A Whole New Way of Seeing Annexe – Site Change

The time has finally come. We’re officially going to stop using the WordPress site as of today. We’ve set up a new subscribing/newsletter button over on the new site so you don’t have to miss out on getting our writing straight to your inbox. Head over to our flashy new Annexe site and on every page under the magazine tab, there’s a little form on the right for you to put in your email.

We’ve upgraded our output too, so instead of getting all the articles as and when they are posted, we’ll be sending out a properly drafted newsletter every fortnight with the latest articles linked and a few extra bits that we think you’d like to hear about.

A massive thank you to everyone who has been reading since the beginning, you’ve helped make Annexe what it is. Now come with us to the next step and enjoy our site in all it’s swanky glory.

 

– Nick & the Annexe Team

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Event – Words on Cities – Iain Sinclair, Tom Chivers, Katy Darby and Clare Fisher

We’re proud to announce that our next event will be at the end of this month. A night all about the city. Read all about it further down, and then come along, why don’t you!

The cityscape has long been an influence on modern writing. As a setting, a starting point or even a medium, the urban landscape draws a particular kind of creation from writers.

Annexe has brought together four of the finest writers working with the urban condition for an evening of talks and performances that display their hugely varied takes on the city.

Words on Cities – Iain Sinclair, Tom Chivers, Katy Darby, Clare Fisher
Thursday 25th April || 7.30pm
£7 (buy tickets here)
Toynbee Studios
28 Commercial St
E1 6AB

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On the bill we have:

With a long-standing history of poetry and prose, Iain Sinclair is sits at the leading-edge for writing that deciphers the hidden aspects and connections of London. His work has reinvigorated the call for psychogeographical exploration across the globe. For Words on Cities, Sinclair will present a talk based around his forthcoming book American Smoke: Journeys to the End of the Night. When Iain Sinclair was first setting out, it was mainly American writers that influenced him, but he never visited the USA. Locked down in Hackney, the transatlantic mass was as unreal as Kafka’s ‘Amerika’.

Tom Chivers is a poet and editor residing in London. His recent work, with the Cape Farewell project, has led Tom to investigate the changing landscape of London and unearth an urban geography that has been covered by the constant growth and renewal of the capital city. His talk will focus on his practice of ‘psychogeology’ and his migration through the lost rivers of London.

Katy Darby is a writer, an editor, a teacher and the founder of the incredible storytelling night Liars League. Katy will be reading a selection of her prose work based around London.

Clare Fisher’s current project The City in my Head is an exploration of London through fiction. Each story shows a snapshot of a particular area, constructed from human experience. Claire will be reading a selection of works from the collection.

Bodies Rising to the Surface – A review of The Walbrook Pilgrimage

[Remember, dear reader, that this is a duplicate article. All Annexe articles are posted primarily to www.annexemagazine.com – Sooner or later they won’t be here at all!]

The Walbrook Pilgrimage
Review by Michael C. Schuller

 

I.

When I was a child, a creek ran behind our house. Well, we called it a creek, but really it was an invention of the necessities of drainage in a city. For about six hundred yards it ran between the back gardens of the houses on our block where, at the end, it vanished into a hole beneath a street, presumably to make its way to the river. If you were to chart out the history of the games my brothers and I played, whole civilizations rose and fell on the banks of that runnel. An entire generation of neighbourhood kids knew it as a major landmark.

Ta Da! Our new site is unveiled!

Today we finally pulled the cover of our brand new site! All singing, all dancing. New and improved. Better than ever.

 

WordPress has been a wonderful home to us for over a year and a half now. It’s straightforward layout has been a joy to work with, but now we’ve decided we want to cut the .wordpress. from our name and exist on our own two feet at http://www.annexemagazine.com. Like a bird flying from the nest (actually more like a teenager leaving home, because we’re still utilising the WordPress CMS in true semi-independent fashion) we will be posting primarily to our dedicated domain. It all looks quite fancy over there too! The layout is updated, though not too distanced from the look you’re used to. Head on over and have a look. If you spot anything that needs changing, drop us a line and we’ll thank you for your vigilance.

If you’re subscribed to us via WordPress, not to worry. We’ll post duplicate articles here until we’ve found a suitable replacement for the subscription system.

Without further ado, I declare the new Annexe Magazine site OPEN! 

Bientôt l’été – A game you can’t help but win by Tale of Tales

It is rare that we at Annexe HQ get to, or feel the need to, review video games. So rare in fact that this is the first and only one so far. On the whole, video games run on very different rails to a traditional book narrative, though with statistics like ‘for the first time ever, more Americans play video games than go to the movies’ being bandied about, you can see why the two mediums are reaching a fork in the road.

Book Burning in the Digital Age and the art of Antonio Riello

The image of book burning goes hand in hand with images of violent suppression. The responses are equally strong; violent protests broke out  in 2011 after a lone fanatical preacher burnt 20 copies of the Koran in Florida. Biblioclasm can have a deeply political impact, but what significance does it have in our digital world?

BREAKING NEWS!

BREAKING NEWS! We’ve got a surprise addition to the Interrobang line-up!

Welcome to *! (Dingbang)! The Magic Moments Photobooth @ !? (Interrobang) festival

The Ladies of the Press* invite you to step up to the wonder that is “*! (read: Dingbang)”‘, a “human photobooth” and, erm, fantastical mincing machine where sparkly cardboard box meets DTP press, conjuring one-off prints from images you feed it. Imagine a Surrealist photobooth that has a mind of its own; have your photo taken by a suspicious looking assistant, show the booth some love and attention et voilà! some photos will come out…but we won’t guarantee it will be exactly what you think!

Following its debut at the ICA in October, we’re pleased to present a special appearance of our Magic Moments Photobooth at Interrobang festival.

Interrobang Festival

Like a proud mum, we’re showing off our latest creation! Interrobang is our festival, put together alongside EKO and Alexander Audio, that will be heaving with head-turning spoken word, music and theatre. For a whole day and across all three floors of The Betsey Trotwood (Clerkenwell) we will be entertaining your literary senses.

We’ve got a bookmaking workshop, a whole slew of poets, a handful of brilliant storytellers, some of London’s finest bands and on top of all of that, Annexe will be launching a series of minibooks there. That’s right! our first proper book launch will be taking place at our first ever festival! It’s a lot to take in.

Read all about it at our dedicated site.

Mapping Poetry

Tomorrow evening sees the launch of Mapping Poetry, an evening of performed poetry devised by Claire Trévien. As the title suggests, the themes of the evening are maps, location and place.

When Claire invited us to put together a printed piece for the event our creative ears pricked up and we set to work designing exactly what the event called for; a map.

Meanwhile…

Angry letters from fonts and malaise-filled haiku pepper this issue of meanwhile. Have a gander.