Books n blogs

So the bulk of Manchester Literature Festival is over, bar a couple of "bookend" events (Anthony Horowitz on Thursday; Jeffrey Eugenides on Sunday), and I'm just doing the last bit of mopping up as this year's digital marketing person. It's been really great, experience and fun wise, and I've been kept massively busy running the Twitter and Facebook accounts, writing e-newsletters and articles for the likes of Manchester Lit List and Creative Times, and editing the official Manchester Literature Festival Blog.

This in particular has been fab and has seen me introducing some new features in the run-up to the Festival to whet people's whistles: a redesign; "Writes & Reads" Q&As with some of the writers taking part during festival fortnight; "My Festival" top five picks with authors from in and around Manchester; a series showcasing the various themes running through the festival, and a number of jointly blogged events, which was also a first. I've also been to loads of events and blogged a few myself. Here are some of the reviews and previews I wrote this year:

Patricia Duncker
Manchester Fiction Prize
MLF VIP launch
Theme #4: Literary Tours
Theme #3: Family Fun
Theme #1: Modern European

Writing - and reading

My new story, part of my new project I've been Twittering on about, has today been published on 330 Words, which is up for a gong in tonight's glittering Manchester Blog Awards. I will take to the stage and read it, so do pop by. I'll tell you more about the project here soon. In the meantime, feel free to check out the website, Site Specific Stories. You can read the story, Solid Foundations Are Of Paramount Importance here.

Write here write now

Uh-huh, I know what you're thinking: she's neglecting her duties again. Well, in my defence, I've been busy sorting out blogs for other lovely folk, namely, this week, Manchester Literature Festival, Tweed Ride and Cracking Good Food.

I've also been tinkering away at another ton of short stories, and today the 200-word piece about spies, stationery and sex, Names Have Been Changed, was published in issue 6 of the wonderful Spilt Milk Magazine. Tell you what, why don't you have a mosey on over there and read that...

Posts win prizes

In case you haven't heard, nominations are now open for the Manchester Blog Awards 2011, and you might even be in with a chance as this time round previous Best New Blog sash-wearer Words & Fixtures isn't allowed to enter. Could this be because: a) last year she got drunk and stormed the stage Cocker-style after not winning anything; b) the organisers fear that if they let her anywhere near a microphone all kinds of filth is likely to spew forth and fill the innocent minds of the great and the good there gathered; c) she works for Manchester Literature Festival, so it might look a bit weird as they're one of the sponsors?*

This is the sixth year of the awards, which celebrate the best online writing in the city, show what an amazing blogging scene there is here and give us the chance to sneak out from behind our computer screens to drink copious amounts of grog and meet fabulous fellow bloggers.


Visit the Manchester Blog Awards website to nominate your favourite Manchester blogs in the following categories: Best Writing, Best Arts and Culture Blog, Best City or Neighbourhood Blog, Best New Blog and Best Personal Blog. Nominations close at 5pm on Sunday 18 September and the winners will be announced at a glittering awards ceremony during Manchester Literature Festival at 7pm on Wednesday 19 October in the fab upstairs room at The Deaf Institute. As well as the presentation of gongs, there will be readings from the winners of The Real Story creative non-fiction competition (closing date for entries is this Saturday!) and Socrates Adams, who'll be treating the audience to extracts from his fantastic forthcoming debut, Everything’s Fine (proofread by yours truly).

*It's c.

More words please

This morning I was disappointed to learn that my Ask Ben & Clare co-writer Benjamin Judge's latest fledging project We Hate Words had been shelved due to pressures on his time. I was disappointed as I think it's a great site with good ideas offering a sanctuary for writers to vent their anger about rubbish words. I was also disappointed because I had submitted a piece about a word that I hate, and it hadn't yet been published.

It will be published on Wednesday. I have taken possession of the website's log-in details and that for the accompanying Twitter account. I urge you to check out the site and send in wonderful words about not-so-wonderful words. I have changed the submission rules slightly, so you don't have to write as much. I've also introduced a spelling mistake and poor punctuation section, so you can name and shame horrors of the grammar variety. Show and tell. I'm relying on you. Don't let me down...

Lit chick

OK, so you know how I'm constantly apologising for not keeping in touch as much as I'd like because I'm up to my eyes in Very Exciting Writing Projects? Well, I've got a new very exciting writing project I'll be working on over the next few months. I've been asked to do the digital marketing for Manchester Literature Festival, which is a total honour and something I really can't wait to get going with. Squee!

As regular readers will know, MLF runs a blog every year, with reviews and interviews to keep folk up to date with all the goings-on over the frantic fortnight. I'm therefore going to be sniffing out bloggers to contribute words of wisdom, and there's no reason why it can't be you. We're holding a volunteers meeting on Wednesday 13 July at 6pm, in the Becker Room of the City Library on Deansgate. Swing by and say hello and get your name in my little black book. I'm going to wear a posh frock and everything, so you'd be a fool not to come. (However, if you really can't make it down, just get in touch with me or email mcrlitfestblog@gmail.com. Simples.)

Roll up, roll up

Look, I've written a review of Station Stories for Manchester Literature Festival. Having gone on and on and on about it for, like, ever, I thought it was only polite to go along and check it out. Tonight I go along again. It's just as well, because yesterday I was so awestruck by the project not to mention downright nosy and watching folk from various vantage points that a couple of times I somehow forgot to listen. Here, however, are some of the particular lines in the stories when I did pay attention and was duly rewarded...

David Gaffney: "dabbing cream onto her face, like pressing fingers into wet moss".


Jenn Ashworth: "you look like one of them".


Tom Fletcher: "Neuromancer ... 'each rang in turn, but only once, as he passed'".


Peter Wild: "hair like Barbara Stanwyck".


Tom Jenks: "Styrofoam".


Nicholas Royle: "your mam makes me soup now like my mam did".

Nicholas Royle made Guy Garvey cry. Guy Garvey crying. Imagine.


Thanks to Conrad Williams for sharing his ace images. Go and see him at Waterstone's tomorrow from 2pm.

My work is never done

Mum was complaining that I hadn't posted for, like, two whole days, and now it's been even longer. I think, therefore, I'll cheat and do a little round-up of things what I have wrote elsewhere in the last few weeks. (Sorry about that: I've been attending to the "part-time adventuress" bit of my profile; normal blogging service will be resumed shortly.)

First up, short stories... dystopian tale The Luck Department appeared on Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf on 12 March (and may appear in spoken form at tonight's Bad Language shindig at The Castle), while White Rabbits (a slightly abridged version of the original) found its way onto 330 Words a month later.

Next, features... I was commissioned to write about flash fiction for the magnificent Creative Times, and did so in no more than 500 words. It was fun! (Hint: more people should ask me to write features; especially if they want to pay me.) I've also spent the month of April residing as the featured blogger in issue 33 of Blankpages, which has been lovely.

Then, reviews... A review of Gaynor Arnold's short story collection, Lying Together, out on Tindal Street Press, was published by the fabulous Bookmunch, and I have also this weekend filed copy reviewing Salt's new anthology, The Best British Short Stories 2011, edited by Nicholas Royle. Keep your eyes peeled on Bookmunch for that over the next couple of days.

Finally, marketing material... I've been (and remain) busy working on various projects and for various clients, ranging from copywriting flyers and supplying web copy to editing brochures and proofreading posters. I've also been up to my eyes doing quite a bit of press and PR for Chorlton Arts Festival and the Flash Mob Writing Competition and Literary Salon. I'm just a slave to my art...

Rehearsal of fortune

Theatre. Blogging. Just two of the things I like.

And, lo, if Library Theatre Company hasn't only gone and combined the two, offering the good bloggerati of Manchester the chance to go behind the scenes of the first of three site-specific productions the company will stage in the summers of 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Paste 200 words about a recent thespian outing into the comments on the post here (where you'll also find all the details), and you could be one of four writers privy to a rehearsal of Charles Dickens' Hard Times at the company's temporary Zion Centre home in Hulme, with a further invitation to a dress rehearsal in June at the newly renovated Murray's Mills in uber-cool Ancoats. In return, you write about your experiences for the Library blog, yeah?


Murray's Mills, Ancoats, Manchester, 30 x 100cm © Glenn Clarke.

Living the highlight

I am a highlight. A highlight in this month's wonderful online zine Blank Pages. There's its cover below. It reminds my of an album by The The. I don't suppose many of you remember The The. Before your time probably. They were quite good; a bit weird, maybe, but quite good nonetheless.


Anyway, I am very much honoured to have been furnished with this "highlight" entitlement. Huzzah for me! But why?, you ask. Well, I've written a feature in the latest Blank Pages, out today, all about blogging and just how ace being a blogger in the rainy city can be and just how ace one of my fellow bloggers is. She's called Hayley Flynn; you should check out her stuff. Her Skyliner picture set is just getting going, but it promises to make hers a go-to blog. And her misplaced mail stories are fab; they're the letter equivalent of my list collection, which I'm aiming on doing more with soon. And which grew again this morning with "loaf / crumpets / Actimel / 3 meals / veg? / mixed salad / sweets / or fruit and cream". Lovely.

Voluntary sector

Roll up, roll up: a number of very exciting projects and festivals are in need of your assistance and spare time and I know full well y'all have it in abundance, you dirty reprobates you.

Numero uno is Chorlton Arts Festival "one of the largest multi-arts events in the north of England and a showcase for visual and performing artists, with record attendance figures in 2010 of over 25,000 people" - I got that quote off one of my press releases... I am the festival's press officer, but I need help (and not just in my usual idiotic issues way)! If you want to give me a hand writing and disseminating press releases, talking to journos, and generally promoting the event in the run-up to and during festival week (Thursday 19 May to Monday 30 May), please send me good vibes and smoke signals, uppers and cake! A phone number and email address would be pretty useful too, so I can get in touch with you.

Also starting on 19 May, and running to 21 May, is Station Stories, the literary brainchild of my author pal David Gaffney. Set in Piccadilly Station, the Arts Council-funded craziness will feature a number of local writers - Jenn Ashworth, Tom Fletcher, Nick Royle, Peter "Bookmunch" Wild and poet Tom Jenks - telling tales at noon, 3pm and 7pm on each of the three days. Project manager Diana Hamilton is looking for volunteers to help out 11am to 8.30/9pm on the performance days - runners, guides, techies, meeter-greeters... Email diana@thehamiltonproject.co.uk or call 01625 265055.

Station Stories is in association with the wonderful Manchester Literature Festival, which is also looking for help with this year's shindig, taking place 13 to 23 October. Volunteers are needed so events run smoothly (so, again, meet'n'greet, info, guestlist etc) and the festival is also looking to sign up bloggers to help promote the various activities on its dedicated blog. I've done it for the past two years, and it's a great way to meet folk, see some stuff for nowt, and get your name bandied about. Anyhoooo, if you fancy signing up, there's now an online form. Questions and queries, direct to the lovely Jon Atkin via admin@manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk.

Last but by no means least is the gigantic Manchester International Festival, the grand unveiling of which I was very kindly invited to recently. Volunteers help the whole glittering shebang go round, so get yourself over to the website and stick your bloody name down. MIF runs 30 June-17 July. Worries and concerns, speak to Caroline via volunteering@mif.co.uk or 0161 238 7319.

Flash of inspiration

Lately I've been concerned about shirking my duties and not paying you the attention you so rightly deserve. I've been plying you with excuses that I'm not really ignoring you, but rather chipping away at some beautiful creations that have to remain a secret until I'm ready to reveal them in all their glory. And when that day comes you will be amazed! Wowed! Delighted! Overwhelmed!

That day is finally upon us.

That day is the launch of Flash Mob, a writing competition and literary salon that myself and fellow founders of the so-called #beatoff generation Benjamin Judge, Fat Roland, Tom Mason and David Hartley have been busily giving up our free time to shape and hone for your delight and delectation.


The competition is now open, and all the details of how to enter and who the devil those handsome judges are can be found on our funky little website here. You can follow us on Twitter @FMWComp here.

It all takes place as part of this year's Chorlton Arts Festival, and will be the first-ever flash fiction contest in the ten-year history of the multi-arts showcase. We're looking for the best 500-words-or-less story, which we'll be celebrating (along with our own work, naturally) in a glittering event set for Thursday 26 May. Put it in your diary, won't you. It's going to be fabulous, and fun, and maybe I'll buy a new frock for the occasion because that too begins with "f". It also gives me a plausible excuse if I let the blogging slip again, doesn't it. Doesn't it?

PS: Dave's also written about it on his rabbit-obsessed Do A Barrel Roll.

Talent show

OK, folks, the blogging laziness continues. I can only apologise, but I promise that plenty of exciting things are going on behind the scenes and all will be be revealed soon, when you will hopefully forgive me for neglecting you so.


In the meantime, I just wanted to mention that I finally got round to watching New Novelists: 12 Of The Best, A Culture Show Special, which was shown on the tellybox on World Book Night. That being a Saturday, I was of course out painting the town red. Anyway, I saw it last night via the magic of Betamax, and thought it was very interesting. I'm sure you're bothered.

I enjoyed learning about the historical background to the idea of listing the best new writers at a given moment in time, and the controversy that has often entailed. I enjoyed hearing the various views on creative writing courses, and how most of the novels that were finally chosen as the golden dozen had a similar narrative structure, which the panel (led by John Mullan, who writes about the process in The Guardian here) put down to studying "the art" at college. (Whether that's a good or a bad thing, make your own mind up: I ain't here to judge, honey.) I enjoyed being made aware of 11 new books and 11 new writers, and seeing the 12th, local lass Jenn Ashworth, make her screen debut. More from Jenn here, and more on her soon on this very blog.

Abra-cadaver

Crivens, it's busy in my life right about now. Me and the #beatoff boys (just call me Nancy Drew, yeah?) are up to our eyes holding crisis talks and frantically emailing about names and logos and dates and photo-shoots and plenty more exciting things, details of which will be revealed next week, if you play your cards right (and we finally come to a decision on stuff). I've also been attending meetings about blogging and talking about blogging and writing about blogging, and you know what? I just haven't had time to do any blogging.


So I'm going to make it easy on myself here. I'm going to temporarily direct you to another blog, for an exquisite corpse is underway and, if you have been listening closely, you'll know that I am rather partial to an exquisite corpse. The game is afoot at The Endist, blog of the delightful Didsbury-based author Tom Fletcher. In exchange for contributing to the consequences, a glittering prize could be yours: a copy of Tom's new chapbook, The Field (a great story), out on the equally lovely Nicholas Royle's Nightjar.

These two, plus other fabulous local writers Jenn Ashworth, David Gaffney, Peter Wild and Tom Jenks, are currently paving the way for Station Stories, taking place 19-21 May in conjunction with Manchester Literature Festival. More on that soon, promise.

Fame and fortune

This last fortnight or so has been nothing if not exciting. Many extraordinary and unusual happenings have been explored; many interesting people and places have been experienced. So to speak.

Anyway, one of the truly amazing heady highpoints was opening the new issue of Blankpages, which hit the interwebs on Tuesday (and which you can download here), to find this very blog featured in the Blankpicks section, written this month by 330 Words editor, #beatoff collaborateur and my friend Tom Mason. I had known that Words & Fixtures was going to be mentioned, and that the blogging baton would be passed on to me to give my choice in issue 33. What I didn't know was quite how many lovely adjectives and descriptions Tom was going to employ!

Surely nothing, ever, could beat: "She’s a bit like the local Lauren Laverne of literature". Goodness me. Perhaps my work here is done.

A moment of fiction #11

Ahoy there, writing and reading chums. Here's the latest update of reading and writing stuff around and about the merry town of Manchester.

Firstly upcoming events...

It's been promised for a while, and I finally have confirmation that UNSUNG will be holding the launch event for issue 6 on Monday 14 March at 8pm in the Thirsty Scholar. It's two quid on the door, you get a copy of the mag and there are more details on Facebook here.

If your stomping ground is south of the city, there's a new 10-week creative writing course (with an accredited teacher, no less) starting up soon at trendy-old-record-shop-cum-cafe ON THE CORNER on Beech Road in Chorlton. Sessions cost £6 each and take place 6-8pm from Thursday 24 March. Booking is advised: call 0161 881 4841 or drop in to On The Corner (formally Kiss My Feet) to book.

Next up, the BLANK MEDIA COLLECTIVE are running In_Tuition, weekly discussions and workshops open to all creative types based in the North West, at the newly opened BlankSpace in town. The second Tuesday of the month (so I'm guessing it starts on Tuesday 8 March), 6.30-8.30pm, is dedicated to literature and creative writing. "Informal and relaxed discussions of technique in poetry, prose, scripts [...] will mix with debate around contemporary and classic stylings from particular authors and publications of interest. The sessions will incorporate a constructive criticism session of original work from participants within the group." Recommended donation is £1.50 and rumour has it tea and cake will be served. Full details are on the website here or in the latest issue of Blank Pages, a copy of which you can download online here.

Now submissions news...

The aforementioned BLANK PAGES are currently looking for submissions. If you are a writer of poetry (up to 60 lines per poem) or short fiction (1,500-2,500 words), send your work to editor@blankmediacollective.org. Any themes are considered; full submission guidelines are here.

Matthew Hull of Blank Pages fame (you may remember him from such Manchester-based publications as Creative Tourist and Bewilderbliss) has yet another new venture feather in his cap, as the editor of IT'S GETTING WORSE. It’s Getting Worse is, and I quote, "a new home for creative cultural commentary". If you’ve got an idea for a feature and you’d like to become a contributor, email editor.itsgettingworse@gmail.com. Benjamin Judge (you may remember him from such fabulous creations as Ask Ben & Clare and Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf) did.

NEW WRITING DUNDEE, an internationally focused anthology, is inviting submissions for its sixth issue (stories 2,000 words max; poems 25 lines max): the deadline is 2 April. All the ins and outs of what you need to send are on the Literary Dundee website here.

Finally, fun things...

YET TO BE BOOKS is an "online group to read and chat about unpublished but finished books", co-run by local lass Sian Cummins, a well-deserved gong-winner in the most recent Oxfam Short Story Competition. If you leave a comment on the Yet To Be Books blog before 10 March, you will a) be privy to some great new writing and b) be in the running to win the US version of Chris Killen's fantastic debut novel, The Bird Room. Read more here.

COMMONWORD have a Best of Blog Competition 2011 on the go for writers living or working in the North of England. The first round runs until 30 June and will be judged by Shamshad Khan (the second round runs 1 July to 31 December 2011), with winnings of £100 first prize, £50 second and £25 third up for grabs. You need to sign up to the Commonword Blog, which is a "blogspace for placing your creative writing and inviting feedback on it", leave at least five useful comments on other writers’ work and, obviously, post some of your own stuff. "Posts can be of short fiction, flash fiction, poetry, autobiography, excerpts from a novel, a traditional blog post – in fact any kind of writing that works on the blog." Check the conditions here.

The collaborateurs

Just now, @MancLibraries directed their not insubstantial 3,502 Twitter followers to their brilliant bookish blog Manchester Lit List and, in particular, a piece about FoldingStory, a "group storytelling game". Only yesterday, Radio 4's Front Row was inviting listeners to add the next part to their Brett Easton Ellis-bred Chain Story, following on from Man Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson. (Send a maximum of 50 words by email to frontrow@bbc.co.uk or via Twitter @BBCFrontRow before 31 January.) Just last month, Tim Burton's Cadavre Exquis took its last collaborative Tweet, and you can now read the full Stain Boy tale here.

This upturn in interest is nothing if not a weird kind of coincidence, as I've recently been extolling the virtues of a good game of Consequences. It's such a fun way to collaborate as a writer as the results can be so imaginary and tangential. I experienced much glee joining in the Tim Burton experiment and contributing a line to Poem 27 as part of the Angels & Anarchy show at Manchester Art Gallery. I also harped on about my love of the Exquisite Corpse back in May in the comments on Art of Fiction, the blog by Adrian Slatcher, who organised a couple of rounds as part of Madlab's (seemingly now defunct) Interesting Monday. Hopefully, I myself will be helping spread the pleasures of the art form further afield some time soon. As they say: watch this space.

Short but sweet

Tomorrow is 21 December, meaning it's the shortest day of the year. Some clever clogs has had the genius idea of setting aside this date for National Short Story Day "for a celebration of all things short but perfectly formed", and there's a proper good event lined up for Manchester. Hurrah! The main website has full details on all the fabulous short story-related events taking place the length and breadth of this snow-filled land, and if you're really modern there's also a Facebook page where you can make friends with Short Story Day. So forget frantic festive shopping, and get down to MadLab on Edge Street in the NQ at 6.30pm instead for some short story action. Who knows - perhaps you'll even be able to pick up some pressies while you're there.
I picked this picture for featuring The Complete Stories & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, with The Pit & The Pendulum, which I remember being read at school. The painting is by Jane Mount from her Ideal Bookshelf project, which I heard about through Katherine Woodfine's Manchester Blog Awards Best New Blog 2008, Follow The Yellow Brick Road. Jane paints people's favourite books as commissions (a lovely idea!), or you can buy a picture "off the shelf" (sorry...). There's lots about the project on her blog here and she sells her wares through the wonderful Etsy here.

Generation #

My fifteen-year-old self would be proud: I am finally part of a scene. It might have been totally made up in a tongue-in-cheek manner after the consumption of a certain amount of alcohol on a loud evening in Common last Friday, but it's still a scene. A literary movement, if you will, which is handy as I have that as a blog label, and it doesn't get used half as much as I'd like. The scene is called the Beatoff Generation, a nod to various previous scenes and a tidy attempt at "blue" humour, and it even has a Twitter hashtag. Plenty has already been written about the scene, and you can read various other #beatoff members go on about it so I don't have to.


There's Fat Roland On Electronica with the snappily entitled "The Beatoff Generation: Our Future Books Shall Bleed From Your Shelves Like A Hardback Elixir Reddened From An Embarrassment Of Grammatical Riches", complete with a whole ton of comments. Then there's "#beatoff - Generation Hashtag" by Sam Bail, editor of B&N Magazine. Adrian Slatcher cottoned onto the excitement, writing "The scene that celebrates itself" on The Art Of Fiction, while Who The Fudge Is Benjamin Judge? gave us "...and then I Made Fridge Magnets". And he did too, and handed them out to the great and the good gathered last night at the launch bash of Bad Language's Scattered Reds anthology, which features one of our very own (Dave "@lonlonranch" Hartley, the brains behind the all-new Screen150 site). Here are the fridge magnets. As @FatRoland said: "Did Kerouac have fridge magnets? No he bloody did not." Well, quite.


So in the spirit of the Beatoff Generation - which is all about writing, reading, collaborating and quaffing - a core number from the group, a critical mass, took part in the open mic slot (after first taking some Dutch courage). All were short short stories; a nod, perhaps, to National Short Story Week. Fat Roland, introduced by lovely Dan Carpenter as "one of the founding members of the Beatoff Generation", was ultra cool and confident in his first-ever short story presentation (the brilliantly leftfield Sandra Sue). Tom Mason (who discusses the evening's proceedings on Audioboo: #beatoff and Bad Language) brought us Lions Not Yet Available, his fabulously inventive tale of umbrella-taming in the Rainy City and his latest offering on the 330 Words writers site he curates. I was announced as "another #beatoff writer" and gave the crowd Glasshouses, a new piece of flash fiction that will shortly be appearing on the revamped relaunched Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf, a collection overseen by magnet-maker extraordinaire and my Ask Ben & Clare colleague Ben (who joined in the drinking, but didn't read because he's stressed and self-loathing about his current novel-writing shenanigans).

Wanna be in our gang? We'll be at Waterstone's Unannounced on Saturday, 6-9pm - join us.

A moment of fiction #8

It's high time for another instalment of A Moment Of Fiction, wouldn't you say? So here's the agenda for this round-up of all things writery: first up, submissions; second, readings; third, publications; fourth, AOB.

Unsung, "Manchester's best free literary magazine" which had its very own festival earlier this year, is accepting submissions for a December edition promising to be "its mightiest". I'm not privy to the deadline as I hadn't heard back off Mr Matthew Byrne at the time of going to print, but I'm guessing it's pretty soon. Send your poems / prose / articles / illustrations to: unsung.manchester@gmail.com. Matthew says, "Launch night is TBC but I assure you there will be beer, a mic, a roof and a toilet", so keep your eye on Facebook for details as they become available.

Bewilderbliss is under new management. Having completed (and hopefully passed) their creative writing MAs, Matt and Jon are off to pastures new, and poet Max Wallis (of Talk To Me About Love and Something Every Day) is now in the hotseat. Issue 5 has been provided with a theme by lovely poet Jo Bell, one of the brains behind the Bugged project. Not surprisingly, she has picked "overheard". You can read more here and here, but basically you have until 15 January to send up to four poems, up to 5,000 words prose or a piece of black and white artwork relating to the theme for the cover and interior design.

Also on a poetic tip, poetry quarterly Magma welcomes submissions, as I found out at their recent "roadshow" as part of the Manchester Literature Festival (see my review on the official MLF Blog for more). The deadline for the next issue - the 50th! - is 28 February and edition editor Clare Pollard has chosen "journeys" as the theme, but off-theme poems will also be considered. Full details here.

A gentle reminder too that Ask Ben & Clare are also looking for contributions (nothing too strenuous; just a questionable conundrum for the great minds to solve), along with Roy Keane's Lucky Scarf.


Next week, meanwhile, there are a couple of events where you can be inspired by the work of others or indeed dabble in a reading and try your stuff out on a live (albeit dead drunk) audience. The Bad Language gang (aka Dan, Nici and Joe: blog; website) are having a launch night for their second anthology, Scattered Reds, next Wednesday (24 November). At newly done-up and beautifully betiled The Castle, it's free, kicks off at 7.30pm, with the first performer up at about 8pm - and there's still chance to read! If you wish to partake in the open mic slot, get an email off to events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk. You'll be in good company; I hear some of my Bad Language literature quiz teammates (see pic above, left to right: Mr Hartley, Ms Power, Mrs Conlon, Mr Judge, Mr Roland) will be stepping up to the oche.

Another open mic event next week is on Saturday (27 November), 6-9pm in the 2nd View Restaurant in Waterstone's Deansgate. I am reliably informed by Jon from MLF that this new monthly event is actually back due to popular demand! The Unannounced Poetry Acoustic is "an evening of songs and poems and stories to perform or just to listen. The first drink of the evening is on us and the entertainment is on you!" Did someone say free drinks? See you there.

Experimental poets If P Then Q are busy plugging The Other Room 21, which has a bit of a do on Wednesday 1 December with readings and that, free from 7pm.

Quick update on zines hitting the shelves... Out now is Pantheon issue 2 (featuring a "Beckett-ish piece" by Lil Dave Hartley and now available in Blackwells on Oxford Road, near t'uni, or via the website); Flux Autumn 2010 edition, which features a short story by Chris Killen called Sorry (it's good, but it has suffered a cut'n'paste error in the first par; I've reedited for your delight and delectation below*); Dan Russell's Things Happen Part Deux, which you can look at on Issuu with hard copies about the place soon; the latest B&N Magazine, edited by award-winning mightaswell blogger Sam Bail, is (I am assuming) available in the next month or so, while number 11 of The Shrieking Violet, the "media special", is out now at Good Grief! - which has just this week relocated to the Soup Kitchen in the NQ. My good friend Andrew tells me they sell alcohol, not just soup, so this, and its beautiful art nouveau adornments, gives me a number of reasons to get my arse in gear and visit some time soon.

If you want to gaze back wistfully over previous incarnations of A Moment of Fiction, I've created a magic little widget on the left hand side of this here blog. Look! A Moment Of Fiction archive! Consider it an early Christmas present. Don't say I don't treat you well.

(*Craig has a dream. In the dream he is dead. He has just died. He is in a room, with things in it. The things in the room are: a desk, a bed, a chair, a coffee table, a sofa, a wardrobe, a cup (with some tea in it, gone cold), a computer, a copied CD of Planet Waves by Bob Dylan, a pair of shorts, a sunlounger, a bottle of Daiquiri, a pair of mirrored sunglasses, a coat, a hat, a pair of tweezers, a sheet of writing paper, the lid of a biro, an empty cassette box, a packet of Walkers crisps (prawn cocktail flavour), a poster of Ben Affleck, an empty ice cream tub, a toy car, a toy boat, a miniature ‘gift book’ style copy of War and Peace (6 pt. font), a 50p coin, a cigarette lighter, a cornflake, a wisp of hair, a blank greetings card (‘Best Wishes!’), a pornographic magazine from the seventies, no windows, no door, and the smell of cats... Read the rest here.)