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.

The City in my Head – an interview with Clare Fisher

[Remember folks, this is a duplicate article. All Annexe fare will be posted primarily to http://www.AnnexeMagazine.com. In a month or so, we’ll post only there! Make the switch.]

South London writer, Clare Fisher, has been crafting a series of short stories that exist as snapshots of the city. Different aspects and different perceptions of London grow out of Fisher’s narrative description. We caught up with her to chat about the project.

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! 

It’s all sex and death! – An interview with The Alarmist

Only two issues in and The Alarmist has drawn quite the following! With the kind of first-rate writing and the distinctive aesthetic style that they’ve carved out and made their own, it isn’t surprising that The Alarmist has a readership that spans the length and breadth of the country. Nick Murray met up with Gary from Leeds and Mansour Chow, the creative duo that birthed The Alarmist, on the eve of the issue two launch to talk about being less stuffy, hidden genius and nihilistic publishing techniques.

Meanwhile…

For the first Meanwhile of the new year we want to get you inspired for the year ahead, so we’re pointing you towards two pieces of great fiction, showing you a couple of views on writing your fiction and linking to two first-rate writers who have written their own fiction. 

Nightjar Press – Treasuring the short story

Following on from our Long Live Print column, we met with Nicholas Royle, the founder of Nightjar Press. Elevating the short story as a form of fiction is Royle’s MO. Each release from Nightjar brings a single short story to the fore and presents it as an elegant chapbook with all the care and aesthetic consideration of a longer work. 

Talia Randall – 3 Mile Radius

Talia Randall, a founding member of the poetry collective Rubix, has been carving it out on her own recently. She has just released her debut EP 3 Mile Radius, a spoken word epic, combining clever poetic narrative and huge musical backdrops. After the sell-out launch for the EP, Nick Murray met with Talia to chat about influences, chicken shops and growing up in North West London.

ADRIFT – Cape Farewell

As David Buckland, Cape Farewell founder and director, recounts stories about schooners and glaciers all I can think of is the adventurers’ clubs of old (or at least the fake old that we all remember very well). All khaki safari hats and slide projectors. Back then they were in search of the uncharted and unknown. Now, it appears these artist-adventurers are searching for change.
Cape Farewell is an organisation made up of artists and writers, devoted to creating a programme of public engagement within which to address climate change. ADRIFT is the ongoing research project of poet, Tom Chivers, commissioned by Cape Farewell.

Invisible Picture Palace at The Wapping Project

On the Invisible Picture Palace website, they call the space a record store and listening space, though if it reminds you of either of these it is only in passing. What In The Dark Radio, the group behind the project, has created is something really quite unique. Housed in a greenhouse on the front lawn of The Wapping Project (a converted hydraulic power station), the Invisible Picture Palace is at first glance a shrine to the history of recorded sound. Old vinyl records hang from the walls and there’s a large container of cassette tapes on the floor. After sifting through the various shelves of audio ephemera you start to realise something else is going on here. This is quickly proved by the various talks and workshops taking place within the space. Instead of just being an homage to the past, the Invisible Picture Palace is also a wellspring of creativity for the future of innovative and experimental audio.