Not an Anthology: Into the Desert

I have just finished putting together Into the Desert, the first ever collection at my new project, eight cuts gallery. It features work from 19 amazing writers, and I'm incredibly proud of it. But that is, in a way, by the by. Why I'm writing something about it is I think this is a new way of curating and showcasing literature, and I would love to know whether you think it works.

To return to the beginning. The very first point in the eight cuts gallery manifesto states:

■Culture has no boundaries. It has no preconceptions as to what is literature.

So to showcase literature to its best effect, an anthology won't suffice. A website works rather well - I have been able to include not just amazing poetry and prose, but pictures, visual poetry, music, and even a stunning full-length documentary film.

The second thing that holding the exhibition online has been able to do is let me curate it mercilessly. The remit was simply to send in something that responded to the title, Into the Desert. The results were wonderfully diverse, literal, metaphorical, spiritual, and all taking a slightly different slant on what "the desert" might be and what a journey into it, and out of - where? - somewhere else might entail. It would be impossible to do anything with an anthology that wasn't really rather crude.

What I've been able to do online is to create a series of hyperlinks between pages that lead the reader through the exhibition in numerous different ways, placing different works together each time, making them question the meaning of each as they go, as well as giving them pictures of the overall theme that are as shifting as the desert sands themselves. And because the hyperlinks are anchored on words and images, I've been able to play with the audiene's expectations - to give them preconceptions about what comes next - preconceptions I can then either reinforce or upset.

In short, this format has been able to give me two exhibitions - that comprised of the pieces themselves, and that made up of the relations between them. Which, I think, is what good curation should always do. BUT, and here is the second question, does that kind oif curation have a place in literature?

There will also be a tie-in live show at Oxford's O3 gallery featuring readings, music and film, on November 18th. And I hope there will be both other live shows, and dedicated screenings of Cody James' full-length film, a documentary about the Columbine students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold that forms a segment of the exhibition (along with Oli Johns' The Things They Let Into the Classroom and Sarah E Melville's French Lesson) that could be called something like "school is hell".

Beautiful Things that Happen Today!

It's here at last! The biggest Year Zero Live event to date. We have three amazing bands and four fantastic writers, and we have the complete run of one of the fabbest venues in London all night. Sarah was just fantastic last Wednesday, even after 30 sleepless hours after setting off from California, so she's set to be even more awesome tonight.

Here's our running order for the night:
7.30-8 doors open to a set from Rabid Gravy

8-8.15 Beautiful Things - Sarah, Dan, Marc reading pieces chosen by Sarah

8.15-8.50 Rabid Gravy running straight into

8.50 Dan Holloway reading SKIN BOOK

9.10 Becca Fenton

9.25 To The Moon

10.00 Marc Nash

10.15 Sarah E Melville reading her own set

10.25 Shirley Said

11 (or thereabouts) finish

Here is a little something about Becca, whom we're delighted to be welcoming for the night:
Becca Fenton likes words and playing with sounds and likes you too, for coming to listen to hers. She used to run the 'wordPLAY' spoken word night at The Good Ship and is very excited about the current spoken word and new writing scene in the UK. her favourite cheese in Lincolnshire Poacher and her favourite film is Truly Madly Deeply.

What's in a Name?

Nothing. Nada, niet, zilch, zero, zip.

That's all, really. I wanted to say something about Ian McEwan or Martin Amis or Graham Swift, or Zadie Smith - or even why I've decided I love Jeanette Winterson. But they're too easy targets. So I'll have t piece together an argument from the start.

And it starts in many places.

It starts with the wonderful world of independent literature - the fantastic small presses, cool shops, salons, scenes within scenes that are springing up.

It starts with Katie Price and Martine McCutheon, and "celebriterature"

It starts with the fact that we don't have an aplication or submission process at Year Zero.

And it starts with Haruki Murakami.

I love Murakami. So do hundreds of thousands of others. My bodily fluids are in disarray at the thought of 1Q84 arriving in translation. If I met him I'd probably faint.

It really starts with WHY I love Haruki Murakami. I love him, you see, because he wrote "Again and again I called out fro Midori from the dead centre of this place that was no place" and I cried for about 10 minutes afterwards. I love him because he wrote a scene about a woman, stuck on a ferris wheel, who looks into the window of an apartment and sees herself, commiting acts she could never imagine, and that scene changed the way I write forever.

I equally love Penny Goring because she wrote the line "You find me at night when I’m trying to sleep and tell me all about why you can’t stay."

And that's the point I'm making. I love people who do amazing things with words. Rather, I love the amazing things they do with words (there are many other thigs I love about Penny, of course, but they have to do withthe fact it's my privilege to know her).

But the more I see of even the Indiest of the Indie world of publishing, the more I realise how uncommon that is. We all have heroes, of course. I guess we do, anyway. But the literary world (and I know it's not alone) is full of a certain kind of adulation that I really don't like. An adulation for names. A deferentiality - be it for Zadie Smith or David Vann or whoever. And it goes hand in hand with a derogation of Katie Price and Martine McCutcheon, and I am left in a state fo constant bewilderment that no one sees the contradiction.

Much of the literary world, it sems to me, is all about names. It's about clubbiness and cliquiness. About liking the right thing and disliking the right thing - about thinking (tired and overused example, sorry, but it's been a long week and I'm tired and overused) John Diamond was a brave man chronicling his demise and Jade Goody was an attention-crazy slapper. About whom you've met, whom you've heard, how famuos your guests are, who retweets you, who says hi to you down the pub. And frankly, I find the whole thing utterly nauseating.

We had a Year Zero gig this week (still waiting a coupla piccies before I write it up). We held it at the OVADA Gallery in Oxford, a project run largely by unpaid staff and directors to bring the arts into the community, against a backdrop of a fantastic exhibition called Hidden Voice, put on by young carers from the county. It was the best gig I've ever been to, with 40 or 50 of the loveliest people I've met in a long long time. It came about purely by chance when a friend pointed me to an exhibition there, and I got chatting to the curator and said do you ever do literary nights, and two weeks later we were doing one. She didn't know me from Adam but she had a read fo some of our stuff, and circulated their mailing list, advertised on the Arts council website, gotus a slot on local radio, made our ragtag group feel, in short, welcome. Part of a bigger picture in which we're all doing the same thing - trying to build a world with more art in it.

Why mention the fact we don't have a submission pocedure at Year Zero? Well, it sounds rather clubby and cliquy, that's why. But it's not. It's simply that we do a certain kind of thing and - without giving away too many details - rather a lot of us are rather damaged so we need to have a safe space to do it in. Think of us like a band - you wouldn't say a band was a clique just because they don't let every bass player play bass for them. I HOPE we do everything we can to encourage others doing the kind of thing we're doing, and to share what we've learned. I'm sure we could do more, but I hope that's through lack of resource not lack of willing.

We called our gig on Wednesday "Open-armed and Outcast", and the more I think about it the more important that description feels. There is a whole world in the arts that's about belonging in the "in crowd" - and for me it's even more distasteful and prevalent in the allegedly indie scene, where it's mixed with a cultural snobbery.

There are all sorts of debates to be had about filtering and gatekeeping, of course, and how it can ever be possible to read everything out there and give stuff a chance, but I want to make a very simple, very plain point. It's cool to like great writing. It's cool to have something move you to tears or laughter or despair or exhilaration and to tell teh world how great it is - whether it be by Zadie Smith or Jane Unknown or, yes, by J K Rowling. It is NOT cool to like something because it is by Zadie Smith, or to tell people you had Zadie Smith giving a lecture in your store whilst you hide the fact embarrassedly that you also had Jane Unknown. And it is VERY NOT COOL to say something's crap because it was written by J K Rowling.

I have met a lot of wonderful people in the publishing industry since I joined Year Zero (I don't actually think I've met anyone from the industry who isn't really nice), but my experience has done nothing but confirm why I want to have nothing to do with that industry.

In short.
What's in a name? Absolutely nothing.
What's in a word? Absolutely everything.

Banned Books

Many apologies. This is a pluggy thread. Apologies also for the fact it contains largely the same material as I posted on the Year Zero site yesterday. But I wanted to tell everyone because I'm excited. Actually I'm more than excited. On February 4th, at rough Trade Records, Brick Lane, London, 6-8.30pm, the Year Zero Live tour begins. Full details here on our website. There are so many reasons I'm excited I don't know where to start. So I'll start with the big news: Daisy Anne Gree's "Hearing Voices" event teaser is out, and here it is!

But before you watch it, I should explain the other big news, which is that only a few hours after we'd posted the video, Facebook had had it reported and were banning it from being posted any more. Why we can't quite tell. We think it may be because Daisy's voiceover touches on a suicide attempt. Sure, the first reaction is COOL! WE GOT BANNED! But the second reaction is what the hell kind of sick world do we live in where we get banned for being open about a mental health issue when Facebook allows all kinds of bilious groups to proliferate. Let's just say, it's given us blog material.

Anyway, make your own mind up - but be warned, I guess. If you like it, do tell other people to watch it. I think it's one of the coolest book trailers out there.

Hearing Voices (link to YouTube video)

That's the two of us reading, by the way. So we have a trailer. And we have one of the coolest tour posters on the planet, courtesy Sarah E Melville, based on the cover for Thirteen Shadows Waiting for Sunrise, the anthology we're touring.

We also have a confirmed second date: 23rd February at To Hell With Books in Woburn Place. And the Oxford event will be held during the Oxford Literary Festival - 20-28 March. And we have notice that Jenn is going to be reading in New York in February too!

So what can you expect if you come along to Rough Trade?

Well, the whole gig is FREE, for which you get:

5 writers

Penny Goring reading Bone Dust Disco

Marc Nash readnig Twin Topiary Tales

Larry Harrison reading from Glimpses of a Floating World

me reading SKIN BOOK

Daisy Anne Gree reading the Death and Birth of Johnny the Baptist

3 amazing musical acts

To The Moon

Jessie Grace

InLight

You'll also be able to buy a whole load of books and CDs and Year Zero merch, any and all of which we will sign.

Most of all, I'm excited because we get to perform together, and in a few cases meet each other for the first time!! And I'm hoping we'll get to meet some of you!

Dear Publisher

Thank you for sending me your contract for consideration. I am sure you will appreciate that talented authors receive many unsolicited contracts. Nonetheless, I am aware that a publisher like yourself relies upon discovering new talent in order to keep its lists fresh and win new readers, so I hope that you will not be too disappointed that in this case I am declining your kind offer. I wish you all the best in seeking exciting new talent elsewhere.

I understand that it is frustrating to receive a form rejection from an author, without any elaboration on specific areas to work on in your contract. I hope that the following general points may help you in your future submissions.

1. An author relies for their living upon a day job. They write, edit, and network in the evenings, at weekends, and in lunch hours and teabreaks. A publisher's advance, the largest incentive for an author to sign a contract, is not sufficient for them to give up their day job with any security.

2. Many talented, exciting authors write work that will not appeal to large readerships. Publishers need to sell large amounts of books. The result of this tension is that many of these authors will fail to recoup publishers' outlay within their first two books, and it will not be viable for publishers to keep them on board.

3. Without a publisher, a writer is under no such pressure, and will not be junked if their initial books "fail".

4. Should a writer achieve initial success wit ha publisher, they will be expected to produce similar works, and not explore or develop their talent.

5. Without a publisher there is no pressure to change for a writer the way they write in order to fit market needs.

6. Without a publisher there is the freedom to experiment, change genre at will, try, fail, try again, fail again, and devlop one's talent, voice, and potential to the full.

7. With a publisher a writer must concede control over cover design, the way their work is presented to the world.

8. The long cycle of the publishing industry means that the time from pen to audience inevitably freezes some of the initial energy and excitement of the creative process, leading to a less real and invigorating feedback process between writer and audience, and a less meaningful feedback loop.

9. With a publisher, a new writer loses editorial control. Not just total control of final cut, but control of which editor to use in the first place. An editor must have two qualities - the ability to be utterly ruthless; and absolute sympathy with an author's aims. An author needs to be free to select their own, trusted, editor.

10. Pricing - whilst unsigned, the author is free to set the price for all their books - and other merchandise. This includes setting the price at free should the author wish to do that with, for example, their ebooks. It also means the freedom to create and price specila and limited editions of their work.

In conclusion, I am afraid that an author must consider not just their short-term but their long-term future. And whilst I am sure that your kind offer, were I to accept it, would put me in a financially more advantageous position one year from now, and possibly three years from now, compared to that if I reject it; I am afraid that the models I have run show that in five, ten, and twenty years - that is, over the course of my career - there is no financial advantage, and in many models financial disadvantage, in my accepting.

I wish you every success in your future publishing career.

The View from the Shoe: Sheena Says

I met Sheena Ignatia on Authonomy, but she is a prolific tweeter, in the guises of @jeannealogy and now @sheenasaysstuff. She is the author of Jeannealogy, a hilarious series of multimedia love-hate letters/journals from her to her mother-in-law. You can find her at www.SheenSays.blog.co.uk and www.jeannealogy.webs.com.

So, in her own words:

· Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
I had to google Louboutin. I’ve never heard of it, I thought it might have been cheese. I like cheese. So Converse, or maybe adidas two-stripe, or whatever I find on the floor at the Primark sale. Don’t think I would go for adidas four stripe though.

· What do you do?
I created a new social science called Jeannealogy. It’s the study of Jeanne, my mother in law. She is one big sack of crazy, so I tell people what she does, on the internet. And I am quite rude about her and I post pictures of the awful free gifts that she sends us from the catalogue. I got a real treat for Christmas!

· Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
Lots of people tell me horror stories about their in laws, but I have yet to come across anyone who has an in law who checks the frozen aisle at Tesco’s for eye of newt and toe of frog, like Jeanne does.

· What do you really, really love about it?
I normally start to write when I am angry, I have been furious at times. Then, when I reach the end of a Jeanne blog entry, I am laughing my socks off. Yes I know it’s bad to laugh at your own jokes, but I can’t help it. Besides Banana The Poet says it’s okay to laugh at your own jokes… if you haven’t heard them before!

· A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
More money, lots and lots of money. Enough money to emigrate, far, far away from Jeanne.

· Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
I love Spain, so desayunos would be at the Guinness Bar in Benidorm. Toast and butter and maramalade and a camomile tea. Although last time I had that for breakfast there, the toast tasted a bit like sausages. Weird.

· What’s your Jimmy Choo?
And what’s just cobblers? Nothing in life is more satisfying than spotting a £2 flight on a budget airline site, booking it and getting the email confirmation. I know, I know… carbon footprints- but I can’t help it. I love sunshine! What’s just cobblers? Well, there are rumours our local chippy is trying pass off cobbler as cod. I don’t mind though, if sausage infused toast with marmalade doesn’t bother me, then I am hardly going to be upset about fish.

· Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
My brother’s friend, Ste, who famously reads only bus timetables and football programmes couldn’t wait to get home from work to read the rest of my blog. He was so engrossed, it even prevented him from logging onto his favourite pornography sites. Allegedly.

· Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
Independent and rich! I’d still book budget flights though!

· Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behind people and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could choose anyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
Napoleon Dymamite. Why? Have you seen Napoleon Dynamite? Wouldn’t he be great at that?

· Frocks or socks?
Socks are a bit of a sore point at the moment, I bought 3 pairs of purple socks from the pound shop. Wore them for one day and they kind of disintegrated, all of the cotton seemed to disappear and I was left with the mesh skeleton of the socks. It looked like I had trimmed a bit of net curtain off, and wrapped it around my feet. So, frocks. Definitely frocks.

Thanks ever so much for asking me Dan

Muse, don't look at me like that!

Beatrice, Edie Sedgewick, the Dark Lady. Nine of them who flounced around Mount Helicon. Not to mention a great guitar band. Artists and writers frequently talk about their muses. The person - or, indeed, object, or place (Woody Allen's New York, for example) - who not only stirs something creative insode them, but makes that creativity come gushing out in golden form - transforms it as it touches the page into greatness.

But is there a darker side to the muse? In one sense, there very obvioulsy is, and it goes back to Platonism and the worship and objectifictaion of the spiritual. The muse is placed on a pedestal, worshipped, and, as a result, denied genuine reality - museishness is to blame for a lot of our less beneficial conceptions of women, for example.

But I mean another dark side - for the artist or writer or musician.

For me, the idea of a muse is rather terrifying. I imagine my muse, if I had one, staring at me - taunting or sneering - "You dare to call THAT worthy of me?" she harumphs, turning her back and leaving me staring at a blank page.

The point I want to make is this. there is a very fine line between inspiration and intimidation. Between the object of beauty who touches you and opens a creative spring and an ethereal form that's just "out of your league" - that you could never do justice, so you end up snivelling in self-pity, and struck down by block, like an opera composer waiting a lifetime till they're ready to produce a piece for the voice of their generation.

When you're a teenager you're desperate for a muse. A boy or girl in the class above, possibly a friend of your brother or sister - someone to bring out the Byronic in you. And when you find them, you aften will write a great torrent of, er, romantic twaddle, in your efforst to impress. Later you will look back ashamedly, and every time you write FOR someone or thing you will possibly be struck with fear of doing a similar hatchet job. Add in a mix of idealisation and you have a recipe for paralysis - we can, after all, never give a sacrifice worthy of the gods.

For me it's not people who act as intimidating muses - it's notebooks. I imagine if I have a beautiful hand-boundleather journal I will write something worthy of it. But I can never find a sentence good enough and so I sit and stare, and anything any good I DO write by hand is always in a skanky notebook I bought in bulk from a Polish supermarket.

Yet we feel instinctively that art is about eros, about love, about, in short, muses. So how do we avoid paralysis and create something decent as the result of having a muse?

The answer's simple: forget about doing justice TO your subject; forget about writing something FOR someone. Instead, this is a time when a writer/artist needs to be introspective. What is it your subject/muse inspires in YOU? Look within, and describe the fire, the turmoil and the raging passion you find there. Considerations of worthiness go out of the window - the muse will enter only as a marginal character, a penumbra for the piece, but unmistakably present in the form of those qualities that inspire those particular thoughts. This way you will ACTUALLY do justice to them - not as idealised object but as active subject stirring your passions. And you will connect with your audience, will enable them not just to admire but to feel as you feel.

Sharp Teeth

OK, so I decided to go with the medieval myth of the vagina dentata, recently resurrected by some bleeding awful z-grade horror movie, as the title for this post for no other reason than my original one wouldn't fit twitter. It makes no real sense and does little but allude to Zadie Smith (not a bad thing in itself).

The article I wrote for Year Zero tomorrow is a chastisement of the writing classes of the noughties. I ask, very simply, where did all the questions go? When I was a student in the late 80s and early 90s we took it for granetd that whenever we wrote something we were entering into some larger, complex powerplay. We assumed there was no such thing as neutral. It was the age where language was taken to be imperialist/patriarchal as a matter of course and if you wanted to write you had to justify every word you set on the page and explain why it wasn't simply perpetuating the imperialism/patriarchy.

Sure this often led to a combination of bizarro weird non-linear stylisation and the somewhat easier tactic of wwriting nothing and limiting oneself to chattering idly about theory (in the name of the class/race/gender struggle, of course). But there is something inherently good about not taking things for granted - about realising that one is part of a context, about placing oneself within larger discourses and, basically, thinking about the implications of what you write.

What I take issue with in that post is why so few writers question - PROPERLY question - the internet. What kind of a space is it? What's its power status? Where does it sit in the nexus of discursive strategies?

Anyway, having berated others for not asking questions, I thought I should post some thoughts of my own. Here they are - unrounded, probably not thought through. But they're a discussion starter at least. I'm happy to discuss in more detail in the comments.

I "grew up" studying Irigaray, whose main point about linguistics is that language is male - the qualities of western discourse embody maleness. Language is sex-power. For women to speak they must use a language that is male. Irigaray's own writing is a wonderful mix of theory and poetics as she tries to find a new way of writing that embodies the female yet cuts across the lies of the male (I hesitate when saynig "embody" because it implies essentialism, and "is Irigaray an essentialist?" is one of those string-measuring exercises of which linguistics is full.

It amazes me that more people aren't asking questions of the internet, and how it fits into this theoretical model. So I want to imagine what they might say, and relate it to teh politics of literature.

I have 2 points to make:

1. the internet feminises literature.

2. this is why the literary establishment greets web-based discourse with a mix of fear-conquer-laugh.

1. The Internet Feminises Literature

I am talking in Irigaray's terms. You will probably disagree and find the points overly Freudian. They start a discussion, though.

- webcourse (to avoid repeating web-based discourse endlessly) is fragmented (something Irigaray made steps towards with her incomplete sentences - she must go nuts for text-speak)

-webcourse is associative. It makes links rather than statements. It's unitive but not in a colonizing way - it brings things within a context organically

-webcourse is preservatory by nature. Its caches and dark corners are the marshes and forests that patriarchy could never expel from mythology. They preserve the monstrous and the outcast from deletion.

-webcourse never destroys, it builds on what has gone before.

-webcourse is nutritive - it feeds itself through cooperation and contact


2. No wonder "Literature" hates the web

You will generally find one of three reactions from the literary establishment to webcourse:

- fear - free content, the noise of universal subjectivity, lack of respect for experts, lack of quality control and gatekeeping - are these really treated very differently from the vagina dentata of old? No. Literature fears webcourse because it is different. Because it refuses to respect tradition. Because it is other...

- conquer - the web is great, but do it like this, that and the other. Brand yourself across media, use the web wisely. Use it if you must but use it our way!

- laugh - "you're a writer. Great! For whom do you write?" "Oh, AN E-ZINE"

Like I say, think of webcourse as feminising, and of discourse as patriarchal, and doesn't this suddenly fit?

And of course it's even more wonderfully subversive that this feminised webcourse uses imperialist technology - what I want to avoid owing to its awful Platonist associations is a spirit-body dualism that's hardware/cyberspace based - rather I'll say patriarchy created a space of its own, feminised culture found a way in, resisted, inverted, created an enfolded space of its own from, within, and independent of the oppressor's tools.

In many ways the webcourse debate mirrors the feminist debates of the 70s - you have people of all stripes from the separatists to the revisionists. One could argue that cultural flare-ups simply have a tendency to produce this kind of multi-polarity. Or you could argue that it's the SAME debate.

So where does this leave me, as a male writer? Well, women have been forced into discourse in order to be heard for centuries. If webcourse IS feminised I fail to see I'm in a position to complain. No, what I find exciting is the fact that webcourse might actually be something different. Something with its own set of rules. Something new and fresh and liberating.

Most of all, what I feel is a relief that I've started asking questions about what I write on line in the same way I've always asked them about what I write on paper. And excited that the two sets of answers may be different

The Coolest Project on the Planet

This is a perfect subject for my 100th post. I was put onto it on twitter by the wonderful Cameron Chapman.

So what is it? Well, The Fiction Project has been put together by the Brooklyn Art Library and the Art House Co-op. The idea is simple. For $18, $21 if you're outside the US, you will receive a Moleskine notebook and a general theme suggestion. It's up to you to fill your notebook in any way you wish related in any way to that theme (they would like it to be at least 51% written).

Register by Feb 15th 2010, then return the filled notebook by April 14th 2010, and it will appear in the exhibition at the Brooklyn Art Library that opens on May 14th. And after that your book will be on the shelves of the Brooklyn Art Library in perpetuity.

Not only is this an amazing multi-arts project, getting people from all over the world involved in art and literature - this is collaboration in the best of ways, and not crowd-sourcing. I cannot think of a better Christmas present you could give someone.

The View From the Shoe: Fiona Robyn

I met Fiona Robyn through one of my lovely previous Views From the Shoe, Claire Grant. What fascinated me about her work was her plan for the launch of her new novel Thaw. The plan, nicely monickered Blogsplash, is for as many bloggers as possible to put the first page of the novel on their website on release date, March 1st 2010. I would encourage all bloggers out there to sign up and take part. Anyway, here's Fiona, in her own words:

Fiona Robyn is a novelist living in the countryside in Hampshire with her cats and vegetable patch. Her previous novels are The Letters and The Blue Handbag, and Thaw is out on the 1st of February. Her main site is at www.fionarobyn.com and she blogs about being a writer at www.plantingwords.com.

Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
I just had to google Louboutin to find out what it meant, which gives you your answer. I can’t walk in high heels. I had my first pair of Converse All Stars at Uni… happy memories!

Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
Nobody does it quite like me because nobody IS quite like me.

What do you really, really love about it?
About writing? There are lots of things I don’t love, but I do love bringing my characters to life and hearing their stories. I love it when my readers love them as much as I do.

A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
Time, every time. I wouldn’t turn the money away though.

Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
I would have earl grey and a cinnamon and raisin bagel, outside in the sun as I watched the birds and listened to them singing. Exactly like breakfast now, then. Maybe I’d be accompanied by Johnny Depp.

What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
Hotel Chocolat chocolates, especially the butter caramels. Thorntons is cobblers.

Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
A reader in America emailed me to say she’d had surgery for skin cancer recently, and had lots of waiting time at the hospital between procedures. She said that Leonard from my novel ‘The Blue Handbag’ kept her perfect company. Which writer could ask for anything more?

Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
Under contract and poor ; )

Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behind people and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could choose anyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

Frocks or socks?
Both, at the same time.

Thank you SOOO much

Agenda

This blog is the radical wing of the Facebook novel, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes. It’s the place where discussion about the publishing industry stops and getting on with the future of literature starts.

It’s a place for frustration without spleen; for regret without bitterness; it’s a place for writers to come and suck energy from each other and their readers – to put to test the Adam Smith theory of culture – culture isn’t zero sum. It keeps on increasing as long as it keeps on flowing. Stop and it doesn’t stay still. It dies.

This is a place for short inspirational messages to fellow writers; for longs, slow group hugs; for drop dead innovative suggestions; er, and to help me write my novel, The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes.

How to get published is yesterday’s debate. How to write at the limits is tomorrow’s project.

Coming next - The Year Zero manifesto

Welcome to Agnieszka's blog

This is the official blog of the interactive free novel I'm writing on the Facebook group of the same name. Over the next week I'll be loading the blog posts over from there and blogging about it here.

please comment on anything you want. there are really no rules to this project

There is a synopsis, though, which I'll give you for now - and a bunch of links to look up over the weekend.

In 2009 one image became as iconic as the face of Che Guevara.

A story of art, politics, online communities, environmentalism, and the nature of celebrity;

Of the search for the truth behind a seemingly tragic death, that became the most watched YouTube video in history;

Of two personal journeys – a man whose daughter, missing for ten years, is fading from existence in a world he cannot reach; a schoolboy whose quest for beauty in mathematics has kept him locked in his room for three years; and the website that unites them;

Of the world’s most reclusive artist; of a dominatrix who uses other people’s pain to break down the doors to parallel worlds in search of the origin of her own agony; of an astrophysicist determined to preserve the moment of his wife’s death forever; of a vicious vigilante who spends his evenings composing haiku;

Of a novel that draws its life from the conversation between its writer and its readers.

Find Agnieszka:
The Facebook novel where you can read and write it all for free

Twitter

My homepage

On YouTube

Read the book on Authonomy

e-mail me