Monthly Archives: November 2009

The Writers’ Toolkit

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Author Sophie Hannah was one of the highlights at the conference.

Author Sophie Hannah was one of the highlights at the conference. Photo – press picture for the Writing Conference.

Rather than have to unpack the hundreds of boxes sitting in my new home, I decided instead to go to the Writers’ Toolkit – a writer networking conference in Birmingham. It was a good decision. The trip had been planned for a while and was a birthday present to my girlfriend, which suggests that my present buying has become more pragmatic with age or that I’ve finally found the right match. (If she accepts a night out at Lakeside for the arrows as her Christmas present, then she’s definitely the one.)

The conference was organised by Jonathan Davidson, who I’d met previously when interviewing Tommy Wieringa as part of the Go Dutch project, and involved four sessions. The choices I opted for were; De-mystifying the Digital for Writers, Pitching Ideas, Understanding Publishing and The Fine Art of Editing. To ensure we got our money’s worth, my girlfriend went for four separate sessions. These were then discussed afterwards in the mammoth queue leading out of the Bull Ring car park into the oncoming football traffic.

I’ll be reviewing the event for LeftLion so I won’t go into unnecessary depth about each of the sessions but instead pick out two highlights. The first was meeting Alex Pryce who is the brains behind Poetcasting and is only situated down the road in Leicester. This website showcases various poets performing readings so that you can listen before deciding whether to go and see them. A simple yet fantastic idea, especially as poetry lends itself more to the ear than the eye. But most surprisingly, or perhaps not considering what I am about to state, it turned out that we had a mutual friend- Eireean Lorsung. Eireean is a poet from Minneapolis who came to Nottingham to study and was shocked at how little poetry there was. Since then she’s set up her own poetry night and has ensured she is associated with just about every event, night or publication in the region. She’s a truly inspirational woman and a great asset to Nottingham. I’m also waiting for her to come up with a similarly great idea as poetcasting. Maybe prosecasting would be too simple a steal…

The other highlight was meeting the author Sophie Hannah. She was absolutely hilarious and gave a dark and comical insight into the world of publishing, reminding the audience to have the humility to accept criticism but the strength in their own convictions. A tough balance but certainly true. In addition to dispelling various myths and some very salient advice regarding selecting an agent, she also kindly offered to read the first three chapters of my book and give me some feedback. She offered to do this after I explained the unfortunate experience I’d had so far with two publishers and that I was unsure whether to go with a third and smaller publisher or opt for an agent. It’s such a nice feeling when authors like Sophie genuinely go out of their way to give you a little guidance and advice when they don’t have to. It made the perfect end to a perfect day. Let’s hope that the East Midlands Writing Conference in March 2010 is as well organised and with as humorous and helpful speakers. As it is my birthday in March I’ll be expecting my girlfriend to repay the pragmatic present buying, which shouldn’t be too difficult seeing as she is helping to coordinate the conference.

The water that flattens my hair…

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It is tradition – and somewhat of an initiation programme – that I take girlfriends to see Morrissey in concert. If they can endure this indulgent gift then things will probably work out. My third such girlfriend to experience this musical pleasure (and I should point out this is over the past eighteen years, less I sound like a… ) only got to see el Quiffo perform This Charming Man and half of Black Cloud. This is because someone launched a bottle of water at him and it landed straight on his bonce. A cracking shot that under any other circumstance would have been applauded but a rather foolish thing to do to the man who once sang ‘the bottled water that flattens my hair, these are the things which kill me’

His petulant gesture was greeted with general frustration and annoyance by the majority of the crowd – if chat rooms and overheard conversations are anything to go by, rather than the usual forgiving adulation which usually surfaces when the great man is attacked in any way. This is probably because the majority of the audience are now at the fag end of their thirties and so the cost of petrol, an overnight stay in a hotel, finding a babysitter etc, become more important than the questionable ethics of a Mancunian warbler.

It’s a pity because he’s a great entertainer and has undoubtedly brought me much joy over the years, particularly in the fantastic reading lists he’s provided, courtesy of his bookish lyrics. But I don’t have much sympathy with him on this occasion. For goodness sake it was bottled water, organic, from a mountainous spring. It certainly wasn’t the end of the world. ‘Ger over your sen, lad’, Arthur Seaton would have told him. But I guess this is the real problem. Morrissey is an established star who no longer has the hunger. It is an occupational hazard of fame. People will still flock and see him no matter what so he can afford to be principled. Those starting out fresh would not have the luxury and so would be forced to continue. If you don’t believe me, lob a bottle of coke at the next new band you go to see, though I suspect for most of the audience fitting my demographic, there won’t be a next time.

Now it’s time for an experiment to see if I can get my money back whilst testing the sanity of his devout flock. I’m listing the bottle on eBay…

*Morrissey kind of played the Liverpool Echo Arena on the 7th November. The gig was ended courtesy of a fan with excellent hand-to-eye coordination and a bottle of water. Morrissey said afterwards ‘I’ve been hit with sherbert lemons, a Farley’s rusk and some penne or was it Linguini, anyway, but water is taking it too far. It could have taken my eye out or i could have slipped on stage. It’s a bloody risk hazard, so it is’