Spring literary happenings

Word people: There are so many great events for writers and readers floating around in Manchester at the moment it's really hard to keep up. Here are a few particularly good things on the horizon:

The shiny new International Anthony Burgess Centre has an appealingly eclectic series of events up and running, including Elemental Opera's performance of the complete Mahler Song Cycle over two nights, and poet August Kleinzahler, as well as literary salons, book launches and workshops. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Amid all the gloom and doom following the announcement of the Arts Council's Portfolio funding roster (RIP Greenroom, fingers crossed for Castlefield Gallery, Litfest and folly) there was a bright spot for Manchester literary folk: Comma Press, Literature Northwest and Madlab joined forces and won funding to create a new writers' centre at the Edge Street space. Look out for more events like their upcoming short story writing workshop.


Chorlton Arts Festival has a couple of good literary events on tap: Womens' writing website For Books' Sake is coming to town for a one-off event Friday 20th May at Lloyds Hotel. Books & Blues, a free celebration of the famous and forgotten female blues voices throughout the ages, will feature spoken word, storytelling and live music plus a bookswap booth and prize giveaways. On Thurs 26 May, Flash Mob Literary Salon will feature readings from the writer-organisers of the super short writing competition (Sarah-Clare Conlon, Ian Carrington, Tom Mason, David Hartley and Benjamin Judge) as well as the reading of the winning entries, wordgames and silliness and a special guest appearance by Nik Perring, author of micro fiction collection Not So Perfect.

There's a fanzine convention happening at the lovely Victoria Baths on May 14, with stalls featuring self-published books and zines to browse, talks, a film showing and workshops. To have a stall on the day, either as an individual zine or group of friends, costs £10 (email Natalie.Rose.Bradbury AT googlemail.com.)

Station Stories is a site specific live literature promenade event using digital technology and live improvised electronic sound. Six writers (Jenn Ashworth, Tom Fletcher, David Gaffney, Tom Jenks, Nicholas Royle and Peter Wild) will read live their specially commissioned stories inspired by the station and the people who use it and work there. Audiences are linked to the writers' microphones by wireless headsets, so they can hear them while wandering around the station. It's a collaboration between Manchester Literature Festival, Bury Text Festival and the Hamilton Project, and takes place 19-21 May.

Speculative fiction writing group

I have helped organise a speculative fiction writing group tonight at MadLab on Edge Street. No, this doesn't mean the existence of the group itself is speculative (though it is, as this is our first meeting and I have no idea how the group will work. All I know is one person proposed the Turkey City workshop method on Twitter, which sounds scary, doesn't it?)

The group is for people who want to write and talk about writing speculative fiction, a broad category that includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream and stories that are just kind of weird. To my knowledge, there's never been a writing group specifically dealing with this kind of genre writing in town before. Though Manchester has a long and noble SF tradition.

Just to be clear, yes, this means I read science fiction. I've also been known to enjoy stories about cornershops with a pesky door into another dimension, and books which have werewolves as main characters or feature a chick in a lace-up bodice clutching a glowing blue sword on the cover.

You don't think I'm cool anymore, do you? I guess I'll just have to live with that.

Everyone welcome. MadLab tonight at 7pm.

Mad Lab, Good Grief! and the SF Panorama

I was in the Manchester Digital Laboratory, better known as Mad Lab, for the first time the other day and I urge alert readers to add it to your map of good places in Manchester. It's on Edge Street across from Common. What is it? Well...

It’s a space you can get together with like-minded individuals and work on your urban gardening, crochet, hacking, programming, media arts, filmmaking, animating project without worrying that you’re in a library, coffee shop, pub or other unsuitable venue. We know hackers and craftspeople need work space and may need to get down and dirty – we also know sometimes you need a quiet area to present and show works to your peers. We support both activities. And we hope there will be a rich mix of individuals who’ll get out of the usual zones, the knitter talking to the software architect, the cupcake maker scheming with the laser etching builder. We know some good will come of this.

I think some good things are definitely going to come out of the Mad Lab. Also, a lot of robots. It's available for meetings, meet-ups, and dastardly plotting of all kinds, so keep it in mind.

I was in the Mad Lab to talk about the Manchester aggregator project I posted about recently. Many folks let me know they were interested in hearing more, contributing or being involved. This is an open, blogger-led project that is still evolving and if you want to see what we're talking about, join the conversation or just lurk in a shadowy manner visit the Manchester Aggregator group on the Social Media Manchester Ning page. You can also look out for twitter posts tagged #managg


In other unconventional newspaper news, McSweeney's only went and published their latest edition of the literary mag as a broadsheet, The San Francisco Panorama, that people could buy from Bay Area newstands (which sold out in about ten minutes flat. You can order it from McSweeney's in the states, but I can't seem to find anywhere selling McSweeney's no. 33 in the UK. You listening, Santa?) In addition to championing a beleagured format the paper features 16 colour pages of comics from the likes of Chris Ware, Dan Clowes and Art Spiegelman. If we could get the broadsheets in this country to publish 16 colour pages of comics regularly the UK would be a better place. Or even four pages. But a few months back The Guardian axed the wonderful comic they were publishing on Saturdays. Boo.

To read more about the Panorama head over to Flavorpill's Flavorwire where there's an interview with Oscar Villalon, McSweeney’s publisher, originally sent out in their excellent weekly book email, Boldtype. Pictures via Tonx, who has a good post about it too.

I might head over here and see if they have it:

Yes, new shop Good Grief! brings a bulging sack full of art book, zine and comic goodness to a hut on the third floor of Affleck's Palace. Also music, and posters, and music posters. I am very excited about this. We could really use more places in town to buy this kind of stuff. At the moment there seems to be an amazing bounty of illustrators and comics in Manchester doing weird and wonderful work that it can be absurdly tricky to get ahold of. Keep up with the Good Grief! gang on their amusing blog here. Thanks for the tip Kate Taylor.