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.

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Lady Sword Swallower by Nick Murray

You might have heard that Annexe editor, Nick Murray, also does a little writing of his own. Here’s one of his short stories. It was published earlier this year in Inc. Magazine #3. The reader is the magician Lee Warren.

The fantastic illustration is by the Brighton based illustrator and fellow writer, Hannah Bailey.

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.

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.