Another new reading on "Radio Wildfire."

As is often the case, I've been drowning in work for the last couple of months (money-work, not the good kind), so my creative output has dropped to nil.  The ol' bank account is swelling impressively, which of course is always better than the alternative, but it's still frustrating to have no time to do anything creative, especially after experiencing a nice little upsurge during the summer.

However, the last of the summer's flash-fiction pieces, part of my initial experimentation with readings that make use of multi-track recording and sound effects, will be read on Radio Wildfire's 2nd November broadcast from 8pm to 10pm (UK time).

The piece is "Nanny Know Best," the opening story that, like "BobandJane" in The Ugly Stories, acts as a top-and-tail to the whole collection.

Tune in and let show host and editor, Dave Reeves, know what you think.

I've really enjoyed doing these, though.  Not just writing the actual stories which I was pleased to see come together with very little effort, but also with the final results of the recordings (even if I was somewhat limited by a poor quality mic and royalty-free music and SFX).  It has got me fired up to do more live readings although, as is always the case, finding the time to fit such activities in around my current work load will undoubtedly be tricky.


Anyway, readers of this blog can hear "Nanny Knows Best" on YouTube, right here, right now.  The link was in my last post but just in case you came across this post from a random Google search, you can find the reading here.

Nanny Knows Best - Prologue

The forthcoming collection, State of the Nation, while not as heavily inter-linked as Ugly Stories for Beautiful People, does still have a few similarities to it, one being that it opens with a top-and-tail story.  I've always liked these, whether it be the opening and closing stories in Bradbury's The Illustrated Man or the little bookends that you used to get with the old Amicus movies like Asylum or Tales From the Crypt.

As a satire on contemporary British society, State of The Nation opens and closes with "Nanny Knows Best," a satire (obviously!) of the nation's seemingly inexorable descent into a nanny state and a depiction of what the end result of that process could be.

It's relatively short so I'm hoping I'm going to be able to perform it live, at readings.

But regardless, here for your viewing pleasure is a video reading of the opening tale from State of the Nation.

Just a reminder that at the readings that were featured on Radio Wildfire are still on non-stop rotation for the rest of the month.

Enjoy!

Two readings from "State of the Nation."

Here are the two readings that were featured on the "Radio Wildfire" broadcast.  Hope you enjoy them!

The Girl Within

Genuine Photo

Two flash fiction pieces to be broadcast on "Radio Wildfire"

It's been a while but thankfully that's because I've been busy.  And in a good way.

Some news, however.  A couple of flash fiction pieces from the forthcoming collection, "State of the Nation" are going to be broadcast on the spoken word, live literature and oral art Internet radio station, "Radio Wildfire" on Monday 7th September between 8 and 10pm (GMT).

The stories themselves ("Genuine Photo" and "The Girl Within") are short flash pieces but these particular pieces are somewhat different as they are my first experiments with multi-track recording, using music (albeit being limited by Royalty-free tunes) and FX.  While the stories are my usual fare (albeit shorter - I've been working on far too many 2- 40,000 word pieces recently), I readily admit that I was heavily influenced by Chris Morris' Blue Jam work, although this was more a case of writing the stories and thinking, "Wow, that's quite Blue Jam-esque" rather than actually attempting to copy or emulate that style.

Anyway, listen in to "Radio Wildfire" on Monday 7th September between 8 and 10pm (GMT).  This will be the second time they've been gracious enough to accept my spoken word work (the broadcast a reading of "BobandJane" many moons ago) and they also feature a number of poets, writers and spoken word performers who I am familiar with from the West Midlands and Worcestershire scenes, all of whom are well worth your time.

Hope you enjoy them!