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.

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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

 

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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.

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.

It’s here! – Annexe & EKO present… Et Al. (This Thursday)

The time has come! This Thursday, we open our doors for an amazing night of spoken word, theatre and music. If you haven’t already put the date in your diary, it starts at 7pm. We’ll have all manner of fun and games to keep you entertained before the acts start. And once they do… Well, we’ve got a few treats in store for you.

You might have noticed an extra name on the bill. That’s right! We’ve brought an extra special guest along for the show, the brilliant Benjamin Dodson. He crafts a particularly special kind of sound. Mixing bubbly synth sounds with sweeping harmonies, Benjamin will keep us grooving into the night.

Alongside that we’ll have a zine stand, and baked goodies so bring a little pocket-money. Plus, there’ll be the Annexe classic, the bookswap. Bring along a book that you might want to share. Something you’ve read and think someone else out there might like. Who knows? You might find your next great read amongst the books on show.

Annexe and EKO present… Et Al.
Charterhouse Bar
38 Charterhouse Street
EC1M 6JH
7pm

Closest tubes: Barbican, Farringdon (about equidistant)

Inc. Magazine’s 4th Issue is a Hit

Inc. Magazine has its 4th issue release later this week with a huge launch party to celebrate.

As with each issue of Inc. so far, number 4 is immense fun from cover to cover, and this time Anya Pearson and Will Coldwell, co-founders, co-editors and contributors, have really taken their magazine to an incredible new level. Though, don’t think that this came about by chance. Pearson and Coldwell have been hard at work coordinating this mammoth project with all the poets and illustrators involved and the final product reflects that.

The Cartography of Reading

Are you’re still searching for that logophile’s haven that suits your tastes just perfectly? Do you sometimes find yourself with an hour to kill and wondering where the closest bookshop to you is? Perhaps you’re a little more ambitious and you’re trying to visit every independent bookshop in London. Whatever your reason for looking, the search just got volumes easier. The indie booksellers of London have banded together and the community, long formed, has now been visualised. Literally.
The last few months have seen the emergence of a series of bookshop maps. That is, maps specifically focusing on pin-pointing the bookshops of our fair city, and this literary cartography shows, first and foremost, that independent bookselling is still as prominent as ever.

See more maps and read more words after the jump.

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

Transmission by Charlotte Rumsey

In Transmission, Charlotte Rumsey brings us a sombre vision of insomnia, solitude and secret messages.

 I started to drive up here because I couldn‘t sleep. I’d forgotten how thick the silence can get, in the suburbs…

Read the story after the jump.

Misshapen Theatre Show us the Lighter Side to Internet Dating

Fresh from the full month stretch at the Edinburgh Fringe, the folks that make up Misshapen Theatre aren’t a bunch to rest on their laurels. Back on the opposite end of the UK, they presented their two plays as a double bill to the eager audiences of London Town. Now, before the final leg of the current tour, we managed to catch up with Jon Brittain, the pen behind the performance, to chat about the plays and how it all came about.

Two Poems: Charlie Dupré

We have a rather special edition of Two Poems today as the poet in question is also performing at our inaugural event tomorrow night!

Poet and actor, Charlie Dupré, started his vocal career spitting bars for various DnB DJs. Somewhere along the line he found his calling crafting poetry and has since astounded audiences across the capital. Drawing from real life, the classics and everything in between, Charlie weaves stories that leave you feeling lyrically sated. We caught up with him recently to chat and record this edition of Two Poems. Hear first, one of his own works and then a poem by poet and playwright, Philip Ridley.

Regrets of the Scottish King

After the jump, you can read a little interview with Charlie in which he talks about Swing n Bass, jury duty and the similarities between Shakespeare and hip hop.

I Am the Boy – Philip Ridley