Stories from the festival writing shed

Sometimes it’s worth making a plan, if only for the fun of ripping it up I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would spend my time as a “writer in residence” at the Lounge on the Farm music festival. I experimented beforehand with new technologies. I spent ages downloading apps and trying …

A performance with a touch of menace

This week’s reading at the Komedia went well. “You had the audience in the palm of your hand,” one of the organisers said. That was reassuring, as I couldn’t tell how the audience was responding. The stage lighting was blinding; once up there I couldn’t see anything. Look at the stripe of intense light across …

A bit of rejection can do you good

Here’s another piece of good news I want to mention. I’ve finally had a story accepted by Metazen, the international literary magazine based in Canada. I say finally because they’ve rejected two of my stories so far this year. This is a case of third time lucky. Having a story turned down is never pleasant, …

Competitive story reading success

Well, I have now taken part in my first ever competitive story reading event, part of the Electric Lantern Festival. The exciting news, for me, is that I came second. I’m rather happy about that. It was an odd experience. I arrived at the Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells, was allocated a number and told where …

Blimey, it’s my competitive story reading debut

My journey to find new ways of making a fool of myself enters scary territory this coming weekend. I will be taking part in my first competitive story-reading event. On Sunday, I’ll be on stage at the wonderful Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells, a participant in “Flash Factor”. The boards that I shall tread This …

Finding a new audience for literature and stories

Normally, you’d get yourself in trouble if you broke an egg on a stranger’s trousers. But such behaviour is fine when one is performing live street literature. Then it’s just part of the act. I learned this interesting lesson on Saturday. I was on the promenade of Herne Bay, an English seaside town, “performing” – …

More LiveLit – This time, at the seaside

I made another small piece of “LiveLit” yesterday, inspired by last weekend’s workshop. This is based on a  story idea I had knocking around but, unlike my last effort, I was writing the words with the images in mind this time. Only one of the images that I was thinking of actually made it into …