Sunday 13 November 2011

Nigel Pickard


This week we lost Nigel. A wonderful person, a stunningly good writer, an inspirational teacher and an unforgettable friend. I’m finding it very difficult to write about him, although I’ve tried to express something of what he meant over at LeftLion, where James Walker has gathered together memories of this unique, amazing man.

But really, words are nowhere near adequate.

The Broadway Book Club Weathervane Reading will still be going ahead on November 24th, and will be held in celebration of Nigel. There are details here.

Nigel is the highly acclaimed author of One, Attention Deficit and an incredible poetry collection, Making Sense (Shoestring Press). His current, almost complete work-in-progress contains some of the best writing I have ever read.

It is impossible to explain how much he will be missed

Sunday 6 November 2011

Spot the Difference :-)





& Just One More

Wafer-thin mint...

Or maybe two

(please don’t explode)

But firstly, the reading at Mayhem was amazing!! Such a lot of fun, and utterly terrifying – completely packed (my papers were shaking like a shaking thing, nevertheless it was great to unleash a little of my Ghosts.)
Alongside fabulous excerpts from Niki Valentine, Charlotte Thompson and local storytelling legend Pete Davis, there was an awesome performance scripted by the very talented Andy Kells and up on the big screen, Robert Powell, Christopher Lee and Tom Baker!! How good is that??

So, coming up...

This Wednesday, November 9th, at 7pm, I’m at Nottingham’s marvellous Lee Rosy’s Tea Shop, running a fiction workshop on openings and images with the great Writing at Rosy’s cw group.

And later in the month, I’m back at the Broadway (hurrah!) reading with wonderful Weathervane (irrepressible Ian Collinson and perfect Pickard) at the phenomenal Pam McIlroy’s brilliant Broadway Book Club, November 24th, from 7...

Right. That’s quite enough alliteration (more than enough), though if you’re not fed up of me wittering on about events (which you surely are) there’s a bit more of my blah about such things amidst an excellent article by Shanta Everington about workshops and Luton’s groundbreaking book festival over at the awesome The View From Here....