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.

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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.

The Late Review

We’re starting a new series here at Annexe. It is based on the book you love. Yes,  you. Out there. Reading this. Not just you either. It’s about all the books we love. Do you have a book that you pick up and revisit every so often? A classic that always comes to mind? We’d like you to share it with us and the world. 

The Late Review is exactly that. A review of a book, not necessarily new (in fact probably not new) that really speaks to you. All it has to be is a couple of sentences on what the book is about and why you love it so much.

If you’d like to be one of our first reviewers, either drop us an email OR (far better) come along to our spoken word festival INTERROBANG on Saturday! The Annexe team will be flitting about with recorders ready to capture your review in crystal clear sound. If it’s not an awkwardly huge one, bring the book along as well. We’d love to get a snap of you holding it to accompany the review. Of course, there are Annexe gifts awaiting anyone who becomes a reviewer!

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Interrobang Festival is on Saturday 17th November at The Betsey Trotwood.
It’s all day (12pm-12am) and is a bargain at £6 so come along and enjoy the multitude of amazing acts.

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.

Catching up with Liars’ League

You may have noticed that we at Annexe HQ love the storytelling extravaganza that is Liars’ League. How could we not? There is something almost illicit about Liars’ League. An eager audience flows into a darkened basement to hear secret stories. The out-of-time setting conjures up a future where storytelling has been outlawed and enigmatic speakeasies have emerged in the shadows of the city.

So, as a little extra, we caught up with Liars’ League leading lady Katy Darby to chat about defending the fort of fiction, performance/prose fusion and a christmas no.1.

Read it all after the jump.

Liars’ League: A Review

We are joined once more by guest writer Pauline Stobbs who is giving a run-down of the brilliant Liars’ League.

Liars’ League was born from a mutual love of live readings of new writing. What differs in this monthly event is the acknowledgement that the writer is not always the best person to read. By recognising this simple truth, Liars’ League matches contemporary stories with professional actors, and manages to harvest the best of both talents. Brilliant characters, landscapes and plots are transformed by the expert adoption of accents, mannerisms and subtle lilts. For the writer it must be enchanting to see their work sculpted so by a performer.

Review: The Uncommercial Traveller

Giving a review of Punchdrunk’s latest immersive offering, we have our guest writer, the inimitable Pauline Stobbs. The Uncommercial Traveller is a snapshot of the dark and fractured underbelly of Victorian London that Dickens spent so much time observing.

To witness any Punchdrunk performance is an essential part of your theatrical education.
The Uncommercial Traveller is a brief example of the fragmentary storytelling, blurry depths of characterisation and superb set design on which Punchdrunk has made its name.  Their collaborations include the ENO, Battersea Arts Centre and most recently, the BBC’s Doctor Who team for the Manchester International festival. This collaboration with east-focused Arcola theatre promised to draw out the past documented so acutely in Dickens’ collection of literary sketches.

Keep reading after the jump.

The Liars’ League

“Writers write. Actors read. Audience listens. Everybody wins.”
What a fantastic idea! It seems so simple, but this is the brilliant concept behind the Liars’ League.

I love seeing authors read their work. It is always interesting to hear them read their own work. However, writers are writers because they write. Not because they speak. The oration skills are the privilege of the actors. This is one of the many reasons Liars’ League excels. From melodrama to gripping tragedy, on the second Tuesday of every month The Phoenix becomes a haven for storytelling. They call it ‘live fiction’ and I would be inclined to agree. Each story is brought to (larger than) life by an actor reading from a hefty black tome in which the months entries are collected.

In this age where literary events are either big name, big venue affairs or grassroots collective events, Liars’ League does an admirable job of bridging the gap. It is still a fairly small venture, but with the quality that they present consistently, it feels like a huge adventure every time.

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The next Liars’ League is on Tuesday July 12 and in celebration of the our unconvincing summer weather the theme is Hot & Bothered.
The Phoenix is at 37 Cavendish Square, five minutes from Oxford Circus Tube.

Have a look at their website for a taster of the Liar’s League with stories and videos of past events.

Photo by ifsoever. See his flickr here.