Legendary Wakefield Bands

I was recently invited to make a series of postcards to celebrate the work of legendary Wakefield DIY bands of yesteryear. A series of letterpress postcards featuring the lyrics of bands such as Dugong, and Pylon are to go on show at the Wakefield Orangery between 17th September to 2nd November as part of Wakefield Literature festival.

Currently reading

Junot Diaz Drown
David Gaffney The Half-Life of Songs
Charles Bukowksi Post Office

Things I Saw On My Holiday.

Please note: there is no prize for guessing where I went. NO PRIZE, PLEASE NOTE. NO PRIZE.

Things with actual fleas, from the actual flea market.



Many skulls. Not at the flea market. Somewhere else.



No thanks! :



The insides of some very beautiful churches.





This man was supposed to be guarding the art! He seemed to have fallen asleep.



This was some of the art. People were very interested in getting their pictures taken in front of it.





Well, it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it?

Books read on holiday

The Lighthouse Alison Moore
The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
Twenties Girl Sophie Kinsella
Dr Rat William Kotzwinkle

Type: A Collection

Here is a picture of something I'm working on at the moment in the print studio. The words pictured are an excerpt from Nasser Hussain's poem, Obliterature.

For the past few months I've been collating and printing a collection of poems and micro-fiction from writers I admire, to put together into a tiny chapbook called Type: A Collection. Naturally, everything is hand-set and letterpress printed using movable type, on the Peerless platen press. The work is still in progress at the moment, but should be finished and out in about a month's time.

On this, more soon.

Currently reading

Dracula Bram Stoker
The Dog of the South Charles Portis

Social networking for writers

As you may have noticed, there have been quite a few weeks' break between my last blog post and this one. Part of the reason for this is that I have been busy working on a new social networking website for writers. It'll launch in January, most likely, and here's how it'll work:

1. To join, writers apply to the website's 'social networking panel' IN WRITING. All applications must be in Times New Roman, double spaced, and with 2 inch margins. Writers who check our existing network of personalities to see whether theirs will be a good 'fit' stand a much better chance of succeeding.

2. Our reading period will be open six months a year. Applications open from 1st April until 31st October. Applications received outside of this period will be ceremonially burned to keep us warm in the winter.

3. Our turnaround time is roughly 4-5 months. All applications are catalogued and considered. We do not accept simultaneous submissions. During the consideration period writers are requested to refrain from submitting applications to other social networking sites.

4. During the consideration period, although you will not be able to gain access to lostmyplacebook.com, you are very welcome to browse the front page of our website, where pictures of our existing social network of writers who are all younger, more attractive, cleverer, and more successful than you, will slowly alternate with a picture of Martin Amis pointing his finger at you, with a caption under him that reads, "HA HA!"

4. If you have not heard from us within 4-5 months of your submission, you may assume that your application was unsuccessful. We are unable to give feedback upon any unsuccessful applications. In general reasons for rejection would come under one of the following categories:
i. There were typos / spelling mistakes in your application.
ii. We looked you up on facebook and decided we didn't like the look of you.
iii. We have enough of 'your sort' on our site already.
iv. A dead spider fell out of the envelope when we opened it.
v. There was just something indefinable about you that we didn't like.

5. Should your application to lostmyplacebook.com be rejected, we would urge you not to become discouraged. There are plenty of other social networking sites available, and it may be that you can find a place on one of those. Rejection from lostmyplacebook.com is not necessarily a comment on the value of you as a person or your work. We would like to thank you for thinking of us and wish you all the best with your social networking in the future.

A True Story From My Life.

"Clumsy," you might think; "That's hardly anything." There you go, with your graceful hands, and your easy ways. It's no stretch for you to carry things from one surface to another. Easy for you to say, you who have never broken an ironing board with a breadknife.

For the clumsy, every task becomes torturous. A quick sandwich can become a lettuce-themed ordeal lasting twenty minutes or longer. Allow me to illustrate.

Recipe for sandwich: a normal person

Make sandwich.
Eat sandwich.
Put plate in sink.

Recipe for sandwich: a clumsy person

Begin sandwich. Drop lid from peanut butter jar under counter. Pick up lid. Lid has cat hair all around rim. Go to rinse lid in kitchen sink. Knock over glass standing on side of sink. Be too slow to catch glass before it breaks on the tiles.

Shoo cat away from broken glass. Do not allow cat to meow for treat. Shut cat in other room. Find dustpan and brush.

Drop dustpan and brush on kitchen floor. Cut fingers on cut glass breaking up dustpan and brush. Swear somewhat.

Drip blood on newly clean clothes. Use kitchen sink cloth, which stinks, to dab uselessly at the blood on clothes. Find plaster in bottom kitchen drawer. Put plaster on finger. Clean up broken glass. Finish rinsing peanut-butter jar lid.

Make sandwich. Lift sandwich to mouth. Miss mouth. Drop sandwich. Be too slow to catch sandwich from falling face-down onto floor and shoes. Clean peanut butter off shoes with stinking cloth from sink. Clean peanut butter off floor with mop. Rinse mop and cloth in sink. Weep for lost sandwich.

Begin sandwich. Use only margarine as last bit of peanut butter went into the lost sandwich. Stand very carefully close to kitchen worktop, allowing nothing to come between you and plate. Hold bread very carefully between fingers.

Make sandwich. Eat sandwich. Put plate in sink.

Currently reading

We need to talk about KevinLionel Shriver
Shipwrecked Mishka Kubaly

How Do? Magazine

This month, Bradford's cultural carrier pigeon How Do? magazine features guest artwork by your very favourite letterpress slow-coach grassroots cultural activists and mutterers, The Print Project. Those of you who don't live near enough Bratfud to get a copy can look at How Do online here.

I'm hoping to get back to blogging regularly soon, once things calm down a bit. For the time being it's impossible, but that's likely to change once summer is upon us.

And oh, in case you hear of one, I would be very glad of an all-expenses covered writing residency or fellowship in Cuba. Smashing away at the typewriter by day, rum and dancing by night. You know the sort of thing. A girl's got to have a dream...

Currently reading

We need to talk about Kevin Lionel Shriver
Back in the world Tobias Wolff

Where to buy Cutaway Magazine

(image from Cutaway Magazine blog)

On Thursday, it was a real pleasure to come home from a busy seven hours at the day job to find the first issue of Cutaway Magazine on the doorstep. Aiming to "blur the boundaries between literary and genre fiction", the magazine publishes work by writers and poets who write "the slightly weird but well written". There aren't many British magazines publishing high-quality work that treads the narrow line between genre and speculative fiction. Editors Dave Schofield and Craig Pay have identified a much-maligned gap there, and I take my hat off to them.

The first issue contains one of my stories, I Want You Around, as well as work by Claire Massey and Max Dunbar.

Cutaway magazine is available through Lulu here and, should you wish to order it through a book shop, the ISBN is 9781471647758.