Magus Alan Moore

Transdisciplinary approaches to the work of Alan Moore.

The University of Northampton is pleased to announce the first international academic conference dedicated to appraising the work of perhaps the most influential figure to emerge from the comics medium, Northampton’s own Alan Moore.

Moore has consistently been at the forefront of the graphic novel medium for almost thirty years, being the iconic figure behind such pioneering works as Marvelman and V for Vendetta, the revolutionary Watchmen, to From Hell, Promethea, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and, most recently, Lost Girls to name but a few. Alongside his work in the comic medium he has written one novel, Voices from the Fire, and is subsequently working on the ambitious Jerusalem project. He has also worked as a graphic artist, performed and recorded a series of musical collaborations largely related to site-specific events, and in recent years has become a magician.

While Moore’s contribution to the comic medium is undisputed, academic appraisals of his work have been fragmentary and there have been no dedicated scholarly events to date that seek to give an overview of his oeuvre. As such The University of Northampton is pleased to announce Magus: Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Work of Alan Moore, an interdisciplinary conference that will bring together not only appraisals of Moore’s comic works, but also his wider cultural manifestations and their significance at the start of the 21st century. Given his burgeoning literary and cultural importance, Moore’s significant profile in the wake of several recent Hollywood adaptations of his work (despite his own antipathy towards those adaptations and their place within the culture industries), and the relationship to Northampton’s cultural landscape (both physical and psychic) that recurs throughout his work, both the time and location are fitting for a dedicated appraisal of his cultural legacy thus far.

For more information see:

http://www2.northampton.ac.uk/arts/home/AlanMoore

Factor Fiction go Digital

Leicester small press comic publishers Factor Fiction have decided that 2010 is the year to go digital. They will be making their titles The Girly Comic and Violent! freely available online.

The Girly Comic was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award for Best Comic of 2008, and features stories from an eclectic mix of genres, but that all have female protagonists. A new comic strip will commence every Monday, and will run one page per day over several days. On Wednesdays, there will be feature reviews of comics that are likely to appeal to Girly readers. On Fridays, Selina Lock (Editor of The Girly Comic) will be blogging about the world of comics in general. Check it all out at: http://www.factorfictionpress.co.uk/webcomic

Violent! features stories with a black sense of humour, and pays homage to comics of the 1970s, such as Action. Jay Eales (Editor of Violent!) will be putting new issues of Violent! together in PDF form, but instead of printing, folding and stapling, he’ll be releasing them into the wild for free download every three months. He’ll also be continuing a rolling programme of putting strips from the archive up on the webcomic blog at: http://factorfictionpress.co.uk/violentwebcomic/

Factor Fiction are always open to new creators, and submission guidelines can be found on The Girly Comic and Violent! websites.

http://www.factorfictionpress.co.uk

I am an American poet

I Am An American Poet: This Is American Poetry
Four days of workshops, craft talks, conferences, readings & community
Nottingham, England • July 15-18 2010

http://www.nottinghampoetryseries.com/thisis/thisis.html
When Lucille Clifton was asked what American poetry was, she replied, ‘I am an American poet: this is American poetry’. Not an elusive answer, her response speaks to the huge variety and scope of American poetry today. With this in mind, the Nottingham Poetry Series brings five very different voices together for four days of intense workshops, craft talks, conferencing, and community.

Events will take place July 15-18 at locations across Nottingham. Tickets are available now at http://www.nottinghampoetryseries.com/thisis/thisis.html

Please write to thisis@nottinghampoetryseries.com for more information. See you there!

Short Fuse presents Metropolis

Short Fuse Presents: METROPOLIS

April 20th, 8pm at The Y Theatre, 7 East Street, Leicester
Blitz + Glitz + Fritz Lang; Bright Lights, Big City; Apple, Smoke, Gay Paris…

Headliner: Ruth Gershon Reading ‘A Life In Clothes’, first published for Granta’s ‘London’ edition.

Also featuring a short talk by Dr. Corinne Fowler featuring original artwork on ‘Moving Manchester’ an exciting research project on the ways in which the experience of migration can inform creative writing.

Music, Short Fiction, Live VJ + More

See website for details:http://shortfusefiction.com

Book online at: http://www.leicesterymca.co.uk/y-theatre-whats-on-details.php?listing=820

Tickets £5.50/£4 Concessions

Lost in Translation

Event: Lost in Translation – celebrated storytellers live on stage at the Bonington Theatre, Arnold
Date: Saturday 27 March, 7.30pm
Admission: £10 / £8 concessions
Bookings: Call 0115 9670114

Don’t miss this chance to see celebrated storytellers, Shonaleigh and Peter Chand, taking to the stage for an evening of live storytelling at the Bonington Theatre, Arnold, on Saturday 27 March, 7.30pm.

‘Lost is Translation’ is a tale of destiny, aching for one’s homeland, and the understanding between cultures.

The event is a fantastic opportunity to see two great storytellers live on stage in the East Midlands. Part of Storyfest – Nottinghamshire County Council Libraries’ celebration of stories during March.

WIC 2010 Podcast – How to sell your script and see it produced

Scriptwriting for theatre, film and television is one of the most competitive but potentially rewarding outlets for a writer’s skills. Thousands of scripts are written every year, but selling a script and seeing it produced can take more work than the writing itself. How do writers go from a finished script to a finished production, and what are the opportunities for new writing?

 

 How to sell your script and see it produced: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Amanda Whittington has been described as Britain’s ‘most consistently popular female dramatist’ (The Guardian). Her plays include Be My Baby, Ladies Day and Bollywood Jane. Amanda writes regularly for BBC Radio 4 writing career as a journalist.

Bea Udeh is a theatre producer at Nottingham Playhouse, where she uses grass roots people and stories to embody the experiences that we all have daily. Her current productions include ‘Fakebook’ and ‘The Gospel According to Roger Dank’.

Kate Chapman joined Theatre Writing Partnership as Artistic Director and Chief Executive in March 2009. From 2004 to 2008 she was a Producer for BBC Radio Drama. She was artistic director of Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill from 1995 – 1998 and programme director of SCRIPT from 2001 – 2004.

Peter Leslie Wild is Senior Producer for BBC Radio Drama. His work includes the recent Radio 4 Classic serial version of Robinson Crusoe (adapted by Andy Barrett), the sci-fi serial Project Raphael by Jenny Stephens (Radio 7) and five serials featuring Lindsey Davis’s Roman detective Falco adapted by Mary Cutler (Radio 4).

Bryan Talbot

Bryan Talbot coming to Leicester Central Lending Library, Thurs 6th May 7:00pm. ‘Grandville’ & the Anthropomorphic Tradition’

Mike Carey

Talk by Mike Carey (comic writer & supernatural detective novelist)
Wed 14th April, 4pm – 5.30pm, Students Union: DeMontfort University

The Kick School of Creative Writing

The Kick School of Creative Writing is a creative writing school with a difference.

The deal is this: get a bunch of writers together, wannabe or not, and write. Because for the wannabe the only way to get better is to write stuff. Different stuff. Lots of different ideas. Lots of different styles. And for pros, the people who know how to write, same deal; since these are skills that need maintaining.

The format is roughly the following. Everyone turns up and gets comfortable, has a pot of tea etc. Then the first prompt is delivered. This could be a phrase, a poem, a song, anything that can inspire a story/poem. Then we, the group, write for about half an hour.

And then we break for ten minutes. For more tea, toilet breaks and smokes.

Then this process of writing for half an hour and chilling for ten minutes gets repeats two or three more times. A different prompt each time.

This will be a monthly event to begin with, on the second Saturday of each month.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=374194759207&ref=ts

Richard Hollis joins Five leaves

Richard Hollis has been in publishing for fifty years. He has worked as a printer, art editor, production manager, teacher and lecturer. His first complete book designs were for Weidenfeld and Andre Deutsch. This was in the early 1960s, a time when he went on to design a series of covers for Penguin before becoming art editor of New Society. As well as teaching at the London College of Printing he was art director of Pluto Press and for a short time design and production director at Faber and Faber. In the 1970s he worked with John Berger on several books, which began with the Booker-winning G and included his best-seller Ways of Seeing. Hollis has designed art catalogues for Bridget Riley and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. This summer he worked on a book for the British artist Steve McQueen at the Venice Biennale. For forty years Richard Hollis made the layout and covers for Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort’s quarterly Modern Poetry in Translation. He does the typesetting for his wife Posy Simmonds’ graphic novels including Tamara Drewe, now being filmed by Stephen Frears. His first three books appear under his own name, but as an imprint of Five Leaves. Two are connected with Ted Hughes and with a single London house. The memoir of Ted Hughes is written by Daniel Huws, the tenant of the flat where Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath stayed. The late Susan Alliston, the author of the second book, for which Ted Hughes wrote an introduction, at a later date also lived in the house. The third book, a memoir of his experiences in the Holocaust is by Romek Marber, designer responsible for the basic style across most of the Penguin covers in the early 1960s and in the following twenty years.

Memories of Ted Hughes 1952-1963 by Daniel Huws (9781905512751, £5.99)
Poems and Journals 1960-1969 by Susan Alliston (9781905512768, £5.99)
No Return by Romek Marber (9781905512744, £7.99)

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