If Shakespeare…

A wealth of nervous talent sat sipping the beverage of their choice whilst awaiting their turn to step up to the microphone at the Verulam Writers’ Circles first ‘Open Mic’ night.

Around thirty writers and published authors were there to share their current, new or emerging works. A beautiful blend of poetry and prose entwined to create an evening of laughter, tension and depth. Members from the Tring and Leighton Buzzard writing circles came along to share their work. Not to forget those who’d seen the advertisements locally and dropped in to join the fun.

Just a look around the faces of those listening was proof enough of the power of manuscripts read. The audience were regaled with laughter one moment only to be dragged to a dark place by the next reader. An excellently balanced evening all kept in order by the wonderful Brian Higgins who gave his time free to compere the evening.

The poets took us on a journey from intricately woven words, to the cheeky and rude and on through the thought provoking and heartfelt beauty of others. These were interspersed with prose in various genres.

Children’s authors took us from fairy trouble making us laugh out loud to the darkness of being buried alive within a coffin; even the air around the room dropped a degree. The shades of light and dark continued throughout the evening which never became boring. The material for the adult market was peppered with the political, religious (or not), risqué, historical, radio scripts or documentary stories and on to the slightly sinister. These were all shared by knee shaking readers and responsive audience.

But none of this could have been achieved without the excellent organisational skills of Ian Cundell and a very supportive Jes Guy. And of course without the kindness and support from the Goat Inn on Sopwell Lane.

This has to be repeated again. It can’t be a one off.

Think you know a bit about writing? Want to know if you have what it takes to be successful author?

Then take this twenty question, tongue-in-cheek creative writing quiz to find out if you’re bottom of the slushpile or topshelf in Waterstones!

Creative Writing Quiz

Millionth word?

Interesting essay on the impact of the Internet on discourse and, especially, written discourse.

That it has a “Warning: long” flag at the top speaks volumes.

JG Ballard has died at 78, apparently after a long illness. Survivor of Japanese internment camps – inspiring Empire of the Sun but surely shaping much of his work – Ballard was one of relatively few SF authors to ‘break out’ of the genre, quite simply because he was no hack. His 1968 short work Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan saw something of what was coming. Ballard said:

In his commercials Reagan used the smooth, teleprompter-perfect tones of the TV auto-salesman to project a political message that was absolutely the reverse of bland and reassuring. A complete discontinuity existed between Reagan’s manner and body language, on the one hand, and his scarily simplistic far-right message on the other. Above all, it struck me that Reagan was the first politician to exploit the fact that his TV audience would not be listening too closely, if at all, to what he was saying, and indeed might well assume from his manner and presentation that he was saying the exact opposite of the words actually emerging from his mouth (1)

The ability to be half a step ahead of everyone else is a handy trait in dystopian writer, don’t you think?

Bleak House in Broadstairs, where Dickens wrote David Copperfield is for sale.

Yours for around £2m

To the intimate Drill Hall Theatre off Tottenham Court Road on Friday April 3 to see Miles Barden (left) and Joshua Dickinson (right) perform What Stirs the Spring. This was an evening of mystery and fear with half of the program penned by the VWC’s own Jonathan Pinnock and Oscar Windsor-Smith (centre).

The frighteners began with a superb rendition by Miles of The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs. Seated as for a fireside conversation, he drew the audience in to this well-known tale and held our attention to the chilling climax. For the second tale of horror, Timelock by Oscar Windsor-Smith, Josh donned a monkish cloak and cowl to recount his meeting with a mystic whose suppurating face and body provided a queasy ending to Part I of the program.

Part II saw Miles and Josh together on stage with the very creepy After Michaelangelo by Jonathan Pinnock. Miles once more held us spellbound as he paced the stage in front of one of Ernest Packham’s human works of art (a very still Josh!) and revealed his old student friend’s shocking actions before turning the tables on the madman.

Josh performed the final piece The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. He began as a confident murderer who taunts the police, but his dramatic descent into madness towards the end of the story with his whole body shaking was truly unnerving.

Miles and Josh are to be congratulated on their excellent interpretations of four finely written stories.

What Stirs the Spring follows the very successful A Winter’s Chill series of performances over Christmas (See Oscar-Windsor-Smith’s review of December 30th on this blog).

The next performance will be at 7:30 pm on Monday 13 April, 2009 at the Old Red Lion Theatre Pub (418, St. John St., Islington, EC1V 4NJ. Tel: 0207 8377816) Tickets available on the door (£8/6).

Our good friend Imran Ahmad has turned being made redundant into something truly positive. As he tells the BBC, this engaging and humane muslim, is taking a message of peace to the USA. 

I have always wanted to drive around the US, but had imagined this would be something I would do nearing retirement – otherwise, how would I have the time? To be doing it now with purpose is even better.

Top man.

OK, I normally don’t do this sort of thing (or at least, if I do, I do it on my own blog), but Ian insisted.

In the modern publishing world, it’s all about platforms, networking and the creative use of a broad range of vertical media for horizontal self-promotion. Actually, it’s always been that way, but it’s only relatively recently that the numpties in marketing came up with the jargon to match. (I may have made some of the jargon up, but then again I may not have.)

In the light of all this, I was very chuffed to be given the opportunity recently to do my first-ever interview as a writer. And I was even more chuffed when there was a serendipitous follow-up to this, although the fact that most of the remaining copies of this month’s Litro will probably have vanished by the time I next get into London has taken a little of the shine off it. But then again, they do apparently print 100000 of them.

Did I really say 100000? Well, if 0.1% of them read The Birdman of Farringdon Road and like it, I’ll be dead chuffed.

Nothing changes?

http://harlanellison.com/heboard/visitors/startrekpressrelease.html

What a fighter. And what a way with words.

scar