Created in Birmingham

I’ve just discovered that my local independent book shop, Bonds Books in Harborne, has a website and a pretty good line-up of events coming up over the next few months.

• 28 May - Martin Bell will speak about his new book ‘The Truth That Sticks’
• 12 June - Prof Robert Knecht, esteemed historian, will introduce his book ‘The French Renaissance Court’
• 2 July - Catherine O’Flynn award-winning local author of ‘What Was Lost’ (due to be turned into a film, reports The Stirrer) will read from the book and sign copies.

They’ve got a reading group too, and the staff in there have always been lovely and helpful. I can’t help thinking that a little blog to promote and record these events, recommend new books and generally help tie themselves into their community might be a good idea.

If you know of any independent book shops doing interesting events (preferably with some sort of interweb link) then give them a mention in the comments.

• Likemind: Birmingham
  A monthly coffee morning that's open to all and has no agenda other than simply to get people talking. Organised by James from Supercool and Lucie from Saint Caffe. The next one is tomorrow 8.30am to 10am at Saint Caffe, St Pauls Sq.
• Another Byte Of Banality
  Midge works at Urban Village and has a new, Birmingham-based blog.
• Perform at the Birmingham Book Festival « The Asian Writers Project
  The Birmingham Book Festival and sampad are looking for writers who struggle to connect with writing communities and audiences because of a barrier of language.
• West Midlands Cultural Olympiad - Find Out More
  This is tonight. The original ticket allocation went quickly so they've taken a bigger room and have made a few more tickets available.

• Changing Faces of Small Heath & Birmingham Exhibition
  An exhibition of photos taken 10 years ago by pupils from Small Heath School and photographic work by Rubina Bibi. Small Heath Library until 30 May.
• Self-published author takes competition to bestseller rivals
  Birmingham-based Irish writer Mary Rochford’s collection of short stories Gilded Shadows (Tia Publishing) has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (the most prestigious of its type) alongside Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.
• Inside The Animal Book
  “ITV Local have produced a fascinating behind the scenes look at the making of The Animal Book, the RTS-nominated, stop-motion short by Birmingham’s Second Home Productions”. I can’t get the vid to play unfortunately.
• Ikon Gallery - Ruth Claxton in conversation
  Artists Ruth Claxton and Richard Deacon joined Ikon Director, Jonathan Watkins before an audience during Richard Deacon’s Ikon exhibition. You can click through to the audio. Good to see the gallery doing this, others should take note.
• Birmingham Architectural Association - lecture from Maciej Hawrylak
  What does it mean to be a second city? The next in the BAA’s series of lectures is form Maciej Hawrylak, leading tutor of the urban design course at Wroclaw University of Technology. At the Old Joint Stock, 20 May.
• ArtsFest - Free arts board training weekend for people aged 18 - 25
  Applications are now open for young people aged who want to take part in a training weekend to learn about what being a member of an arts board involves.
• CreativePeople - “CPD for the CPD providers”
  A one-day event on continuing professional development, 25 June at the Hippodrome.

• Whatsonstage Midlands
  "the first site purely dedicated to performance in the Midlands, providing a platform for all the talent and flair that takes place here"
• Anne Bennett and Annie Murray at Castle Bromwich Library
  On Thursday 15 May at 10.30am you can listen to two well known local authors Anne Bennett and Annie Murray talking about their different lives and personal experiences of Birmingham.
• Sunday Flea at the Custard Factory
  It's back on Sunday 18 May from 11am to 4pm. The Birmingham Opera Company are having an open day down there with activities too.
• Dave Holland Jazz Ensemble Awards
  Garry Corbett (aka bluejazzbuddha)'s photos from the final of the Dave Holland Jazz Ensemble Award evening, held on 27 April at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
• Robot Vs Dinosaur
  Back at Island Bar on Friday 16 May with Datassette and Lone complementing the DJs. Dress like a robot or dinosaur for reduced entry.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham - events for w/c 12 May
  A selection of events and workshops including a performance by the National Ballet of China and the opportunity for a peek at Ikon Eastside where 'Glass Fragments of Time' is on. There's film action with 'Planet B-Boy' on Saturday.

• OJS Theatre - What’s On May to July 08
  Comedy and theatre listings for the Old Joint Stock Theatre during May to July 2008
• Birmingham Words handover
  The National Academy of Writing/BCU are taking over Birmingham Words from 12 May. Good luck to all involved and I’m looking forward to seeing what the “new and exciting directions” involve.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham - Collective Memory
  Wechtie is doing a fantastically useful collective memory for the IDFB. If you’ve spotted any online coverage then post a link in the comments on his blog.
• Supercool mention Winnie O’Brien
  I like the look of Winnie O’Brien’s work but can’t find any information on her (yet). Props to Supercool for posting this.
• New Ikon Eastside Space
  27 May sees Ikon’s itinerant Eastside programme re-open in a new location on Fazeley Street, Digbeth. It opens with Soi Project, an artists’ collective from Thailand and Japan.
• Woom Gallery in the Jewellery Quarter
  Some interesting things happening here “the common thread being; the venue’s charm, underground edge and our input into aesthetics.. leaving the audience with the feeling of being part of something a bit special”.

Caption: “Aliya Vaughan, Muslim Writer of the Year 2008, look in awe at the guest of honour Jermaine Jackson as he presents her with her Award. In the background stand the judges who reviewed the 10,000 entries that were received. Aliya is aged 37 and hails from Brixton in South London.”

The Muslim Writer of the Year 2008 awards ceremony took place on Saturday at the ICC, presented by none other than Jermaine Jackson. West Midlands winners were former Guantanamo detainee Moazzem Beg (Published Writer) and Kashif Choudry (Short Story)

Annoyingly the press release I was sent isn’t on the awards site or the council’s page so I’ve popped it online here.

Hello, As Pete mentioned, I’m Danny and I will be your guest blogger for a while, I will be trying to give you all the Birmingham friendly creative news that I find, although my main priority will be not screwing up like deleting the internet, getting Pete sued into the ground, or accidentally starting a Civil War. If there is something that you feel should be covered and I have missed, drop me a line at artiseasy(at)hotmail(dot)co(dot)uk.

I don’t feel so much that I have been given the keys to a brand new sports car, as much as that I’ve been given the keys to an 18 wheeler lorry and its my job not to plough that bugger into a bus queue full of nuns and orphans. So without further adoing

• “Australian lawyer, novelist and human rights campaigner Randa Abdel- Fattah will be at a special event on the eve of Birmingham’s second annual Writers Awards evening”.

• A nice interview with Catherine O’Flynn, winner of the Costa First Novel Award here.

• Audiances Central normally have some good opportunities, these caught my eye, or rather caught my girlfriends eye, she’s giving me a hand and lovely hands they are too.

Nu Century Arts is an organisation established in 2000 and based in Handsworth who are “dedicated to the development and promotion of performing arts in the African-Caribbean community”

The company’s work encompasses a professional theatre group, organising a regular live music event ‘The Live Box’, literature in the shape of ‘Wired Up’ magazine and a broad range of education work, from jazz workshops, to youth theatre and group trips as far a field as South Africa and the United States.

Given Birmingham’s location within the United Kingdom and the breadth of talent within the city, Nu Century Arts has maintained that its artists should not be marginal, but play a central role in the cultural direction of the country; have access to the fullest possible range of skills; and produce the highest quality work. Moreover, it seeks to provide a consistent base and a framework promoting new African Caribbean work, irrespective of political/ cultural trends and fashions.

The do work in a variety of venues including The Drum and The Rep and the artists listed on their site include Soweto Kinch, Julie Dexter, Eska Mtungwazi and Shabaka Hutchins.

Awareness came to me from Osahon Orchard who is running a free 10 week acting course for over 19 year olds as a “way to regain confidence as well as get back into performing” at 16 Grosevenor Road B20 3NP. Contact him on osahon.orchard [at] ntlworld.com for details.

Dave Hilliard interviews the writer and blogger Thomas Moronic. Here’s the obligatory Birmingham quote:

The Midlands has other influences as well. As you know, it can be difficult being an artist round here sometimes because it can be quite an isolated place, if you are of a certain creative mindset. The place can be very depressing, and at times stifling. But then again, in some ways I’d say that that can help a person’s art – you can use those things in work.

And, being me, I’m particularly interested in his thoughts about why he blogs.

The blog is the thing that helped kickstart me back into writing. I love my blog. I see it as an ongoing, constantly expanding body of work. I feel really pleased with the work ethic that I’ve managed to get together with it. I wouldn’t say that it’s hard, because I enjoy it so much. I love sitting down and putting stuff together for it. Keeping it going is a challenge that I relish.

Like anything in life, there are always distractions – socialising, work etc. But when I stopped writing a couple of years back, the idea of starting again was a really intimidating thing. It felt daunting, because I hadn’t written anything in so long – I didn’t know where to start. By being firm with myself and keeping a set writing routine, it means I’ll never have to worry about starting again, because I don’t give myself chance to stop.

Obviously, with a daily thing, I can’t guarantee that every single day will be amazing entry, and when I look back there are definitely some days that I think are better than others, but I think in order to get good work you do have to work through some not so good stuff. In that respect, the blog acts as a big notebook for me. It’s a good place to experiment with ideas.

But there’s much more interesting stuff in there too.

Mary Rochford writes to inform of her new book, Gilded Shadows, which comes out later this month.

Set in the West of Ireland, Birmingham, Dublin and Nice, five of these stories explore our need to come to terms with the past.

Three sisters: Aefe, Fionuala and Sorcha, struggle towards a recollection and resolution of the event which almost destroyed their family.

Tom and Breda flee Derry for the safety of England and discover that history casts a long shadow.

Bridget, haunted by the past, takes the first plane out of Birmingham and spends a life-changing week in Nice.

The remaining seven stories which are located in Birmingham are laced with humour and deal with the universal desire to be loved and to belong.

She’s released the first piece, Aefe’s story, as a free PDF download. You can buy the book from Bonds Books in Harborne from December 12th and at the Custard Factory’s Sunday Flea on the 16th.

Will Buckingham, the dude behind the Birmingham Words blog, is moving on but isn’t letting the site die. It’s to be taken over by the National Academy of Writing at BCU and will be run by students studying there.

Running Birmingham Words over these five years or so has been a huge amount of fun. But now that we are reaching the end of this particular funding period, it seems time to take stock. As editor, webmaster and general power-behind-the-kitchen-chair at Birmingham words, I am feeling like a change of scene, both for the good of site and also because I myself am planning to move on to other (although not necessarily greater) things.

As a result, I have been in discussion with the National Academy of Writing at Birmingham City University, and they have expressed a strong interest in stepping into the breach and adopting Birmingham Words as an on-going project for students at the Academy. This would, I hope, give a new impetus to the site, and would not only secure a longer-term future for it, but would also give allow it to continue to grow and develop.

More details on the change.

They just keep coming. The latest nomination to grace Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost is the Costa Book Awards where she’s in the running for best first novel. The Costa’s were previously known as the Whitbread’s and are pretty well respected in the book trade for bridging the gap between high-falutin literary and populist.

Lest we forget Catherine is also up for Brummie of the Year.

news via Audiences Central

Later: Post article.

Later again: Tindal St press release.

Meet The Authors is a nice looking local lit event tomorrow at the MAC with Brummie of the Year contender Catherine O’Flynn and Nicola Monaghan talking about their work.

Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ sweet shop before embarking on a career of curious jobs. Her first novel, What Was Lost, has bounded into the literary scene getting a nod from the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and, at the time of writing is 8/1 odds on to scoop The Man Booker Prize. Celebrating Catherine’s insight into the absurdity of consumerism and urban dissatisfaction, the Literary Review observes, ‘O’Flynn is just the colleague you’d want to be stuck with in a dead-end job.’)

Nicola Monaghan has worked as a teacher, a financial analyst and a software guru. She now works part-time as Fellow of the National Academy of Writing, based at the University of Central England. Boyd Tonkin included Nicola in the Independent’s New Years Eve list of rising talent for 2006. Her first novel, The Killing Jar, was published in March 2006 to critical acclaim. It won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and a Betty Trask Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Goss First Novel Prize and the Waverton Good Read.

Tickets are £5 and it starts at 7.30. Details.

A bit of local web buzz for Careless Talk, the new novel by Michael Richardson published by Tindal Street. Birmingham Words gave notice of the launch (which I missed telling you about - sorry), BiNS has a review and The Stirrer has a video interview:

Jan Bowman writes:

I’m writing a children’s picture book about Birmingham and the Enlightenment, which will be ready to send to publishers by December. Inspired by the work of Czech illustrator Sasek it will also show undiscovered treasures lurking in the city, such as the attached. I’m looking for other good visual suggestions and suspect you/your readership can help. There are some more images of Birmingham on my website.

And I would of course like people to commission me!

The Muslim Writers Award, an initiative coming out of Birmingham City Council which had its inaugural ceremony in April, goes national in 2008.

The idea of the project is to assist and nurture emerging writers and get them published. We are looking at the writers creative talent - not their religious beliefs. The Awards were televised and went out to 150+ countries and we hope to reach as many new writers (and readers!) as possible.

The categories for the 2008 Awards are:

* Non Fiction
* Short Story
* Novel Award
* Poetry Award
* Under 16s
* Best Children’s Story
* Best New Writer of the Year
* Best Published Writer (to be nominated by publishers)

The 2008 Judges include Randa Abdel Fattah (author of Does My Head Look Big in This?), Emma Hargrave (Managing Editor of Tindal St Press), Bloomsbury publishers and Sunny Hundal (Editor of Asians in the Media).

Alongside the awards there’s also a support program including, editing support, creative writing courses and master classes, networking opportunities, support in finding publishers and more.

The deadline for submissions is December 28th and all the details are here.

Beginner’s Luck? 4Talent interview with debut novelist and Booker longlistee Catherine O’Flynn. (Is longlistee a word? You know what I mean…)

The Birmingham Book Festival runs from October 11th - 21st and has a quite impressive line-up of events and workshops with a quite international flavour. BBC Birmingham has some highlights.

Tindal Street Press are having a launch for Mick Scully’s new crime novel Little Moscow next Tuesday 12th June from 7.30pm onwards at the Bond Company, 180–182 Fazeley Street, Digbeth, B5 5SE.

The event will feature author Mick Scully reading from Little Moscow and discussing his fiction with Nicola Monaghan, creative writing fellow at Birmingham’s National Academy of Writing, based at UCE and author of The Killing Jar. There will also be drinks.

The Little Moscow, a shady basement bar at the side of the Grand Union canal in Birmingham, stamping ground for thieves, gangsters and conmen – plus some of the city’s more glamorous creatures. Blue-skinned Nathan, a hardknock tattooist, refuses to pay Crawford’s protection racket. Nearby, a refugee from Middle Eastern wars finds a body hanging from a lamppost and becomes entangled with a goodtime girl called Veronica and an apartment decorated with abstract art. Roles get reversed, debts get claimed and colours collide – while two would-be Andy Warhols make away with incriminating evidence.

These stories revolve around the Little Moscow bar in subtle, surprising ways to form a powerfully impressionistic whole. Scully brings a literary virtuosity to the landscapes of urban realism, fueling a noir mythology with dreams of power, riches and sex. This auspicious collection draws darkly criminal tales from a modern city’s mix of cultures.

If you can’t find it in our local book emporiums Amazon have it at 20% off.

Hat tip to the permalink-free Birmingham Words.

Perfectly Formed, the Spring / Summer anthology from Birmingham Words is available to download from their site. The criteria for this issue was stories (no poetry) under 300 words and features the work of Ann Alexander, Robert Ronsson, Frances Gapper, Emily Eatwell, Tina Freeth and John Welch.

You can download all their issues from here.

Design on this issue is by The Graphic Aware, the creative practice of Birmingham based graphic designer and art director Andy Rouse who has a nice line in typographical work. Check out his portfolio.