Reading in Leeds – 14th of June

From the eventbrite page

 

I will be reading in Blackwell’s Leeds on Wednesday, with Clare Fisher (All the Good Things), Luiza Sauma (Flesh and Bone and Water) and June Taylor (Losing Juliet) at 6.30pm. You can get free tickets here, and we’ll be talking about the road to publication and our writing and generally answering any questions that come up. A reminder – the Goodreads giveaway of Flesh of the Peach ends on Tuesday at midnight, GMT. It’s open to residents of the UK, Canada, USA and Australia.

 

I’ll also be in Manchester that day, mooching around bookshops and fortifying myself with cups of tea. I love Manchester but haven’t been in years, so this is very welcome. Before heading through to Leeds, I’m going to be meeting up for a session with The End of All Things podcast, which is one of my absolute favourites. Recommended listening for writers and readers who like a slice of political awareness with their fictions.

 

And then and then – another event coming up in Edinburgh at the end of the month. But more later. The sun is out, and it is not the end of all things yet, though half this complicated Year of Our Lord 2017 is behind us. Always more rushing towards us like a shadowy wave. Take a breath. Take a sip of tea. Wait in the sunshine. Listen to a podcast episode while your hands do other, easier, work.

Flesh of the Peach Giveaway!

 

Fancy a free book?

Freight are very kindly offering **two copies** of Flesh of the Peach through a giveaway on Goodreads.

*****Click here to enter*****

Tell your friends/colleagues/particularly bookish cats nearby who might also like a free book!

The giveaway ends on the 13th of June, and is open across the English speaking world.

“Flesh of the Peach is both a gripping re-imagining of the traditional American road trip and a character examination whose deep focus is testament to the author’s forensic detailing and abiding humanity” – The Skinny

 

Giveaway Completed

Congratulations to the three winners! I’ll try to send your books off today.

To everyone who entered: THANK YOU SO MUCH! All 833 of you (!!)

I’m so touched you wanted to read my book. Many of you have added the book to your to-read pile. I really hope that you might like to buy a copy to get a chance to read it. Physical or digital copies are available here – digital copies are just $4.99 which I think is about £3.40, or the price of a big cup of coffee or hot chocolate with all the trimmings. Probably a good pairing.

The first two printed reviews came out this week – on SkyLightRain and on Monkeybicycle. I’m incredibly chuffed that the book has received such keen-eyed attention – and praise. Check them out!

‘This Place is Mine’ on Visual Verse

Visual Verse is a journal with a wonderful premise – every edition, they post a picture as a writing prompt, always something rich with possibility. They publish every story that comes in, and share links on social media with a snippet of insight. I highly recommend going to check them out and perhaps write your own response – it’s a great way of overcoming a block.

 

This is the first time I’ve written anything for them, and I’m pretty happy with the piece. It really does focus the attention, to write in the submission box, to know it will go up. You can find the story here. See links at the top on how to submit and where to read other pieces on the site.

 

The Goodreads giveaway for On the Edges of Vision is going strong – currently standing at 320 entries and open until Wednesday. And it is touching to see people adding my book to their want-to-read list – I hope that some of those will go seek the book out if they do not win. To have your words shared and read is to have them come to life. It’s wonderful to see that happening, and to be a part of it myself as a reader (I’m thinking ahead to a best reads of the year list, which I might do come late December).

On the Edges of Vision Giveaway

– is now live!

 

There are three copies to win.

 

ENTER HERE!

 

And please share the link around!

Upcoming Giveaway

This is advance notice that I’ll be giving away ~three~ copies of On the Edges of Vision through Goodreads – starting this Wednesday and ending a week from then.

 

If you have a Goodreads account, it’s a very straightforward process to enter. Simply provide your postage details (which are only shared with me if you win, so I can send you a copy).

 

I’ll post again soon with links to the giveaway when it opens. Until then, if you are intrigued by the book, you can read stories from On the Edges of Vision here, published in places such as The Toast, Litro, and Vol. 1. Brooklyn.

 

And the winner is…

Well, I didn’t really want to keep you in suspense! My post was eaten by the hungry internet!

 

To those asking what a clootie dumpling is: a cloot is the Scots word for ‘cloth’ – clootie dumplings are sweet puddings, a little like a Christmas pud but lighter, traditionally served on New Year’s Day in Scotland. Here’s the recipe I used (I added mixed peel, subbed the oats for millet flour, and used golden syrup instead of treacle/molasses). It was warmly spicy and very filling.

 

Now on to the winner of the ‘place’ photography contest.

 

After dinner, my parents looked through the photographs and cast their votes – D had to be brought in for the final decision. He chose the same photograph my mother had picked, and we had a winner: Chris J. Rice. Here is her entry:

 

 

She included this lovely descriptive piece with her photograph, though the judges evaluated the photos all on their own merit:

 

Your favorite color was yellow. Yellow, so heavenly even when mixed with black, often expressing otherworldly grief, like the field in Van Gogh’s last painting; wheat overshadowed by darkness, yet, there it was, a hint of the sun, a thick shimmer of light. In fourth grade when the teacher told the class to paint the flower on her desk, a purple iris—dark veined and fragile—you did what she asked. Except you made it yellow. Dipped your brush in water, mushed it in the palest color cake, and copied down what you saw in your head. Transferred the flat world of your vision to the flat world of the page. So easy to do, you were surprised by her praise. Still you soaked it up, feeling momentarily okay, good for something. Like it was acceptable to see what you saw, to like what you liked.

 

Chris, please look through the archives of pictures here and choose one you’d like me to frame for you. Let me know by email – alongside your postage address. I’ll also be sending a mystery book from my shelves, and shopping for small goodies to include in your parcel. I’ll send it to you as soon as the city has recovered from its hangover.

 

To all the rest who contributed a photograph to the competition: Thank you. The standard of entries was very high, and it was tough for the judges to reach a consensus on the winner. Happy New Year, and hope to run another giveaway/contest at a later date.

Looking for Dr Livingstone + interview news

 

Today D and I made our way back to the National Museum of Scotland with the aim of walking through the exhibit on Dr David Livingstone, explorer, missionary and abolitionist. True to his reputation, he was a little hard to find. The exhibit was tucked away on the third floor of the new part of the museum. It was interesting, if a bit piecemeal.

 

Livingstone was born into a cotton mill worker family, and worked at the mill from the age of 10. An exceedingly bright boy, he was taught to read and write, then taught himself Latin. He saved up enough money to go to University in Glasgow, but to save a penny on the cart fare, had to make his way on foot up the river clyde from Blantyre every morning. Good training for his later rambles around Malawi and southern Africa. There was a video, filmed in Malawi, talking to residents there in the Malawian town of Blantyre – they seemed happy with his legacy there, of his pacts with local tribe leaders to end the East African-Indian Ocean slave trade.

 

But I am suspicious of heroes, particularly of strong men of the British Empire who, regardless of whether they were doing good themselves, went into ‘the dark continent’ with the aim of opening it up to Europe.  There wasn’t a lot of analysis, and only one dissenting voice was lightly mentioned, that of John Kirk, the botanist who traveled on one of Livingstone’s expeditions. Livingstone was, it seemed, a hard leader. And then there was that famous meeting with Stanley, where the presumed Dr Livingstone refused to come back to Britain, and later died in a village in Malawi of a nasty combination of Malaria and Dysentery.

 

Well, whoever he was (D wants to read his journals now), we saw his little navy cap and his nice sketch of a fish from Lake Malawai.

 

I enjoy visiting the museum, which has free entry, and it’s a good thing too. Coming in the new year, after I’ve finished this second ms (May at the latest, I hope), I will be going there a lot. And to the grand Central Library on George IV bridge. Research for novel number 3. It is going to be about a strong, egotistic leader and her followers, and set in the wastes of Edinburgh. I’ll not reveal too much more before I have an outline in place. As you can see from the picture above, there’s a certain atmosphere to the city in winter – a soft harshness – which I want to learn and replicate for my postapocalyptic version.  Anyway, that’s enough for now.

 

The other piece of news I have is that Smokelong Quarterly is coming out next week. In it will be my Edinburgh-based flash, ‘Boy Cyclops’, and an interview with me (first ever interview!), facilitated by the excellent writer Casey Hannan. (Casey’s book, Mother Ghost, is available on pre-order from Tiny Hardcore Press. His writing is really beautiful and weird and compelling, and I’ll be picking it up when I can).  When Smokelong goes live I’ll link to it here, and you will have lots to read, should you wish.

 

Finally! Don’t forget to submit your photograph for my competition! The deadline is the 31st of this month.

 

Views of a cold city – a giveaway

 

 

 

A cold blue-dark, a glittering, hazed transformation of black stone. A stalled whirlwind, a battered roof, snow in the distance.

 

I’ve decided to hold another giveaway here, to mark the ending of 2012 and the promise of a new year. You might remember the giveaway I held at the beginning of this year which was for a booklet of pictures and some other goodies from Scotland. For this giveaway I’d like to set you a challenge:

 

I’m asking for the best photograph on the theme of PLACE.

 

A sense of place as obsession

as identity

as an extension of the body

as something to react against

as mood altering vision, as sense memory, as psychogeography

 

This could be your neighbourhood, your favourite chair (as we saw in the Share Your Spaces posts earlier this year), a mountain or a wood you love exploring, the texture of stone, a tattoo, the interior of a bookshop you frequently haunt – anything that speaks to you on that broad theme. Feel free to write a short explanation of how this image is meaningful to you.

 

The winning picture will be posted here, with links to the winner’s blog if they have one.

 

The winner will receive a small framed print of their choosing from any of my photos posted on this blog  – I have taken a lot this year, so hopefully there’s one that takes your fancy. Have a look through the archives! It’ ll also probably reveal a bit about my aesthetic biases.

 

AND ALSO a book from my creaking shelves – this will be a secret, but I have a lot of good reads to choose from and will pick based on what I think you (the winner) would like. Now, I’d love to be able to give away my own novel at this point, but since it’s not published yet, that will have to wait. One day, I hope.

 

FURTHER GOODIES will be picked up from the fine City of Edinburgh as the mood takes me. Here’s what I sent Artboy68 when he won.

 

Send your photo entries on PLACE to: wheresthebread[@]hotmail.com by the 31st of December. Please forward this to any friends who might be interested in taking part.

 

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

 

Announcing the Giveaway

All the numbers, written on environmentally friendly used envelope

So! There were 24 comments left on the giveaway post, discounting any doubles and my response.

I wrote all the numbers out on the paper above, shuffled them, and took them into the hall, where the early afternoon light was shining to a moderate brightness…

tossed the numbers in the air and closed my eyes –

The first number to hand was 23…that means Artboy68 you are the winner of the photobook/random assortment of goodies!!!

Artboy68 has just drawn my picture over on his blog as part of his 100 portraits project. I was going to put that in a separate post later but since he won I’ll link right now. It’s by complete chance and the whims of the throw that he won – I did everything blind and haphazardly. I lack the card-counting skills to get thrown out of the big casinos, honest.

Thank you all so much for entering, and I’ll have another giveaway the next time something nice and shareable falls into my hands. I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much as I have.