This month we bring you the gossip about Miranda Dickinson’s Last First Kiss, a flash slam at Albion Beatnik bookstore, and something interesting about exploding helicopters…
Word on the street
Who fancies joining me to make a literary and spoken-word contribution to the Whitecross Street Party in Clerkenwell/Barbican on 21 and 22 July? What will it be? I don’t know yet. But I’d love to create something joyous with fellow 26ers. Word up! All collaborators, co-conspirators and ideas welcome. Email Malcolm Blythe
Helping 26 pupils
Sea glass. Boat-builders’ sandpaper. A tractor wheel nut. Highland dancing shoes. Grandad’s cap. Pupils from Banffshire are writing 62-word poems inspired by objects relating to the area’s heritage. Glasgow-based Zimbabwean poet Tawona Sithole and Elspeth Murray, who wrote for the National Museum of Scotland 26 Treasures, will help 26 pupils – selected by video – to perform, slam-style, at the Portsoy Salmon Bothy. Elspeth Murray
Exploding helicopters
A film is always improved by the presence of an exploding helicopter. We’re a small group of film fans dedicated to celebrating the art of exploding helicopters in all its singular glory, usually with tongue firmly in cheek. At the Exploding Helicopter website, we eulogise films for their innovation, imagination and ingenuity – as well as pointing the finger at those directors who dishonour the genre. Jindy Mann
The Witness on Kindle
I’ve just put my novel The Witness on Kindle (at £1.95, less than the price of a pair of Ratner’s earrings). A young adult thriller, though read by many adults, it was shortlisted for the 2008 Royal Mail Scottish Children’s Book of the Year Award. With its dystopian vision of a newly independent Scotland, it’s suddenly become a lot more topical than when I first wrote it, and my agent’s faithfully pestering the film companies… Jamie Jauncey
Last First Kiss
Miranda Dickinson has just launched ‘Last First Kiss’ – a soundtrack EP of original songs inspired by her third novel, It Started With a Kiss. Visit her website to hear the tracks, watch a ‘Making Of’ video and buy your copy. Miranda Dickinson
A Tourist in Marriagetown
I’m working on the finishing touches of a chapter of a novel in progress. The plan is to submit the chapter to Narrative Magazine which is holding a contest that closes on 31 March. The novel is The Writer of Eulogies. The chapter in question is called ‘A Tourist in Marriagetown’. Richard Pelletier
National Flash Fiction Day
I’m participating in the UK National Flash Fiction Day on 16 May in a flash slam at Albion Beatnik bookstore, 34 Walton Street, Oxford from 6.30pm. There are events up and down the country and I’ll have a video and sample story up either on the NNF website or blog soon. Marc Nash