are to follow.