Readings - March 20 & April 13

Great news! I'll be reading from my novel at two events in the next few weeks - Thursday March 20 2008 at the Poetry Cafe for the African Writers' Evening (a whole 30 minutes!) and Sunday April 13 2008 for the PEN International Literature Festival at the Royal Festival Hall. Please join me - they are both cheap entry £4 and £5 respectively...

Thursday March 20 2008:

For the month of March, the month of Ghana's independence and the most recent national assembly elections in Uganda, we are proud to present the two AWE hosts from last year - Nick Makoha of Uganda and Nii Ayikwei Parkes from Ghana. Under the banner of Old Faces, New Work, Nick will be reading exclusive new material from his forthcoming debut poetry book, which builds on the success of his acclaimed chapbook The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man, while Nii will be reading from his debut novel, Tail of the Blue Bird,which will be released in April 2009 by Jonathan Cape. Nii will introduce Nick Makoha and host the first half and Nick will introduce Nii and host the second half. We hope you'll join us for what promises to be a brilliant evening of poetry and prose.

Author Biographies:

Nick Makoha: Nick Makoha is an hugely gifted poet of Ugandan origin, with an uncommon talent for loaded one-liners. Original poet-in-residence with London's revered performance showcase, Kindred Spirit, Nick (perfoming under the moniker urbanspirit) catapulted himself to legendary status by disappearing off the poetry scene for two years. He re-emerged in early 2005 with The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man and is now working on a new collection to be released in 2008 by flipped eye publishing.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes: Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian writer of poetry, prose and articles who has published three poetry chapbooks: eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999); M is for Madrigal (2004), a selection of seven jazz poems; and shorter (2005). His is also a contributing editor to The Liberal, and runs the African Writers' Evening series at the Poetry Cafe, in Covent Garden, London. Nii's poem, Tin Roof, was selected for the 'Poems on the Underground' initiative in 2007 and his debut novel, Tail of the Blue Bird, will be released in April 2009 by Jonathan Cape.

Sunday 13 April 2008:

International Futures in association with Pen International Magazine Mohamed Magani, Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Selma Dabbagh & friends

Sunday 13 April 6pm
Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre

International Futures gets right to the heart of International PEN's work, celebrating the great writers you know and the great writers you don't. Compère and contributor Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanian novelist and performance poet; Mohamed Magani, an Algerian novelist and short story writer, is applauded as one of Maghrebi literature's most prominent voices; and Palestinian Selma Dabbagh was shortlisted for the David Wong Short Story Prize. They will share the platform with Maria Francesca LoDico and Niki Aguirre.

Tickets: £5

African Writers' Evening - I'm hosting/reading!

AFRICAN WRITERS' EVENING w/ Isobel Dixon & Biram Mboob
Friday 16 November 2007, 7.30pm (doors)
Poetry Cafe, 22 Betterton Street, London (Covent Garden tube)
4.00 / 3.00 (conc)
www.x-bout.com/awe
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In November (Friday, 16th November) the African Writers' Evening brings you a classic AWE line up - one poet, one prose-writer, one South African, one West African, two points on the continent's compass in one cool English night. From South Africa we have Isobel Dixon, whose debut collection Weather Eye won two awards at home, reading from a new collection, A Fold in the Map; and from Gambia, representing West Africa, we have Biram Mboob, a former Tell Tales contributor and emerging novelist intent on carving out a space for African Science Fiction. Obviously it's destined to be a heavenly night experienced at warp-speed, for we also welcome back our regular host Nii Ayikwei Parkes, who has recently been appointed International Writing Fellow at Southampton University. Join us for a fun-filled, thought-inspiring evening.


AUTHOR BIOS:

Isobel Dixon was born in Umtata, South Africa, and grew up in the Karoo, the desolate region that has inspired so many South African writers. Her poetry has been widely published in South Africa, where she won the Sanlam Prize and the Olive Schreiner Prize for her collection Weather Eye, and she has received international exposure with poems in The Paris Review, Wasafiri, Avocado, The Guardian, London Magazine, and The Tall Lighthouse Review, among others. Isobel's poems have appeared in many anthologies, including several of the British Council New Writing volumes, and she has been translated into Dutch and Turkish. Her new collection A Fold in the Map is published by Salt in the UK and Jacana in South Africa.


Biram Mboob's stories aim to re-live the Golden Age of Sci-Fi through an African pair of eyes and it is to this end that he has been writing African Science Fiction for the past few years. Biram was born in The Gambia in 1979 but has travelled through much of the African continent, an experience that markedly shapes his writing. Biram was the winner of the 2004 Shorelines National Black First Chapter competition and has had his work featured in SABLE Magazine, Calabash Magazine and Tell Tales Volume II. His work is also featured in the forthcoming anthology, Dreams, Miracles and Jazz: Adventures in New African Fiction. Biram currently lives in South London and is working on his first novel. 

On Radio: BBC World Service (Sept 14, 2007)

The first part of the 2-Part Radio documentary I recorded with Producer Sue Waldram for the BBC World Service will be on at the following times (GMT, I presume):

FRI 14th Sept 0930, 2130
SAT 15th Sept 00.30
SUN 16th Sept 0135, 2235

Catch it if you can...

Live Fiction @ Treadwell's London Monday 06.08.07

Monday, 6 August 2007, 7:00 pm
Liars' Cramp
Live Fiction@ Treadwells Bookshop
34 Tavistock Street,
Covent Garden, London WC2
Free entry/Stories on sale
Download Flyer
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Liars Cramp is a group of talented London writers, short story tellers and novelists, dedicated to writing and performing live fiction. Formed from a core group of friends who met on the MA Creative Writing course at Birkbeck, the group has had enormous success with publication of their short stories internationally in anthologies and magazines such as Tell Tales, Storyteller Magazine, Pulp, The New Writer and x magazine. Two members of the group have major books coming out in the next twelve months.


WHO IS READING?

Niki Aguirre:
NIKI has lived and travelled widely in the US, South America and Europe. She now resides in London, where she is completing her collection of short stories, 29 Ways to Drown, which will be released in October 2007. Niki studied English at the University of Illinois and graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck. She's also working on a novel, Transcending the Virtual, is due to be completed later this year.


Harry Whitehead:
HARRY works in film and television. He has published poetry, short fiction, academic articles on anthropology, and he has a book on Nepalese tantric art coming out soon.


Nii Ayikwei Parkes:
NII grew up in Ghana, working as a food technologist before becoming a full-time performance poet; he has since branched into fiction with considerable success. Co-founder of the Tell Tales short story initiative, his oeuvre includes the books eyes of a boy, lips of a man and M is for Madrigal, and Incredible Blues, a CD. He received an Arts Council Award for his recently completed novel, Afterbirth, and is a former associate writer-in-residence at BBC Radio 3.



Also reading will be Matt Loukes.


FURTHER INFORMATION
http://mondayliars.wordpress.com/