LOVELY BOOKS ARRIVE IN THREES

Pressies to meself!!
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Three marvellous books by three writing friends - all three books clattered through the letterbox last week. So I shall tell you about them, and you must rush out and get them because they are terrific... just in time for Christmas.

‘Somewhere Else or Even Here’ (Salt Modern Fiction) is a Scott Prize winner and debut collection from A J Ashworth. I shall declare an interest here - I have admired AJA’s work ever since I first read her story ‘Overnight Miracles’ in the last Willesden Herald winners anthology New Short Stories 5, and was only too delighted when she asked me for a blurb quote for her collection. I said, using one of her own wonderful phrases -

‘The stories here really are shooting stars - ‘brilliant sparkling scratches’ against the night. A very gifted wrtiter. One to watch...’

The lovely Maggie Gee also blurbed as did Simon van Booy, winner of the 2009 Frank O’Connor Prize, who said:

‘With beauty, poise and fearlessness, A. J. Ashworth creates worlds that are chillingly real, exploring the raw human need for attachment and the fear of closeness in a way that is both tender and haunting. She is a fierce new talent.’

Nuff said, really. if you enjoy great short stories, get it. Easy.
Here it is on Salt Publishing’s website - HERE! Go get it!
.

Next, ‘The Juno Charm’ (Salmon Poetry) the third full collection of poetry from Nuala Ni Chonchuir. Author of three short story collections, and a novel described by The Irish Examiner as ‘a gem’ - Nuala is one of the most prolific and consistently strong writers I know, working across the forms with apparent ease. I was delighted to welcome her on a recent blog-tour stop for ‘The Juno Charm’ - and she allowed me to include one of the poems - so go back a few posts to read the intriguing poem entitled 'Japanese Madonna'.
To quote from the description of the collection - in this book Ni Chonchuir

‘explores the worlds of two marriages - one waning one waxing - and the pain of pregnancy loss and fertility struggles’ ... ‘employs her signature sensual frankness...’. 'Sometimes irreverent, always vivid, this is poetry ripe with imaginative possibility and wit.'

And I love Mary O’Donnell’s quote, which says that Nuala

‘reveals herself as a witty and energetic purveyor of the happiness and pleasure that lie on the far side of common experience.’

A great collection. ‘The Juno Charm’ can be bought from the publisher and other places...but it’s sold out on Amazon, so ...

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Finally I have five copies (wheee!) of another poetry collection, and will be giving this to poetry-loving friends this Christmas. Bookseller, writer and general good egg Jen Campbell undertook a challenge over the weekend of 5/6 November, to write 100 poems in a weekend. She did this to raise money for EEC International, a charity that funds research centres looking into gene p63 and degenerative eye conditions associated with EEC Syndrome - (Electrodactyly-ectodermal dysplasia clefting syndrome) - which Jen has. It is likely that most people who have EEC syndrome will lose their sight. If a cure can be found for this degenerative eye sign problem, it will help thousands of people worldwide. Not just those with EEC.

The poems were written over 48 hours to tag-word prompts sent to Jen on Twitter. I knew that wonderful things can sometimes happen when a writer puts herself under pressure - sometimes - but these poems really are something quite special.

Here are two, with Jen’s permission.

No 35 (Tag word, “Collage”)


We find ourselves as decoupage.

I think this, standing on an escalator
leaning on your arm. We bend and
mould to fit. Adapt and layer over.

When you sleep, your limbs shed skin
like changing clothes. I could take them
to hang. Line the walls of a gallery.

We could spend the weekends walking
amongst ourselves
seeing how we’ve grown.

No 82 (Tag words ‘Mill” and “Holland”)

You want a shoulder tattooed tulip
looking back to time we spent there.

The thick air of autumn cafes
hand in hand with the canal.

Jen produced the books in a limited edition of 200, with cover brilliantly illustrated by Greg McLeod. If there any left, you can buy them via Jen’s blog HERE- If there are none left, you can read all about them, and her... at the same place.

Her first book (other than this one), the hilarious ‘Wierd Things Customers Say In Bookshops’ will be published by Constable and Robinson in April 2012.

IMAGINE...BRIDPORT OPEN BOOK FESTIVAL

Imagine – a festival that includes a whole community – young and old, readers, writers and those in between. A festival that seeks to celebrate the written word in all its forms – poetry and prose, and which celebrates the performance of those words too. A festival that is not held in starry, glitzy and expensive venues, but in a working theatre space, a converted chapel - Bridport Arts Centre. Or in a room above a restaurant. Or in a café. And a festival that attracts not only local readers and writers, and emerging writers, and those who have emerged (whatever that be...) but also some of the best known names in the land.
Carol Ann Duffy, poet laureate. A L Kennedy, much lauded writer and performer. It doesn’t get better than that.

The Bridport Open Book Festival is the celebration of the written word that surrounds one of the most respected story and poetry competitions in the English speaking world – The Bridport Prize.
In 2007, this writer won a prize in the short story section, and we travelled down, my husband and I, all the way from Sussex. At the prizegiving lunch I met writers who had come from the west coast of the USA to collect a £50 prize – such is the respect for this award, and an indication of how much it matters to those whose work is selected. 2011 was no different. Several writers had traveled great distances for their moment of glory – a walk amid warm applause up to the Bridport Arts Centre stage, to collect a cream envelope from this year’s judges... see above - said poet laureate and said lauded writer/performer.

I was at Bridport to do a few things meself. Firstly, running two flash fiction workshops alongside friend and colleague Tania Hershman,
she of The White Road and Other Stories, and Bristol Science faculty, and much too much more to mention in one sentence! Friday’s session was held in a packed room above a rather nice restaurant called The Olive Tree, who supplied us with fresh coffee, pastries, cakes - and Saturday’s was in the school room attached to the Quaker meeting house. We had a brilliant time – participants left each session with at least three first draft flashes, and a sprinkling of story seeds and ideas for more. Lovely to work with T – and lovely to plan ahead for more workshops in 2012. I was particularly pleased that David Woolley came to a session – he is the new Festival Director, an acclaimed poet, and erstwhile director of the Dylan Thomas Centre at Swansea, and the Dylan Thomas Festival. We had an interesting and not-long-enough natter about prose poetry..., which he says, does not exist. Hope to be able to argue more intelligently next year if I go as a customer again!

Second, a lovely event scheduled for 6 pm on Saturday evening, showing how winning a Bridport Prize can lead to amazing things – my chance to compere an event – to interview colleagues who have gone on to be published, and to invite them to read their work. Judith Allnatt read to us from her second novel, the rather brilliant ‘The Poet’s Wife’ – about Patty, wife of John Clare. And short story writer Adam Marek, author of ‘Instruction Manual for Swallowing’ (Comma Press) read a new short story. I read from The Coward’s Tale. Q and A followed.

'Storm Warning' (second collection) was the adult title chosen for the Bridport Big Read this year (thank you!) and it was great to answer a question about mining – added to The Coward’s Tale – it does make me seem a bit of a nerd – o soddit. I am a nerd. Official.

Then, clutching a pint glass containing a local cider brew, we sidled into the main theatre for one of the main highlights of the Festival... Onto the stage came not only our poet laureate, clad in a flowing grey top, but a musician by the name of John Sampson who proceeded to floor us with his playing of penny whistles, recorders of all sorts, crump horns and goat horns, at one point donning a Mozart wig. Oh he was so clever. Acted with his eyes and had everyone in stitches. Or he had us on the verge of tears... as he accompanied CAD in her reading of some of her poems. She in turn accompanied us on a journey through the gamut of emotion – we laughed at her observations, and we nodded in understanding and in awe, and we cried. At least I did – when she finished with a poem about her mother. But they were good tears!
I certainly fell in love a little with Carol Ann – as did most of the other writers with me, both male and female. What a star! To recover, we found there is a jolly nice curry house in Bridport High Street. Six of us gathered there and stuffed our faces until late...

Saturday, and the second workshop. More great work, interesting exercises – including a science based ‘word cricket’ which had me scribbling like crazy... Then the prize-giving bubbly reception, lunch and award ceremony, watching the winners and runners up receiving their prizes from the judges. Smashing to see Euan Thorneycroft from A M Heath, the London lit agency who read all the finalists’ work (and my agent...proof if such was needed that The Bridport Prize really does change lives). Smashing to see friend and colleague Peggy Riley collecting her runner-up prize, and smashing to hear many of the winners reading their poems, flashes, and snippets of stories.
Back to The Bull Hotel in the High Street for tea, with Adam and Tania – which morphed into an early sarnie supper before the second highlight of the festival, A L Kennedy on stage – and said supper in turn morphed into early sarnie supper with said A L K. It was great to meet her properly – to be able to ask questions like ‘So what did the Austrians/German audiences think of ‘Day’?’ and stuff like that.

Her performance later, alone on stage, and shoeless, was terrific. Inspirational. Moving...I won't spoil it, if you haven’t seen her – suffice it to say that she is in love with words, and always has been. She is a quietly great actor, too – to hear her perform Goneril’s speech to Lear, while fixing a man in the front row with a gentle gaze – was absolutely unforgettable.
Sir, I love you more than word can yield the matter;

Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;

As much as child e’er loved, or father found

A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable.

Beyond all manner of so much I love you...

I should think the gentleman's wife gave him hell later... If you didn’t also fall in love with words that evening, you weren’t listening properly, sez me.

Then we repaired to a nearby watering hole to partake of the waters, easing past a badge-laden bouncer to take advantage of a lull in the evening’s jollities – until our table was removed by the bar staff, who warned us ‘it gets packed in here, just you wait...’
Brekkie at Hive Beach café on the Sunday, before taking Tania to Dorchester station – sitting outside in the sunshine, listening to the crashing of the waves...then walking on the beach and marveling at the cliffs. It was a wedding anniversary - I got home, knackered, to a huge bunch of flowers, and supper cooking...lucky me.

Thanks Bridport, I had a wonderful and unforgettable time. And before I sign off, this is the lady behind the Bridport Prize -the lovely and incredibly hard-working Frances Everett, who deserves an enormous round of applause!
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Oh. PS - I had a poem shortlisted. This has now happened a few times - and not the same poem neither. Who knows - one day, I might end up with a pome in the anthology. I'd like that. There's a public challenge for me!

GARRISON KEILLOR, STANLEY SPENCER, CHAUCER, BRUEGHEL, DYLAN THOMAS ET AL...

The Coward's Tale is compared to the work of many different people, in reviews out this week - in an attempt to explain what it is like. Among the comparisons are: "A Welsh version of Garrison Keillor"-

.This by Litlove, in a wonderful write-up on Tales from the Reading Room
David Rose, on his terrific Amazon review, likens it to Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, (as do many) and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, but also says it is more reminiscent of the work of artist Stanley Spencer. Stanley Spencer's 'Resurrection'.
Writer Tom Conoboy compares the novel to another artist, this time, the visionary Brueghel, in a seriously in-depth analysis of the book on his blog. The Fall of the Rebel Angels, Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Marie Claire Magazine said it was "dazzling, vibrant and melancholy", and it is one of two titles in their November Good Book club special offers...
Psychologies Magazine calls it "Poetic..." and "an absorbing portrait of love, grief and humanity".
And if you would like to win a copy, go to Bookhugger, read a snippet and answer an easy question!

NUALA NI CHONCHUIR WEAVES 'THE JUNO CHARM'

Isn't this smashing? I am delighted to welcome friend and vastly talented writer Nuala Ni Chonchuir who has popped across from Ireland to natter abut her new collection of poetry, 'The Juno Charm', out with Salmon publishing. She has kindlystopped off here on her blog tour. Right, I'll just pull up a couple of chairs...
Vanessa: So, multi-book person, poet, short story writer, novelist, tell me how you think the perspective of a poet, indeed any creative writer, changes when they start to see the world as a parent, not just as a 'free spirit' adult with no eye on the genetic inheritance and its future success or not.

Nuala: I'll restrict my responses to those of my poet self... I wrote poetry all along but I didn’t get serious about it until my late twenties, and I was already a parent by then (I had my first son at 23). I think as a parent you do see the world differently, because it suddenly becomes a scary place for your kids. Some of my work has been inspired by my kids: pregnancy poems, birth poems, charm poems that wish for happy lives for them. There’s a poem in this collection called ‘Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale’ and it’s about 9/11 with reference to my son worrying about worldly dangers.
I would never censor myself because of my kids – in my experience, writers’ offspring have little interest in the writer parent’s work. I do hope they will read my books as adults and maybe understand me a bit more as a result.

Vanessa: I want to ask about all the poems, as they have your stamp of being mesmeric, many are seductive, and all seem beautiful to this reader ... but I will confine the question to one - hidden in the middle, ‘The Japanese Madonna’. I love that. Can you tell me about the images here - where does this come from? What's the 'story?'

Nuala: We had a spate of moving Virgin Mary statues here in Ireland – people were convinced the statues were rocking, crying etc. I have a great love for the BVM as an icon – she was one of the few women to feature prominently in the church of my childhood and I think we can claim her as a strong mother, whether we are religious or not. So I’m interested in her in all her forms and I came across a picture of a Japanese Madonna and thought, ‘Of course, why wouldn’t there be such a woman?’ She appeared to a nun in Japan and she wept and bled (apparently). So, she was a good story for a poem, in contrast to one of our own moving statues who just rocked. (You can reproduce the poem if you like.)

Vanessa: I do like! Thanks so much. And here it is - the little gem:

The Japanese Madonna

As Madonna of Akita
I was carved
by a Buddhist from
a weeping katsura.

I forsook kimono and zori
for an unpainted robe,
a European chin,
and an aristocrat’s gaze.

I dropped blood-tears,
my sweat stank of roses,
and I warned that fire
would fall from the sky.

In Ballinspittle
I was made of stone;
I just flexed my fingers
and rocked.

And one more, sorry, I can't quite let this go... the final poem, ‘The Writer’s Room’. It is very funny – I’d love to know about the photographs it was inspired by. But more importantly, you say the writer is 'unassailable' whilst keeping space for the prizes to come, on the shelves... loved that! But I wondered, you, the writer – how to stay 'unassailable'? How to you tackle the demons who tell you something is rubbish, not to write it? Or don't you suffer from those?

Nuala: The Guardian used to do a series of photos on a Saturday of writers’ rooms and there was often a po-faced description (from the writer) about the space, the muse and so forth. So I was poking fun at the kind of writer who seems to adore the idea of being a writer and comes out with a lot of egotistical rot as a result.
One of the writers said they were ‘unassailable’ at their desk and there is that feeling, when the work is going well, that you are safe in your working (yet imaginary) world.
Sometimes the voice that says something is rubbish is a sensible voice telling me to re-look at the work. I’ve written two unpublished novels (years of work) and they will never be published because they don’t deserve to be.
There are always doubts, about everything. Bringing out a new book is a horrible mix of fear and elation. Will everyone hate it? Will they get it? Confidence in the work waxes and wanes.

Vanessa: Many of the poems are wonderfully physical, sensual pieces of work. I think I made that point in our discussion on Red Car – some poems from that reappear here in The Juno Charm and it’s lovely that they may find a broader readership. I am finding increasingly that the process of writing is a physical one. I’m not talking backache and RSI here (!) but more the physical sensation, a sort of 'don't do this Vanessa,' warning when I am 'controlling' the work too much and not letting the characters/ words flow as they will, at least at first draft stage. Do you find writing a physical process?

Nuala: Yes, in the sense that I jig in my seat when it’s going well; I rub my hands together and laugh. I also get tingles when things start to flow in the right direction, or a logical connection happens that, up to that point, I hadn’t seen. Real tingles – hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-rising stuff.
I read my work aloud all the time so I throw myself into it. I love that all-jigging, smiling, hair-raising feeling, I must say ☺.

Vanessa : I'm perennially interested to know this - but how do you know when a poem is being born? And how do you know when it is finished?

Nuala: Gosh, erm, it just feels like a poem as opposed to fiction. It has a shorter span as it plays out before me. I’ve written poems and stories on the same topics, so it’s not necessarily a subject matter issue. I guess something just hits me and it won’t go away until I write it down.
As for being finished, it’s done when I grow tired of tinkering and when its music sounds right to my ear when I say it out loud.
Thanks so much for having me, Vanessa, and for such intriguing questions. Next week my tour takes me to Co. Kildare and writer Niamh Boyce’s blog Words A Day. It would be lovely if people could join me there.

BIO: Born in Dublin in 1970, Nuala Ní Chonchúir lives in Galway county. Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. Her third short story collection Nude (Salt, 2009)) was shortlisted for the UK’s Edge Hill Prize. Her second short story collection To The World of Men, Welcome has just been re-issued by Arlen House in an expanded paperback edition. The Juno Charm, her third full poetry collection, is launched this week in Dublin and Galway.
Here is the link to the page on Salmon if people want to buy the book: HERE!
Credit:The portrait of Nuala is by Emilia Krysztofiak

Thanks for stopping by, Nuala. Lots of good luck with this wonderful collection.

Edit and added - I am really sorry - everyone who has left lovely comments, including Nuala herself, will see they aren't here. Maybe because I set up the post to be published automatically, Blogger is deleting anything new... many apologies. Thank you for your messages, and to Nuala - she had thanked people, and its all got blanked!

SIGNING WITH A DIFFERENCE - WATERSTONES BRIGHTON, 19 November

Saturday morning, 19th November, I am doing a different sort of book signing at Waterstones Brighton! For every lovely reader who buys a copy of The Coward's Tale, I will write a short short short story...something whimsical and just for them, with their own name if they want, as the character. Must be nuts!
Photos from Twitpic here

(The book launch at Daunt Books last Thursday was wonderful! I will post something when I've collected photos from friends. Guess who didn't take a camera...?)

The Brit Writers discussion...

Writers may be aware that there are ongoing discussions on several well-supported blogs, and on Twitter, Facebook and so forth, about the merits, or not, of the Brit Writers organisation.

One such conversation, preceded by the most reasonable list of questions which any organisation must be able to answer easily - is on Claire King's blog, here.

I don't propose to enter into a dialogue here, but suggest that all writers who are thinking of spending their hard-earned cash either entering their competitions, or submitting work for review and possible publication, might do well to read as much as they can before parting with any funds.

This is no different to the advice I'd give writers wondering whether to enter any other competition, or mustering the bravery to send a manuscript for assessment at any literary consultancy. You should always always always check the credibility of the organisations, and whether the claims they make are solid. Then armed with as much info as you can muster, make up your own mind.

Added: To help you - perhaps you might find this post useful: Debi Alper, who was initially pleased to be a judge for a Brit Writers competition, but who then withdrew her support, has collated several 'discussions' and links to them, in one blog post. HERE.

Contribution for 11 11 11 from Oscar Windsor-Smith

Farewell Sweet Molly Brown on Every Day Poets

A VISIT FROM NUALA NI CHONCHUIR, TALKING ABOUT THE JUNO CHARM

Isn't this smashing? My friend and vastly talented writer Nuala Ni Chonchuir has popped across from Ireland to natter abut her new collection of poetry, The Juno Charm, out with Salmon publishing. Right, I'll just pull up a couple of chairs...
Vanessa: So, multi-book person, poet, short story writer, novelist, tell me how you think the perspective of a poet, indeed any creative writer, changes when they start to see the world as a parent, not just as a 'free spirit' adult with no eye on the genetic inheritance and its future success or not.

Nuala: I'll restrict my responses to those of my poet self... I wrote poetry all along but I didn’t get serious about it until my late twenties, and I was already a parent by then (I had my first son at 23). I think as a parent you do see the world differently, because it suddenly becomes a scary place for your kids. Some of my work has been inspired by my kids: pregnancy poems, birth poems, charm poems that wish for happy lives for them. There’s a poem in this collection called ‘Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale’ and it’s about 9/11 with reference to my son worrying about worldly dangers.
I would never censor myself because of my kids – in my experience, writers’ offspring have little interest in the writer parent’s work. I do hope they will read my books as adults and maybe understand me a bit more as a result.

Vanessa: I want to ask about all the poems, as they have your stamp of being mesmeric, many are seductive, and all seem beautiful to this reader ... but I will confine the question to one - hidden in the middle, ‘The Japanese Madonna’. I love that. Can you tell me about the images here - where does this come from? What's the 'story?'

Nuala: We had a spate of moving Virgin Mary statues here in Ireland – people were convinced the statues were rocking, crying etc. I have a great love for the BVM as an icon – she was one of the few women to feature prominently in the church of my childhood and I think we can claim her as a strong mother, whether we are religious or not. So I’m interested in her in all her forms and I came across a picture of a Japanese Madonna and thought, ‘Of course, why wouldn’t there be such a woman?’ She appeared to a nun in Japan and she wept and bled (apparently). So, she was a good story for a poem, in contrast to one of our own moving statues who just rocked. (You can reproduce the poem if you like.)

Vanessa: I do like! Thanks so much. And here it is - the little gem:

The Japanese Madonna

As Madonna of Akita
I was carved
by a Buddhist from
a weeping katsura.

I forsook kimono and zori
for an unpainted robe,
a European chin,
and an aristocrat’s gaze.

I dropped blood-tears,
my sweat stank of roses,
and I warned that fire
would fall from the sky.

In Ballinspittle
I was made of stone;
I just flexed my fingers
and rocked.

And one more, sorry, I can't quite let this go... the final poem, ‘The Writer’s Room’. It is very funny – I’d love to know about the photographs it was inspired by. But more importantly, you say the writer is 'unassailable' whilst keeping space for the prizes to come, on the shelves... loved that! But I wondered, you, the writer – how to stay 'unassailable'? How to you tackle the demons who tell you something is rubbish, not to write it? Or don't you suffer from those?

Nuala: The Guardian used to do a series of photos on a Saturday of writers’ rooms and there was often a po-faced description (from the writer) about the space, the muse and so forth. So I was poking fun at the kind of writer who seems to adore the idea of being a writer and comes out with a lot of egotistical rot as a result.
One of the writers said they were ‘unassailable’ at their desk and there is that feeling, when the work is going well, that you are safe in your working (yet imaginary) world.
Sometimes the voice that says something is rubbish is a sensible voice telling me to re-look at the work. I’ve written two unpublished novels (years of work) and they will never be published because they don’t deserve to be.
There are always doubts, about everything. Bringing out a new book is a horrible mix of fear and elation. Will everyone hate it? Will they get it? Confidence in the work waxes and wanes.

Vanessa: Many of the poems are wonderfully physical, sensual pieces of work. I think I made that point in our discussion on Red Car – some poems from that reappear here in The Juno Charm and it’s lovely that they may find a broader readership. I am finding increasingly that the process of writing is a physical one. I’m not talking backache and RSI here (!) but more the physical sensation, a sort of 'don't do this Vanessa,' warning when I am 'controlling' the work too much and not letting the characters/ words flow as they will, at least at first draft stage. Do you find writing a physical process?

Nuala: Yes, in the sense that I jig in my seat when it’s going well; I rub my hands together and laugh. I also get tingles when things start to flow in the right direction, or a logical connection happens that, up to that point, I hadn’t seen. Real tingles – hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-rising stuff.
I read my work aloud all the time so I throw myself into it. I love that all-jigging, smiling, hair-raising feeling, I must say ☺.

Vanessa : I'm perennially interested to know this - but how do you know when a poem is being born? And how do you know when it is finished?

Nuala: Gosh, erm, it just feels like a poem as opposed to fiction. It has a shorter span as it plays out before me. I’ve written poems and stories on the same topics, so it’s not necessarily a subject matter issue. I guess something just hits me and it won’t go away until I write it down.
As for being finished, it’s done when I grow tired of tinkering and when its music sounds right to my ear when I say it out loud.
Thanks so much for having me, Vanessa, and for such intriguing questions. Next week my tour takes me to Co. Kildare and writer Niamh Boyce’s blog Words A Day. It would be lovely if people could join me there.

BIO: Born in Dublin in 1970, Nuala Ní Chonchúir lives in Galway county. Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. Her third short story collection Nude (Salt, 2009)) was shortlisted for the UK’s Edge Hill Prize. Her second short story collection To The World of Men, Welcome has just been re-issued by Arlen House in an expanded paperback edition. The Juno Charm, her third full poetry collection, is launched this week in Dublin and Galway.
Here is the link to the page on Salmon if people want to buy the book: HERE!
Credit:The portrait of Nuala is by Emilia Krysztofiak

"The Coward's Tale" is a gem...

A few posts ago, I burbled about how delighted I was (and not a little relieved...) that A N Wilson had liked "The Coward's Tale", and his review in Readers' Digest was going to be positive.
It is indeed positive. It is "a dream review" to quote Sam Leith (@questingvole on Twitter). (Sam played an important role in the genesis of The Coward's Tale in his role as Lit Ed of The Daily Telegraph (may their pages never dim), back in 2007, when he ran A Novel in a Year competition. Not that this took a year, you understand. More like 6, but that's by the by.)

The first line of A N Wilson's review, 'This first novel is a gem', is the start of a list of very generous comments. But you'll have to go find Readers' Digest to read the rest. I'm far too modest to post any more here. (HA!!)

It is also good for the soul, in case one gets too la di da about all this - to see that a reviewer on Waterstones online found the novel 'Not my cup of tea'. Balance in all things, don't you think? There. That feels better.

'ANY HUMAN FACE' - CHATTING TO CHARLES LAMBERT

VG: Hi Charles - I so enjoyed 'Any Human Face'. It is lovely to be able to natter to you here to celebrate in a small way the publication of the paperback! So. Can you tell me about that title, first of all... where does it come from?

CL: I’d already written the first few chapters when I came across this phrase in Marilynne Robinson’s 'Gilead' –

Any human face is a claim on you, because you can’t help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it.

I knew at once that I’d found the novel’s epigraph and title. Any is an ambiguous word in a way – it’s almost an antagonym in that it conveys a sense of what unites us and what distinguishes us – it’s singular, questioning and yet universal. At that point, the (very much) working title was 'Mug Shots', in reference to the exhibition of police photographs at the centre of the novel, but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted; if nothing else, the tone was entirely wrong.

VG: Yes - although it would have worked - it really jars! Too simplistic, perhaps, when the novel is anything but. It is quite complex. You do have to keep your wits about you, I find -all the different threads interweaving.

CL: By the time I read 'Gilead' (which I loved, by the way) I already had the three main narrative threads – based on Andrew, middle-aged bookseller, Alex, aspiring rent-boy, and the Girl – I was looking for something that would bring them together in a non-narrative way, and what Robinson was saying fitted perfectly. I was particularly attracted to the way she placed courage and loneliness side by side, as though they were two aspects of the same thing, because that was where the book was heading. I felt that I’d found corroboration.

VG: …Aha. isn't it a magical thing when a writer we may never meet in person seems to hold out a hand and shake the one that holds our writer's pen? As we've been discussing behind the scenes, this recurrent thread of loneliness that crops up again and again - that certainly seemed a very important theme. Was that deliberate - or was it something that emerged as you wrote? Looking back, was it always running beneath the surface layers?

CL: Yes, loneliness is certainly an issue in the book, and it’s something I absolutely hadn’t planned. I’d thought the heart of the book would be impotence in the face of mysterious, indifferent power structures (which is what I always seem to come back to!) But the more I wrote – and learnt - about Andrew the more his isolation seemed to be central to his understanding of the world. I’m lucky enough not to have experienced much loneliness these past few decades, and my memories of the kind of crushing, annihilating – and thank God, transient – loneliness I suffered as a teenager and in my twenties – a loneliness I remember now with a kind of shocked wonder – didn’t really help me with Andrew (although they did with Alex).

What interested me about Andrew’s life was the way being alone can simply happen, and bring with it a sort of resignation that damps everything down; the state of his flat is a case in point, as is the (I hope) rather poignant episode of internet sex, interrupted by the arrival of the stray cat. What I didn’t want to do, though, was give the impression that being gay necessarily leads to loneliness, any more than selling books for a living does, or living in Rome. It was important to me that Andrew, despite his passivity, be given a way out of his loneliness, so the way the novel ends didn’t just meet a narrative need by tying up loose ends; it made emotional sense as well. In a sense it brought loneliness and courage together just as the epigraph does.

Alex (by this time Sandro) also knows what it’s like to be alone, loveless, and in a foreign city, and there’s a sense of loss about the book that isn’t just to do with the fact that the first chapter ends with a murder. As the novel develops, there’s a death – and resurrection – of the spirit, if that isn’t too grand a term. I hope the feeling the book leaves in the reader isn’t of hopelessness, because that isn’t at all what I want and it wouldn’t do justice to Robinson’s epigraph. I like to think that courage can be rewarded, although it isn’t always, and that Alex/Sandro is as resourceful as I would like to be in his situation.

VG: I certainly didn't feel 'hopeless' at the end. The ending came as a shock - and I won't give it away (!) - but the overriding feeling is 'its the journey that matters, not always the end of the journey..' if that isn't too airy fairy. Much of the book is colourful, tantalising...and you take that with you at the end. Life is like that, I guess.

CL: I also found myself wanting the Birdman, a character who played a much more substantial part than I’d originally intended (although he also plays a central role in a still unpublished novel of mine, entitled The Apprentice, and set in a considerably darker Rome than the one in Any Human Face), to represent the sort of gregarious and accommodating affection I’ve found in parts of the gay world. He’s a mother hen, clucking over his chicks and meeting their needs, albeit in a fairly seedy way, and it’s only right that his affection be reciprocated.

VG: I loved the character of the Birdman - an immensely engaging figure, seedy or not. Hugely generous in so many ways, and something of an innocent - I liked the way he sits where several characters intersect. And yet, he is also isolated - maybe that is pointed up y the birds - I don't know. It's just what I felt. There are so many types of isolation in this story...culminating of course in the darkest - that of the Girl.

CL: The isolation of the Girl is of a different kind. It has nothing to do with loneliness and everything to do with the deliberate privation of freedom, and it’s mirrored in Andrew’s predicament in the second half of the novel. I don’t want to say too much about this for obvious reasons, but the tensions set up between a solitude that’s self-willed or, at least, self-created and one that’s imposed from without are the driving force behind the novel, and the point at which the personal and political, for want of a better word, meet.

VG: Reading 'Any Human Face' was a powerful experience. It transported me not only to the underbelly of a city I know only very slightly - but also across time, opening windows onto the lives of characters who I still think about, even though I read the book some months back. There are so many questions posed, and half-answered - especially questions surrounding the central images, portraits, photographs whose origin is suspect. I found myself pondering - who 'owns' ones face? One seen, once photographed - does our likeness belong elsewhere as well as to us? And it has echoes of ancient concerns about the soul somehow being damaged if an image of a face is taken...

.I'll stop nattering to myself! Charles, thank you so much for chatting, and for writing AHF. I do hope we are lucky enough to see the next novel in line before too long...

Buy the paperback 'Any Human Face' - now available on Amazon!
and
Follow Charles Lambert on his blog, HERE.

VAULT - DAVID ROSE'S ANTI-NOVEL

A while back, Salt Publishing kindly send me a pre-publication copy of ‘Vault’ to read for comment and review. I started it and enjoyed it – but life kept getting in the way more than once or twice - as those who have followed the goings on in my life (version 2011) will know. ‘Vault’ has been sitting patiently on my desk, waiting for me to read it again this time with no interruptions – and with many apologies to both David Rose and to Salt, finally, yippee!

‘Vault’, published earlier this year by Salt under its Modern Fiction wing, edited by Nicholas Royle, is an anti-novel. What IS an anti-novel? Was this a clever device intended to catch the eye, or was it really something working against what we expect when we read a novel? I think that yes, on one level it really is an anti-novel. It works like this. The main character of this novel, (for it is one, and a clever one) steps out of the realm of fiction, clothes himself in fact, and thus clothed, peers back into the unfolding narrative as the facts of his life are shaken and embroidered by the novelist. What novelist? Not this one – not David Rose – but another character, a novelist we never meet, a novelist who is repeatedly taken to task by the ‘real’ main character for playing fast and loose with a life that needs no embroidering.
Sounds complex – no, not really. It is logical, there is a pleasing pattern to the pieces which reel out like something dancing round inside a zoetrope. Or, to use yet another analogy, it is a Moebius strip of a novel. Whatever image I use, it is a novel I much enjoyed, as much for its originality as for its prose, its balance, and of course, the story that underpins the whole.
David Rose has carved out a reputation as a gifted writer of short fiction, and it struck me more than once that those skills were strongly at play in “Vault”. The work is short and to the point, but it is also complex, and the reader does need to work to make their way through the maze. I like that! I must admit, though, had I not been helped by the description of the book on the back cover, I might have got a tad lost, and had to retrace my steps.
So, basically –
The main character is a cyclist who becomes a wartime sniper, then returns after the war to dispense aid and occasionally retribution. He then becomes a somewhat unwilling post-war nuclear spy, seems to me. Perfect material for a novel indeed, and sure enough, the novel is there, or sections thereof. Only he does not approve of the way his experiences have been embroidered, and cheapened, as his life has been turned from actual to fiction. So we have a pattern of ‘memoir’ then fiction – which switches to fiction then comment via memoir. The voices are distinct. The ‘novel’ sections are a little more 'writerly', as the unseen novelist stretches to make the events seem more exciting, more colourful. The voice of the memoir sections (for want of a better word) is flatter, factual. It is extremely easy to forget that one is, in fact reading a novel with a novel within it...hence the Moebius strip analogy – which probably does not hold water – but what’s wrong with a good jumble of ill-at-ease mixed metaphors when describing ‘Vault’, which does not lend itself to simple description?!
I am very glad I read this book. It is a very clever, very interesting, original short novel, which rewards a close read in spades. I can recommend!

You can read the first four sections here on the Salt website. You can buy it from the same place, and all the usual suspects online.

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Added: I have been nattering with David Rose since posting this review - and was fascinated by some of the info in one of his messages - so with permission, as this adds hugely to the overview of the book and refers to one of my own best inspirations, W G Sebald :

I haven't reread Vault since I wrote it, nearly 10 years ago, except to proofread, as I hate rereading my own work, so I forget sometimes that it may be more challenging than was intended; several people told me they read it twice, which may be worrying.
The initial idea was based on fact, i.e. someone responding to a novel of their life - you may remember it: the woman who claimed that W.G. Sebald had used her lifestory for his novel Austerlitz, which he admitted to.
That's all I had to work with - the unease at one's life, and more importantly, one's death being appropriated. The plot was constructed as I went along. I have done a fair bit of cycling, so decided to use that for authenticity, although the pre-war history needed research. As did all the rest - sniping, the battles scenes, the post-war CND marches, which I just remember...
I gather a lot more elements got mixed in as I wrote, the density accumulating in the writing act, which I am sure you have experienced, especially in your new novel.

PUBLICATION LOOMS!

Well it does a sort of loomlet. 2 weeks to go. Launch party, publication date and how I feel about it all, over on The Coward's Journey.
And news of a glowingly positive pre-pub review on Booklist in the USA - which culminates thus:

The author’s Welsh upbringing is evident in everything from the lyrical cadences of her characters’ speech to the names of the small town’s neighborhoods and conjures a genuine sense of place. By using an ensemble cast to give multiple perspectives on the event that dominates the town’s history, Gebbie puts a prodigious narrative skill on full display.

Can't ask for more, really.

(Booklist, my friend Wikipedia tells me, is, " a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print (ISSN 0006-7386) or online.")

SUCCESS FOR COLLEAGUES!

Two erstwhile writing colleagues from The Fiction Workhouse of old (My online writing home for a few years - a small closed writing group) have contacted me with brilliant news. I am sooo pleased for them, hardworking writers both.

Chelsey Flood, first - writing now as C J Flood. I met her at Exeter at the launch party of the first Riptide Journal, loved her work, and when she said she did not have a writing group, but would like to work with a good one, invited her to join. Now, a few years down the line, and after time spent at UEA as well, she's emailed to tell me that she's landed a fantastic deal for two YA novels with Simon and Schuster and a German publisher. Both the English and the German rights went to separate auctions. 'Silverweed' (or whatever the final title is) is going to be a real hit! Chelsey blogs here, at C J Flood.

You can read an old bio, hear her reading her story 'The Grief Benches' here, on Route Online... Posted this because its nice to hear, and a good story - but also, look at that bio. We were all there once, with a few publications - then wham! Fab, and I am delighted!

Michael Logan next. I judged the Fish One-Page comp back in the dark ages, and awarded this story, I Will Go Ahead and Wait for You, First Prize. Michael doesn't live round these parts - currently, he is based in Kenya - and he couldn't attend the Fish prizegiving in Bantry - so I offered to read the story for him. We ended up corresponding, and he too joined the FW for a while. Michael emailed to let me know he had won Terry Pratchett's 'Anywhere but here, Anywhen but now...' novel competition and yup - another success. Here he is, (on the left) with Terry Pratchett and the other winner, also a Logan, coincidence!)
Michael's novel 'Apocalypse Cow' (fantastic title - a tale of zombie animals...) is to be published in May 2012 by Transworld. He blogs HERE.

Who says I can't pick a good writer when I see one!

BBC SHORT STORY AWARD BASH

The 2011 winner, D W Wilson
Runner-up Jon McGregor
finalist Alison MacLeod
finalist K J Orr
finalist M J Hyland
And which event did I not include in the last post, held on Monday 26th in London, and to which I stumbled through a sudden downpour that had people making a dash for trains, doorways, in water that spilled over the pavement it came down that fast?

The BBC National Short Story Award Prize Giving Event. The short story world is very small -everyone seems to know or know of everyone else and I knew three of the shortlist. Alison MacLeod, Katherine Orr, and Jon McGregor. Jon and I share an editor, Alison is author of one of the chapters in Short Circuit, generous lady - and Katherine Orr I'd met at Small Wonder, properly. Stunning stories all.
A boozy bash, but I never knew short story writers and editors could be so NOISY! And BBC Radio 4s Front Row programme was going out live in the midst, so 'herding cats and asking a mob of crows to be quiet please,' seems to be a good analogy. Still, quiet we were. To hear speeches, including an odd confession from Gwynneth Williams, read from a paper tugged from her pocket, about how much she loves fiction and how vital it is...the applause was er- muted. Lions' den stuff, brave woman.

It was fairly nailbiting. Silence fell. We cheered to order as the programme was announced. And this year's prize went to Canadian writer D W Wilson. 'Front Row' continued with a recorded something or other, and we returned to the wine.
Great to see Clare Hey of Shortfire, Diana Reich, organiser of Small Wonder, reviewer David Hebblethwaite, writer Adam Marek - and of course the Bloomsbury team supporting Jon.
Congrats to all indeed.