Around and About for the Next 8 weeks

By the time this blog post goes up I will be in Plymouth for my event tonight at the Central Library as part of the first Plymouth International Book Fest - do come if you are in the area, we kick off at 6.30pm!

I am around and about a lot over the next 8 weeks and I wanted to list all my events here, and if any of you can come to something, it would be great to meet you. But before that, if you're in the vicinity of Bath this Friday, head over to Story Friday from 7pm to hear my friend Sarah Hilary and five other writers read their short stories inspired by The Fall. Wish I could be there but I will be...

Sept 19-22nd: running four flash fiction workshops, Cork International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, and reading from my new collection. Booking now open

Wednesday 26 Sept reading at the launch of the STILL anthology, Foyles, London, Event Facebook page, 6.30pm

Thursday 11 Oct running flash fiction workshop for Writing Events in Bath, at Mr B's bookshop, Bath, 6.30pm-8.30pm. Booking now open

Saturday 13 Oct Interviewing novelist James Long about his long-awaited sequel to Ferney at Unputdownable Bristol Festival of Literature, Waterstones, Bristol Booking now open

Tuesday 16 Oct reading at Ragged Stone, monthly open mic night, Portishead

Saturday 20 Oct Reading alongside Nikesh Shukla, Valerie O’Riordan, Sanjida O’Connell, Miles Chambers & Maria McCann at Unputdownable Bristol Festival of Literature, Left Bank, Bristol. Booking now open

Tuesday 23 Oct guest author, with Kerry Hudson, at Stories Aloud, Oxford

Thursday 25 Oct Doing workshop for creative writing undergrads, Bath Spa University, Bath

Saturday 27 Oct taking part in the Lit Up Write Now! one-day conference, Bournemouth. Booking now open

Monday 29 Oct reading at the Bristol University Staff Creative Writing Club, Bristol.

7 Nov guest at Swansea University creative writing seminar

19-24th Nov Co-tutoring an Arvon Foundation short story course with Adam Marek, and special guest Helen Dunmore, Totleigh Barton

After that...I will be having a rest!

Cork Intl Short Story Festival Workshops

I am really excited about the 4 flash fiction workshops I will be running at this year's Cork International Short Story Festival in Sept in Cork, Ireland. Booking opened today, and what's on offer is, in my opinion, a really exciting range of workshops which, if I wasn't teaching one, I'd go on myself:

Short Stories for Beginners with Nuala Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Advanced Short Story Writing with  Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Writing flash fiction - that's me!
Writing Contemporary Fairy Tales with Kate Bernheimer
Writing Short Stories For Young People with Siobhan  Parkinson and Kevin Healy
Story Onto Stage with Jack Healy
Story into Song with Jack Spillane

Download the workshops brochure or visit the website for more info. This festival is one of the greatest lit fests I have ever been to - a must for all short story lovers, writers, readers, fans of fabulous writing! It's such fun... the full programme - with writers from Canada, the US, the Phillipines and the UK - hasn't been released yet but I'm getting pretty excited about Lydia Davis, who is flying in from the US to do a reading. I'm such a fan of her often very very short stories  - you can read my review of her Collected Stories here. There's a bit of a flash fiction theme going on at the festival this year - there'll be a panel discussion provocatively entitled Is Flash Fiction a true Literary Art Form or just something for chancers? You can imagine how I might vote on that question!

The workshops have limited space so do book soon. If you're coming to flash with me, I look forward to meeting you!

My September

September started as it meant to go on, with a reading at Bristol's Thunderbolt pub on Sept 1st, sharing the bill with musician Richard Burley, as part of the monthly Word of Mouth event run by the inimitable Bertel Martin - thanks Bertel for the fantastic (and perhaps fantastical!) introduction! That was my first event in our new home town, which felt great. No pics of that event, but news to report is that it was divided into two sets, and in the first set I read some pieces from my book. In the interval I realised that I didn't really want to do that any more, after 2 years it's hard to read those stories fresh - fresh for me and for an audience. So in the 2nd half I read newer stories and a few I'd never read out before, and that really gave me an energy boost, showed me that I need to read something different each time I read, take risks, walk that short story writer's tightrope!

Event No 2 was ShedFest, on Sept 11th, in this glorious structure above! Bristol's - and perhaps the UK's - first lit fest in a shed, we all had 5 minutes to read, which for me meant reading 3 flash stories including Drizzling, my shed story, which is fairly unfathomable on paper so who knows how it went down?! Thank you to Mike Manson for a wonderful evening, not just of great writing but of great food and socializing in between.

Then I headed out of the city to Birmingham on September 15th for the "There's Science in My Fiction... and Poetry" open mic night I'd organised at the British Science Festival, with my co-judges, science-loving writers and bloggers Sue Guiney and Brian Clegg. The event was free, no tickets needed, and held at the amazingly-gorgeous Old Joint Stock Pub function room, so we really had no idea who would show up. We had prizes at the ready:

(photo credit: B. Clegg)

and we waited... 

Wonderful to meet Alan Beard and get a copy of his brand-new short story collection, You Don't Have to Say, from Tindal Street Press, being launched this Thursday (more about Alan soon). And then the science-inspired writers flocked in! Well, ok, it was a small and intimate crowd, but that lend itself really well to discussions about using science in different ways, and to great readings. All those who came read poems - from the tale of the first forensic scientist to a quark love story, and poetry explaining the origins of the moon. They were all wonderful, many were magical, such a variety, we were delighted! I was a little sad that there were no other short story writers, so next time we'll get you out of the woodwork! Congrats to our winner, Heather Wastie, and to everyone who came, readers and audience, and my esteemed fellow judges, it was a really fun event!

The White Road and Other Stories in the Frank O'Connor Fest window display in the wonderful Cork Waterstone's, who were so welcoming when I went in and signed a couple.

 The next day I flew to Cork to one of the biggest annual treats for a short story writer: The Frank O'Connor Festival. I had last been here 2 years ago, the week after The White Road and Other Stories was published, so had been in a state of mild hysteria the whole time. It was like short story summer camp that year, I met so many writers who have become great friends, from Alison McLeod and Adam Marek to Wena Poon and Nuala Ní Chonchúir. This year, it was the American contingent, as 5 of the 6 shortlistees for the 35,000 euro Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award were Americans: Belle Boggs, Robin Black, Laura van den Berg, Ron Rash and TC Boyle (who didn't come due to injury), alongside David Constantine from the UK. 

Robin Black and I had been online friends, it was lovely to finally meet her, and to meet Laura van den Berg, whose collection we'd recently reviewed on the Short Review. I read on the Thursday night with Belle Boggs, whose stories I hadn't read and whose writing enchanted me! She read the first half of her story, Jonas, from her collection, Mattaponi Queen. Here we both are, relieved, after the reading.

(Photo: C Hershman)

As well as that event, I took part in a flash fiction reading in downtown Cork in support of Irish support of the arts, and in a panel discussion about the short story and new media, which both excited and terrified me! I have no pictures from the rest of the 4-day extravaganza, but the festival's photographer, the legendary John Minihan, will have done a far better job anyway, will link to those when they're online. Suffice it to say, it was non-stop readings, so many excellent writers, including Karen Russell, author of St Lucy's School for Girls Raised by Wolves, and Nyk de Vries, a writer from Holland whose ultra-short stories and prose poems and ultra-dry delivery just delighted us all. Every night the festivities moved to the local tapas bar where writers and readers mingled, ate and listened to more readings. Read Nuala's blog post about Tess Gallagher and Belle Boggs' blog here.Madeline D'Arcy reading her short story with props was a wonderful experience!

The highlight for me was listening to Nikita Nelin read his story, Eddie, I had chosen from 849 stories as the winner of 2010 Sean O'Faolain short story prize (full list of winners here). His story has a unique rhythm and poetry and I wanted to hear him read it. It brought tears to my eyes again and I heard things I'd never heard before, the mark of a great story. It will be published in Southword shortly, and Nikita wrote about his festival experiences on the Electric Literature blog. And huge congratulations to Ron Rash, winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award! 

Bleary-eyed and exhausted, I flew back to Bristol on Monday (was that just over a week ago? Really?) to rest up for the last few events. Then on Thursday, heavily medicated to decongest, I ran a workshop on research-inspired fiction at Bristol University's Engage conference on public engagement. I was pretty nervous, I'd never done anything like this before, but it was just talking about what I am passionate about so I hoped it would be ok. 13 of us - mostly scientists - discussed examples of fiction which uses science in different ways (see my web page here for examples) and then, after a tea break, we picked prompts from a recent copy of New Scientist and did some writing ourselves. The energy in the room was palpable, a flash-writing session always creates a wonderful buzz, and then most people read out what they'd written, a great variety of short shorts! I will write more about this in a guest blog post I've been asked to write for the Wellcome Collection blog shortly. 


If you're feeling exhausted by all this then perhaps stop here and don't read about how the next morning, sneezing and coughing, I headed off to Lewes, Sussex, to the Small Wonder festival! It's held in Charleston, the glorious house that was home to Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant:

(photo: Axel Hesslenberg)

If you are anywhere near, you must go and visit, it's as if they just stepped out and might be back any minute, a house whose air is filled with creativity and experimentation.

After attending the Small Wonder short story festival for several years as an audience member, I felt incredibly lucky to be invited to do a session on Flash Fiction, with my great friend and writing colleague Vanessa Gebbie. V and I met through flash fiction in 2006 and so it was lovely to be up there on stage with her, talking about what flash fiction is and might be and reading 10 short short stories between us. Here we are in full flow:

(photo: Axel Hesslenberg)

We did a book signing afterwards and then repaired back to the very special Authors' "Green Room", which is the main house's kitchen, for dinner before the Short Story Slam. What a fantastic evening it was, and the whole weekend's events were a continuation of the literary delights from Cork, more talk of short stories and writing, more amazing writers... Here are Adam Marek and David Vann talking about their Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award shortlisted stories:

It was wonderful to see Robin Black, Karen Russell and David Constantine again, as well as so many other familiar faces. Enormous thanks to Small Wonder artistic director Diana Reich and her fantastic team, and to Colin McKenzie, Charleston Trust Director, for a wonderful introduction and summing up, running with my metaphor about flash fiction and very short flights ("the Easyjet of the short story world")!

I'm sure I've missed some people out here, my brain still isn't working properly, apologies if I've made any omissions. I came back home on Sunday night, missing my train in London due to appalling traffic, but even that couldn't diminish my elation at the weekend's events. Yes, I'm still sneezing and coughing, but would I have missed any of it? Most certainly not! Vanessa and I already have another invite to do our Flash Double Act next year, more on that nearer the time... I'm going to eat a load of oranges now and wend my way back to doing some writing, slowly slowly.

Blogging, Lit fests and writing longhand

I am feeling less of a need to blog right now, which is interesting. It seems to be something to do with the fact that more people are reading my blog, so maybe I am feeling a little shy. Also, it probably has to do with feeling unsettled, still, as I talked about on Petina Gappah's blog the other day, and unsure about my words. I am finding myself doing in English what I used to do in Hebrew, which is rehearsing what I am going to say before I say it, for example to the girl at the desk when I went swimming this morning. I found myself practising in my head how to ask her whether I am on the mailing list... but it's English. It's supposed to be my native language. How odd! I guess here it's not the words that are the problem, which was often the case in Hebrew, even after 15 years, but the tone of the request I wanted to make, the cultural framing of the question, how formal to be, how informal and chatty? I need to re-learn all of this. So that's perhaps why I've not been blogging much.

What I have been doing is going to hear people talk about short stories, which is heavenly! Last week I spent two nights in Lancaster with a great writer and friend, Carys Davies, who was chairing a short story session at the Lit Fest with another great writer and friend, Alison MacLeod, author of 15 Modern Tales of Attraction, and Panos Karnezis, whose short story collection, Little Infamies, came out in 2002. First, the room was set up cabaret-style, with tables and chairs rather than the audience in rows, which made for a great atmosphere. Second, each author read a complete story, which is such a treat nowadays, when often even short story writers only read excerpts.

The authors came and chatted to people in the bar afterwards, so there was none of that Us and Them that accompanies some literary festivals where the authors sign, sign, sign books and are then whisked away to a Special Area. Carys and I, and festival director Andy, went for dinner with Alison and Panos afterwards in the brand new restaurant at The Storey, and much lit gossip ensued! The next night, we went to hear novelists Andrew Miller and Sarah Hall read several excerpts from their new books, an entirely different experience, also very stimulating.

During the day in between the two events, Carys took me to Morecambe, which was such a fascinating experience. An English beach resort sounds like a contradiction in terms, and in some ways it is, with an abandoned theme park and some empty arcades filled with video game machines (see some old pictures of how it used to be here).

But it also has considerable charm: the recently renovated Midland Hotel is a wonderful example of Art Deco, and has some Eric Gill works in there. And we sat in a small cafe at the far end of the promenade, a modernist box with a wall of glass giving the most fabulous sea view (plus homemade cupcakes).  

We sat and we both did some writing, by hand. And this brings me to my next topic. I've been pretty stuck recently, not knowing what Big Project I am working on, not really feeling focussed, productive. So, I decided to try something new: writing longhand in a Moleskine notebook (thanks, J!). It's only been a week, but I am really enjoying the change, writing in a cafe with no laptop in front of me to block the view, to form a barrier between me and everyone else. The process is completely different when you can't move words around, cut and paste, check the word count every few minutes. I also like not having all the stories I've ever written - the published and the unpublished and half finished - looming over me. And... of course... no Facebook with its myriad distractions. Yes, yes, I have my theory about how playing online Scrabble as I write distracts my logical brain, but trying it without has its benefits too.

Apparently, one very well-known writer has a large house and she begins writing in longhand in the basement and, over the course of the day, works her way up to the fourth floor where the computer is... And another well-known writer can only write with fresh apples on a wooden table. Ain't it interesting to hear how others do it?

The next day, I took the train to Manchester for part 2 of my literary festivities. I wandered around the city a little, once again looking for the ghost of myself there as a Physics student in the early 1990s, searching for a familiar corner, but the city has changed so much, I couldn't find one. But it is fun! The next day, I had a lovely meeting with three writer friends, Elizabeth Baines, Annie Clarkson (who I had never met) and Mel, and more discussion about how we write, what we write, where we write...and about not writing too! And then off to the Short Weekend at the Manchester Lit Fest.

First, a session after my own heart, the launch of the When It Changed - Science into Fiction anthology from Comma Press which brought together fiction writers and scientists in order to encouraged science-inspired fiction. (Yes, I would have loved to have been in it.. but I need no encouragement to get hold of some science, so it was great to see others who'd never tried it.) There was an extremely articulate astrophysicist who made me want to head off to an observatory, and another writer friend, Adam Marek, read the tantalising beginning of his nanoscience-inspired story. Let's hope this is the start of many more science-into-fiction collaborations.

I stayed for the whole afternoon to hear a video interview with Gazan writer Atef Abu Saif (who hadn't been allowed out of Gaza to attend, sadly) talking about fiction not being political and about the need to write, and readings by fabulous Irish author Bernard MacLaverty and Iraqi writer Hassan Blasim, who had finally been allowed into England to attend, and who read a story in Arabic, with the translation projected behind him. (I was thrilled to be able to sort of follow the Arabic...!) His short stories have an element of surrealism to them and I really look forward to reading his collection, The Madman of Freedom Square, also from Comma Press.

And then, to finish off my day, a reading by Chris Beckett, whose award-winning collection The Turing Test had opened my eyes to the possibilites of science fiction (thank you Roy!). Of course, after dashing off to catch my train, missing James Lasdun's reading, the train was delayed and I nearly missed the last connection from Birmingham to Bristol. But in the end, all worked out well.

So, back now with a week before I am off to Ireland to see if my screenplay, adapted from my story North Cold, has triumphed in the Waterford Film Festival's short screenplay competition for which is is shortlisted. Nice to be home.