Photo LeftLion.
When LeftLion hits the city it serves two purposes. Firstly, as an amusing drunken distraction whilst waiting for a friend to turn up and then later on, when the friend has turned up, as a useful device for wedging under a wobbly table leg to restore equilibrium. But there’s so much more that goes on behind the scenes, Nottingham. Take today…
Spend four hours going through a PDF of an upcoming literature festival programme and copying and pasting events into a multi-columned word document that lists time, location, date, and event details. Just to appease anal personality, colour-coordinate events according to genre. Email out to subs list. Answer emails from subs list who all want to review the same event. Persuade them to do different events so that the whole festival is covered.
Now submit list to festival for press passes and discover they’ve changed their policy on passes because they need to break even on ticket sales. Contact subs list and explain they now don’t have to review the events you convinced them they needed to review. Tantrums. Reviewer quits. Put a call-out for new reviewer through social media.Get in trouble at work for using social media instead of doing work.
Now go through a similar process with a book reviews schedule. Compile list detailing: Book, publisher and author details, copy deadlines, a short synopsis, genre, web links, etc. Allocate appropriate reviewers for specific books, email them, find out if they want physical or digital copies, contact publisher for electronic ones in the correct format, take physical copies to post office, offer to meet reviewer in town to hand over the book to save on stamp but end up buying them a coffee.
Phone call. Someone wants advice on various aspects of starting up a literature-related business. You are under no obligation to do this. You do this because you like their idea and it will be good for Nottingham if they succeed. Spend an hour compiling a list of useful contacts who can help the said person. Offer to meet them. Buy them coffee.
Upload various articles to website that subs have submitted. Find images online or videos to embed in the file and then resize the images in photoshop so that they correctly fit the house style. Go for a ten minute walk around the block thinking up catchy sub headings and titles for their work. Find relevant literature listings that the person reading this article might be interested in and then link them to the article.
Phone call. Meet poet for a chat about their new book. Arrange to do interview and come down to their next event. Buy them coffee. Put flyers for festival up in café so that people buy tickets (in the hope that the festival will then reallocate more press passes). Put events in calendar. Check emails on phone. Author wants to know when their work will be reviewed or why a recent review was critical of their work when it was brilliant. Offer to buy them coffee.
Go home and read book for review on bus and in the bath. Boot up laptop and forget to eat. Argue with girlfriend about always being on that laptop. Write blog. Write article for magazine. Tweet something promoting someone else’s work. Remember that you’ve written a book yourself and the agent hasn’t been in touch for ages and you need to find a new one. Email from PR company. Poet in town tomorrow. Any chance of writing a quick preview? Start to write preview but don’t know anything about the poet. Start researching poet on google. Yes, I’m coming to bed in a minute. Drink coffee. Get email from festival saying they are reverting back to their original press passes policy. Email all subs again saying that they can review the events that you just said they couldn’t. Start to do the work you were meant to do at work at home. Forget about own book.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/psycho_crow/3278713226/ LeftLion readers.
Robin Hood must have heard that the council are rebranding Nottingham as the Rebel City because he’s come out of retirement to do three walks and even lost the dodgy American accent. The Cave Tours (Tue 19 Feb and Sat 23 Feb, 2.30pm) start off at Nottingham Castle and goes deep down into the bowels of the city. Robin Hood and Maid Marian (Tue 19 Feb, 12 -1pm) starts at the Castle Bastion where our hooded hero will spill the goz on why his men were so merry. Robin Hood and Dragon (Sat 23 Feb, 12 -1pm) also starts at the Castle Bastion and will see our hooded crusader brag about the various scrapes he got into to impress the ladies. All of these will cost you a fiver and can be booked at the Castle or on 0115 915 3700. Once Upon a Storywalk (Sat 16 Feb at 11am, 12.15pm and 1.30pm) is suitable for families with children 4-10 years and will include riddles, songs, rhymes, and a little detective work to discover the secrets hidden in Old Nottingham. Tickets (£6, £4 children) can be purchased at the Festival Box Office in Newton Building which is the start and finish point for the tour. Storywalks from the City of Lace (Sat 16 Feb, 6pm, 7.15pm) is a darker affair aimed at adults, where, for £6, legends and myths will come alive under the moonlight and offer more stories of betrayal and deception than an hour’s worth of Jeremy Kyle. Streets of Stories (Sun 17 Feb, 3pm & Wed 20 Feb, 6pm) kicks off at Langtry’s and explores Nottingham’s rich literary history in its broadest sense. Discover how we inspired J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, converted Graham Greene to Catholicism as well as readings from more obscure works such as the verses sold at the foot of the gallows. Led by myself and Michael Eaton, it’ll be a walk of ale, merriment and words for a small donation.