In this blog I’m always having a pop at writers who don’t leave the garret to meet and support their fellow kin, so it makes complete sense for me not to attend the magazine launch of Hearing Voices Vol.3, which has published my story The Long Silver Legs After Midnight. But I have a very justifiable reason for not attending. I need a night in to write. The last week I’ve attended the following events; East Midlands Book Award, Dom Joly at the Playhouse, Book Group Hunger (more of this in a future blog), Speech Therapy, Wayne Burrows on Monkey at the Nottingham Contemporary, Lowdham Book Festival and rounding off the week tonight with Ian McMillan’s Orchestra at the Theatre Royal. Ian presented the awards at the EMBA on Monday and I can’t resist another outing. I don’t think there is a better public speaker/performer around.
I would love to attend the magazine launch because one of the guest editors has Flowerdew for a middle name – you need to meet people like this in life. The event is being co-hosted by Nine Arches Press who we run our Shindig! events with and who published Mark Goodwin’s Shod – which won the EMBA on Monday. Lastly, I was really looking forward to catching up with Alex Plasatis, a softly-spoken Greek man who’s writing a novel about outsiders. At the last launch we chatted about Jean Genet (1910 – 1986) and I wanted to tell him about the forthcoming exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary, inspired by his life. Next time.
Hearing Voices Vol.3 is published by Crystal Clear Creators, which was funded by the National Lottery. It’s the brainchild of Jonathan Taylor who works in the department of English and Creative Writing at De Montfort. As part of their funding they are publishing six pamphlets, two of which are by MulletProofPoet and Aly Stoneman. Best of all, each selected author/poet is being mentored by a professional. Aly’s is Mark Goodwin and Mullet’s is Deborah Tyler-Bennett (who also appears in Vol.3).
The Long Silver Legs After Midnight is a reworking of an extract from This is all I Know, and tells the story of a man who can’t sleep and so drives around in the early hours of the morning when the roads are clear. It’s the only time he can find some peace. He’s just lost his job and his wife is expecting another child but he can’t tell her what’s happened. While out on his drive he keeps pulling over to scribble down his thoughts, as if in doing so it enables him to exert some level of control over his circumstances. But when the Police pull him over for his suspicious driving they’re convinced he’s casing over local houses…
Hearing Voices, vol. 3, ed. Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke and Alex Plasatis (March 2011), ISBN 0-9551800-5-8, 978-0-9551800-5-7, £3. Crystal Clear Creators website
Shindig! and Launch of Hearing Voices Magazine, vol. 3: Open-Mic Poetry Evening on Monday 27 June 2011 from 7.30pm at The Western Pub, Leicester: Nine Arches Press and Crystal Clear Creators present this launch and open-mic poetry evening, featuring guest writers Luke Kennard, Joel Lane, Lydia Towsey and Simon Perril