It's storytime...and it's live!

On Tuesday night, my story "Brothers' Eyes and Curtain Rods" was performed by the actor Terence Anderson for the Liars' League group at the Phoenix pub in Cavendish Square, London. The marvels of modern technology mean that the event is now available to all, via the glorious online you-tube-o-matic.

It was an interesting experience - a first for me to hear one of my stories read out by someone else - and a positive one. In writing, and privately reading, you only hear one version - your own. It's rather reassuring to hear a story work when someone approaches it in another way. One section in particular I'd written with a certain rhythm in mind; it was interpreted very differently, but effectively. There's some lengthy blather about interpretation and the existence of many stories rather than just one to be written there, but I'll let you fill in your own.

Anyway, a grand experience all round, and not just for the free beer. Although that is only to be encouraged.

In Search of Lost Time

My story "Idle Time" was published today by the e-zine This Zine Will Change Your Life. The story takes place one anonymous morning at a suburban railway station, when, with no warning or reason, time stops, and the assembled commuters are left to discover a world without it.

Out here, where time rolls on, I've been on something of a writing hiatus for the past few weeks with various moving house, promotion-chasing, party-organising antics, but this will all be out of the way soon, and I'll be finishing the re-drafting of "Love's Girlfriend", the novella that was my winter 2010-11 project, as well as planning a new novel to begin this winter. I might even write some more short stories before I begin that...so lots more to come, I hope.

Death from Above 1963

And now for something completely different, in a way. The result of my latest raid into the past for material, “Brothers’ Eyes and Curtain Rods”, has been accepted by the Liars’ League group, to be read out in front of a live audience. Mercifully for everyone, it will be an actor, rather than me, who does the reading. The event takes place at the Phoenix pub in Cavendish Square, near Oxford Circus tube, on Tuesday 12^th July, from 7.30pm. There are five stories being read out, and a quiz and other stuff in amongst it all, so it sounds pretty cool. And it’s in a pub, so if all else fails…you’re in a pub.

The story follows Lee Harvey Oswald from dawn to dusk on 22^nd November 1963, the day on which he left his wife, shot a policeman, and assassinated the President of the United States. A busy day for anyone. The story has been largely rewritten after some knowledgeable friends voiced their dislike of the approach I used in an early draft, and happily that’s paid off (and my thanks to them). I’m pleased to have something accepted by the Liars’ League; I’d fancied having a go at it for a while, but hadn’t had a story that fit.

A friend of mine had a story read out at the league last year, and he reported that it was great fun, so this is one to look forward to. I couldn’t make the night, but the readings are put up online for all to enjoy. Which allows me to present Shopping by David Braga, if you have a moment. A fine story well read.

Wiedersehen...