Below are some samples of the live readings we have had around the UK. Just click on a story and listen. All the accompanying music snippets and sounds were chosen by Zak Akhimien in consultation with the authors.
Tell Tales is a London-based arts organisation dedicated to taking literature to the masses. We focus primarily on the short prose form, but also work to improve access to advice and mentoring for poets and novelists.
The group emerged out of the realisation by Courttia Newland that the short prose form was getting very little support from major publishers - a fact that has also been recognised by some of our partner groups and the Arts Council - which led him to propose an event where short stories would be read to the public in an engaging format. Working with Nii Ayikwei Parkes he came up with this stuff - short stories with a kick ass soundtrack.
Sample us on here, then find out when we are next and come and feel the Tell Tales experience.
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(We juiced up our site based on the work of Mike Industries. Of course we had to adapt it for the music profile which is wider and has a couple more twists... Check M out; you might pick up a trick or two!.
Just wanted to let you (and your comment-reading friends) know that GUD Issue 1 is now available for purchase!
Issue 1 comes to life with Darby Larson's "Electroencephalography" where an experiment in robot-building goes terribly awry. And if you've ever woken up with an unexpected physical deformity—say, an arrow in your heart—you'll truly enjoy the next story. There's also a smattering of flash fiction and psychedelia; a straight-out story where things aren't what they seem, poetry that takes you from the perverse to the sublime, some magic realism, science fiction, and a few letters to another species thrown in for good measure. We haven't forgotten those of you with a literary bent. In addition, the artwork in this issue is particularly strong, with oil paintings, watercolors, photography, and photo illustrations complementing the words with which they are paired.
FOURTEEN SHOWS, SIX POETS, ONE VAN…
… YES, IT’S GENERATION TXT
Following the success of acclaimed new poetry anthology Generation Txt, penned in the margins is taking the six gifted young poets featured in the book on a national tour to fourteen venues. Hand-picked from a nationwide search for writing talent, the poets include former Northern Young Writer of the Year Emma McGordon and celebrated performance poet Inua Ellams, as well as Joe Dunthorne, whose debut novel <i>Submarine</i> has just been snapped up by Hamish Hamilton. Natural Sciences graduate Laura Forman, creative writing student Abigail Oborne and experimental poet and text artist James Wilkes complete the bill.
Hailed by distinguished poet and critic Roddy Lumsden as 'a vital cross-section of the poetry that will progress and flourish' and by the TES as 'a creative ideas manual', the Generation Txt tour will be a must-see event for anyone interested in the future of literature.
May 17 – GREAT TORRINGTON Plough Arts Centre
May 18 – SWINDON Festival of Literature
May 19 – STROUD Artspace
May 22 – LONDON Bloomsbury Theatre
May 24 – MAIDENHEAD Norden Farn Centre for the Arts
May 25 – OXFORD Playhouse
May 26 – MANCHESTER Contact Theatre
May 28 – LIVERPOOL The Pilgrim
May 29 – DURHAM Gala Theatre
May 30 – NEWCASTLE Lit & Phil
June 1 – BIRMINGHAM MAC
June 2 – NORWICH Norwich Arts Centre
June 3 – CAMBRIDGE JE Wilson Drama Studio
June 5 – BRIGHTON Earth & Stars
Hi there! Shot from the Lip is presented by a collective of London’s spoken word artists and promoters to bring the thriving underground scene a little closer to the surface.
Find out on our website what spoken word is all about and check out details of the Shot from the Lip Season.
One poem or a performer, or a series of words will mesmerise you, hypnotise you.
Hi! I’m GENERATION TXT, the acclaimed new anthology of poetry featuring Joe Dunthorne, Inua Ellams, Laura Forman, Emma McGordon, Abigail Oborne and James Wilkes. You can buy me from at www.amazon.co.uk or direct from www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk or at selected bookshops nationwide.
The current generation of poets under 30 sees the factional stances which lead their predecessors as petty and limiting. Generation Txt looks at all points of poetry's star and is less concerned with the middle ground, which makes this selection of young writers more vital and a truer cross-section of the poetry that will progress and flourish.' Roddy Lumsden
