Fictions of Every Kind: Cuts

Michael Stewart reads from his novel, King Crow, at Fictions of Every Kind; Cuts

People in the DIY community, people who put on shows, often speak of the 'nervous hour'. It's the time of night between you setting everything up for your night, and people showing up to pay in on the door. It's an awful time of night, and my 'nervous hour' normally lasts from about 3pm in the afternoon til about 9 at night....

Enough about that, though. Let's have a post-mortem of last night's Fictions of Every Kind.

It was a marvellous night. Bloody marvellous. Michael Stewart read from his new novel King Crow, and he was followed by Noah Brown, who read a specially-written piece, perhaps best described as a gory revenge fantasy against the bankers. Each set was different and unique, and they made great guest speakers. We were very lucky to have them.


Noah Brown reads his specially-written piece about the 'big society'.

At the end of the night, we were treated to some absolutely marvellous and very danceable klezmer from the superb Maquipacuna. Here's a picture of them klezmer-ing it up.

"That's not my sweater!" "IT'S BROWN!!"

Over the last few weeks, brain and body having largely been occupied in trying to fit 28 hours' worth of 'stuff' into 24 hours' worth of day, there hasn't been much time for left over for reading or writing. If only I could waste less time sleeping, perhaps I could get a bit more done.

Since watching television is one of the things you can do whilst doing other things e.g. knitting, sorting and setting type, taunting the cat, I have recently been re-watching Seinfeld. For me, watching really well-written television is a good substitute for being able to actually read. Also, I am fed up of freeview, because it's only ever repeats of Come Dine With Me and I have now seen them all. All of them.

No post on Seinfeld could possibly be complete without tribute to the very marvellous Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays Elaine. This clip, in the episode The Busboy, had me laughing so hard my insides nearly fell out. I hope you enjoy it too.

I can't embed it because of stupid youtube, so follow the link here to watch it.

Currently re-watching

30 Rock seasons 1 & 2 while I wait for season 4 to arrive in the mail
Seinfeld seasons 1-9
Mad Men season 1
House season 1
Arrested Development season 2

It's not the winning that etc

Apparently it's competition season, or something. There are currently three big, reputable competitions that I know of open; get to work, because it's anybody's game. And when I say, 'anybody's game', what I mean is, 'anybody who's a really good writer'. Don't go scribbling teenage angst poetry on the back of a fag packet and send it in, because it won't win. Don't blame me, I'm only trying to save you a bit of hassle.

The Bridport Prize, which describes itself as "the richest OPEN prize", is being judged by AL Kennedy and has categories in short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. It closes on 30th June at midnight so get to work. No, June is not "ages away". It's a strong competition, so you might like to spend day and night obsessively writing and rewriting your work between now and then.

The Manchester Fiction Prize is also now open, under the direction of poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. This is an extremely serious and literary competition so you will want to be serious and literary too. Again, the rewriting. It closes on Friday 11th August. So that gives you an extra five weeks over and above the Bridport Prize to spend day and night obsessively writing and rewriting your work.

Lightship Publishing is running a first chapter competition. The prize is bloody brilliant (a year's mentoring from Tibor Fischer, Simon Trewin of United Agents, and Alessandro Gallenzi of Alma Books). Lightship's patrons include Hilary Mantel and Sir Andrew Motion, oh my days, so get to work. The closing date is June 30th, please insert your own joke about writing and rewriting because I've used all mine up.

Currently reading

They Knew Mr Knight Dorothy Whipple
A Mercy Toni Morrison
Man In The Dark Paul Auster

Fictions of Every Kind: Cuts

There's not much to look forward to at the moment, is there? Times are hard and getting harder; every day seems to bring more bad news. Thousands of public sector workers are to lose their jobs, public services like libraries and leisure services are being mercilessly culled in an ideologically-driven scythe-happy free-for-all, and charities, voluntary sector organisations and arts organisations are losing their funding right, left, and centre. The coalition government has acted swiftly in cutting benefits and services to those who need them the most, and in devolving government responsibility from running schools onto the schools' shoulders themselves. The things they're doing are unfair and are going to take years to put right, and if ever you were going to pick a time to emigrate... it could be now.

March's Fiction of Every Kinds has the theme 'Cuts'. Writers and readers can choose to respond to the theme however they like; perhaps you prefer to think about physical cuts, or emotional cuts; perhaps you prefer to think about the act of cutting, whether that relates to hair, or bodies, or trees. Or perhaps you prefer not to stick to the theme at all (many don't.) You will not be thrown out if you don't.

At this month's FOEK we are very privileged to have readings from invited speakers Noah Brown, previously MC of Yes Boss!, and Bradford-based author and screenwriter Michael Stewart. Stewart is a multi-award winning author whose novel, King Crow, has recently come out on Bluemoose Books. He is senior lecturer of creative writing at Huddersfield University, and is director of the Huddersfield Literature Festival. We are very pleased to have him appearing.

Fictions of Every Kind: Cuts is on Tuesday March 22nd at The Library Pub on Woodhouse Lane, Leeds. It costs £3 to get in, and as ever, letterpressed "Words of Encouragement" cards (see illustration, above) are available as gifts for writers who brave the open mic. The night starts with the open mic at 19.30. See you there!

Letterpress errors [ " Letterprerrors " ]

Regular readers of my blog might know that I've been learning to Letterpress over the past few months. Letterpress printing is an old technique which involves setting lines of metal type, putting them in a printing press, and then imprinting and inking the whole shebang onto paper. It produces beautiful results quite unlike any other - the metal type often leaves a slight imprint into the paper, so that you can 'feel' the text with your hands. It's a lengthy and laborious process that used to form the mainstay of printing, but with the advent of computers, has fallen into disuse. These days it is mainly used by enthusiasts and diehards, and wordy nerds like me.

Currently I'm in the process of setting and printing a short story I wrote last year entitled 'A Stranger Came'. Letterpress seemed to be the ideal way to present this story - I'm doing a short run of about 90, which I will then bind myself once all the pages are printed. I expect the books to be finished some time in early May.

It's been an interesting few months, and I've learned loads. Here, in this blog post, I'm going to post a few of the mistakes I've made while printing, so that you can avoid making the same mistakes yourself - if you're going to try and operate a printing press, that is.

This is what happens when your lovely, expensive paper falls off the press and into the rollers.



And this is what happens when skin from the ink gets onto your typeset.



This is what happens when you don't line the paper up properly....



...and this is what it looks like when you do it right.



Currently reading

A Mercy Toni Morrison
The Hell of it All Charlie Brooker
Travels in the Scriptorium Paul Auster

Being a writer sucks!

Whether you're an impoverished student driven by art and creativity, or a bestselling writer with a series of successful film adaptations living in a mansion in California, writing sucks. It sucks in a myriad of ways that never go away, regardless of how successful you are, or how many times you've been on the Richard & Judy book club. The hours are long, the pay and conditions are terrible, and your boss keeps muttering words of discouragement to you under his or her breath. If there were a union, we'd all be on the phone to it right now.

Last winter, I was complaining about the need to wear fingerless gloves to work. People who do normal jobs (hello Librarians, hello office workers) get to work in lovely warm offices. The heating is always on; not for them the indignity of working in a room where ice drips from the ceiling, nor the need to drink endless cups of tea to keep hands and fingers warm enough to stay mobile. Only the writer, working as romantic tradition has decreed she must, works in an upstairs garrett room with icicles forming on the end of her nose, and the wind whistling through her hair. Readers, for the writer, a harsh winter can be hell.

But I've discovered something worse than writing in winter, and do you know what it is? Yes, that's right: writing in summer.

Writing in summer is the grown-up equivalent of taking a GCSE on a balmy summer's day. As you sit at your desk, worry crowding your head and your pens lined up neatly on the wood before you, you gaze longingly out of the sports' hall window at the golden fields of wheat bending in the breeze, reflecting hot yellow in the sunlight. Children, playing joyously with hula hoops and paddling pools, taunt you with their carefree enjoyment of the beautiful day. And where are you? Indoors, trying to write a bloody novel.

Only a lunatic would attempt writing outdoors. There are wasps out there. And you can't see, anyway; no matter where you sit, the sun is going to bounce off your laptop screen and BLIND YOU. And in any case, most writers, unfortunate owners of that occupational writing hazard the bad back, can't write without a desk. All those hours hunched over scribbling in notebooks or on napkins balanced on their knees have done for their back and shoulders. You cannot take your desk outside. It makes you look mad.

And yet we still all do it, and why? When we have a sneaking suspicion that nobody will ever love us, and when we worry that our books will end up crowding out the shelves of the local charity shops like so much Da Vinci Code? We do it because even though being a writer sucks and YOU, yes YOU will never be as rich or as successful as Dan Brown or Doris Lessing or even Julie Otsuka, we're compelled. We love it and we're driven and we can't stop ourselves.

Now stop looking longingly out of that window and get on with it.

This week, I have:

Finished planning for FICTIONS OF EVERY KIND: CUTS
Begun my first rewrites of a new draft
Worked on preparing a first chapter for a first chapter competition
Knitted a bit of a cardigan.

Save our Libraries day!

Today, Saturday 5th February, was Save Libraries Day. And what a day it's been. All across the country, book-worms have been staging read-ins and protests at their nearest libraries.

Libraries are brilliant. Free, informative, and truly egalitarian, they provide an oasis of calm for the harassed city-dweller, and knowledge and information for the eternal students among us. A librarian friend told me about the range of services that are offered at her library: reading groups for people with learning disabilities, weight watchers groups, advice for job-seekers, internet access, writer's and gardener's groups, yoga - yes, yoga - and of course, the mainstay of the modern library - internet access, and inter-library loans.

Because they are generally frequented by bookish, unassuming types, it's easy to forget how important libraries are. And for councils looking to make savings, they can become an easy target for spending cuts. But sometimes our councils underestimate just how much people value their libraries.

This afternoon, a crowd of protestors gathered amongst the stacks in Leeds Library. Those who didn't have library cards gathered together the two necessary forms of ID to get one; and those of us who did, spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing the shelves, and then bringing our finds back to the floor for a good read. Protestors had their noses in books of all kinds. All over the floor lay novels by Solzhenitsyn, Plath, Carter, Auster, and Dostoevsky; and everywhere climbed piles of reference books covering subjects as diverse as knitting, psycho-geography, radical politics, and experimental physics. In our quest to stamp out our full allowances of books, no stone went unturned, and no corner of the library unplundered .... not even the Mills & Boon section at the back.

For a couple of hours, the library floor resonated with the sounds of laughter and pages turning. It was heartwarming to see that there are so many who care so passionately about library services that they will spend literally hours on a Saturday afternoon sitting on a cold floor, staging a sit-in.

I will leave you with a photo of Jess of The Travelling Suitcase library. Amongst the Stephen Kings and M Knight Shymalans, she found a real horror story.