November in Manchester: Literary News

Well howdy. It's been a while, no? Now that the Literature Festival dust has settled, I'm here with a lot of long-overdue literary news things.

November in Manchester, an ambitious "social media love story" undertaken by Tom Mason, an SEO copywriter whose first love is creative writing, is now live. I spoke with Tom about it at Social Media Cafe and he told me how it works: he's written a story which is going to be published via characters' first-person tweets and blog posts (here are blogs for main characters James and Persephone.)

Readers can take part by sending in pics and films representing the characters and/or scenes they experience during November in Manchester (photo above is from their Flickr Group.) It's not really a collectively written story, more a collectively illustrated one that employs social media in its delivery. Interesting idea.

A wave to those intrepid Manchester writers furiously sprinting through National Novel Writing Month. Good luck, guys! In case anyone is just finding out about this excellent endeavour and doesn't want to wait another year to take part the folks who run it also do short story and script-centred projects throughout the year, so sign up to their list to find out about those.

Some news on the publications front:

Author, dreamblogger and literary Mancunian of note Nicholas Royle has started up independent publisher Nightjar Press, which got things rolling last month with chapbooks from Manchester writer Tom Fletcher (who writes a blog at Fell House) and Michael Marshall Smith.

Knives, Forks and Spoons press is now publishing poetry and organising readings, their next one features Simon Rennie, Alec Newman and John G. Hall and is at Central Library on Nov 26 at 6:30. The press was begun by Richard Barrett earlier this year and is being continued by Alec Newman. They live on Facebook here.

Lit zines The Shrieking Violet and Belle Vue (write up of it at The Mithering Times) both have fresh editions out, as does new-to-me zine Geeek and web journal The Manchester Review (now on twitter at @mancreview).

A new writing group is setting up shop at Nexus Art Cafe. Called Bad Language, it's being organised by Dan Carpenter. The first meeting was Nov 3 but as I didn't get around to posting about it til now, get in touch via Bad Language's twitter account or contact me and I'll pass on Dan's email.

And if anyone missed it, Manchester's butt-kicking literary scene gets a glowing write-up in the Guardian Books Blog by Jerome de Groot. Interesting debate in the comments on whether Manchester is tiresome about blowing its own horn. Maybe I see the original writer's point. Honestly, we've got a lot to brag about. I would say that, though. Mancs are known for being gobby, and Americans, well - we're not generally considered backward in coming forward.

What do you think? Should Manchester stop grandstanding? Answers on a postcard TO THE GREATEST CITY IN THE WORLD, EVER please.

Manchester writing bits and bobs

A few interesting new developments in Manchester's blossoming online writing scene:

Nasty Safari is an online home for the best new prose, poetry, drama and non-fiction," they tell us. "It's a strange journey through the world that makes even the mundane exotic. And it may or may not involve zebras. Everyone involved in Nasty Safari lives, works and studies in Manchester, and we're really keen to get lots of submissions in from writers in the North West."

Willow Hewitt of Bewilderbliss has started Manchester Writing, "a new blog about readings and writing related things in Manchester. It's just getting going but I'm soon going to get a full diary of events on there of all (or possibly something between 'some' and 'most') of the readings around town."

Also just getting off the ground: web magazine An Apathetical Reader, "a creative community site that hopes to give a voice to the vast numbers of unsupported, disillusioned young people in the city," writes a shadowy figure called Alice Apathetical. "The website will feature local news, national political comment, features about Manchester, music journalism and artist profiles. By creating a unique and quality webzine I hope to support creative people blown by the current economic climate and finding the city a difficult place to meet like-minded people."

... "The magazine has strong links with The Chapel Social Centre on Platt Fields, where contributors can meet and discuss their ideas. It is also affiliated with People's Voice Media - the 'Reuters of the community' - which encourages and trains young people in visual media industries." To get involved, get in touch with Alice via the website.

WE ARE YOUNG AND WE ARE TRYING is "an art & literature zine with a cause. Each volume includes a piece of writing and a piece of art from ten different people and music and art from one more. Five are primarily writers, five are primarily artists. We hope to encourage creativity and trying new shit as well as providing a platform to show off the shit you do anyway."

There's news of a workshop linked to the upcoming Text Festival: Writers and artists 16 and up are invited to take part in a workshop series run by Bury Council. Participants will learn about Bury Art Gallery’s Text exhibition, have time to explore your creative ideas, work together to develop a script then help create a short digital animation which will go online for public viewing. Each workshop will be run by a range of artists for 2 hours each Saturday afternoon (2-4pm) for 6 weeks starting on the 16th May. For more information and a brief application form contact Farrell Renowden, Arts Development Officer at Bury council: artsdevelopment@bury.gov.uk or 0161 253 5804

I'm also nearly finished organising our first series of Rainy City Stories creative writing workshops. I'll post the details here soon.

Mules, soup and other literary matters

Did I say I had a billion things to blog about? Make that a billion and ten. No, wait, twelve. Two more very important things just winged their way into my inbox. Here's some literary things...

Tim Woodall writes to us from Chorlton to tell us that he and Joe Patrick will be managing a writers and artists blog by the name of SOUP.They're seeking submissions, but no old farts of 27 or 34 need apply: "To submit, you need to be between the ages of 20 and 25 and currently live in Greater Manchester. It might seem strange that we are only accepting submissions from people within this age bracket, but... as practicing young artists it is much easier to find established publications with strict submission guidelines and stiff competition than it is to stumble across platforms more suited to our most recent creative efforts."

M. from Manchester indymedia wrote to let us know about The Mule Magazine, a collaborative, UK-wide grassroots news site for justice and peace. They're not big on bylines, but they have a smattering of stuff excerpted from speeches and znet articles as well as other pieces presumably written by members of the collective. And they have a pretty interesting Manchester page which is strong on local activism news, though it could use some updating. Anyway, check it out.

Peter Hartey of Poetica has passed on news of an online poetry competition designed to raise awareness of Mines Advisory Group, an NGO based in Manchester. The MAG Poetry Prize has an interesting setup - the entrants are the judges, and their entry fees add up to the prize money. The prize is being run by Poetic Republic, an offshoot of Poetica, the writer's group based at the Central Library which has been going for yonks. Nice website, great cause.