Created in Birmingham

From Liz via email:

The Birmingham BookCrossers and charity LUCIA are hosting a BOOK DATING event at the Urban Coffee Company coffee shop on Church Street in central Birmingham, on 14 February 2010.

BookCrossers will be telling people about their favourite books, and giving them away, so attendees can find a book to spend a lifetime with, and they can also meet respected and popular author Roger Ellory, who will be talking about his favourite books, and signing and selling copies of his works too.

sampad are running Journeys – a writing competition with entries closing on 31 January 2010.

You can write in any style – short story, poetry, reportage – using the theme of Journeys as a starting point. Use your imagination to evoke memories, sensations, your feelings about a journey you have made – in your dreams or in real life – voyage of self discovery, back to your roots.

There are two categories; the best writer aged 8 to 15 will receive £200 and there’s £300 for the best writer in the 16 and over category. Both will be published in a book.

More info and the entry form on sampad’s website.

It was Tindal Street Press‘s 10th birthday the other week (happy birthday!). They’re a Birmingham-based, independent publisher with one heck of an impressive track record – three Booker nominated books isn’t bad for starters.

They’ve just had a couple of books nominated for The People’s Book Prize too:

• Among Thieves by Mez Packer
• Box of Tricks by Jeff Phelps

You can vote for them if you want or, perhaps even better, buy copies of either book – it’s not long til Christmas, after all…

Well, hello stranger. I just popped in to say hello and tell you all about An Endless Supply, a zine (if you will) created by some of the movers / shakers / candlestick makers of the Brum arts scene. It’s a monthly, black and white, print-to-order, A4 booklet.

I was invited by the curator of the latest issue, Kate Pennington-Wilson to the launch party held at The Victoria on Thursday. This latest issue is spawned from  a piece of micro-fiction from Birmingham-based artist, Edward Wakefield.  Titled ‘Midnight Silverfish Around The Hot Freezer’, the narrative continues thru text and illustrations from the following: Simon Baker, Ana Benlloch, Lavep Blucher, Nadia Chalabi, Rhys Coren, Olly Forrester, Caitlin Griffiths, Lewes Herriot, Bethan Hodges, Anthony Johns, Michael Kirkham, Amy Lee, Rosa Middleton, David Miller, and Stuart Tait.

There were 4 live readings, the first, apologies -  I missed the title, consisted of two people reading passages simultaneously, which worked well as it encouraged you to think about how we listen (the performance style was loosely based around hypnosis tapes and subliminal messaging). The second, a piece by Olly Forrester really reminded me of old spam emails, with a loose narrative which weaves in and out with no real grounding, which worked well and was reminiscent of The Brother Mcleod‘s animation, Spamland. The other readings were let own a little by the writers need to perform in character, notably Tom Waits.

Being loosely linked with Ikon Gallery has ensured the venue was packed to the rafters and teeming with artistic spirit. This sort of publication is going to become more popular over the next few years as there seems to be a ever-growing popular fetish for physical handmade reading matter.

They are currently looking for submissions of work, be it a drawing, a photograph, a pattern, a piece of writing, a text, etc, etc.

In case you’ve not come across it, BookCrossing is “the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise”.

There’s a Birmingham group who are meeting up next month:

The Birmingham BookCrossers are hosting an author event with Mary Rochford, winner of A Book For Birmingham 2008 with “Gilded Shadows”, on Feb 11 at 6pm at Hudsons Coffee House on Colmore Row.

Mary will do a reading followed by a question and answer session.  Books will be available to buy and get signed

If you fancy going along or want more info then email liz_broomfield@yahoo.co.uk.

With party season in full flow, you may have a rueful eye on a resolution or two for the new year. Vying for your attention is The Year of Readers.

The organiser is Jodie Baker and she’s based in Birmingham. Here’s her explanation:

It’s an easy concept (which is probably why I thought of it). You pick a literary charity that you want to support in 2009. You sign up to be part of The Year of Readers, get people to sponsor you and just start reading whatever you like. If you’re going to read next year why not join and help a bookish charity at the same time?

Not to be confused with 2008′s National Year of Reading.

News of a short story competition:

As part of the National Year of Reading and to tie in with the Birmingham Library Service’s Write the Future events, Birmingham Writers’ Group is launching a short story competition which is open to everyone.

We’re looking for well-written and original stories of less than 2 500 words set in Birmingham’s past, present or future. We want stories that move us, surprise us, engage us and make us smile

There’s a cash prize and the poster features a dinosaur and a spaceship. Excellent. The closing date is 10 Jan 2009.

Found via Brummies on LiveJournal

The University of Birmingham has arranged for the 1951 original typescript manuscript of On the Road – the world-famous scroll of 1951 – to come to the Barber Institute at the University during December 2008 and January 2009

They’re having a two-day conference (11-12 Dec) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of book’s publication in the UK, along with a series of events including a film night on 11 Dec, probably featuring One Fast Move and I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur.

More info on the website.

The Birmingham Book Festival starts 1 October with a programme of events that will cover fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as a series of workshops and seminars.  The festival ends on 24 October.

There’s a few big names listed in the festival diary – the ones that stand out for me are Mark Thomas, Will Self and Kate Adie.

For local interest, there’s the first public performance by Birmingham’s 13th Poet Laureate and 4th Young Poet Laureate and a talk from Catherine O’Flynn.  There’s quite possibly a lot more local involvement but, semi-literate philistine that I am, I’m not sure who to give a shout to.

Something I like very much about the festival’s website is the way they’ve split up the listings in the left-hand sidebar into different categories, throwing in a wild-card ‘Something Different‘ category too – that’s useful for someone like myself who might want to try something out but might not know what to go for.

Speaking of bookishness, the Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the Lichfield Festival, will be held mainly at The George Hotel, Lichfield starting with a literary dinner on 26 September with two guest authors – Gaynor Arnold (whose ‘Girl in a Bue Dress’ from Tindal Street Press is Booker Prize longlisted) and Stephen Robinson.

Gaynor Arnold has been nominated for the Booker Prize longlist for her book ‘Girl in a Blue Dress’ which will be released by Tindal Street Press in November.

This sort of thing’s getting to be old hat for Tindal Street Press, who had Catherine O’Flynn’s ‘What Was Lost’ longlisted last year.  Gaynor Arnold, on the other hand, has spent the past 40 years or so working as a social worker in Birmingham and took five years to write the novel.

Of course you may already be aware of all this – the Birmingham Post picked up on it first and the Custard Factory blog and BiNS both mentioned it.  Also, The Times have a short interview with Gaynor and the Guardian have also run a rather flattering piece entitled ‘Why Birmingham rules the literary roost‘.

• Live Box Special at The Drum
  This season of the Soweto Kinch-hosted Live Box draws to a close with Yusa, a young Cuban singer and multi-instrumentalist.
• Volunteer Placement with The Big Picture
  The Big Picture are after someone to spend two weeks scanning photos submitted by the general public to contribute to their world record total.
• University to Showcase £150m Eastside Plans
  The city centre campus will look after the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, and the faculty of Media and Performance Arts. The plans will be on show on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning at Millenium Point.
• Cast of 17
  There’s excitement over on BiNS with the news that Bill Drummond will be up to larks in Birmingham on 21 June.
• Miscellaneous crew roles available
  Jobs going on a no-budget independent feature film being shot in Birmingham, entitled “Wasters”.

• Birmingham: England’s 2nd largest city is a true musical melting point
  Short vid about Birmingham’s musical heritage from Guardian.co.uk/02 Wireless “whatever your favoured musical genre, you’re sure to find it in the midlands”. Spotted by Simon Howes.
• Birmingham International Film Society (B.I.F.S) Facebook Group
  BIFS has a Facebook group. Next step, a blog with film times, some info about the society, future plans, etc? Pretty please?
• Colour have a blog
  Colour is a West Midlands-based promotions group, founded in 2006. “Our focus is bringing leftfield folk, electronica, ‘indie’ and other mainstream-eschewing artists to the area through our live events and DJ sets”.
• Birmingham Daily Photo
  Daily photos of Birmingham, as you might expect. Spotted by BiNS.

• ArtsFest – Short Cuts submissions to be in by 30 May
  As blogged previously but I’ve just been told the submission date is 30 May. Contact Kate Sullivan (kate.sullivan[at]birmingham.gov.uk) at ArtsFest for details/submission forms.
• Rhubarb Rhubarb
  News of “what is now known as Europe’s premiere review of the image, bringing to Birmingham 60 of the worlds most renowned international gallerists, curators, agents, photo publishers and picture editors”.
• Flip 08 – animation festival calls for entries
  Flip will run over 3 days between 6 – 8 November 2008 at Light House and other venues across Wolverhampton and Birmingham. The closing date for festival submissions is 8 August 2008.
• D’log – Mysterious monsters
  D’log ties in the ‘Mysterious Monsters’ exhibition at the Barber Institute (free, 22 May – 14 Sept) with BMAG’s ‘Myths and Monsters: Unravelling the Truth’ show (£4, 24 May to 31 August).
• O2 Undiscovered workshops at Academy 2, 24 May
  Late notice but maybe worth a look if you’re an aspiring musician or if you’ve ever had a thing for Dave Stewart (I haven’t, I hasten to add).

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.