As the publisher, Emma says, 'Aren’t mildly erotic things the most erotic of all?'. To find out for yourself, grab a copy for yourself or to get a first taste of the book come along to the launch event here:
Tuesday, 30 July 2013
Saucy poetry makes for titillating reading...
The Emma Press Mildly Erotic Review is due to come out soon...cue much fluttering of fans and raising of eyebrows.
As the publisher, Emma says, 'Aren’t mildly erotic things the most erotic of all?'. To find out for yourself, grab a copy for yourself or to get a first taste of the book come along to the launch event here:
As the publisher, Emma says, 'Aren’t mildly erotic things the most erotic of all?'. To find out for yourself, grab a copy for yourself or to get a first taste of the book come along to the launch event here:
Monday, 11 March 2013
Scarlet Starlings playing at Softly Softly on March 31
This fab event combines music and a little bit of spoken word, for a great afternoon of mellow entertainment. The bands are totally unplugged (hence the name of the event). It's a wonderful way to rid yourself of the Sunday afternoon blues!
For more info go to: www.reverbnation.com/scarletstarlings
or 'like' the event page on FB here.
Or check out the information on reverbnation.
Thursday, 14 February 2013
Valentine's day roundup: best pics of the day
Hope everyone out there has a love bird they can tweet really well! (sorry).
I know which one I prefer...
Here's hoping we all inspire a few impure thoughts...
Just an idea, for the brave lovers amongst us.
A little too cute?
Something more macabre:
Lovers of Valdaro
The so-called Lovers of Valdaro, also dubbed as the "Valdaro Lovers," are a pair of human skeletons discovered by archaeologists at a Neolithic tomb in S.Giorgio near Mantova, Italy, in 2007. The two skeletons appear to have died or were interred facing each other with arms around each other, thus reminiscent of a "lovers' embrace".
Archaeologist Elena Maria Menotti led the excavation. Scientists believe that the pair is a man and woman no older than 20 years old and approximately 5'2" in height. They were removed from the ground intact and sent to Musei Civici in Como where they are undergoing analysis.
The so-called Lovers of Valdaro, also dubbed as the "Valdaro Lovers," are a pair of human skeletons discovered by archaeologists at a Neolithic tomb in S.Giorgio near Mantova, Italy, in 2007. The two skeletons appear to have died or were interred facing each other with arms around each other, thus reminiscent of a "lovers' embrace".
Archaeologist Elena Maria Menotti led the excavation. Scientists believe that the pair is a man and woman no older than 20 years old and approximately 5'2" in height. They were removed from the ground intact and sent to Musei Civici in Como where they are undergoing analysis.
Movie love could be never-ending literally... for this blog so I've confined myself to one of my favourites:
From the marvellous Goblin Market.
Have a great Valentine's Day...
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Sharon Olds winner - T S Elliot Awards
I was lucky enough to get a chance to attend the T S Elliott award readings on Sunday, and the award ceremony on Monday evening.
The readings were wonderful, with a crowd of 2000 people filling the Royal Festival Hall. The finalists: Gillian Clarke, Sean Borodale, Julia Copus, Jorie Graham, Simon Armitage, Kathleen Jamie, Jacob Polley, Derryn Rees-Jones, Paul Farley and Sharon Olds, gave wonderful performances. With host Ian McMillan striking the perfect balance between humour and poignancy, each reading was of a standard that made it difficult to imagine how hard the task of judging the award must have been.
"I wore this shirt last year, but these are new trousers... so like me, these poets are bringing together the old and the new..." said Ian McMillan (paraphrased somewhat).
For myself I enjoyed the visceral quality of Sean Borodale's Bee Journal reading, describing a bee queen's eyes as 'castanets' and then immediately as like 'casting nets'. His work was invigorating and complex, its microscopic eye for detail not ignoring the opportunity for bigger truths to creep in.
Gillian Clarke's reading was likewise riveting, and Jacob Polley's work was new to me, so was particularly inspiring.
Sharon Olds' book Stag's Leap, from Cape Poetry, had a heartbreaking emotional intensity and a wry, reflective thrust to it which left me thinking about certain lines for day's afterwards.
It was not surprising, therefore, that she took the prize the following night at the Wallace Collection in W1.
Here are a few blurry pictures which nevertheless capture something of the golden-ness of the evening.
Carol Ann Duffy (judge)
(From left) George Szirtes, Deryn Rhys-Jones, Julia Copus, Gillian Clarke
Gillian Clarke
Sharon Olds accepting the award
The readings were wonderful, with a crowd of 2000 people filling the Royal Festival Hall. The finalists: Gillian Clarke, Sean Borodale, Julia Copus, Jorie Graham, Simon Armitage, Kathleen Jamie, Jacob Polley, Derryn Rees-Jones, Paul Farley and Sharon Olds, gave wonderful performances. With host Ian McMillan striking the perfect balance between humour and poignancy, each reading was of a standard that made it difficult to imagine how hard the task of judging the award must have been.
"I wore this shirt last year, but these are new trousers... so like me, these poets are bringing together the old and the new..." said Ian McMillan (paraphrased somewhat).
For myself I enjoyed the visceral quality of Sean Borodale's Bee Journal reading, describing a bee queen's eyes as 'castanets' and then immediately as like 'casting nets'. His work was invigorating and complex, its microscopic eye for detail not ignoring the opportunity for bigger truths to creep in.
Gillian Clarke's reading was likewise riveting, and Jacob Polley's work was new to me, so was particularly inspiring.
Sharon Olds' book Stag's Leap, from Cape Poetry, had a heartbreaking emotional intensity and a wry, reflective thrust to it which left me thinking about certain lines for day's afterwards.
It was not surprising, therefore, that she took the prize the following night at the Wallace Collection in W1.
Here are a few blurry pictures which nevertheless capture something of the golden-ness of the evening.
Sharon Olds accepting the award
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Second place in 100 word story mini-comp
Rather chuffed that my short story came second amongst the finalists of the 100 word story comp judged by Jeffrey Archer.
Literary agency Curtis Browne published the top five stories online and you can read all about it here.
And here it is:
The Zoo of Extinct Animals
‘Eight hours straight. Best sleep I’ve ever had,’ said Phil.
‘The dodo didn’t squawk its head off?’ said Mike.
Phil shrugged, as they shuffled past the quagga cage. Nearby, the sabre-toothed tiger roared. Mike threw it its meat.
When they reached the aviary they both fell silent.
‘You forgot to feed him, didn’t you?’
‘Extinct again,’ said Phil, in a suspiciously cheerful tone. ‘Ever think some creatures are just meant to die out?’
‘Shut up, Phil,’ said Mike, stuffing the dead dodo into a bag.
Meanwhile, back in the lab, ‘new’ old life was forming.
Sara-Mae Tuson
Literary agency Curtis Browne published the top five stories online and you can read all about it here.
And here it is:
The Zoo of Extinct Animals
‘Eight hours straight. Best sleep I’ve ever had,’ said Phil.
‘The dodo didn’t squawk its head off?’ said Mike.
Phil shrugged, as they shuffled past the quagga cage. Nearby, the sabre-toothed tiger roared. Mike threw it its meat.
When they reached the aviary they both fell silent.
‘You forgot to feed him, didn’t you?’
‘Extinct again,’ said Phil, in a suspiciously cheerful tone. ‘Ever think some creatures are just meant to die out?’
‘Shut up, Phil,’ said Mike, stuffing the dead dodo into a bag.
Meanwhile, back in the lab, ‘new’ old life was forming.
Sara-Mae Tuson
Friday, 30 November 2012
My story in Overheard a Salt anthology
I'm catching up on my non-posting bad
behaviour now.
I recently had a story called 'Ill Angels Haunt Me' published in
the marvellous Salt anthology, 'Overheard:
Stories to Read Aloud,' edited by Jonathan Taylor.
A wonderful writer himself, (his book 'Entertaining Strangers' has just come out) Jonathan managed to get an amazing collection of talent together, including writers like Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison and Louis De Bernières, along with other personal favourites of mine like Vanessa Gebbie, Jane Holland and Gemma Seltzer.
Here's a bit about the book:
'From village storytellers to nineteenth-century serialisations, from pub anecdotes to dramatic monologues, storytelling is an enduring art form. This collection of short stories reconnects storytelling with its oral and performative roots. There are stories here for performance, stories which play with sound, stories which dramatise conflicting voices, and stories which are musical in style.
Because of the way these stories speak from the page, it doesn't matter whether or not they are actually read out loud. Rather, these are stories which might equally be ‘performed’ on the reader’s mental stage, heard in the reader’s mind’s-ear.
There is a burgeoning culture in the U.K. and beyond of oral story-telling and prose writers performing their work live, a culture which has developed out of the popularity of poetry in performance. There are numerous collections and anthologies which aim to capture the energy of performance poetry on the page. There is, though, no comparable literature for stories in performance – making this collection unique.
In order to demonstrate the huge diversity of possible performance styles in prose, the collection mingles flash fiction with more sustained stories, genre fiction with realism, experimental pieces with oral storytelling. Contributors are similarly varied in their styles, backgrounds, experience and genres, and include Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison, Louis De Bernières, Adele Parks, Kate Pullinger, Adam Roberts, Michelene Wandor, Vanessa Gebbie, Judith Allnatt, Jo Baker, David Belbin, Panos Karnezis, Jane Holland, Gemma Seltzer, Ailsa Cox and Will Buckingham.'
A shameless plug I know, but I'm really chuffed to be included.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Overheard-Stories-Aloud-Jonathan-Taylor/dp/1907773266
A wonderful writer himself, (his book 'Entertaining Strangers' has just come out) Jonathan managed to get an amazing collection of talent together, including writers like Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison and Louis De Bernières, along with other personal favourites of mine like Vanessa Gebbie, Jane Holland and Gemma Seltzer.
Here's a bit about the book:
'From village storytellers to nineteenth-century serialisations, from pub anecdotes to dramatic monologues, storytelling is an enduring art form. This collection of short stories reconnects storytelling with its oral and performative roots. There are stories here for performance, stories which play with sound, stories which dramatise conflicting voices, and stories which are musical in style.
Because of the way these stories speak from the page, it doesn't matter whether or not they are actually read out loud. Rather, these are stories which might equally be ‘performed’ on the reader’s mental stage, heard in the reader’s mind’s-ear.
There is a burgeoning culture in the U.K. and beyond of oral story-telling and prose writers performing their work live, a culture which has developed out of the popularity of poetry in performance. There are numerous collections and anthologies which aim to capture the energy of performance poetry on the page. There is, though, no comparable literature for stories in performance – making this collection unique.
In order to demonstrate the huge diversity of possible performance styles in prose, the collection mingles flash fiction with more sustained stories, genre fiction with realism, experimental pieces with oral storytelling. Contributors are similarly varied in their styles, backgrounds, experience and genres, and include Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan, Blake Morrison, Louis De Bernières, Adele Parks, Kate Pullinger, Adam Roberts, Michelene Wandor, Vanessa Gebbie, Judith Allnatt, Jo Baker, David Belbin, Panos Karnezis, Jane Holland, Gemma Seltzer, Ailsa Cox and Will Buckingham.'
A shameless plug I know, but I'm really chuffed to be included.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Overheard-Stories-Aloud-Jonathan-Taylor/dp/1907773266
100 word story being judged by Jeffrey Archer!
It's been ridiculously long since I posted anything. What with 3 freelance editorial jobs at the same time, plus the novel-writing course I'm doing at Curtis Browne Literary agency, it's been pretty manic.
Squeezing writing in has been really tricky. So being set a finite task by Lord Archer when he came in to speak to us, was good fun.
He'd been commissioned to write a 100 word (including title) story by Reader's Digest, and last year he'd asked the other course members to write one, so we were set the same task.
It's a great challenge for a writer, as you can't have any extraneous words whatsoever, so its a good exercise in cutting back the flab. I wrote mine on the train coming back from the session, and it was like a Jenga puzzle, trying to get it down to exactly 100 words!
There are a lot of hugely talented writers on the course, so I was very honoured to have my bit of flash fiction chosen as one of the four stories to be judged by Lord Archer. The winner will be published on the Curtis Browne website, but to be honest making it to the top four amongst such great work is pretty exciting in itself.
Yippee!
My story is called 'The zoo of extinct animals'. Here's a doodle of a saber-toothed tiger I drew, although I can't promise that it is anthropologically accurate.
Squeezing writing in has been really tricky. So being set a finite task by Lord Archer when he came in to speak to us, was good fun.
He'd been commissioned to write a 100 word (including title) story by Reader's Digest, and last year he'd asked the other course members to write one, so we were set the same task.
It's a great challenge for a writer, as you can't have any extraneous words whatsoever, so its a good exercise in cutting back the flab. I wrote mine on the train coming back from the session, and it was like a Jenga puzzle, trying to get it down to exactly 100 words!
There are a lot of hugely talented writers on the course, so I was very honoured to have my bit of flash fiction chosen as one of the four stories to be judged by Lord Archer. The winner will be published on the Curtis Browne website, but to be honest making it to the top four amongst such great work is pretty exciting in itself.
Yippee!
My story is called 'The zoo of extinct animals'. Here's a doodle of a saber-toothed tiger I drew, although I can't promise that it is anthropologically accurate.
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