Annexe and EKO present… Et Al.

The time has come once more for us to throw one of our celebrated literary evenings! This event sees us teaming up with the brilliant EKO to bring you some of the finest live literature talent the city has to offer.

Unexplained by Amber Massie-Blomfield

Amber Massie-Blomfield draws a portrait of an urban life haunted.

The umbrellas are removed from the stand and hidden. Her sister’s picture, the one in the silver frame, shatters, and for weeks shards of glass turn up where they shouldn’t, in people’s beds, in the cutlery drawer. Her mum’s windows are left wide open in the middle of winter, her expensive perfume bottles found in pieces on the concrete far below.

Read the story after the jump.

National Flash Fiction Day is Here!

Last year, National Poetry Day came and poets were delighted. One person who wasn’t so happy was Calum Kerr, a writer, editor and self-confessed advocate of the flash fiction form. He sought to change that and thus National Flash Fiction Day was born.

Review: May Day Mayhem

Anya Pearson reviews YARN’s latest literary event, May Mayhem.

The best darn storytelling outfit around, YARN festival’s latest show on May 1st did not disappoint. The event is called ‘The Special Relationship’, but austerity is certainly not the policy of this particular coalition. Overseen by curator-in-chief Gemma Mitchell, generous portions of poetry, miniature plays, film and prose are expertly woven together throughout the night.

Prose Poetry Vs Poetic Prose

Eleanor Perry delves into that grey space between poetry and prose.

Lately I’ve been thinking about prose poetry. It seems to me that, as a poetic form, it’s characterised by its lack of rules, which makes it both a wonderful and difficult thing to approach as a poet; wonderful because with such an absence of parameters it’s free to be explored without limit, but difficult for precisely the same reason – boundaries can be reassuring guidelines at times, and a navigating a place without them can be a daunting prospect.

A Pigeon, A Kitchen & An Annexe: Sites of Alternative Publishing – Opening Night

Our exhibition with Pigeon, Very Small Kitchen and Ladies of the Press* opened last Friday to a massive crowd. We couldn’t have hoped for a better turn-out.
A huge thanks to everyone who came along, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ve still got until March 4th. We’re also having an evening of talks on the nature of alternative and independent publishing on the 3rd at X Marks the Bökship.

And now, a few snaps from opening night:

Say Cheese by Amber Massie-Blomfield

Today we have some short fiction from the fantastic new writer Amber Massie-Blomfield. Say Cheese brings a snapshot of a couple unveiled from both sides of the lens.

He keeps watching her. Her stomach fills with butterflies, because there’s something almost frightening, letting herself be looked at like this. She doesn’t catch his eye. She lets the warm air lift the glowing strands, flying out about her in a halo. It will be a mess.

Read the story after the jump

Riot Acts!

The great thing about scratch performances is that if you see a great show, you might also be lucky enough to have it come round again as a full show. I’m sincerely hoping that this will be the case for the works in Riot Acts, the latest offering from publisher and live literature pioneers, Penned in the Margins.

Riot Acts started as an open call to artists to create pieces in response to the August Riots and the return was magnificent. 30 performers of all kinds came back with proposals and of these, four were chosen to be developed in conjunction with Penned in the Margins and Richmix.

Two Tales: Komal Verma

Today is an auspicious day for Annexe as it marks the first prose addition to what was previously the Two Poems series. You can still divide the two if you are that way inclined; Two Tales and Two Poems will still have their own categories, but if you’re an all-encompassing lexiphile you can click on the Two Texts category to get both in one delightful bundle.

The first author to read some prose for you is the exception Komal Verma. We spoke to Komal a little while ago about her upcoming novel The Sword and The Scion. Ever the versatile  writer, Komal also crafts stories in a more bitesize length. Today she is reading her short piece The Warning and an extract from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

The Warning – Komal Verma

Cities & Desire – Italo Calvino

More about both works after the jump

Our Halloween Spoken Word Mixtape

Happy Hallowe’en everyone! You might have done your All Hallows partying this weekend, but that doesn’t mean that today can’t be a spookfest too. To help you celebrate in true spooky style, we’ve put together a ghoulish spoken word mixtape. From Edgar Allan Poe to Massive Attack. From Emilie Autumn to The Moulettes with a hair-raising stop at Bram Stoker. It’s all there with many more stories and tunes to chill the blood.

If you wish to see your inevitable fate, see the tracklist after the jump.