Snapshots - Graphic Novel Inspired by Wedding Present Song Titles

 A Song Title became a Short Story became a Graphic Novel

It started with the band the Wedding Present and their excellent song writer David Gedge,
it continued with the writer Louise Hume (in collaboration with Tara Gould from Brighton's Short Fuse/Story Studio Live Lit event) who invited other writers to write stories based on the Wedding Present's song titles.

Some of these stories were read by the writers at the Edge of the Sea Festival in Brighton in 2010.
The stories were liked by the band and the fans.
Finally, illustrator Lee Thacker was invited to "do the drawings" for the stories ...

and the result is a graphic novel!

Apart from my story, I'm From Further North Than You, there are little gems like Mark Sheerin's Brassneck, Erika Szostak's Model, Actress, Whatever ... and Wendy Ann Greenhalgh's The Trouble with Men.

Snapshots is for sale here.

Tuned in Stories at Story Studio, Komedia Brighton

Short Fuse has changed their name to Story Studio and the night on Sunday was a great success. The theme for the night was "Tunes" and apart from traditional story readings the audience was treated to visual art by Lee Thacker, singing by Pam Hewitt and performance art by Amanda Evans.

I performed my story I'm from Further North than You that was inspired by the Wedding Present song with the same title. Last time I read this story was at the Edge of the Sea festival in august so it was less nerve-wracking this time ... It was great to have Lee Thacker's illustrations of the story behind me, and I felt very honoured to have David from the Wedding Present at my table. I found out that the song was originally titled Edinburgh. I didn't know this, but had subconsciously set the story in the Scottish capital anyway.

Next up was Brian Bell reading Shite Ole' Deep Purple Records. What I particularly liked about this story is that it dealt with the snobbishness of some music fans ... e.g. that you can't be a punk and also listen to Deep Purple. (Swedish rock band Backyard Babies once kicked a band member because they found a Suzanne Vega record in his collection ... And my Swedish debut novel "Punk industrial hard rocker with attitude" deals with being bullied for liking both Guns N'Roses and punk stuff ....)

Jeff Noon was probably the most famous name on the bill. I've never read any of his novels although I've seen them lying about in my friends houses. My first ever flatmates kept going on about Needle in the groove and it's still on the list of books I want to read ... Jeff didn't get up on stage himself, instead Alistair Lock did a brilliant job reading Jeff's story The Queen is Dead inspired by the Smith's song.

Amanda Evans in full action, telling her tale from Jamaica called The Third Drawer. She was accompanied by soft drumming which made the story very hypnotic.

The duo Felstead and Waddell seem to be the act in residence at Story Studio and they always amuse me. Their stories are only about a 100 words long, but each story is a complete sketch with props. The stories they read on the night were all inspired by song titles, e.g. River Deep - Mountain high and Living la vida loca. How they manage to keep their faces straight I don't know ...

This Genesis guy was not at Story Studio. But Tara Gould had written an amazing rhythmic story about losing your virginity titled The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man, and it was performed by Wendy Quelch. I got so into the story that I forgot to get my camera out hence the substitute picture ...

Another highlight was Louise Hume's story Porquoi Es-Tue Devenue Si Raisonnable? performed by Simon Drake and Louise herself. The french title is English for the Wedding Present Song Why are you being so reasonable now?
Apparently it was a huge hit in France ...

Last up was Lee Thacker. Well last up was a graphic short story of his, read by Wendy Quelch & Holly Dawson. Unfortunately the ending of this story Nickles and Dimes was missing, but maybe it was an intentional trick to get everybody to buy the forthcoming anthology with The Wedding Present-inspired stories ... I don't know exactly when it will be out, but I'll keep you posted.

Next Story Studio happens in June and the theme then is Sport & Leisure. Maybe the above picture from post Brighton Marathon will inspire you ... (I took this photo on my way home feeling inspired by writer & photographer Erika Szostak who also has a story in the above mentioned anthology.) More info about Story Studio and submission guidelines here.


Thanks to Lee Thacker for the photo of me.

Reaping my Shorts

I dedicated last year to short stories. And now I'm reaping what I sow ..

*On Sunday I'm reading at Story Studio (former Short Fuse) at Komedia. The theme for this night is Tunes so I re-submitted the story I read at the Edge of the Sea Festival in August. The story is called Further North than You and is inspired by the Wedding Present song with the same title. This story will also be included in an anthology with other stories inspired by the Wedding Present titles or lyrics.

*This week I received a copy of Spilling Ink in the post - an excellent anthology of fiction, nonfiction and prose poetry/flash fiction. My short story Lovers of the Planet is one of the featured pieces.

*My short story The Party is Over made it to the shortlist for the annual Mslexia Short Story Competition. Although shortlist in this case doesn't mean it will be one of the published pieces, just that it came close.

This year I haven't written a single short story. Here you can read about my change of scene last year, but now I'm think I'm back to poetry again ... What I learnt from dedicating a year to short stories is that every word and semicolon matters. I've become better at writing in general, yet I don't think of myself as a short story writer. I write novels for a living (well, for a tiny tiny part of my living), I write poetry for fun and for performing (and therefore am not too bothered about semi-colons and perfecting them for the page), but short stories ... They are still beyond me.

At the Edge of the Sea Festival

Yesterday I was on stage at Concorde2 for the first time. I opened At the Edge of the Sea Festival by reading my short story I'm from further North than you, which was inspired by a Wedding Present song with the same title.(The Short Story organisation Short Fuse was behind this idea and there were three more reading acts throughout the day.)The singer of the Wedding Present - David Gedge - said my story was naughty, but then it was his lyrics that started it all off ...

The headlining band was of course The Wedding Present, but I also enjoyed David's other band Cinerama (picture) and the Ukrainians among other bands. I think it's a great idea to mix literature and rock. Good news is that the selected stories will be published in an anthology that will be sold as Wedding Present merchandise. My story will most likely be illustrated in the format of a graphic novel.

I must confess that it was quite nerve-wracking to open up a festival - just ten minutes after I arrived. After my reading I felt faint and had to go and sit on the beach, at the edge of the sea.

Photo: James Burt

A Different View

No, I'm not going to talk about POINT OF VIEW in writing. I'm going to write about that sometimes writers need a different view so they can relax and re-energise.

I'm the kind of person who find it hard to have a proper holiday. I often think that I should/could be doing something like writing a poem or at least reading a short story and analyse it.

This weekend I decided to take a mini-break. I went very far. I went to Chichester, 45 min down the road on the train. I spent the Saturday checking out Pallant Art Gallery, St Martin's Tea Room, The Cathedral and Wests bar. I stayed in an unexciting, but clean room at the summer empty university campus.

After a deluxe breakfast on Sunday I took off for my main goal: West Wittering Beach. Beautiful. But windy and overcast. The sun didn't show its face until I came to the bus stop, so I had a meal and a pint in the gardens of the Old House at Home pub before heading back to Brighton&Hove.

I don't know what I was hoping to find, but when I came home I felt much calmer than I have in long time. As if I was living more in the elusive "now". I did a bit of journal writing, wrote a long letter to a friend in Sweden and read Amanda Smyth's Black Rock (A fantastic book that I came across last Sunday at Ace Stories at Hotel Pelirocco where Amanda read from her coming-of-age novel set in Tobago & Trinidad.)

But apart from the above activities I didn't force myself to do anything creative and today, Monday, my day has felt less rigid and more organic. I've done some writing, and thinking and analytic reading, but I've enjoyed it very much. Especially as I was lying on the beach burning my bum cheeks at the same time! (West Wittering Beach might be more sandy, but the beach in Hove is pretty good too and I had a swim without having to amputate my toes after.)

Good News: My story "I'm from further North than you" (based on a song by the band the Wedding Present) was chosen as one of the stories to be read at the Edge of the Sea Festival (where Short Fuse stories will appear) at Concorde2 in August! (Thank you very much Brian M, Tim P & James B for feedback!)

A Writer Needs to Learn to be Alone

When I did the creative writing course at "Jakan" in Stockholm we did a field trip to Norstedts - one of Sweden's biggest publishing companies. What I remember the most is that the editor who showed us around said that in order to become a writer you need to learn to be alone.

When I was younger being alone was my natural state. (In my early teens I didn't have many friends and spent my time afternoons and evenings doing homework, reading and writing.) I was also alone when I first moved to Stockholm and when I first moved to Brighton and when I lived in Thailand and New Zealand. Durings these spells of loneliness I started or worked intensly on novels.

As I got older and more confident I made more friends, and nowadays I have to force myself to be alone. Brighton is a very sociable place and is great for sparking off your imagination. Brighton is also a great distraction.

This week I did a bit of an experiment. I made squares in my diary when I had time off and put "Lou" in the squares to remind me that this week I'm going to spend time with myself. It proved succesful.

First I had itchy fingers and wanted to text everybody in my address book and suggest beers and on the beach. Then I realised that I'm fully capable of having a beer on the beach on my own. Because it's in my own company, when I create reflection time for myself that I come up with ideas and feel creative. I love sitting on the beach or in a cafe with my notebook and write down random thoughts and allow myself to let my mind wander. Then I go home and transfer some of my thoughts to the computer, seeing if anything could make it into a short story.

The result this week:
*I worked on CLEANING IN LINGERIE - a story for the Bridport Prize
*I wrote a piece called THE ART OF MISSING ROXANNE
*I started a story about my death and loss
*I started a story about a pillow fight
*I worked on a story for the Short Fuse Edge of the Sea festival event
*I worked on a story that was called TOUCH ME LIKE YOU WOULD TOUCH HIM and renamed it. It's now called THE PARTY IS OVER.

Sometimes my scheduled writing time in the morning before I go to the library is not enough. To come up with new ideas I often need evenings and weekend to float about in. The mornings are great for getting on with things, a bit like an office job: right today I'm going to work on this story kind of thing. Whereas evenings and weekends are better for coming up with free ideas and do some wild writing. I have to remind myself not to fill every evening and every weekend with other people. I need to re-learn to be alone.*



*A lot of people who are alone watch TV or do housework. TIP: throw out the TV, ignore the dirt and be creative instead!

Can you compete in writing?

In running it's obvious. The first person to cross the finishing line is the winner. It's neither subjective or objective. It's logic.

With writing it's a little bit different. The person who judges your work needs to feel some kind of connection, and even if she/he is trying to be objective it's about personal taste.

At the moment I'm planning to send work to the following competitions/live events:

*Are you sitting comfortably? Live Lit Event/Pyjama Party in the Basement Brighton. The topic is midsummer, and I've written a story about a guy feeling lost at Stonehenge called RELAX JOHNNY-BOY, HAVE SOME FUN. Deadline: 5th June, max 1000 words.

*Guardian Weekend Short Story Competition. I've written a story on the required summer theme about a father daughter relationship called THE HATS WE WEAR. Deadline: 18 June, max 2000 words.

*SPARKS 10, Live lit event, first Tue in July??? Open theme. Written a story called TOUCH ME LIKE YOU WOULD TOUCH HIM. Deadline: 22 June???, max 1000 words.

*Bridport Prize Open theme. I've written a story called CLEANING IN LINGERIE. Deadline: 30 June, max 5000 words. (Am also submitting a piece called HOW ENGLISH WORKS for the flash fiction competition, max 250 words.)

**Waterstones Quarterly Magazine Perfectly Formed Short Story Competition Is only open for unpublished writers, but I don't know if being published in Sweden will count, have emailed and asked, but no reply, so I'm sending them a story anyway, called LOVERS OF THE PLANET (that I originally wrote for a Short Fuse night). Deadline: 1 July, max 2000 words.

*Short Fuse Erotic Fiction Night, Live Event at Komedia 18 July. Don't know if I'm submitting anything yet ... Deadline: 9 July, max 2500 words.

*Short Fuse appearing at Edge of the Sea festival. Theme: write a story that is inspired by a song title by The Wedding Present. I picked I AM FROM FURTHER NORTH THAN YOU. Deadline: 10 July, max 2500 words.

So I actually have six stories on the go. Most of them are finished, or at least drafted. I just need some feedback so I can re-work them if necessary. (Which is almost always the case, another pair of eyes is invaluable!) I have a few regular people who kindly are helping me out, but I'm always in need of more eyes, so if one of the titles grab you let me know if you are willing to read and give feedback. I'll also announce each individual story on Facebook nearer the time. And if anyone reading this is planning to submit to above competitions/events or other places I'm happy to help you out with feedback in return.

I don't think you can compete in writing, or in any creative practise. It's so individual. Yet if you don't play you can't win ... One thing that's good with competitions is that I feel more motivated to finish a story and make it as good as I can.

Talking about competing ... Yesterday I went to Hanover Poetry Festival*, hosted by the brilliant Young Hanoverians, and at the end of the night they had a Poetry Slam (hosted by Hammer&Tongue's Rosy Carrick), that I somewhat reluctantly took part in. The poets get scored (points between 0.0 to 10.0) and are judged by quality of poetry, performance and audience reaction. If you are going to take part in slam you have to take it for what it is, and not be upset if you get low scores. It's not a valid judgment whether you're good or not - it's just what some individuals were thinking at the time. Same with written pieces ... just because you don't win a competition doesn't mean your story is bad. It could just be the judge being in a bad mood and didn't want to read a story about a woman killing her dog or whatever it is you've written. And you'll never know how close you were. That's the good thing I guess compared to say running. You'll know that you're the last person crossing the finishing line ...


*I had some cool pics, but lost my camera ... Probably when dancing in the Engine Rooms in the early hours of morning. The person who took it is probably having fun, seeing pics of people on stage making funny faces ...

Short Fuse Story Salon

I was very happy to be part of Short Fuse Story Salon at Komedia yesterday. Writers were invited to submit stories that "pushes the boundaries of what a short story can be, and experiments in some way with voice or form."

The story I read is called EX LOVE, and is a very short poetic piece that uses a feeling as a narrator. Chris Callard who also read on the night had written a story called A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME with the subtitle: Memo: Revised Tritona Corporation company guidelines. The whole story was written as a protocol which I thought was a clever idea.

Before Chris and I went on, the big stars Tania Hershman and Dave Swann warmed up the stage for us by reading a few of their stories. The reason there was time for "a few" stories is that they both write flash fiction. Their pieces are normally just one or two pages long, which is quite fascinating as they still manage to grab you.

Their readings were followed by a discussion and Q&A from the audience. I made a few notes and one of the things I remember was the point that short story collections are harder work than novels because you have to muster up the energy to constantly meet new characters and environments. At the same they can be, to quote Tania: "a box of chocolates" waited to sampled. Also with short stories you might be able to read something that is really intense, because you know it's going to finish quite soon.

Tania and Dave are quite different in their approach to what they write about. Tania makes everything up (often inspired by articles in the New Scientist) whilst Dave starts with a real life experience and transforms it into fiction. (Even though he might start off writing about a tree and end up with a car.) He also "steals" stories from his friends. I feel that I'm more of a "Dave"-writer, but after listening to Tania I feel inspired to write out of my comfort zone.

Someone, it might have been Dave, posed the question: "What's the most important in a short story?" One of his students once replied: "Does anyone get eaten?" That could translate into is anyone in danger? It doesn't have to be literal danger, but something has to be at stake. A situation, a relationship etc.

Another interesting thing that came up is how people interpret stories. Once someone told Tania "I really like your one page story about lust." She had no idea which story the person was talking about ... And I think that's quite similar to poetry. Short stories and poems are more open for interpretation compared to novels. One person thought my story was about a one-night stand whilst someone else thought it was about a long relationship that had finished ... I thought the title EX LOVE made it obvious, but obviously not!

Vanessa Gebbie was also supposed to read and take part in the discussion, but unfortunately she fell over and hurt herself - in Sweden of all places ... At least we got a little flavour of her work as the organiser Tara Gould read one of her stories.

Sparkling stories at SPARKS

The first time I went to the live short fiction event SPARKS upstairs at Three & Ten in Brighton I thought wow these writers are really good and it's really cool that a photo has been commissioned to go with each story; I wish it was me up on the stage ...

Yesterday that wish came true. I was quite nervous as I've never read a short story on stage before. When performing poetry I memorise all my lines and feel in control; somehow I find it more nerve-wracking having to read something from a piece of paper - especially as I've got this fear of pronouncing the words wrong. Another fear was that I would have to read my story, STEAL FROM THE RICH AND GIVE TO THE POOR, in front of a picture of a nipple as my story features a woman who's lost a nipple to a drunk plastic surgeon ... Luckily the photographer had chosen another scene from the story - a girl writing in a cafe.

SPARKS is a friendly event - hosted by the welcoming and charismatic Jo Mortimer - and I always appreciate talking to other writers and hearing their work. When cycling home along the sea my head was full of story snippets: (love?) notes hanging from a tree, bloody feet in rubber boots, a hotel room in Cairo, a lizard in a mouth, a person suffering from seasonal affective disorder, a mother preparing herself for something difficult ... you name it!

***

Today I had some bad and good news. My story LOVERS OF THE PLANET was not accepted for the next Short Fuse event at Komedia (Wed 14 April), but the good news is that I was really, really close to having my story chosen. The only problem seemed to be that it was a bit too long as they need a variety of short and long stories for the evening. So it's not really bad news at all - I'm actually really happy. It also mean that I can go to Bernadette Cremin's official launch of Miming Silence at Iambic Theatre that happens the same night. As if that wasn't enough the Are you sitting comfortably? short story event at the Basement is happening the same evening as well ... Brighton is great! The choice of three good events in one evening is amazing compared to one half good event every other month in my hometown ... But I think I'll have to write a story soon about being able to be in three places at the same time ...

Photo: Saskia Wesnigk-Wood . Big thanks also to Tim who videoed the whole event.

Change of Scene

I've been part of the Brighton Poetry Scene since 2004. I've been a regular at nights such as Brighton Poetry Society's Open Mic, Hammer & Tongue Slam, Floetics, Horseplay, Wordplay and of course Poets Cornered meetings. I've also done special gigs like Brighton&Hove Peace Festival, Shoreham Beer, Cider & Literature Festival, The Bass Festival, All arts Fiesta, The Poetry Marathon Poets Corner Festival etc. I've had a good time and made lots of friends.

Yet, after five years I've realised that it's bloody hard becoming a professional poet, even semi-professional. You constantly have to suck up to other people in order to get gigs and it's even harder to get poetry published. I'm torn between being a "stage poet" and a "page poet". There are few people who can really pull it off, being good both on stage and page, like Bernadette Cremin and Ros Barber.

What I want to say with this blog post is not that I'm going to stop performing or stop writing poetry, but I'm not going to dedicate as much time to poetry as I used to. It feels like I wrote my best poems and did my best performances 2-3 years ago, and since then I haven't really developed. To become better a poet I need to put in a lot of work: courses, training, studying etc. If I'd put as much effort into poetry and performing as I have put into my novels I'd be a "big star" by now :), but it's hard to succeed in more than one area.

Mainly I'm a novelist and I'm better at writing prose than poetry. I've recently discovered that there's quite a good live scene for short fiction in Brighton with events such as Short Fuse, Sparks, Are you sitting Comfortably? and the former Tight Lip. So I'll cut down on going to poetry events and focus more on the short fiction scene.

It's scary though, starting all over again. When I go to poetry events I feel very comfortable as I know a lot of people and they know me. It's funny that there's a completely different crowd that goes to short fiction events compared to poetry events. What I really like about the poetry scene is that everybody is welcome and everybody can have a go and you get a great mix of people. Of course everybody is welcome at the short fiction events as well, but the main difference is that you have to submit your stories in advance to the short fiction events and only a few get selected to be read on the night, whereas anyone can go up and do anything at a poetry open mic night. It makes the short fiction scene more competitive, but I understand that this is necessary. You can stand listening to a poem that is not to your taste for 5 minutes, but it's worse listening to a story for 15 minutes that is absolute rubbish, so I guess you need some kind of filter.

The reason I started to write poetry at all was that I needed a break from my novel writing, the satisfaction of actually completing something. Poetry used to be my hobby, but somewhere along the line I started to take myself too seriously ... I need to find the FUN again.

I also must admit that I love being on stage. I'm quite shy in real life and often worry about boring people and taking up to much space, but on stage I feel absolutely free: it's my time to speak. Being on stage is also an excuse to dress up. As I don't go clubbing on a regular basis, as I used to in my early twenties, I don't often get a chance to dress up ...

Lastly I'm interested in blog readers opinions: Why do so few people write both prose and poetry? Well, some poets write short stories, but very few write novels. And very few novelists writes poetry, but do write short stories. (As mentioned before you don't see many people from the poetry scene at short story events or many people from the short story scene at poetry events.) For me it's either poems or novels; I find that short stories are a real challenge and haven't written that many, but it's time for a change ...

Photo: Kristen Healy