Category: London

  • Launch events for The Dowry Blade

    Launch events for The Dowry Blade

    Publication day for The Dowry Blade approaches, and pre-publication copies are already available from Arachne Press’ web shop, where there is also a special offer of £25 (free postage in the UK) for combining TDB with Mosaic of Air (normal combined price £27.98) for the first 20 people to get there. I have 4 launch events lined…

  • The Dowry Blade, live and in the flesh

    There is nothing to beat a pile of new books, except a pile of new books that you wrote yourself. And this is a big pile, of big books! The Dowry Blade is big! It weighs 620 grams. I hadn’t really thought through the amount of space a 400 page book printed in Royal format…

  • Join In: Folk Song Workshop for Winter

    LESTER SIMPSON FOLK SONG WORKSHOP SECULAR WINTER SONGS LEARN AROUND 5 SONGS SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER 2015 12:45- 17:15 ST HILDA’S CHURCH HALL COURTRAI ROAD SE23 1NL bus routes 122, P4, 171, 172 stop on the corner. train to Crofton Park or Honor Oak Park 10 minute walk. advanced booking required Book Here £25 INCLUDES REFRESHMENTS all…

  • readings this week

    Busy week again, singing Monday (Vocal Chords mid-project ‘stop-over’ concert)  and Sunday (rehearsing Brundibar at Blackheath – more on this later), teaching Tuesday, reading Saturday. So the readings are: Saturday: Arachne Press event at Keats House – readings from The Other Side of Sleep, and discussion of Narrative Poetry. I’m not reading personally apart form…

  • Cutting a Long Story – update

    Some of the stories that were originally published in Tales Told Before Cockcrow are up on Cut a Long Story. Pleasingly quick. Buy them now!! (thank you). All Hallows: Keith’s obsessions get him into trouble The Red Dress: A daughter’s loyalty is put to the test. Tales Told Before Cockcrow: Sybil tries to get Amelia…

  • Tall ships and icecream floats

    It’s been a manic few days, getting the review copies of The Other Side of Sleep out, sorting fliers for the exhibition, hounding people as nicely as I can to support the crowd funding for Solstice shorts. taking the cat the vet, rehearsing the songs Vocal Chords are singing at The Tall Ships Festival in…

  • Singing in a veil

    A new experience, singing whilst dressed as a nun. Apparently the costumes are borrowed from a production of Sister Act, and fit where they touch – A’s ‘cutty sark’ needs letting down about a foot so we don’t see her stripey socks until we are meant to. (I like the strategically placed light, it gives…

  • Songs of the Sea

    Well, for a writing blog there’s a heck of a lot about singing on here. This post is no exception. Vocal Chords, my regular choir, are splashing out in Forest Hill on Saturday July 19th (The only day that week that I’m not rehearsing or performing in Count Ory at Blackheath. 3pm St Saviour’s Church,…

  • LGBTHM – Cafe of Good Hope

    This event was very cosy – last public reading for LGBT History Month, and local, and with friends. I think we pulled out all the stops. Sadly Rebecca Idris had been sent to the Ukraine by her employers (what had she done to deserve that?) so was not able to join us, so we each…

  • LGBT History month: reading at North Kensington Library – video

    This week I did two readings from Mosaic of Air for LGBT History Month, the first at North Kensington Library. (note about the videos: my website randomly allocates different formats to video, not all of which work with internet explorer: they all work with Mozilla Firefox so try that of you can’t see them!) Here…