Reading Survival

A series of rules which I'll develop as I do readings which will hopefully mean they get better.

Rule number one: Never share a bill with a performance poet (at least not one that's any good).

Last night Shane Koyczan came to Book Sl@m, saw me read, conquered. Grown men were weeping in the aisles, girls were queuing for his verbal loving. I'd gone foetal in the corner.

To be fair, everyone was very kind. But the principle stands...

Live Thing In Your Town

As long as your town is London.

Two confirmed readings from "Clear Water":

May 25th, at Patrick Neate's terrifyingly cool and chic Book Sl@m (there's two links in there, click-fiends).
Cherry Jam, 58 Porchester Road, London, W2
Doors open 7pm

May 31st at Vox 'n' Roll with the mighty, irrepressibly fine fellow Michael Smith.
The Boogaloo, 312 Archway Road, London N6 5AT.

Fun for Sociopaths

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can now make friends with characters from a book! Well, this book. The book I keep going on about.

Follow the links below to various Myspace pages, meet the characters in question, become their buddies, live a life rich in hopeless fantasy and wasted man-hours. Alternatively, use the opportunity to read a bit of the book. What book? Oh, keep up...

King James
Peter Jones
Jimmy Patel
Verna Landor

Books and Music

Took part in Andrew Holmes' Secret Santa Mixtape thing with a selection of authors that people may actually have heard of.

It was a remarkably painless experience.

Too Little Too Late

This blog has only really one purpose. Or maybe two. Or more. But mainly it's to try and persuade you to read (and, yes, buy) "Clear Water" by Will Ashon. It's a book, it has 330-odd pages. It has a natty cut-out dust jacket. Blah. It's an entirely self-defeating enteprise as you'll probably only be here if you've already heard about it.

If you have heard about the book, maybe some of the information here will be useful to you.

If you've read it you can leave abuse.

That way, everyone wins.