Speak Easy Reminder / Call Out for October

 

Speak Easy (Open Mic Spoken Word Night) is back with a special for Chorlton Arts Festival on Monday 13 September at Duclimer (567 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 0AE) Chorlton starting at 7.30pm 

All slots have gone and we are now operating a subs list if anybody wishes to go on it (Email me on aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk if interested). 

Confirmed readers are the following:

Steve Smythe

Andy Npoet & Amanda Nicholson

Mike Booth

Ben Willkommens

Penny Sharman

Jack Horner (aka Leon the pig farmer)

Sarra Culleno

Rana

Dave Hartley

Fokkina McDonnell

Antonia Fusaro

Esther Koch

Reggie Agulha Jr.

Gordon Zola

Eve Nortley

Elenia Gr

Grant Curnow

Tom Jenks

Michael D Conley

Steph Lonsdale

Ant Smith

Anthony Briscoe

We will be back for our usual monthly show in October 2021 on Thursday 07 October 2021 and I'll be taking bookings on Sunday 12 September from mid-day either by facebook message me here or email aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk from mid-day.

Poetry Event on Dementia and Alzheimers

 

Came across this on facebook before which is being ran by a gentleman who I don't know called Trevor Dwyer Lynch which may interest some Manchester based writers and thought I would re-share

"A night of writing ABOUT and FOR Alzheimer’s…

13th November in Stockport

Are YOU a poet, a writer, at any level, amateur or professional

Does someone you know have or had ALZHEIMERS ?

Have you Wrote or are

writing stuff about Dementia / Alzheimers

Would you like for it to be heard by an audience 

If so please DM me or email TheLynch14@gmail.com"

Exploring Spuds of history with Steven Wailing

 

I first met Steven Waling all the way back at a now legendary poetry discussion group in Manchester called Poetica back in 2007 when I was first starting to make my own inroads into the Manchester poetry circuit.

Moving to Manchester in 1980 himself, Steven won the Smith/Doorstop Pamphlet Competition with his first publication, Riding Shotgun, in 1988, and also that year as a prize-winner in the Lancaster Festival Poetry Competition.

Since then he has since had published a number of collections, including Calling Myself On The Phone (Smith/Doorstop) and his new pamphlet “Spuds in History”.

Spuds in History as published by Someroast poetry is the first part of a long term project under the title “Disparate Measures”. In this collection, we see the author’s longstanding interest in the cut-up and the askew brought into focus with his customary observational tendencies. It’s not just that he notices what other’s don’t but from a different angle, and often with a relatable compassion.

Spuds in History came out in January of this year, and as Steven advises me as all poets have found the last few months have been difficult “Well, I did manage to do a couple of pre-launch readings and I read at Manchester Poets early in the year so I at least managed to do a launch, unlike some people. However, any further possibility of launches and reading has largely shut down. I have made a couple of Facebook films of me reading from the book, but I haven’t exactly been as pro-active as I perhaps ought to have been. It’s difficult to get up the energy when everyday seems like the same. However, I am about to do a reading on Zoom this coming Tuesday, and I recently sent a review copy out so I’m finally getting my finger out a little. The worst part of writing sometimes seems to be the promotion of yourself; and I’ll confess to not being as good at it as I ought to be.”

I’ve seen both of the videos Steven refers to on his facebook page and they are colourful affairs which are to be expected as you would expect off him which he adds “I actually did enjoy doing them so I think I’d like to do some more. I wanted to do them because I thought it would be good to do something with my writing and give myself a little motivation. I think this lockdown can give you a feeling of being in limbo, so I needed to kick myself out of that. I was on a learning curve; I’ve never actually used the camera on my computer before and I think it took me some time to get it right. I’ve been on Zoom a few times since; so I’ve got used to the camera and the microphone a bit more. I’ve been thinking of doing a few more; but I think I need to be able to ‘target’ them a bit more and I’m not sure how to do that yet. I haven’t ventured onto youtube yet. I don’t really know how to ‘market’ them to get somebody to watch them. But I did enjoy the process, so I shall do more.

“Yesterday I joined the Writers’ Forum workshop where just over a dozen of us shared poems on line. “ He carried on “Writers’ Forum, by the way, has a long history, going back to the late ’50s, started by visual/concrete/sound poet Bob Cobbing and being the starting point for many British experimental poets, So to be involved with that is really good. They’d usually have met in a room over a pub in London, so it’s perhaps one of the few benefits of lockdown than one can make these contacts.”

“As to the future,” When asked about what next He added” I have put a book together and sent it to a publisher that a Facebook friend put out was looking for collections. I don’t expect to hear for a couple of weeks about that, but it was interesting to put another book together. It includes a few new ones but quite a lot that have not yet been in a book. Finding that opportunity at least gave me the stimulus to look at my poems again, and see that I’m not completely useless!”

“Here’s another shorter collection, a conceptual piece, that I really ought to send off. I read most of it at the Writers’ Forum meeting, and it seemed to get a good response. So that will go next I think. “ He concludes “When I get a bit of space, I’ll do another couple of films too. I’m still writing too, that doesn’t seem to stop. Sometimes about the Covid situation sometimes not. I seem these days to build my poems up rather than splurge and then cut back.

More about Steven’s new collection can be found at:

https://someroastpoetry.wordpress.com/

Steven can be found on facebook at:

https://www.facebook.com/steven.waling.5

(Originally published on 09 August 2020 on the Sunday Tribune)

Speak Easy News (Spoken Word Open Mic News)

As a few of you may have guessed, rather busy few days

for me and Amanda lol, but a special thank you from me,

Amanda and Steve for all who attended Speak Easy last thursday,

there was a lot of people there which was really pleasing.

Readers which I wanna thank for attending included:

Mike Booth

Antonia Fusaro

Anthony Briscoe

Reggie Agulha Jr.

Mary Cunningham

Jenny Petrie

Gordon Zola

David Bond

Paul Stevens

Karl Hildebrandt

Esther Koch

Melanie Lisa

Ian O’Brien

Rob O’Driscoll 

Sonia Hames

Kevin Bamford

Jo Somerset

We will be taking bookings for the October show which will be on thursday 07 October 2021 from 7.30pm at Dulicmer (567 Wilbraham Rd, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 0AE) from this Sunday coming 12 September 2021 from mid-day either by email

(aen1mpo@yahoo.co.uk) or facebook me. 

Before that, we are also running a Speak Easy special on Monday 13 September 2021 as part of Chorlton Arts Festival from 7.30pm featuring the following readers, free as always for all to watch and if anybody wishes to go on the subs list, please let me know

Steve Smythe

Andy Npoett & Amanda Nicholson

Mike Booth

Ben Willkommens

Penny Sharman

Jack Horner (aka Leon the pig farmer)

Sarra Culleno

Rana

Dave Hartley

Fokkina McDonnell

Antonia Fusaro

Esther Koch

Reggie Agulha Jr.

Gordon Zola

Eve Nortley

Elenia Gr

Grant Curnow

Tom Jenks

Michael D Conley

Steph Lonsdale

Ant Smith

Ant Briscoe 

The art in finding the right Podcast (Part 4)

 

Without this appearing to be nothing to but terrible, terrible approaches blogs on this blog for any of the Podcasts I run, I have one more conversation I want to share with you before moving on (and hopefully not getting bad approaches although personally I’ll believe it when I see it).

On Matchmatcher.fm, Spoken Label which I am going to talk about does clearly state the following in the programme information “I am more interested in Poets, experimental musicians and fiction writers. People writing self help books, Entrepreneurship, Erotica and anybody trying to help me out with production / promotion / art are not of interest to me and likely to get a rejection and suggest to everybody to please review my archive below before getting in touch to save us both of us wasting our time. “

Most of the time this is fine, and although I do get unsuitable guests approach me on occasion, I don’t get the kind of example I am going to share today very often.

I’ll reripnt the conversation word for word, only editing the name of the writer and the book:

M:

Hi! I would be delighted to be on your show! My book, ****** ***** is currently on Amazon and well, I am tons of FUN!

As I always do when I receive a request like this, I do have a look on Amazon to see what the book is about and in this case, I came across this blurb.

Blurb of book:

You never know what is happening on the other side of the front door. When you add in extensive wealth and luxury, like in my case, it takes that to a completely different level.

Our marriage is full of love, adoration, and most of all mutual respect. I married my best friend. With a mixture of temptation, lust, and sexual pleasures we fell into a lifestyle we were constantly surprised by each other which pushed our sexual boundaries beyond our wildest imaginations.

We never thought that through it all, We would begin to find my voice and my power. Our journey to finding myself is not unlike many women before me, just with a few added mind-blowing orgasms.

*

Well, straight-away if you look at my guidelines this sounds like Eriotica to me as soon as I started reading the extract so I rejected it with my standard stationery:

Me:

Hi - Thank you for your recent message regarding Spoken Label. If you read our profile, you will see that Spoken Label has no interest in books such as this and are therefore turning down your kind request automatically. Good luck with with your book, but if you don't mind some feedback you should really research the Podcasts you are contacting before sending a message like you have and properly research everything as Podcasts like this will turn you down automatically. Spoken Label

*

Half a hour I then got the following message in response from M:

M:

Hi. I actually did read your entire profile, and since my book is barely erotica, I thought you may still be interested. My book covers a lot of very important topics in a fun and spicy way, it is not a self help book, nor is it a full on erotica book. Thank you for the write back, but as an author and someone who reads contracts for a living as a REALTOR®, I do read every word very carefully. I did however think you might want to give some authors that don't fit in your box a try because we do have a lot to offer. Have a wonderful day!

*

I’ve not responded here and won’t be wasting my time here for a whole host of reasons that are clear but the basic gist is she clearly has not listened to one of my Podcasts and if she had listened to a few or even looked at the guests I book for it.

If she had, she would know the fiction writers I bring onto the Podcast may cover topics such as Science Fiction, thrillers, Non Fiction etc – Erotica is not one of them as it would not fit into the structure I use for Spoken Label.

The lesson from this for all writers is to research your markets and even if you are turned down by the Podcast not to start react against it like the above, as word could pass around about you and cause all kind of trouble for you.

Book Review - Greg Hurwitz - The Program

 

* An Audio version of this review will appear on the Book Review Podcast Reading in bed in early september (readinginbed.bandcamp.com)

Blurb:

In this powerful follow-up to his action-packed thriller The Kill Clause, Gregg Hurwitz, the new maestro of pulse-pounding suspense, ratchets up the excitement with another sensational page-turner featuring Tim Rackley, a driven lawman motivated by honor, morality, and a deep sense of justice.

Called back into the fold of the U.S. Marshals Service, Tim is tasked with retrieving Leah Henning, the daughter of a powerful Hollywood producer, from a mind-control cult. As Tim wends his way deep undercover into an insidious operation called The Program, he confronts a brand of mind-warping manipulation beyond his worst expectations.

Tim becomes enmeshed with a diverse band of characters—from the charismatic, messianic leader T. D. Betters to a cult reject burnout to the intelligent yet highly vulnerable Leah herself—and finds himself caught in a shadowy landscape of lies, manipulation, and terror. At stake: innocent minds—maybe even his own. 

Strengths:

The book focuses on Tim Rackley who in the first book of this series was a member of the Justice Dept who was ex-communicated after his daughter was killed and he went on the rampage.

I’ve not read the first book in this series but one of the strengths of this book was the fact it was very easy to get into with no notice of the first book, as it was touched on but not rammed in your face.

The Program itself is the story of what happens next when Rackley is offered redemption by a very rich couple to infiltrate a dangerous cult to rescue a vulnerable young woman.

From reading this, it certainly appears that Hurwitz has done his research with this cult and writes with a frightening level of detail about the methodology behind aggressive recruitment techniques, financial corruptions and mind control and the book is very well paced set up into four parts usually all at around the spot on point needed.

Rackley is a well wrote troubled hero who I never felt was never in any danger of being converted into joining the cult but was presented just flawed to show what damage it did cause after the events of the death of his daughter.

The main baddie “Terrance Donald "TD" Betters” if I am honest really stole the book from Rackley as I did enjoy the fact you could see he was a scam artist very, very quickly and some of the control elements he did on people such as his Lillies was really, really creepy.

Weakness:

At 460 pages or so, it did seem somewhat long and in the middle the pace did flag somewhat and the ending did seem a bit rushed / cutting off quickly.

I was very uncomfortable with the way Rackley didn’t get involved trying to stop the murder of one of the women in the cult and a number of the cult characters were a little bit too roughly sketched out for my personal tastes.

Rackley was a decent enough hero, but I would have loved to have seen Evan Smoak from the Nowhere Man let loose in this kind of setting as I got the feeling he would have being a lot more direct than Rackley and perhaps that is what was needed with this book. It was a very well wrote book however and considering it was wrote in 2006, didn’t feel too far away in places in style from his nowhere man series.

I may read the other books but that will be after Nowhere Man 7 next year which I am looking forward more.

8/10

Book Review - Matthew FitzSimmons – Constance

 

* An audio version of this review will appear on the book review Podcast Reading in Bed in early September *

Blurb:

A breakthrough in human cloning becomes one woman’s waking nightmare in a mind-bending thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Gibson Vaughn series.

In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature. For young Constance “Con” D’Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying.

After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what does that make her?

The secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all over again.

Strengths:

This book is set in the near future where due to massive advances in medicine and technology cloning has now become a reality for those rich enough to afford it.

Skipping the first twenty or so pages which I’ll come onto in the weaknesses, the book really starts when Constance D’Arcy awakens in a cloned body with no memory of the past eighteen months.

The idea in this book is a really good idea and the world is set up really well, and the perils and pitfalls in this book are pretty good with the far right reglionious aspect of the book added a nice touch to the parnoid nature that the main character Conn when she literally had no idea who to trust and at one point ended up sleeping on the streets.

I also liked the fact she wasn’t immedately likeable as a character and liked the hard edgeness of her as a character and the way she didn’t take shit off anybody and didn’t let anybody stop her try to find out what has happened in those 18 months leading up to that point.

Weaknesses:

Once I got off the first twenty or pages, which I didn’t think were really needed and didn’t seem to go anyway, the book was a steady 4 stars until the last 50 pages which the story came close to losing any kind of believability where twist after twist seemed to build up which after about the third or fourth one, it came close to choking the tension off of everything after too many twists, subplots etc.

I’ll not reveal the twists that came up but I felt, one or two of the twists may have worked not three or four which perhaps the author could have held back until the second book if there was such a demand for it and cost it marks for me as this could have being a easily 9 out of 10 for me and I’ll keep off the sometimes 2d nature of a number of the male characters in this book (It’s kinda telling that the best male character dies at the end of the book and will cause the writer some problems in the second book I suspect).

Anyway, a fair enough start to a series. I’ll probably read Book 2 and despite the fact having faults, it’s the best book I’ve read on Amazon First Reads in quite some time.

7.5/10