Words on Cities

Our latest event is fast approaching! Iain Sinclair, Tom Chivers, Katy Darby and Clare Fisher will be allocuting on the city. Click the image for full details.

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An Arms-Open Leap into the New Year!

2013 is just around the corner! We’ve survived torrential rain, at least a couple of near-apocalyptic instances, overzealous family members around the Christmas dinner table and a slew of events that will shake their fists as we sail past into the new year. Well done!

Now here at Annexe HQ we are really quite excited about the next year. We’ve got a multitude of projects, events and books to give you that we are so proud to be working on. To celebrate what promises to be a whirlwind year, we’re kicking of with a bit of a spoken word party! On Friday 18th January we will fill the space that formerly held the BBC London offices with performances from some incredible poets, writers and musicians. Expect poetry with live soundtrack, animated stories that are illustrated as they are performed, short films, the whole nine yards.

Highlights of the Impending Interrobang Part 2

Continuing with the highlights of our upcoming super-celebration of stories here’s another handful of incredible acts you can look forward to. Off we go!

Gemini by Rob Mimpriss

Today we present to you Gemini, a short story of loss and familial bond in the Balkan Peninsula by Rob Mimpriss.

Gemini
Rob Mimpriss

When women asked Derek Roberts about the scar on his shoulder, he would say that he had born with three arms and the doctor had left him two. If they laughed too loudly or demanded the truth he would explain that he could have been born one of identical twins, but this second twin had never separated or matured, developing only as a nerveless excrescence that the doctors had removed. And he might also say that the loss made him sad: sad that he could have had a brother, could have been twice the man he was in the world, sad also that but for chance he would have been the stunted one, the spare limb.

The Interrobang Line-up is here!

The full line-up for Interrobang Festival is online! Have a gander at the plethora of stunning acts we’ve got for you and then head over to the Interrobang website and buy a ticket! It’s only £6 after all.

 

The Launch of Annexe Introducing

Perhaps you’ve heard that we’ve put together a little festival of spoken word, music, theatre and comedy. That’s fast approaching and is set to be a cracking event. Do come along. 
What you may not have heard is that a highlight of the festival will be the launch party for our first in-print series, Annexe Introducing.

We have been, and still are, working with three writers to bring their incredible talent to the masses. To do so, we are publishing a selection of their work in beautifully designed (if we do say so ourselves) and expertly printed pamphlets. 

Hang-Ups – Eley Williams

Drawing out a moment and defining it by its emotive parts, Eley Williams has crafted a short story that dances on the intimacies of human interaction. A mundane action becomes the swan song for the narrator and their counterpart.

 

Hang ups 

I put my eye to the three holes in the telephone receiver. You are speaking and I am staring and the wire coiled through my fingers connects our present tenses.

You are using short sentences and I blink for each clause directly against the phone so that you might hear a kissing scrape of eyelashes. We are off the hook; I am quick to replace my eye with my mouth to calm you when the wheedles of your voice become pitched more urgently.

Peirene Press hold an event for Sea of Ink

 

Ink is a vital fluid. Ink flows and binds. Ink is as fundamental to the transmission of ideas as blood is to oxygen, as semen to intergenerational conflict. I use ink daily to excise thoughts from my brain, to scratch out a half understood meaning and structure to my stupidity. I have ink on my fingertips. I have ink in my skin, perhaps as a prosthetic personality, but hopefully as a measure of control over form. Ink is a vehicle for essence.

Review: Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe

In a double whammy of literary proportions, we read Richard Weihe’s Sea of Ink and attended an event all about the book. So, in two articles, by two Annexians, we will discuss Peirene Press’s latest publication, starting with a review by Annexe editor Nick Murray.

Sea of Ink – Richard Weihe

I sometimes struggle with reviews of translated works. Am I reviewing the original story or the skill of the translator? It’s true that both of these come into question when reading a work such as Sea of Ink. Meike Ziervogel, Peirene founder, said herself that Sea of Ink and Meer de Tusche [the original German title] are completely different texts.

Two Tales: Will Conway

Adding a bit more prose to the proceedings, we are joined by Will Conway. As part of Two Tales (the much loved sister of Two Poems) Will is reading his short story Transport, and a story by Ted Hughes called How the Cat Became.

We chatted to Will a little bit about the two stories and you can read all about it after the jump.