Readings

Exciting News About Murder Most Magical

~ Cheryl

The Severed Streets - Paul CornellHeads up, Bristol people, and indeed anyone within easy reach of Bristol. I have some exciting news about the author event we are doing on May 16th. As some of you will know, Paul Cornell has a new book out in May. It is called The Severed Streets and it features the same group of dysfunctional London coppers that appeared in his previous book, London Falling. The official launch of The Severed Streets will be at Forbidden Planet in London on May 21st. However, Tor UK have kindly agreed to try to get us a few advance copies for our event. So if you come to Bristol for Murder Most Magical you should be able to get a copy of Paul’s new book almost a week before the rest of the country. He’ll probably sign it for you too.

To whet your appetite, Tor has posted an excerpt from The Severed Streets on their US website.

As a reminder, doors open at 7:00pm at Waterstones in The Galleries. The store tells me that they are expecting a big turnout, so we won’t start until around 7:30pm to give everyone time to get seated. Please don’t assume this means you can arrive at 7:45pm. We do need to get the authors out of there and fed. There may also be restrictions on the number of books each author will sign. Tickets are £3 and are only available from the store, but if you ask nicely someone in Bristol will pop in and buy some for you.

While I’m on the subject of Paul, his equally fabulous wife, Caroline Symcox, will be appearing on my radio show tomorrow at Noon. She’ll be talking about what it is like being a woman trainee vicar in the Church of England, and plugging her book, The Vicar’s FAQ.

Murder Most Magical

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The next Fringe event will be on Monday May 19th, and will feature Cavan Scott and Justin Newland. Details here. Before that, however, we have an additional event for Bristol folks.

On Friday, May 16th at 7:00pm in Waterstones, Bristol I will be hosting “Murder Most Magical”, a presentation of fantasy-themed crime novels featuring Ben Aaronovitch, Paul Cornell and Jasper Fforde. The event is ticketed, costing £3, and currently you can only get tickets at the store. However, I’m sure local people can be persuaded to pop in on your behalf should you need them to. I suggest that you book up early, because this will probably sell out.

Thanks are due to CrimeFest, which is taking place in the city over that weekend. They kindly allowed us to borrow three of their guests for the evening.

Nick Harkaway at Mr. B’s

~ Cheryl

Bristol and Bath people, here is an event to look forward to. On the evening of Wednesday June 18th Nick Harkaway will be appearing at Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights to promote his new novel, Tigerman. Nick is, of course, well known for his first two novels: The Gone-Away World and Angelmaker (the latter a Clarke Award nominee and winner of the Kitchies Red Tentacle). I’m given to understand that Tigerman is somewhat less speculative in content, but Nick is a great author regardless of subject matter. Mr. B’s is quite small, so I expect this to sell out fairly quickly. Book up now. Full details here.

Fringe in a Flash

~ Cheryl

The April edition of BristolCon Fringe will be devoted to flash fiction. That means that we have not two, not three, but a whole eight readers for you.

Well, I say whole. We were going to have the fabulous Gareth L. Powell, but the poor guy is on crutches right now and he needs to be fit and ready for Eastercon so we have excused him his duties. Someone else will fling monkey poo on his behalf.

So the line-up we have is as follows:

Louise Gethin writes about love, death and anything in between. She self-published a collection of short stories, Anecdotes of Love and Death, in 2013 with the help of Andy Gibb (actually, it wouldn’t have happened without him). Otherwise, she has read at The Thunderbolt as part of the Word of Mouth Series and been included in a number of short story anthologies including: Unchained — published by Tangent Books in 2013, Hidden Bristol — published by Tangent Books in 2012. She has been a member of Bristol Writers Group for 11 years and was one of the four founding members.

Justin Newland is a regular attendee at Fringe and is doubtless well known to podcast listeners for being the person who helps Cheryl out by asking questions from the audience when no one else is willing to.

Jonathan Pinnock is the author of the novel Mrs. Darcy Versus The Aliens (Proxima, 2011), the Scott Prize-winning short story collection Dot Dash (Salt, 2012) and the forthcoming bio-historico-musicological-memoir thing Take It Cool (Two Ravens Press, 2014). He blogs at www.jonathanpinnock.com and tweets as @jonpinnock. He read at Fringe in February.

Pauline Masurel has been writing tiny stories for over twelve years now, which is long before most people were calling them flash fiction. Her short, and even shorter, stories have been published in anthologies, and online in both print and audio versions. Two of her short stories were broadcast on Radio 4. She is amply qualified to write flash fiction inspired by astronomy, because she used to live a couple of doors down from the Herschel Museum in Bath and she once watched Patrick Moore falling asleep at a public lecture. You can find out more about her work from her website.

Peter Sutton has lived in Bristol since the late 80’s, on and off, and now considers it his home. Like most authors he had a wide variety of jobs. Unlike most authors he only started writing post 40 after a lifetime of procrastination. He’s always had a passion for books and once tried unsuccessfully to have a publishing career, going so far to get a PGDip in publishing, but it didn’t take and he ended up working for the BBC instead in just one of those ‘any jobs’. He now works for a major telecoms company. He is one of the organisers of Bristol Festival of Literature and has had stories published on 1000 Words, storieswithpictures.org and Hodderscape. He is a contributor to the Naked Guide to Bristol and an event organiser for Vala publishing. You can follow him on Twitter at @suttope and read his blog at http://brsbkblog.blogspot.co.uk/.

Jonathan L. Howard is an author, game designer, and scriptwriter, creator of Johannes Cabal (a necromancer of some little infamy), and the YA SF series The Russalka Chronicles. He can be found on Twitter as @jonathanlhoward and at his site www.jonathanlhoward.com. He read at Fringe last November.

Kevlin Henney is the organizer of Bristol’s annual contribution to National Flash Fiction Day. His work has been published in a variety of venues, including New Scientist. He read at Fringe last December, and this event is All His Fault.

And finally, Cheryl Morgan is a publisher and literary critic who is absolutely terrified at the prospect of having to read her own fiction in public for the first time, especially in the company of such distinguished persons.

As always, BristolCon Fringe takes place at the Shakespeare Tavern in Prince Street (round the back of the Arnolfini). Readings start at 7:30. Full details are available from the BristolCon website.

March Fringe Podcasts

~ Cheryl

I got the March BristolCon Fringe readings edited over the weekend, and they are now available for listening below.

First up we have Rosie Oliver who treated us to a short story, a fragment from a novel, and a preview of a new story about C.A.T, her robot cat hero. As she had to catch an early train home, we did her Q&A immediately after her reading.

Next at the microphone was Scott Lewis, freshly escaped from his ordeals rescuing farmers from the floods in Somerset. Scott read the first chapter of the aforementioned novel, which I think is called Aetherjack. It involves a gunfight in a brothel and a rickshaw chase. Please note that in the Q&A at the end of the evening Scott makes it clear that Dash is by no means the hero of the novel.

Our third reader was Roz Clarke, who is probably better known here as one of the editors of Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion. Roz also read a chapter from a novel in progress. As we reveal later in the Q&A, it is set in an alternate world version of Bristol. Roz is a Clarion West graduate, and I think you’ll agree that it shows in this reading. In fact if you are an editor or agent looking for a hot new novel to sell I suggest that you give this a listen, and then drop me a line to ask for Roz’s contact details. If the rest of the book is as good as this, I’d love to publish it, but I know that Roz deserves better than what Wizard’s Tower can do for her.

While Rosie had to rush off and catch a train, Scott and Roz stuck around to answer questions. The Q&A turned into a bit of a meditation on novel-writing technique. We talked about the problems of second chapters, and about the pros and cons of outlining. Kevlin Henney shocked everyone by mentioning the F-word: “finish”. As everyone in the business knows, novels are never finished, they are only abandoned.

Kevlin also gives us a preview of the April Fringe event, which he is curating as it is a flash fiction event. It will take place next Monday (April 14th) — somewhat earlier than usual due to the Easter vacation. As the stories are all quite short, there will be eight readers in total. One of them will be local favorite, Gareth L. Powell, who still holds the record for the most downloads of a Fringe podcast. Also reading will be Kevlin himself, and Jonathan Pinnock, both of whom are Fringe veterans. In addition there will be a story that will feature in The Girl at the End of the World, Vol. 2, forthcoming from Fox Spirit later this year, which will be read by me because I wrote it.

Book Review And More – Karen Joy Fowler

~ Cheryl

Karen Joy Fowler will be at Foyles in Bristol on Wednesday night promoting the UK release of her new book, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. As a reviewer, I am somewhat reluctant to say that you should not read reviews of a book, but in the case of this one it is absolutely true. Don’t read any reviews, not even mine. Don’t read the jacket blurb, just in case. Just go out any buy it, and come to it free of preconceptions.

Of course if you don’t trust me on that, I have a review here. I have tried hard not to say too much about the book. I have also interviewed Karen for my show on Ujima which should, if all goes well, air on Wednesday lunchtime. However, if today’s meeting doesn’t result in a firm date for us getting back on air then I will podcast the interview tomorrow.

March Fringe – Roz Clarke, Rosie Oliver & Scott Lewis

~ Cheryl

With all of the drama surrounding Ujima I have been remiss regarding my promise to trail this month’s Fringe event. Here we go at last.

The March BristolCon Fringe meeting will take place on Monday (March 17th) at the Shakespeare Tavern from 7:30pm. The featured readers will be:

Scott Lewis is a Bristol-based journalist, writer, photographer and casual adventurer who has only recently started dabbling in fiction, and will eventually manage his time sufficiently enough to get his first novel finished. Until then he intends to amuse himself by writing more short stories, chronic procrastination, rummaging around old book stores and libraries for obscure myths, legends, and folklore, and gallivanting off to far-flung parts of the world on ‘research trips’.

After gaining a maths degree from Oxford University, Rosie Oliver started her 30-plus years career in engineering. She is now what they call a systems engineer. As a child, she discovered the shelves of yellow hardback Gollancz science fiction books at her local library, and she was hooked. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing it. This led onto her doing an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. (Well, it is an ‘engineering solution’ to improving one’s writing!) Rosie has had several short stories published in various magazines and anthologies. Her series of novelettes about a self-learner robo-cat, simply called C.A.T., is e-published by TWB Press… mrrooowww! You are welcome to read her blog at rosieoliver.wordpress.com.

Roz Clarke divides her time between Bristol and London, and has recently completed a 2-year stint of corporate problem-solving, leaving her to focus fully on the important things in life: writing, gaming, the impending apocalypse, and bicycles. She is a graduate of Clarion West, and has had short fiction published in magazines including Black Static, as well as the Dark Spires anthology and Andy Bigwood’s The Sixty. With Joanan halls she edited Colinthology and Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion. She’s also a member of the BristolCon team. You can find her at www.firefew.com or on Twitter: @zora_db.

As usual, I will be hosting the event. Further details are available on the BristolCon website.

February Fringe – Ken Shinn, Jonathan Pinnock, Snorri Kristjansson

~ Cheryl

The podcasts for the February BristolCon Fringe readings are now available online. Here are the links.

First up we have Ken Shinn doing his first ever public reading of his first ever published story, which is in Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion. He’s a very brave fellow, stepping in for Scott Lewis at the last minute. My profuse apologies for a few sound problems during the reading that I haven’t been able to edit out.

Next up is Jonathan Pinnock who does science fiction poetry and flash fiction. I had no idea that there was such a thing as Reverse Fibonacci format for poetry. Jonathan also reads the prologue of this novel, Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens which is, naturally, set in Bath.

Finally we are entertained by Snorri Kristjansson who provides us with tales of his Viking ancestors, including a world premiere of an extract from his forthcoming novel, Blood Will Follow. Too much ale is consumed, fights break out, a certain amount of murder may happen.

Finally I get to chat to our guests. In this podcast Ken talks about being a debut writer and Jonathan fills in the shameful gap in my knowledge of the world with respect to Johnny Vegas. I ask Snorri about the worship of Thor and Loki. We discuss historical accuracy, and Snorri tells a joke about the Finns and vodka, thereby proving that he does a pretty good Kimi Raikkonen impression.

Next week the March Fringe event will feature Rosie Oliver, Roz Clarke and (floods and government willing), the mysterious, vanishing Scott Lewis. I’ll blog more about that later in the week.

February Fringe – Airships & Vikings

~ Cheryl

The February meeting of BristolCon Fringe takes place on Monday (17th). As usual I shall be hosting the event. We have three readers for February. One is Scott Lewis who has a story in Airship Shaped & Bristol Fashion.

Scott Lewis is a Bristol-based journalist, writer, photographer and casual adventurer who has only recently started dabbling in fiction, and will eventually manage his time sufficiently enough to get his first novel finished. Until then he intends to amuse himself by writing more short stories, chronic procrastination, rummaging around old book stores and libraries for obscure myths, legends, and folklore, and gallivanting off to far-flung parts of the world on ‘research trips’.

Update: Sadly Scott is unable to make it due to the flooding. We hope to re-schedule him for a later date.

Then there’s Jonathan Pinnock, whom I don’t think I have met before but who sounds very interesting. I don’t have a bio for him, but he has an impressive list of short fiction publications on his website. And he has written a novel called Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens, which is clearly the Right Stuff.

Finally we have our first Icelandic reader. A very warm welcome to Bristol, please, for Snorri Kristjansson, who says of himself:

I spend my days working with words, telling jokes on stage and occasionally teaching at Southbank International School.

Which is all very modest of him because he has a fine fantasy novel all about vikings available from Jo Fletcher Books. This is what they have to say:

The Swords of Good Men is a Viking fantasy novel. Our first novel of that ilk, in fact, and it’s awesome. It’s got a mad king determined to bring the White Christ to the masses, a mysterious and beautiful woman drawing the souls of dead warriors to her cause, a gentle blacksmith with dangerous blood and a young hero, who has a lot to learn about the cruelty of the world. And they’re all converging on Steinvik, a place where your enemies do not necessarily reside outside the walls… It’s fast, vicious and reminiscent of Joe Abercrombie…

Snorri read briefly from it at BristolCon last year, and I was very impressed.

Finally, of course, we will be selling copies of Airship Shaped & Bristol Fashion. You won’t be able to get them anywhere else until next week.

Bristolcon Fringe events take place take place in the back room of the Shakespeare Tavern, 68 Prince St. They start at 7:30pm, but many of us turn up early because the food is good. For more details of Fringe events, see here.

January Fringe

~ Cheryl

The podcasts from the January BristolCon Fringe readings are now live. The guest readers were Désirée Fischer and Lou Morgan.

First up we have a couple of stories from Dés. This is the first time anyone other than her boyfriend had got a look at these stories, so I think she was very brave indeed. There’s talent there too.

Lou Morgan reads lovely story called “Her Heartbeat, An Echo” from Jurassic’s Egyptian-themed anthology, The Book of the Dead.

And finally we have the Q&A session. Lou and I discuss her influences (Dante, Milton, Beowulf), and why her Blood & Feathers books are popular with American soldiers. We also mention Gawain and the Green Knight. I talk to Dés about having the best job in the world (working for an SF bookstore), and about writing in a second language.

As usual, apologies about the sound quality. I do wish we had better tech kit that could cut out all of the background noise.

This month our readers will include the fabulous Snorri Kristjansson.

February Readings in Bath

~ Cheryl

Talking of Mr. B’s, next month they play host to Loki. Well, not exactly. They have Joanne Harris, whose new book, The Gospel of Loki, is all about everyone’s favorite trickster. The event in on February 21st. Details here.

Before that, however, I will be off to Toppings on the 13th to see Mike Carey read from his highly acclaimed new novel, The Girl With All The Gifts. Tickets are available here.

I am so lucky to have so many great writers come to do events near me.

Fringe Next Week РLou Morgan & D̩sir̩e Fischer

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

The next BristolCon Fringe reading takes place next Monday. The guest readers are Lou Morgan & Désirée Fischer. Lou will be familiar to many people.

Lou Morgan lives in Bath with her husband and son (and the obligatory writer’s cat). Her short fiction has appeared in anthologies from PS Publishing, Solaris Books and Jurassic London – most recently, in Jurassic’s Egyptian mummy anthology, “The Book of the Dead”. Her first novel, “Blood and Feathers”, was published by Solaris Books in 2012 and was nominated for two British Fantasy Awards, being shortlisted in both the “Best Newcomer” and “Best Fantasy Novel” categories. The sequel, “Blood and Feathers: Rebellion” followed in the summer of 2013.

I note also that she has a Masters in Anglo-Saxon heroic literature and early Arthurian Romance. The Q&A could be fun.

Des is probably less well known outside of Bristol, but she has excellent contacts through her employers:

Desiree Fischer is working for a well known Cult and Entertainment store by day and leading a not so very secret life as a writer by night. She grew up in Germany but always wanted to move to England, so she packed her suitcase as soon as she finished university and has never looked back.

I should add that I’m absolutely delighted that our Fringe readings this far have included a Polish writer, and now a German writer. This is also an all-woman event, bringing our gender balance to date to 5:4 in favor of the boys. February will be all-male, but March is all female again, so we are doing OK.

The event will, as usual, take place at the Shakespeare Tavern, 68 Prince St. from 7:30pm. For those who can’t make it, podcasts should be available in due course (gods of technology willing). Further information is available here.

December Fringe Podcasts

~ Cheryl

The podcasts from the December BristolCon Fringe event are now online. You can find them all at our Podbean account, but to save you clicking through, here they all are. The readers are Kevlin Henney, a flash fiction writer whom you have probably not heard of but should have, and Jo Hall, the Chair of BristolCon and a writer of doorstop fantasy novels. Do take a listen, there’s some really good stuff here.

Here’s Kevlin with two stories. The first has a bit of death and destruction, and the second destroys the planet.

Here’s Jo with a world exclusive, the first chapter from The Art of Forgetting: Nomad. A certain amount of torture happens.

And finally here’s one more story from Kevlin (with murder and inter-species sex). Afterwards I do a brief Q&A with both authors.

The first volume in Jo’s massive fantasy novel, The Art of Forgetting: Rider, is available from the Wizard’s Tower bookstore.

Fringe Tonight

~ Cheryl

Hello Bristol! Yes, I know it is cold and blustery outside. But this evening it will be warm and cozy in the Shakespeare and we will have Kevlin Henney and Joanne Hall to entertain you. Jo will be giving the first ever reading from the second Art of Forgetting book. And as usual I will be on hand to introduce the readers and make the recordings for later podcast. I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Full details here. And look, we’ll have Snorri Kristjansson in February. Huzzah!

BristolCon Fringe: Ian Millsted & Jonathan L. Howard

~ Cheryl

Cowboy Kim - Jonathan L. HowardThe podcasts of the latest BristolCon Fringe readings are now available, and they contain a wealth of exclusive material.

First up is Ian Millsted, who reads “The Traveller’s Apprentice”, a story that will appear in Airship Shaped & Bristol Fashion as soon as we can get the book through production. (Guess who is the blockage there?)

Headlining the evening was Jonathan L. Howard who gave us two readings: a short story called “Cowboy Kim”, and the prologue of the next Johannes Cabal novel. Both of these were also exclusives. “Cowboy Kim” was written for the event, while the new cabal novel won’t be out until next year. Jonathan also reveals the title of the book in the podcast.

My first reaction on hearing “Cowboy Kim” was to suggest to Jonathan that he submit it to some major magazines. It is a very good, darkly funny, examination of the possible future of entertainment TV. But it turned out that the story is based somewhat on a Devo song called “Big Mess”. Jonathan has been in touch with the band who have given him permission to use their material, but he doesn’t feel comfortable actually selling the story.

What we have done instead is make an ebook of the story available as a free download of the story available with a purchase of Colinthology, the charity anthology we created in memory of Colin Harvey. Jonathan lives in Keynsham, the same small town where Colin lived, and he has a story in Colinthology as well. This offer is only available through the Wizard’s Tower store (because those big name stores only allow you to associate one file with each stock item). 100% of the money received from sales of Colinthology go to Above & Beyond, the charity for which Colin volunteered.

Here is the podcast of Ian’s story:

And here is Jonathan, plus a short bit of Q&A with both writers at the end.

The next BristolCon Fringe reading will take place on Monday December 16th. The readers are Kevlin Henney and Joanne Hall. Jo will be treating us to the first ever reading from her forthcoming novel: Art of Forgetting : Nomad. Details of the event are available here.

Finally, here is Devo performing “Big Mess”. Thanks guys!

Last Night at the Fringe

~ Cheryl

Many thanks to everyone who braved the rain to come to the Shakespeare last night for our third BristolCon reading. I haven’t listened to the recordings yet, and we are still having issues with getting the sound right, but I very much hope that we have something listenable because our guest readers were great.

Ian Millsted read his story from the forthcoming Airship Shaped and Bristol Fashion, which involves a lot of Victorian science, both factual and fictional, including William Friese-Greene, the pioneering movie-maker.

Jonathan L. Howard read two pieces. One was a wonderful short story about the possible future of television. The other was the prologue from the forthcoming 4th Johannes Cabal book. I know people will be eager to hear that lot, so I’ll get the audio checked as soon as I can.

September Fringe Podcasts

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday I posted the podcasts from the September meeting of BristolCon Fringe, the monthly readings series that I help host. I’m not actually as late as it seems with these, because we took a month off in October due to the convention and Festival of Literature. Still, they are now up and worth a listen.

We started with Piotr Åšwietlik who is from Poland and is one of those clever people who can write fiction in two languages. Apologies to Piotr for the sound quality. We were hoping to feed the sound direct from the amp into the recorder, but we hadn’t had a chance to test that and this caused a bunch of problems.

Thankfully things were better for Tim Maughan, though there is still a lot of background noise. Tim has been doing Eeyore impressions on Twitter about his performance, but I have heard worse, and I always cringe listening to my performances too. The final 12 minutes or so is given over to reading the whole of Tim’s latest story, “Zero Hours”, which caused such a big splash online when it came out.

Finally we did some Q&A. I asked Piotr about differences between English and Polish, and about the SF&F scene in Poland. I note that Andrzej Sapkowski is one of the Guests of Honour at next year’s Eurocon. I’ve met him before. He’s very personable, though my Irish friends should make sure that they are well stocked with whisky beforehand. Tim talked about the influence of hip-hop on his writing, and gave us an exclusive about the novel he is working on.

The November Fringe meeting is next Monday (18th) when our guests will be Jonathan L. Howard and Ian Millsted.

Fringe: Achivement Unlocked

~ Cheryl

Talking of podcasts, I am relieved to report that despite a small amount of technical incompetence on the part of yours truly I do have audio of last night’s BristolCon Fringe event. I was delighted to see it well-attended, despite the fact that certain people deserted us to listen to a bunch of Welsh boys sing at Colston Hall. Who knew that our people had such an interest in religion?

What’s more, thanks in a large part to our lovely readers, we had quite a diverse audience. I believe that we had three Poles, one German, and four non-white persons, out of a total of 20. Go Bristol!

Still, the most important thing is that I have a recording of Tim Maughan reading his latest story, “Zero Hours”, and that will be online in due course. In the meantime you can read it here and make a note to remember it when you do your Hugo ballots next year.

Book Slam in Bristol

~ Cheryl

A bit of catch-up from last week here. On Thursday evening I went into Bristol for a Book Slam event, hosted by my friend Nikesh Shukla. He read a short story all about trying to write a second novel which was very funny. You really should check out his novella, The Time Machine. Look, unsolicited recommendation:

The second reader was Bernardine Evaristo, whose latest novel, Mr. Loverman, is about a gay West Indian man living in London. I’ve seen a review that complains that the characters are caricatures, but it was obvious from listening to Evaristo read that the book is satire, and very funny too. I bought a copy on the strength of hearing her read it.

Finally we had Emylia Hall reading from A Heart Bent Out Of Shape. She was clearly a good writer, but I’m afraid my life is too busy to read romance novels that can’t even manage a sparkly vampire to liven things up. Sorry.

Fringe Tonight – Tim Maughan & Piotr Åšwietlik

~ Cheryl

I’ll be off out shortly as I am hosting the September BristolCon Fringe reading. This one features Tim Maughan & Piotr Åšwietlik. Tim I am sure you are all familiar with by now (and if not, why not?). Piotr is a Polish writer now living in the UK and is one of those smart folks who can write fiction in two languages. Assuming that all goes well with the tech, there will be podcasts available of the readings in due course. If you happen to be in Bristol and are able to attend, full details are available here.