Next other other shizzle at The Flying Duck.

The next Forge of the Wordsmiths night is taking place at Glasgow’s Flying Duck Club again, since it was such a smashing venue last time.Thanks Barney, Del, John and crew!

The full line-up will be announced shortly, but in the meantime we have an open call for performance proposals.

3 Minute Heroes – there are 3 minute slots available for fiction and poetry for the 3 Minute Heroes showcase. Send 500 words to forgeofthewordsmiths@gmail.com

Proposals for longer slots are welcome, these are available for writers who have collaborated with another type of creator of some sort, or perhaps worked across artforms. So for example, poetry plus visuals, prose plus film, short story plus juggling, haikus plus interpretative dance. Essentially if you have something which goes beyond a conventional reading, get in touch.

Indeed, if you are a writer who has yet to collaborate in a multimedia way with a different type of medium, but think that you quite fancy the idea, get in touch at forgeofthewordsmiths@gmail.com and we can try to hook you up with a compatible collaborator.

Finally if you are a visual artist, illustrator, animator, film-maker, musician or other type of creative mastermind who would like to collaborate with a writer on a work for performance, email forgeofthewordsmiths@gmail.com and we will attempt some matchmaking magic.

Forge of the Wordsmiths @ The Flying Duck

Sunday 29th August, 6pm-12

Door tax – Four British pounds sterling

The Manifestation at the Garden Party

by Sian Bevan

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the much-anticipated Forge of the Wordsmith’s Garden Party and so had to send a representative in my place to read the Mulipote manifesto. Simone de Fluck is a loyal comrade who, luckily, looks uncannily like me but sports a flawless French accent. It is a tragedy of the most epic proportions that we can never be seen at the same time in the same room.

I talked to Simone after event and she was very positive about the whole thing. She was mainly thankful that her performance was at the end of the evening, when the audience had drunk, listened, clapped and mingled enough to be receptive to her rather…military style. Shouting about a manifestation-led revolution could have been rather unsettling to the sober of heart or liver.

Literary events are in some ways incredibly unfair places. There are really talented writers who are made to release their words into the world in a medium with which they’re very uncomfortable. You wouldn’t ask a pilot to do a waltz, or make a doctor sing about his finest prescription, but realistically modern writers have to accept that speaking in public is a necessary evil. Simone and I are lucky that we’ve performed before, but she wanted me to mention how impressed she was at newbies to the mic and how they took on the fear.

A few people asked about tackling pre-gig nerves and the best advice I ever got was this: Whatever you were planning on doing, do it more. Do it bigger. Fill the room with everything you’ve got to say and, before you know it, people will take notice and the whole reason for creating the fear in the first place will, fingers crossed, become crystal clear.

Forge of the Wordsmiths is fast establishing itself as the venue for the unestablished performer, the nervous reader and as Simone can testify, a wonderful event.

Simone de Fluck and Barbie relax before inciting mass revolution

If you did miss the Manifestation performances at the Garden Party, please click on the links below. For a real-real copy of any of the manifesto’s, please e-mail writingonbrokenglass@gmail.com

Anarcho-Oneiric-Quietism takes you through the dark woods of fairy tales and myth, and holds your head under the colour of your own dreams. Are you ready to see your true face?

Booki$m plans to solve the current financial crisis and worldwide debt with the replacement of books as a real currency

Hatism wants you to stop being stupid and start eating your cat. You are now an accessory to the hat.  Cover your hair

Mulipote charge you with finding and eradicating shit women in fiction. They want your wankfantasies to be real and their decision must be final

The Sinsualist Manifesto invite you to a feast of potential, a tumbling and tearing of false idols, where ice-cream is the domain of science … and Barbie

La Sufferance deny the denial of experience. It is ok for your child to come home to an empty house if it contains at least one book. Let children set their own pace

Stephen Brackenridge – Blues Brother Poet

Stephen Brackenridge studied for a BA (Hons) in Digital Art at the University of the West of Scotland but also writes songs and poetry, some of which he will be performing. Stephen is also a Socialist and anti-fascist, which he writes about among other things, such as hangovers, street furniture and other seemingly random things. Having written poems and short stories since primary school, Stephen hasn’t performed or read much of his poetry in public before, although he has performed as Bugs Bunny, Hawkeye the One Eyed Monster and the star sign “Virgo” in pantomimes and plays, which he hopes is some kind of preparation. He also plays bass for soul/jazz/punk band High Heel and the Soles. Stephen may or may not be performing his poems dressed as Jake Joliet Blues. He’s not sure yet.

Garden of word-ly delights

Forge Of The Wordsmiths Garden Party

The Manifestation

Performing at our Garden Party on Saturday 24 July, are some of the students from the newly created MA Creative Writing course run by Sam Kelly and David Bishop at Edinburgh Napier University. As part of their course, the students looked at the form of the manifesto, and went forth to make their own challenges.

“A manifesto has a madness about it. It is peculiar and angry, quirky, or downright crazed.” – Mary Ann Caws ¹

The manifesto disrupts the indolence in established artistic norms.

The manifesto manifests at times of societal upheaval, crisis, and war.

The manifesto is a product of the times and a rejection of the times.

The manifesto is a razing of prevailing norms and accepted truths.

The manifesto is a judgement, a proclamation, a demand.

The manifesto kills the past.

The manifesto is the new.

The manifesto is now.

“The [manifesto] demands blood.”

–                                               Charles Jencks ²

In the first trimester of the MA Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University, we were given the opportunity to start our own movement and write our own manifesto. A number of us had a clear idea of what should be challenged and, how we would go about it. For some, this was the first time they seriously considered what needed to be changed and how. For others, this was an opportunity to satirise the medium of the manifesto itself.

The creation of a movement and manifesto allowed us to carefully consider our writing; what influences us, what decisions we make regarding style and content, our role as cultural producers, and how our writing reflects or rejects dominant discourses.

The movements and manifestos that have emerged from this show a diverse, “angry, quirky,” and “downright crazed” response

1. Caws, M.A. ed. (2001) ‘Manifesto: A Century of Isms’, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, pxvix
2. ibid, pxxiii

Ever Dundas – The Sinsualist

Composing and designing the Sinsualist Manifesto brought together many influences, with Queer Theory at its core. I wanted to make a break with established norms, and to bring Queer Theory to a new audience, as it is still to break into mainstream consciousness.

‘Sinsual’ is both an attack on the religious and the secular-scientific. These dominant discourses have violently converged on the body, reifying established norms, and constraining our potential. Queer Theory razes the very foundations of our society. It is exciting, fun, and dangerous. In terms of literature (and all the arts) it opens up so many possibilities.

The Manifesto of Sinsuality is the starting point. I want people to find out more about the theorists and artists I have cited and bring about a Sinsualist revolution.

Mark Nicholls, John Fagan, David Marsland and Jonathan Whiteside – Hatism

Hatism is a manifesto about wearing hats. It doesn’t aspire to a plateau of intelligence higher than this.

The manifesto satirises the various silliness of manifestoes past and present, using hats as the running joke throughout, and runs with this joke until everyone else has run away.

We decided to do this manifesto since we are naïve cherubs with an outstanding sense of humour. Our artistic sensibilities have not developed to such a state of refinement that we might consider writing (or even performing) such a manifesto beneath our dignity.

Hatism is here, and it has the snazziest headgear in the Edinburgh area.

Sean Martin – Anarcho-Oneric-Quietism

The Anarcho-Oneric-Quietist Manifesto comes from convictions that I didn’t know I had, but seem to have become apparent over the last few years. Dreams, myth, a dissenting/refusenik political stance, a fascination with folklore and old wives’ tales, plus a few nods to writers who are also working in a similar field gave me the impetus to try to get the manifesto down on paper.

It has been important to me for the writing to reflect these ideas, to suggest rather that dictate; to hint rather than describe; to infer rather than point to directly. Such an approach is, I believe, valid for our secular, consumerist times; a culture dominated by all that kills the soul and the imagination. From such things writing comes, and, indeed, all creative work which is vital to… well, I’ll leave that up to you.

Siân Bevan – the Mulipote

The Mulipote was formed out of itchy-fingered frustration at the number of poor female characters in genre fiction. Its creation pokes fun at clichés, which readers buy into, while demanding a higher standard in modern literature. The Mulipote is confrontational, but manages to remain light-hearted, feisty and mellow.

I want (well, I suppose I should demand, but very politely) the Mulipote to become a guerrilla movement, with bookmarks and stickers praising or condemning the strength of female characters in the literature that surrounds us. The Mulipote swear, swagger and we love decent books above all.

Barbara Melville – Booki$m

Like so many pieces of genius, Booki$m began as a light joke in a dark bar. But it soon evolved into a mischievous, sceptical trick that endeavoured to dig deeper than the ‘books as currency’ proposition. The ideas are always met with the same sorts of queries: how’s worth decided? Is debt promoted? Will people steal it?

And that’s what Booki$m does: it provides the spade. Receivers may be scoffers, even attackers – but at least they’re after answers. By encouraging us to read our wages, Booki$m casts our attention to the questions we should be asking about any money system. It may take a quiet approach, but that’s ok: Post-Booki$m will be louder.

Silvia Barlaam, Christina, Jenni Green – La Sufferance

The goal of the Sufferists is to shamelessly channel the trauma and misery of childhood into bankable fiction.

To achieve this aim, we have devised intricate strategies of childcare designed to transform children into bestselling novelists whose works are REAL and TRUE. There will be no more overprotecting children into a numbing cocoon, suffocating all experience and expression. Our aim is to bring the veracity of SUFFERING back to art.

The manifesto looks with scorn upon cynical airport fiction, and satirises the cheap and tacky whores of contemporary hackdom. If the public want suffering, then the artist must truly SUFFER. Our aim is to put the art back into the mainstream, to put artifice in the trash where it belongs.

We believe art is learning the best way to express suffering. This is our business. This is what we do. Viva la Sufferance

“In gardens, beauty is a by-product. The main business is sex and death.”

Forge of the Wordsmiths Garden Party

Saturday 24 July, 17:00 – 22:00

Sandeman House (Scottish Book Trust HQ)

Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 6EY

£4 on the door.

Fancy a little al fresco action?

Scotland’s new writing social club hits Edinburgh with some frolics among the foliage.

‘Manifestation – Napier push the literary revolution envelope. Hard.
ShellSuit Massacre – found poetry social commentary guitar techno
Little Fire – smoking hot songwriting property
Simon Carmichael – jaw-dropping guitartistry
Emelle – live music from 3 naughty Scottish gypsy folk punk rock brothers
Kirsty Neary – with her visual depiction fiction Abstract/Concrete
Michael Pederson poetry-showetry with visual artist Ryan Clee.
Attune present Urban Legends – poetry-short story-theatre mashup performed live by fresh multimedia theatre company Attune
3 Minute Heroes – 180 hot seconds from Stephen O’Toole, Alison Summers, Stephen Brackenridge, Gavin Inglis, Alan Montgomery. Wordelicious.

Drop dead gorgeous Scottish literary cocktails from mixology specialists BFN Bars
Pop-up book shop

If you happen to be on a lil’ ol’ site called Facebook, you can invite your friends to the party here;

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137824399567022&ref=mf

Launch Party – Launch Party

NEW WRITING SOCIAL CLUB

New writing club night to flaunt the new, audacious talents of Scottish music, song, prose, poetry and spoken word.

Admission £4

Featuring;
3 Minute Heroes quick fire showcase featuring; Michael Pederson, Katy McAulay, Alison Summers, Tracey S. Rosenberg, Stuart Wilson, Mark Russell and Andrea McNicoll.
Songwriting Stage – some of Scotland’s blazing new songwriting talent performing live including The Lonely Oatcake, Simon Carmichael, Alistair Campbell.
Pop-up bookshop – for all your new writing needs
Live spoken word and intelligent rap from Loki and STACE aka McMullen.
Radical soul power spoken word and beats for your feet on the wheels of steel by DJD Hughes.
Minimal techno with acid tweaking from Dr. Snook.
IN A ROOM DARKENED – Poetry/film/music collaboration by Kevin Williamson, filmmaker Sacha Kahir, musician Graeme McInnes and a new live collaborative performance between Kevin and visual artist Mediaheroic.

DJ set by Steev (Errors)

Haiku Balloons

Tribute Cocktails to our National Writing Treasures

Follow Forge of the Wordsmiths for the latest.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Forge-of-the-Wordsmiths/111188898893706

https://forgeofthewordsmiths.wordpress.com/

http://www.twitter.com/fotwordsmiths

Simon Carmichael is appearing on the Songwriters’ Stage

Over the years I have been into many different types of music from classical to rock however as I get older my passion lies with the acoustic guitar. Having been absorbed in music from a young age I got listening to many styles from the likes of Paco de Lucia (thanks Dad) through to Torben Floor.

Over the last few years I came across a guitarist from Australia, Tommy Emmanuel. Just when I thought i was getting good at guitar I see this guy and think to myself “Do I throw my guitar out or practise harder?” Thankfully I chose the latter.

I have a lot of experience playing in bands in my more ‘rock n roll’ days so to speak however this will be the first time I venture out on the acoustic. Over the last year I have been practising new ideas based on the styles of everything from Tommy, Andy McKee, Kaki King,and Preston Reed to name a few and I hope my own style comes through in my music.

I am hoping over the next few years to get in the spotlight as much as possible and hopefully, just hopefully get out of the day job!!

You can check out my videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/simonjcarmichael
Also on Myspace at http://www.myspace.com/simoncarmichael

The Myspace also has some Piano tracks that I have been working on over the last few years. I will be recording an EP soon so keep your eye on the myspace for more info.

Katy McAulay steps into the spotlight.

On venturing out of the garret

Recently, I’ve been involved with some script work on a one-man show a friend of mine has been performing in the Arches. It’s called How Soon is Nigh? and it uses video, memories, stories, discussion and a bit of audience participation in order to explore our fascination with the apocalypse. I’ve been able to sit in on quite a few of the performances, and it’s been an illuminating experience to be able to see, hear and participate in an audience’s reaction to something that I have helped to create.

It’s great to see people laughing during the performance, or to overhear them discussing the experience they’ve just had in the bar afterwards. Equally, it’s discomforting to notice a yawn escape from a person sat in the front row, or to see a blank stare from an audience member who’s been asked to participate in the performance. Because I usually write fiction that is intended to be read rather than performed, I don’t often have access to this sort of immediate response. When I’m writing, I mostly work in a room on my own. The pieces that are published wing their way off to editors by email and can take weeks or months to appear in their intended publications. And when they are published, I can’t be privy to the moment when someone I don’t know settles down to read the words I have strung together.

One of my first jobs after finishing university was working as a freelance journalist. I wrote about anything and everything – homelessness to haute couture, restaurant reviews to interviews with minor celebrities. One of the columns I contributed to each week recommended bits and pieces for readers’ homes and gardens. Public relations assistants from the likes of Ikea and Marks & Spencer would send me photographs and press releases about new products, and sometimes the actual products themselves, in the hope that I would write about them. I would also trawl the independent shops, looking for interesting knickknacks.

On one occasion, my boyfriend brought home a curious item he had bought from the Boots store where he had a weekend job working in the photo lab. The product was made of green plastic; shaped like a foot, with suckers on one side and bristles on the other. He demonstrated how to stick it to the bottom of the bath using the suckers and then rubbed his bare foot against the bristles, cleaning his soles and toes. I decided to take a photograph of it and put it in my column.

That weekend, my boyfriend came home from his shift at Boots and told me how he’d sold quite a few of the foot cleaners to customers who had read about it in the Herald. I found the fact that people were actually buying an item I had written about both hilarious and mildly unnerving. It seems stupid now, but up until that point, I honestly hadn’t thought about the fact that anyone would be reading the articles that I had written.

A few years later, I experienced a similar feeling at the premiere of a short film I had made with my brother. It was our first film, and our friends and family had all piled into the Cameo cinema to show their support and see what we had made. I had not considered what it would be like to be present while other people watched the film, and as the house lights faded I had a sudden sense of panic about the fact that one scene featured a naked woman. My eighty-year-old granddad was seated just a few seats along from me. What would he think? I was in the front row, and I couldn’t decide what I wanted more – to see the film on the big screen for the first time, or to turn around and watch the reactions on the faces of the people who were watching it.

On the 20^th of June, I’m going to be reading one of my stories as part of the 3 minute hero quick fire showcase. I’m nervous and excited about being faced with an audience again. But even though it may be scary, I know that taking a chance to venture out of my garret is always going to be a good thing. I may spend most of my time writing in a room all on my own; I may not get to meet some of the people who read my fiction, but what I’m trying to do is to inspire, to entertain, to provoke – to communicate. What better way to do that than face-to-face?

Katy McAulay

Introducing Michael Pederson – 3 Minute Hero

We’d like to introduce you to Michael Pederson, one of the 3 Minute Heroes taking to the boards at the launch party on 20th June. We sought his thoughts on writing and poetry in particular – he’s a busy chap and no mistake. We’re looking forward to his 180 seconds of heroism immensely.

It’s the little things that matter

My name is Michael Pedersen and I’m a 25 year old poet and arts enthusiast of Caledonian stock –http://www.michaelpedersen.co.uk. I got a little side-tracked into qualifying as a charity lawyer but have since fled the law and taken to full-throttle wordsmithery. My inaugural chapbook ‘Part-Truths’ (Koo Press) was launched during the Edinburgh Word Festival 2009 – it has been listed as a Poetry Book Society Choice and is currently a Callum MacDonald Memorial Award finalist. I am widely published in magazines, journals, e-zines and anthologies.

My advice is to serve yourself in many slices, emerging poets have to be prepared to wave their own flag and jump aboard every ship seeking crew.  For most keen scribblers, a febrile fervour for the poetic arts is an absolute must – you have to craft, create and catch fancy. But if poetry has long been your raison d’être then all this will be very visceral/impossible to suppress.

I’ve spent these past nine months in Cambodia which has served up a fascinating cocktail of the sinister, spiritual and sanguine and has proven to be philanthropically and poetically rewarding. Alongside teaching English, running reading groups, building dens for a population of Royal Turtles and delivering a weekly pub quiz, I’ve been completing my first full collection. It’s at this point I began to truly value the medley of artistic endeavours I’ve engaged in/am on the brink of engaging in. When answering questions like ‘Who will buy your book’ ‘Why should we publish you’  ‘Will you be actively selling the book yourself’ ‘Is anyone actually reading poetry’ – it’s most beneficial to have a kit-bag full of tantalising trinkets.

These sort of statements are best accompanied by a few choice cuts of creation (viola) -what I’m currently working on:

1. I serve as script-editor for forthcoming play and motion picture Dream Tower Inn – www.dreamtower.com. The project was a finalist on the BBC Documentary MacMusical – endorsed by Sir Cameron Mackintosh. Other members of the creative team include seminal director/composer Bréon George Rydell and internationally revered visual artist Gianni Scumaci. To date, the team has done interviews with Fred MacAulay on BBC Radio Scotland and Steve Wright on BBC Radio Two, with things set to crescendo in 2011.
2. Allied to this, I am working on a music to mantra performance with the unfathomably talented musician (founding member The Coral) Bill Ryder-Jones www.myspace.com/billryderjones and www.myspace.com/puffpoetry.

1. I also hope to produce a second chapbook with Jane Mckie of Knucker Press – a specialist verve and visuals publisher with whom I would produce a handful of poems to be married to bespoke illustrations from some of Scotland’s most exciting emerging artists – www.knuckerpress.com .

1. Another collaborative arts piece I am involved in is a ‘Poetry Animation Shortclip’ with London Based Cartoonist Dan Jones – www.iamdanjones.com.

Of paramount importance to almost every poet is the festive frissons of live-readings – keep a keen eye on the local arts scene (fortunately Scotland is a chieftan of the arts) and skip blithely along to the events whenever time and temperament coincide. It is in this respect I pay homage to Forge of the Wordsmiths – hurrah – and let’s see you all there next month.

I’ll be available for nattering to, purchasing chapbooks from or in the refreshment rubric.

Toodle-oo