Carys Bray and Joanne Ashcroft book news

Carys Bray is one of the PhD students I share with Ailsa Cox and she has been writing her novel Here We Are Together with us for a while. We had no doubt that this was a brilliant piece of writing, at once lively, moving and satisfying as literary artefact. A good read too.

So it is great to be able to go public on the news that it has been taken up by Hutchinson and you can read about the book deal here. And look into the future here.

 Well done Carys!

It is also pleasing to announce that another PhD student JoanneAshcroft’s book Maps and Love Songs for Mina Loy won the Purple Moose Prize 2102 and that the book of these astonishing poems is finally available after some delay. She will be reading at the Blue Bus in London soon.

Well done Joanne!

Carys and Joanne both studied the MA at Edge Hill University with me. In fact they were the first cohort of the full time MA. This kind of news is what keeps one going. Thanks for the whiskey, Carys, and Joanne thanks for the Purple Moose (what else?) beer!

New autrebiographical text from Arrival

Another part of my autrebiographies (the first part is available from Knives Forks and Spoons as The Given, the whole will be by KFS as Words Out of Time in 2015) is published on Stride here.

Julie Tippetts/Juxtavoices review

Read my review of Julie Tippetts' and Martin Archer's Serpentine and Juxtavoices' Juxt another anti-choir from Sheffield CDs here, as published on Stride.

Read David Kennedy's review of Juxtavoices (also on Stride) here.

Listen to excerpts from the Tippetts/Archer here, and to excerpts from Juxtavoices here. They are both excellent CDs as my review declares.

As I say (because I think it's relevant) Julie Tippetts was once Julie Driscoll, one of the iconic singers of the 1960s, Here she is performing one of my favourites with Brian Augur and the Trinity, 'Road to Cairo'. Below that is a video of her more recently performing with Keith Tippetts and Paul Dunmall.

Here is a video of Juxtavoices, rehearsing. Enjoy!