Tag: Cumbria

Dreamfired

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On Friday 11th October, Dreamfired takes over Brigsteer village hall for a night of traditional music and storytelling. I’ve managed to land one of the support slots for headliner Emily Parrish, aka Scandalmongers. She’s retelling the classic Norse myth of Loki, the trickster and troublemaker at Odin’s court. Her show has received amazing reviews, and I’m really excited about seeing her perform live.

I’ll be reading two short pieces I’ve been practising live – Circle Stone and The Lion Tamer’s Daughter. I wanted to get into the spirit of the night by performing from memory: no notes, no paper. Reading them at Spotlight and Spoken Word has been good for practising their delivery. I already know Circle Stone by heart, and I’m four-fifths of the way there with Lion Tamer. The prospect of reading live is not yet as scary as it will be on Friday afternoon.

By dumb chance, my storytelling uncle Rich Sylvester is up in the Lakes for a workshop that weekend, so he’s coming along too – and I’ve just discovered that legendary Cumbrian singer, songwriter and banjo maestro Bill Lloyd is playing as well. It’s a blinding line-up, and I feel a little overawed to be reading at such a great event. I’m looking forward to sharing my stories, then sitting back with a beer to enjoy a great night of tall tales and folk music…

 

The horizon

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What a couple of weeks. The start of college has been a bit rough, but we’re getting there. I’m spread fairly thin at the moment, and it doesn’t feel like I’m getting much done… but in the background I’ve completely redrafted my flash fiction collection Marrow, so that’s ready for typesetting when I find the time to get to grips with InDesign. Paragraph Planet published a 75-word story from that collection last week, too, which is pretty cool. I’ve also redrafted the longer short story I talked about in my last post, and started blocking out my new novel in the excellent Scrivener.

Even more exciting, Riptide is beginning to gather pace. I’m expecting notes from my editor this week, so I can start work on what should be the final draft, and I’ve just had a sneak peek at a rough of the cover art, which is scintillating. While I’ve been so busy drowning in real life, just trying to stay afloat, seeing the cover has been a timely reminder of what I’m working towards. The artwork is simply perfect, but I’ll wait for a final version before I share it.

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The 200th Spotlight Club in Lancaster is looming on the horizon. It feels like only last week I was reading at their open mic night. I’m excited about performing there again, and hopefully catching up with old friends Rich Turner, Dan Haywood and Paddy Garrigan (pictured above) – Paddy’s playing out the night, which should be a blast. I have two or three new pieces lined up. I’m going to start with a short story about guinea pigs, and finish with a very short 75-word piece about avocados. I think there’s probably time for another story in between, but I haven’t decided what just yet.

After Spotlight comes the Brewery open mic, if I can get a spot, and then Dreamfired in October. By happy coincidence, my storytelling uncle Rich Sylvester is up from London that night. I don’t get to see Rich very often, so if we’re organised enough, I’ll try and knock up a quick video of one of his stories.

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A little light reading

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We’ve just returned from a brilliant fortnight in France. We racked up 2,500 miles in a round trip that encompassed Ile de Noirmoutier, which is reached by a two-mile causeway at low tide; Rauzan, where we camped in the shadow of a ruined medieval castle; and Marais Poitevin. This last spot, nicknamed ‘Green Venice’, is one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen. Centuries ago, it was a vast swamp, but Dutch settlers drained it with a labyrinth of canals and ditches, leaving hundreds of island pastures connected by causeways and bridges. The architecture is just as unique, with balconies and shutters adorning every house, and punts moored to jetties in gardens. Poplars and alders tower into the sky, the canals are thick with lurid green algae. Fat dragonflies zip and pop between shrubs and creepers, and the trees are alive with cicadas. Filtered through high branches and reflected from the water, the light itself is tinted green.

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It’s genuinely one of the most incredible landscapes I’ve experienced and, much like Grogport for Riptide, it’s been a real inspiration for my next novel. In the space of a few days, I filled an A4 pad with notes and dialogue, and I feel really excited about starting work. There’s still plenty to do before I can begin, but the foundations now feel firmly set.

The other great thing about the holiday was having time to read. I managed six books, which is no mean feat when juggling a toddler in a campsite. And I had a great run of books – not a single dud:

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht was bold and convincing, subtly switching a range of voices to make folk myths contemporary through personal memory. I enjoyed it a lot, but found it ever so slightly cold, and wasn’t as blown away as its reputation suggests.

Cumbrian Folk Tales by Taffy Thomas was a fascinating collection of the county’s legends and myths, made all the more immediate through its connections to a landscape I’m starting to know. It was amusing to recognise the names of not just local places, but also local people – people I’ve met, worked with, drunk with. The tales were strongest when connected to geography, giving meaning and history to a witch’s cauldron or a devil’s bridge.

I read The Blackhouse by Peter May – this was a present from Jane Wood, my publisher at Quercus. She thought I’d like a look because, like Riptide, it’s a crime story set in the Hebrides, though it doesn’t have the supernatural elements of my book. I enjoyed it a lot. The plot was dovetail-tight and engrossing, and the landscape was intoxicating.

Next up was I Love You When I’m Drunk by Empar Moliner, Spanish short stories in translation through the tremendous Comma Press. Despite some uncharacteristic typos from an excellent publisher, it’s a solid collection, each story exploring and exploding conceits of modern life. Some of the stories felt a bit like shooting fish in a barrel – taking aim at soft targets of liberal, middle-class pomp – but the writing was good throughout, and there were many outstanding moments.

Moliner’s collection was good, but the next book was astonishing – a class apart. The Dog Of The Marriage gathers Amy Hempel‘s four short story collections into a single volume, and they are consistently superb. There isn’t a single wrong note across dozens of stories. Hempel’s work is voiced through emotionally damaged or stunted narrators, trapped or somehow left behind in their lives, caught between stasis and decay. The stories are not without hope, though, and Hempel writes with unceasing, unfailing humanity. Her sentences and structure are scintillating. I cannot recommend this highly enough. This is the sort of book I buy two copies of, expecting to have one out on loan.

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Finally, I read Snake Ropes by Jess Richards. This was another corker. Alternate narrators explore life on a mysterious island, ‘just off the edge of the map’, eventually combining to bring the distinct halves of the story together around a single, long-forgotten trauma. This novel holds trade and barter at its heart, exploring themes of presence and absence, balance and weight; of exchange, and what it means to give and get. It’s a real triumph, made all the more masterful in how Richards weaves the fantastical through the fabric of base human instinct, conjuring talking keys, sentient trees, and a walking doll with a seashell for a heart:

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The last fortnight has reminded me, as stupid as it sounds, of how much I love to read, and made it painfully apparent how little reading time my regular schedule affords me. I’m determined – on top of carving out more writing time – to read more. I miss it.

This holiday has been essential. I’ve worked stupidly hard over the last two years without much of a break, and I’ve badly wanted some time off. Looking ahead, the next two months are going to be frantic – but I feel better for a break. I have my next novel blocked out and the sights and scents of a swamp fresh in my mind. One more draft of Riptide to go, and then I’ll be starting my new story.

Some strange alignment of the stars

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I’ve booked an open mic slot at Lancaster’s Spotlight club next week. Mon’s driving, so I can even have a couple of ales. Happy days.

I haven’t totally settled on what to read yet, but I’ll probably try a new story from my flash fiction collection-in-progress, Marrow. There’s one about home cooking that I’d like to run past an audience, and another about guinea pigs that needs a first outing. I won’t have time to read both, but I’ll read one and save the other for when I try – again – to attend the Brewery’s open mic in August.

It really shouldn’t be so hard to make it to the Brewery. It’s one of my favourite pubs in Kendal, and it’s where we watch movies. I probably go a few times a month, but I haven’t managed to read at the open mic night for three years. Probably no coincidence that Dora is two and a half, come to think of it. Some strange alignment of the stars always seems to prevent me attending – something always comes up that means I can’t go. I’m determined to make it down at some point in the next few months, as reading live is becoming so much more important  to me, and I want the practice.

Three years ago, before the fates decided I couldn’t go back, I read a short story about a WWII fighter pilot called ‘The Matador’. It was my first ever open mic. I was sick with nerves, but it went quite well, and it gave me the confidence to go on and read in Edinburgh and Glasgow for Words per Minute, Cargo Publishing and Gutter. I don’t think I’ll ever be totally secure in my public reading, but I’m improving all the time, and I’m enjoying it more with each performance.

All these open mics are building up to October, where I’ve landed a support slot for one of the Dreamfired story nights in Brigsteer. I’m reading in support of Emily Parrish and her retelling of the Loki myth. It should be an amazing night. To get into the storytelling spirit, I’ve decided to drop the notes and perform my work from memory. The thought makes me a little nauseous, even four months distant, but I think it’ll be a good thing to do. I’ll be reading ‘Gumbo’, which was published in the first issue of Fractured West. It’s one of my favourite stories, and fun to read aloud… though I doubt it’ll feel very funny when I’m performing without notes to an audience.

Back to Lancaster and the Spotlight Club. It’s a great line-up: amongst others, poets Trev Meaney and Nick O’Neill are headlining, and there’s music from experimental ethnomusicologist Deep Cabaret. Hopefully old friend, talented multi-instrumentalist, New Hawk and haikuist Rich Turner is coming along for a beer, too. He’s a good friend of ours, but we haven’t seen him in a year, because he has an amazing daughter, and we have an amazing daughter, and all children are black holes for time.

Anyway, it’s going to be a fantastic night. If you want to hear me read a story about guinea pigs and then crumple like a cheap suit, head down to the Storey Institute in Lancaster from 8pm on Friday 19th. See you there. Buy me a beer.

To Do

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I haven’t been writing very much lately. I’ve been too busy with real life, scrapping my way through end-of-year marking for my film students and working on videos for Kendal College and Cumbria Wildlife Trust. I’ve still some way to go, and there’s plenty more to do – my Dad’s popping up to help me build a fence, and I need to build a log store. But hopefully the end is in sight. Most important, I should be getting Jane‘s notes for Riptide in the next few weeks, and then I need to work my way through that final draft.

For a bit of a change, I’ve been using the odd evening to (slowly) teach myself the basics of InDesign, trying to put together a booklet of my flash fiction. It’s no big deal – twenty-five stories between 50 and 500 words, provisionally entitled ‘Marrow’. I’ve also booked in my next two readings – first for the Spotlight open mic in Lancaster in July, and then as a support slot for Dreamfired in Brigsteer in October. And in the background, I’m reading and researching towards my next novel; quietly brewing on the story, blocking out the plot. I still have some narrative strands to tidy up, though I know where the book will finish emotionally.

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For the moment: research. I wrote about rediscovering P.V. Glob’s The Bog People a few months ago, and I’ve finally had a chance to actually read the thing. For a 1970s archaeological review – even one designed for jumblies – it’s surprisingly well-written. Some of the bog bodies have held astonishing secrets in their graves. One poor woman was staked down with crooks and buried alive. A man was stabbed through the heart, smashed on the head and strangled. It’s all great stuff for the novel, generating context and building ideas. By happy coincidence, one of the jobs I’m doing for Cumbria Wildlife Trust is on wetland restoration, so I’ve been spending some time ankle deep in peatland. I need some more books, and I’d like to take trips to fen country at some point.

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It’s a thrilling stage, all the researching and blocking and plotting, preparing the ground before the hard work starts. I learned a lot from writing Riptide, and I’m excited to start work on a new book. Just need to clear away the hundred other things on my To Do list, first.

It hasn’t been all work. Friends Steve and Clare took us to Chester Zoo yesterday. We went straight to the orangutans, and spent a gloriously peaceful 20 minutes with them before a dozen school trips caught us up. Dora especially loved the bat enclosure, a vast warehouse where the bats swoop and skitter in artificial night. This morning we’re off to Dentdale Music & Beer festival, too. I’m going to take my story dice and drink ale.

Bookstores: may cause heartache

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While in Grasmere, we made the mistake of going into Sam Read‘s bookstore. This was a mistake because I wanted to buy everything. Sam Read is one of those achingly wonderful bookshops with books packed into every corner, stuffed into racks and alcoves, and stacked loose above the rows on the shelves. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have strayed beyond the fiction section in any bookstore, but my daughter Dora loves books (current favourite: Six Dinner Sid) and being read to, so I’ve started looking at the children’s section as well. And oh, my; children’s books are simply sumptuous. The quality of illustration and storytelling is just stunning – browsing those shelves was like a treasure chest of my own childhood, a feast of imagination, all dragons and goblins and tunnels and talking dogs. I could have stayed all day to drink in the artwork alone.

I buy almost all my books from charity shops, because I can rarely afford them new. A well-made, well-written book is a real treat for me. I want to hug them close and read them carefully and show them to friends. The one which really stole my heart was A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, based on an idea by Siobhan Dowd. I’ve only discovered Patrick Ness quite recently, having been blown away by The Knife Of Never Letting Go (I’ll race through the rest of the Chaos Walking trilogy once I’ve tracked down the second part – the third book already sits on my shelves, waiting…). I love his writing – and he quoted on the jacket of Ali Shaw‘s Girl With Glass Feet, so he knows what he’s talking about.

The illustrated version of A Monster Calls is heart-stoppingly beautiful. Just look at this work by Jim Kay:

Illustration from A Monster Calls

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I covet this book more than I’ve coveted any book for years – but I didn’t buy it. I bought Cumbrian Folk Tales by Grasmere legend and master storyteller Taffy Thomas. I could only afford one book, and Taffy’s was the reason we’d gone into Sam Read’s in the first place. I’m truly delighted I bought Cumbrian Folk Tales, and I’m looking forward to immersing myself in Taffy’s take on local mythology, but I walked away from A Monster Calls with unbearable reluctance. Still – it’s my birthday in July. Fingers crossed.

Bookstores should carry warnings: may cause heartache…

Will Wordsworth’s Lancrigg DIY

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I’m not big on classic literature. I usually find the language – whether in prose or verse – too staid. There are exceptions – I love Shakespeare, I love Bronte’s Villette – but for the most part, my interest in writing starts with the First World War poets, and steps up a notch during the 1960s and beyond – decidedly modern literature, really. I’m always slightly embarrassed I haven’t read more of the classics, but those I’ve persevered with – and I have tried, believe me – simply don’t do anything for me: reading Middlemarch was like pulling teeth.

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With that confession out of the way, here’s the Lancrigg Hotel. It’s a great vegetarian hotel and restaurant, half a mile outside of Grasmere in the Lake District. Monica and I went to stay a night to celebrate our five-year anniversary. While walking in the grounds, we discovered that William Wordsworth had been instrumental in renovating the house for a friend of his – that he’d often dined and slept there – and so had Charles Dickens, a generation later. Robert Burns stayed at the house and taught one of the subsequent owners, too. I can’t pretend the place felt haunted by the ghosts of these literary giants, but I liked the idea of Bill Wordsworth rolling up his sleeves to strip out rotten plaster, of Dickens playing pranks on his pals, and of Rabbie Burns warming his feet by the fire. That tickled me.

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The woods around Lancrigg feel quiet and ancient. Sprouting from cracks in the limestone and carpeted in deep green moss, the trees could be Tolkein’s ents, hibernating through the decades. There’s a profound, tangible stillness beneath the canopy, and the light is filtered dark and green, drawing you into the forest.

After tea, we walked into town for a drink. I’ve had my differences with Grasmere in the past – during the summer, it’s infested with tourists, most of whom wear very expensive, very clean walking gear – but the town was fairly quiet. The heat of the day, freshened by a late shower, left the meadows heady with scent. The smells were intoxicating – the Lakes felt almost Mediterranean. We stood beside Wordsworth’s grave and watched bats skitter above the river, and walked back to Lancrigg in a deep blue midsummer gloaming. It was a long overdue break after months of hard work.

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Teaching has finished for the summer, though I still have a fortnight of marking and admin to finish. Then there’s a fence to build, some films to edit, a holiday to go on (glory be) and what should be the final draft of Riptide. Around all this, I’d really like to start work on writing my next novel. I’m already reading and researching and starting to block out the plot; the issue, as ever, is time to write.

Les Malheureux in Kendal

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I popped out last night to see Les Malheureux (a.k.a writers Sarah-Clare Conlon and David Gaffney) performing at the Lakes Alive Mintfest fundraiser in Kendal Town Hall.

It was a brilliant little show, with Sarah-Clare reading flash fiction accompanied by David’s Wurlitzer-style noodlings and extremely funny PowerPoint presentations switching slides in the background. The stories were fantastic – by turns poignant, reflective and darkly comic.

I especially loved the story about Eggborough power station, where the narrator paints the chimney stacks – and ‘Little Jan’, which is a perfect slice of poisonous office politics.

It was also great to see Sarah-Clare and David so soon after Flashtag – with the swifts soaring overhead and the sunset tinged pink over the Lakes, we had a balmy chat about day jobs, notebooks, Italy, the amazing Scottish literary scene and the quest for decent pubs in Kendal. (If you want an answer to the last point, there are three: Burgundy’s, the Brewery, and the Rifleman’s Arms.)

Before they turned up, I sat scribbling in my notebook. After a mini-brainwave about the protagonist in my new novel, I now know what she’s called and what she does for a living; and that in turn revealed another layer to the story which I’m really excited about. I also worked through some potential titles, though nothing stuck. I’m going to be flat-out on film jobs and college for the next month, but I’m starting to assemble more notes and ideas all the time.

Flashtag at The Nook & Cranny

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Mon and I drove down to Manchester on Wednesday night for the live final of the Flashtag writing competition. Flashtag Writers are a five-strong collective of flash fiction devotees, organising and performing their work across Manchester, the northwest and beyond. This writing contest was part of Chorlton Arts Festival. Downstairs at the Nook & Cranny pub was the perfect place for my first reading in three years – small, close, and dark. It reminded me a little of Twin Peaks. I think the brightest thing in there was my shirt.

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With eight writers on the shortlist, four Flashtaggers (plus a few of Benjamin Judge‘s excellent ‘Very Short Stories About Very Good Writers‘ read out in his absence – check out the blog – they’re brilliant. My favourite so far is Haruki Murakami…) and headlined by yer actual flash fiction titan David Gaffney, there was an astounding breadth and depth of storytelling on offer. I’m consistently delighted with the sensations and stories that can be conveyed in remarkably few words: Allie Rodgers gave us a dystopia without printed books; Dale Lately perfectly captured the melancholy of an empty nightclub after hours; Sarah Butler told the tale of a girl who lived on a bus stop. Michael Conley read my favourite story – ‘Looking for an Astrolabe’ was perfect flash fiction, bundling the profound into the darkly comic. David Gaffney’s piece conjured an infestation of acoustic singer-songrwriters, and blamed it all on Badly Drawn Boy. I also loved the work of Flashtaggers Sarah Clare Conlon, Fat Roland, Tom Mason and David Hartley.

I was the last of the shortlisted writers to perform, and – as ever – I was terrified. But the reading went quite well, the audience were very generous and it left me craving more live events. Despite the fear, I always end up enjoying myself. I’d like to think that a few more readings might settle my nerves, but maybe they’re there to stay. Ach weel.

Up against consistently strong competition, I was genuinely blown away to be awarded second place for ‘This Kitten I Knew‘. That was really humbling. I was delighted that Michael’s ‘Astrolabe’ won first prize – it was easily my favourite on the night, and I feel honoured to come second against such a great story.

More than anything else, it was truly uplifting to have some social contact centred around writing. Facing a late drive back to Kendal, we couldn’t stay very long, but it was a real thrill to stop and chat with the audience, the Flashtaggers, the shortlistees and Mr Gaffney. It’s strange, sometimes, to live in relative isolation halfway between the vibrant literary scenes of Manchester and Glasgow. Nights like Wednesday help me remember that other people are excited by stories – by writing and reading.