At Nottingham Uni...

Reading and chatting writing with marvellous Alison Moore at Nottingham University in May

Good (ghosts) things

So, in the run up to the launch, plenty of great stuff happening to be extremely grateful for...

First Amazon review!! (because, you know, already released on Kindle folks)

Scarily honest Scottish Gothic rural myth, 28 Mar 2012

By

newnatbooks

This review is from: The Lives of Ghosts (Paperback)

Human forms loom out of the mist in Megan Taylor's evocative tale of loss and its dreamy nightmare consequences. Imagine a gloomy lochside house, a grinding car and a rattling train combined with imagery as sharp as a fisherman's fly and as earthy as the mud on his boots. The impossible distance between child and adult provides difficult reading for parents but stay with it and the percentage left on the eReader dwindles like the fuel gauge on a sports car.The Lives of Ghosts Megan's acrobatic trapeze act of multiple metaphor is infectious and brings about an unlucky sequence of events to blowtorch the reader's tongue and twist something deep inside the heart. Characters stumble about wildly out of control. Thank goodness real life isn't like this. It is? Help me someone


:-) haha! How fab is that? I am acrobatic! I am a blowtorch! Who knew?
Thank you so very very much
& 5 stars (which always makes me think about a certain ancient school disco, but less said about that the better)

And a wee mention of my Ghosts in the Guardian (!) for a piece about magnificent MMU

yay!

And in addition to the NWS launch, a reading alongside the frighteningly talented Alison Moore at Nottingham University - more on that to come...

Spot the Difference :-)

And More!!!

Ghost Stories for Halloween

Nottingham Writers Studio and Mayhem present a Halloween treat for
all fans of supernatural storytelling. Leading horror author Niki Valentine
hosts an evening of haunting tales and live readings as well as a series
of screenings of cult television ghost stories including Tom Baker reading
The Emissary by Ray Bradbury from Late Night Stories; The Mezzotint
read by Robert Powell from Classic Ghost Stories by M.R.James, and
from Christopher Lee’s Ghost Stories for Christmas, the good man
himself reading The Ash Tree.

I can't believe I've been invited to read at this!!

The Broadway is one of Nottingham's finest establishments and its annual Mayhem film festival is legendary. Alongside those screen greats, there will be spine-tingling tales from stunning storytellers Pete Davis and Marty Ross, a performance of Andy Cattanach's SMS ghost script 'Sent/Received', Nicola Valentine will be reading from her new novel The Haunted, and there's horror and wisdom from graphic novelist Brick too!

What am I doing there? (well, actually I'm reading something from my latest, The Lives of Ghosts, but you know what I mean)

A scary night for me in many, many ways -
am so excited, I can't wait :-)

It all takes place on October 31st (of course!) in the Broadway cafe/bar from 7.30 and it's FREE
Come along and join my trembling! Come! Come!

Furver fings...

ooh - look...

Come along! Make crafty things! Browse books! Say hello!

(I really must get a new picture)

and if you'd like another chance to hear me waffling on about The Dawning and writing in my own unique bumbling way (how can you resist?), the lovely Tina Bettison has made a podcast of her radio interview available on her blog (the brilliant Ian Collinson and Nigel Pickard are on there too, making contrastingly perfect sense)

Coming up ...

Stop Press!! Or something!

Due to the (lovely, lovely, naughty) snow, this magnificent event will now take place on Thursday 9th December
Same time, same place.

Perhaps you'd like to come along??

Lowdham Book Festival 2010

My lovely publisher says ...

Weathervane Press are delighted to announce they will be hosting an event at the excellent Lowdham Book Festival final Saturday on June 26th.

We will be launching the Weathervane Live Vocal Books Tour at this event, which takes place at 10.30 am in the Lit & Phil Tent behind the Village Hall. There will also be readings by Megan Taylor from her thriller 'The Dawning' published in January and Nigel Pickard from 'Attention Deficit' published in March. All Weathervane books will be on sale at the event and throughout the day from our own stall at the Book Fair also in Lowdham Village Hall. The event is free - no ticket required.

Full details of the Lowdham Book Festival programme can be found at http://www.lowdhambookfestival.co.uk/

I say:
Come along! Say hello! You know you want to!

After the Circus . . .

We did it!

And I loved it

So I'd like to say some enormous THANK YOUs

Firstly, thank you to awesome, award winning author Nicola Monaghan, who was not only generous enough to share her reading table, but also helped so much beforehand, offering encouragement about my writing, easing my nerves and ensuring that our pieces worked so well together.

Thank you too to LeftLion for organising such a brilliant, buzzing event, to Nottingham Writers Studio for all their support, and to all the lovely, lovely people who came along to listen.

You're all fabulous.

THANK YOU TONS

Roll up! Roll up!

I've been invited to read this Saturday at Leftlion's fantabulous (Canning) Circus Extravaganza , an incredible day-into-night of FREE live music, art and spoken word in the heart of Nottingham!!

I'll be reading (possibly from second novel 'Before the Light') alongside the amazingly talented Nicola Monaghan and just before a whole dazzling parade of poets.

The literature events begin at 4pm in the upstairs gallery of the Hand and Heart

Would be marvellous to see you there!

Learning How To Read

So I did it!

Amidst the snowy-white dazzle of stage lights and the surprise of a microphone that I had to stand so close to that it was almost inside my mouth – I did it! And I wasn’t (quite) as frightened as I thought I would be. In fact, I left Nottingham’s Royal Centre feeling happy and relieved and very grateful.

In addition to the support of those close to me (thank you), and some excellent, practical and generous advice from the very talented Annie Clarkson on her Myspace blog, I was fortunately able to participate in a small reading workshop beforehand with director, Daniel Buckroyd. His enthusiasm and insights were helpful and inspiring and, aside from encouraging me to embody the personality of my narrator with more confidence, he asked the pertinent questions (far more eloquently and concisely than I am asking them here) -

Why is your character compelled to tell this story?

What is it about this story that your audience will connect with?

Simple but essential questions to ponder while writing, I think, as much as reading.

'Word of Mouth'

My (previously blogged about) short story 'The Insect Room' is to be included in Nottingham Writers Studio's 'Word of Mouth' reading event, to take place at the Len Maynard Suite at Nottingham's Royal Centre, at 7.15pm on the 3rd December.

The other writers participating are Matt Hurst, Ian Charles Douglas, Roberta Dewa, Nigel Smith and David Sandhu.

If anybody's interested in attending, tickets are priced at £4.00 (which includes a complimentary glass of wine or juice - what a bargain!) and are on sale now from the Royal Centre Box Office (telephone: 0115 989 5555).

I've been lucky to have had my work brought to life by actresses before at 'Word of Mouth' events, but this is the first time I'll be reading there myself.
I'm very excited (and quite a big bit scared)