It’s the last Friday of the month which can only mean one thing, LeftLion 43– the culmination of endless hours hard graft to ensure readers have something to spill their beer on in the pub. With it being Goose Fair month, there’s a general theme of carnivalesque behaviour. Ann Featherstone  (The Newgate Jig) was commissioned to write a piece on Victorian Notts through the observations of Sydney Race. Originally this was going to be on the WriteLion page but it was such a fantastic piece, we shifted it elsewhere. Deborah Tyler-Bennett kindly allowed us to reproduce three of her Goose Fair Poems which we were able to get illustrated, reinforcing the importance of planning months in advance and getting the copy in early. Given the general theme of debauchery and the recent riots, we featured three Crime Express novellas in our reviews section and we even found time to interview Danuta Reah, Ray Banks and Charlie Williams online to give readers a little more context.

Niki Monaghan wrote us a short story called The Bothy, to tie in with the release of her new book The Haunted, the first penned under her married name of Valentine. This is always a great way to promote a new book and something that will hopefully become more frequent now we’re at 48 pages.  With two literature articles commissioned, I was able to concentrate on a double page community piece with the Lambhorse Cabaret who are the most entertaining live act I’ve seen in yonks. They’re a weird collective of circus performers, poets, musicians, flame throwers, burlesque dancers and good old fashioned anarchists, the dark underbelly of the city that makes it come alive and pulsate. They’ll be performing at our Gunpowder, Treason and Pot event at the Nottingham Contemporary on November 4th. See, nothing’s left to chance.

We’re also proud to introduce a new feature called the Mither Squad, enabling the Thompson Brothers to continue their journey into local notoriety through an advice column. If you’re not the type to share your most embarrassing intimate secrets with a greengrocer, fear not. Al Needham and former escort-turned-author Rebecca Dakin are on hand as well. Oh yeah, and the Fish Man.

Other brief news to mention; I’ve done an interview with Deborah Stevenson of Mouthy Poets for the October issue of Writers’ Magazine; our next Shindig! at the Jam Cafe will be our last – so no excuses for not coming down; and finally, check out the Council House in Market Square mid-October. There’ll be two banners bearing the name of a certain magazine. Now enjoy the sun and get down the pub and pick up a copy of you know what.