Solstice Shorts is a one-day short story and folk music festival on the theme of TIME, for Short Story Day, 21st December 2014 (the winter solstice) held at West Greenwich Library and the Royal Observatory, on the Greenwich Meridian.
Past, present, future; morning, noon, night, days, months, seasons, years: time measured, time spent, time lost, time wasted - entropy: clocks, sundials, hourglasses… from nanoseconds to eons
16 short stories will be read live, every half hour from sunrise (8:04) to sunset (15:53). 12 of the stories will be chosen by a competition which opens on the autumn equinox, 21st September, and closes on 31st October. The Judges are Anita Sethi, Rob Shearman, Imogen Robertson and Alison Moore, each of whom will contribute a story. Results of the competiton will be announced during short story week in Mid November.
Actors from Liars' League will read if the author is unable to, or doesn't like the limelight.The event will be broadcast live to Youtube and podcast for people unable to attend, and a book of the stories will be published.
In between the stories, folk music also on the theme of TIME will be performed by Rosemary Lippard, Pepper & Shepherd, Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd, Shadrack Tye and Summer All Year Long.
Everything happening on the day will be BSL interpeted.
Writers, musicians and audience will be invited to join in through writing and singing workshops, and by creating stories live, on the day, via social media.
Yes, we do know it's the final Sunday before Christmas. So if you find yourself overwhelmed with all the pre-Christmas hype, instead of frantically shopping for a bit of festive tat, come and calm down, be invigorated - laugh, cry, sing, and take some TIME for yourself, and see in the new year on the day it really happens - the solstice! (We'll sell you stuff too, if you really can't leave off finding that elusive present.)
We've applied to Arts Council England for funding for this exciting project, but have to match fund, ideally 50%. We have £6250 covered by in kind contributions (venues etc) and we've applied to another source for a further £2000, but we need to cover more of the costs, which are suprisingly high, however we don't want to compromise on the quality of what we do, nor on the accessibility. So we'd love to smash our target and get two or even three times as much, so tell everyone you know... it's going to be a great day out and we have plans already brewing for next year and the year after that...
some rewards to tempt you...
Again, thanks to everyone who has contributed, both by donating rewards and by purchasing. we just need a bit more - i particularly want to get a couple for T shirts bagged, so that the costs will go down, so if you know anyone you think would look unbearably glamorous in our LIMTED EDITION design, please point them at the site!
We've be backed by 2 people so far for this reward...join them!!
Support our crowd fund campaign for Solstice Shorts Festival by £15.00 or more and get an Invitation to the combined launch of The Other Side of Sleep - Arachne Press’ first Poetry anthology, and the private view of our exhibition of artwork from our cover artists, From London Lies to the Other Side of Sleep.
In the Long Gallery at Lauderdale House in Highgate, 1st October 7.30pm, your invitation will include at least one glass of wine, plus chatting with poets and artists, and a copy of the book signed by the cover artist, Zoe Lee and as many of the poets as are there on the night, and any others who are at the Oxford reading the night before.
(This is an example, your portrait will be of you, or someone you want a portrait of!)
Our most extraordinary and unique crowd funding reward in support of Solstice Shorts £200.00 (or more). Inua Elams is a poet (which is how we know him, he’s in our forthcoming poetry anthology, The Other Side of Sleep) and artist. He has kindly offered to create a digital portrait for one lucky backer. You can see more samples of his work here.
Thank you for your interest and support!
I'm thinking we may have exhausted the immediate store of friends family and associates (surely not!) and need to reach out to people who don't know us yet. Can you help to do that? Enthuse to your friends, show them the site, tell them how exciting the festival is going to be? Tweet, share on FB, blog about it (thank you Lizzy) that sort of thing?
We can only reach so many people on our own.
You are brilliant, wonderful geneous people, you must know one or two more!
xx
With just under 6 days left of the crowd funding to go, it’s time to introduce you to our competition judges
Short-listing (to about 40 stories) will be done by Arachne Press owner, (award-winning) editor and writer, Cherry Potts, together with reviewer and book blogger Lizzy Baldwin.
The Final choice of 12 stories will be made by a stellar line-up, each of whom will also contribute a story for the festival and the anthology.
(You can help us get the festival to the starting line by donating to our crowd funding campaign. we have lots of interesting and quirk rewards on offer. The crowd fund closes on September 4th)
Imogen Robertson grew up in Darlington, studied Russian and German at Cambridge and now lives in London. She directed for film, TV and radio before becoming a full-time author and won the Telegraph’s ‘First thousand words of a novel’ competition in 2007 with the opening of Instruments of Darkness, her first novel. Her other novels also featuring the Georgian detective duo of Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther are Anatomy of Murder, Island of Bones, Circle of Shadows and Theft of Life. In 2013 she published The Paris Winter, a story of betrayal and darkness set during the Belle Époque. She has been short-listed for the CWA Historical Dagger three times and once for the Dagger in the Library Award.
Robert Shearman has written four short story collections (Tiny Deaths, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Everyone’s Just So So Special, Remember Why You Fear Me), and between them they have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Edge Hill Readers Prize and three British Fantasy Awards.His background is in the theatre, resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter, and regular writer for Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough; his plays have won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the Sophie Winter Memorial Trust Award, the World Drama Trust Award, and the Guinness Award in association with the Royal National Theatre. He regularly writes plays and short stories for BBC Radio, and he has won two Sony Awards for his interactive radio series, The Chain Gang. But he’s probably best known for reintroducing the Daleks to the BAFTA winning first season of the revived Doctor Who, in an episode that was a finalist for the Hugo Award. His latest collection of stories, They Do The Same Things Different There, is to released September 16th 2014.
Alison Moore is a novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, The Lighthouse, won the McKitterick Prize 2013 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 and the National Book Awards 2012 (New Writer of the Year). Her second novel, He Wants, will be published on 15 August. Her debut collection, The Pre-War House and Other Stories, includes a prize-winning novella and stories published in Best British Short Stories anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra
Anita Sethi is an award-winning writer, journalist and broadcaster who has written dispatches from around the world for the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Independent, Independent on Sunday, New Statesman, Granta, Times Literary Supplement, Harpers Bazaar and BBC, among others. She has appeared as a guest panellist and commentator on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC World Service, and ABC Australia.
Her short stories, reportage and poetry has been published in From There to Here, Roads Ahead, and The Book Club Bible and she is currently completing a novel. She is recipient of a Penguin/decibel prize, Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship, Arts Council writing award, and Dialogue Festival blogging award.
She has appeared at many international Literature Festivals, and has been both an International Writer-in-Residence and Ambassador at the Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Imogen, Anita and Rob will host on the day and read their own stories, Alison was double booked, so her story will be read by an actor, and Cherry will do a hosting stint, as well as running a writing workshop and generally making sure everything goes smoothly and everyone has a great time.
Unique Hand-lettered Poem
One of the more unusual rewards on offer in our crowd funding for Solstice Shorts Festival.
If the idea of a beautifully handwritten poem (something like this) to hang on your wall or to send to someone special excites you, we can offer you just that for £70 (or more - you are very welcome to give us more than the guide price!)
Jennifer A McGowan, one of the poets featured in The Other Side of Sleep, is also a calligrapher, with work featured in magazines. Many more examples here
She is offering to letter a presentation poem of your choice, of no more than 25 lines. (This is JUST lettering, no fancy illuminated capitals or decorations, although Jennifer has said if you would like decorations and/or illuminated capital on your poem, you can come to an arrangement with her separate to the 25 lines she is donating to us.) She is too busy in the run up to the Solstice to offer this for a midwinter gift, but could get it completed in time for Valentine's day, for example. (includes cost of postage within the UK)
Here are the images to go with the latest rewards.
We've added a couple of new rewards: 20 A4 posters of the cover art by Annie Rickard Straus for Lovers' Lies,
and 1 only of an A3 poster based on the cover art by Kevin Thelfall, used for a reading of Weird Lies at Misty Moon gallery (this image is not identical as it is just the background - we didn't keep the file for the poster because it was too big).
A Pack of Lies for £40
One copy each of London Lies, Lovers' Lies, and award-winning Weird Lies
a complete collection of our Liars' League anthologies full of wit, wackiness and wonder.
From the mean streets of Hackney to sleepy South London suburbs, from boho Bloomsbury to City wine bars, London Lies is a tour of the capital as you’ve never seen it before. What happens when a girl on her way to work is propositioned by a frog? When a man breaks into London Zoo to fight a hippo? When nuclear bombs fall on a future London, when the rats rise up to rule us or – most terrifying of all – when Scrabble goes bad?
Londonist review ‘…nearly had us snivelling on a commuter train.’ ‘…each has a distinctive voice and a point to make. Perfect for reading in bite-sized chunks on the way around town.’
Sabotage Review ‘…this is one of the most enjoyable story collections I’ve had the pleasure of reading in several years.’ ‘…the consistently high quality of London Lies makes it difficult to review. Every time I have sat down to start writing, I’ve wanted to highlight different stories.’
Moving from 1930s Camden to a Royal Wedding “riot”, via football fights, office steeplechases and awkward dates in art galleries, London Lies is a bizarre, funny, moving and sometimes unnerving glimpse into the secret life of the city we all love and know … or do we?
Lovers' Lies is designed expressly for romantic cynics and cynical romantics. Be careful who catches you reading it – your intentions might be misinterpreted.
Liars’ League teams up with Arachne Press for a second outing bringing the freshness, wit, imagination and passion of their authors to a wider audience.
Join us as we wallow in the many facets of relationships. Explore role-play gone wrong, goldfish that eat loneliness, and a very literal leap into the unknown.
Old love, cold love, true love, new love, dead love, we’re through love – making babies and making whoopee, disappointment and contentment, playing at home, playing away or just playing; missed chances and new romances: everything from first conversation to last breath, strange journeys and stranger destinations.
These stories are quirky, solidly formed and pretty much always with a satisfying ending. There are tales of the unexpected, magical realist fantasies, and clever, clever writing that stays with you long after the last full stop. Goodreads
There’s something about Liars’ League that brings out the wildness in the writers’ imaginations. In Weird Lies we explore myth, fantasy, science fiction, and the indefinable what the – that makes up Weird. In true Liars’ League fashion there is as much humour as there is darkness and poignancy.
More than twenty tales, varying in style from stories not out of place in One Thousand and One Nights, to the completely bemusing.
Discover mirrors that predict the immediate future and museums where your personal future life is exhibited in the kind of ephemeral objects that might normally find their way into a dustbin.
Meet tadpoles, lazy assassins, and assiduous poisoners; observe deals with the devil, and workplace stress taken to its logical conclusion.
Heroes, villains, and animals – anything and anyone could provide the twist in the tale – cursed travellers, persistent dreamers, aliens, robots and even ice might be the object, or source, of love. Winner of the Saboteur2014 Best Anthology Award.
When you know your story is going to be read out loud by an actual actor to a real, live audience, I’m sure you make certain to trim off anything superfluous that doesn’t directly contribute to the vigor of your story and while reading Weird Lies I got the sense that the writers whose stories made into this collection gave of their best.
Andrew Salomon
Let’s introduce you to the musicians who will be performing if we get the funding:
Ian Kennedy and Sarah Lloyd
Ian and Sarah are local musicians who delight in blending their voices in live unaccompanied harmony. Their repertoire covers traditional folk songs, including nursery rhymes and the occasional long ballad. Having warmed their vocal chords at The Goose is Out Singarounds, they now regularly sing floor spots at the Goose club nights in Nunhead, Tooting, Sharps and Islington folk clubs and as far afield as the Towersey Festival. In the last year, they have supported both Thomas McCarthy and the Copper Family for sell out nights at the Ivy House Community Pub in Nunhead. Earlier this year, Ian and Sarah performed as a duo at Cecil Sharp House for the launch of the EFDSS Yan Tan Tethera textiles and song project. They are also founder members of the Dulwich Folk Choir.
Shadrack Tye
Shadrack Tye have won critical acclaim from audiences and promoters alike for their performances at venues and festivals in London and around the country. All members of the same family, they perform folk arrangements and original songs bringing to both a multitude of musical influences.Tina and Paul have had long careers playing for top London orchestras and as music educationalists, while Sony artist Sam also sings with vocal jazz harmony group Vive, recently featured on both BBC television and radio.
I look forward to hearing some more of their stuff because it’s different and very, very interesting…..like it very much …
Mike Harding- Folk Show
In their first year out Shadrack Tye were invited to play in the Folk Rising series at Cecil Sharpe House and also performed at the Purbeck, Wessex and Folk Thing festivals.In 2013 they debuted debuted most successfully at the Rochester Sweeps and Broadstairs folk festivals, while this years firsts included Gate to Southwell and the London Folkfest at the Bedford, Balham as well as an invitation to return to the main stage at the Wessex Festival. More recently they have headlined at venues in London and the south, most notably at the famous Bush Hall in west London.
Last year they achieved multiple radio plays on the Tom Robinson Show, BBC Introducing Mixtape and Mike Harding Folk Show and in addition, after being heard live by the producer of the International Ronnie Scott’s Radio Show, they were given the opportunity to record their much-loved cover of “Big Yellow Taxi” for the Joni Mitchell Special aired in the UK, USA and Canada.
They were also the featured band for Spiral Earth’s “Introducing” article in November 2013.
Their self-released EP – “The Lovers Tale”, was described by Mike Harding as “damn fine” and they are currently creating their next album due for release in 2014.
Rosemary Lippard
Rosemary has been singing British Traditional Music in folk clubs for nearly 3 years now. She often sings unaccompanied but is also in folk duos, with consummate guitarist Tim Graham, and as Country Parish Music with Steven Collins, founder of the Owl Service and Stone Tape Recording. She has played at gigs for The Goose Is Out in South East London, Leigh On Sea Folk Festival, Oxford Folk Weekend, The Islington Folk Club (from whom she won the Trad2Mad award in 2012) and the Green Note Cafe, Camden supporting artists such as Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin, Ewan McLennan, Long Lankin, The Askew Sisters, and Jim Causley. Rosemary hopes to be doing a few gigs this September, with Tim Graham, around England and potentially Wales… and for there to be enough gigs to call it a tour…
Pepper and Shepherd
Pepper and Shepherd are James Pepper and Anthony Shepherd. They play intricate, honest folk music on mandolin, guitar, ukulele and harmonies. They formed in 2009 and both live in Peckham, South London.
Their second album, Kings on the Rye was released on last August Bank Holiday. A bittersweet collection of eight original folk songs, written, recorded and produced in a tiny flat on Peckham High Street in the spring of 2013.
(Help us get the festival to happen – contribute to our crowd fund – think of this as the chorus)
And finally, Summer All Year Long
Summer All Year Long (SAYL) is a group of friends who meet in Cherry’s living room to sing for the pleasure of it, and sometimes do this in public, usually in connection with an Arachne Press event.
Since January they have been ploughing through what seems like thousands of songs about or related to time, trying things out and rejecting them, or making up arrangements. Not all of them started out as folk songs, but they are now!
(Help us get the festival to happen – contribute to our crowd fund – We’ll be very grateful and there are loads of fun and interesting rewards…)
Big thanks to Sue & Nyge at The Goose is Out for suggestions and contact details
1/3 of the way to our target. Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far. Please do tell everyone you know about the campaign!
There will only ever be as many of these T-shirts as there are people ordering them from the crowd-fund campaign, for the excellent price of £16. The more people order them, the more money we make per T-shirt that can go towards the festival. This design is unique to these shirts, we won’t use it for the official merchandise for the festival, so when you wear it, you will be instantly identifiable as the special, generous person that you are! We are aiming at 20, but will definitely not make more than 50. We will get them printed after the end of the campaign, so they should be available by the end of September.
Arachne Press' badges are hand-made, using a little cutting machine
and a slightly bigger press,
some cunning design and lots of patience.
We've made three new badges
as rewards for supporters of our Crowd Funding campaign for the Solstice Shorts Festival.
There are only 50 of these ALTOGETHER so they might become collectors pieces.
The badges are available to you for a £5 donation to the crowd fund, although you could always give us more, or order all three designs... just a thought.
We are also offering our London Liar badges, usually only available at live events.
We only made 100 originally, but are making another 50 specially for the crowd funding, available for a very modest £2.50. These are mostly worn by authors, and actors who have read for us so you'll be in very select company.
Getting used to the quirks of Sponsume now, I thought it would be good to share pictures and reviews of the books on offer.
So here's a bit of info about Mosaic of Air, which s available SIGNED.
Originally published twenty years ago, the sixteen short stories in Mosaic of Air reflect and explore Lesbian life in the 1980s through myth, history, fantasy and science fiction. Delving into lecturing spiders, Helen of Troy, seaside libraries, computers that fall in love, murder and memory; but most of all humour, and a delight in all that women can be.
Cherry Potts writes with economy, punch, panache. Ellen Galford
Definitely about women in space, not the usual glossy tomboys of standard sf. Gwyneth Jones
Delightful … both a hilarious spoof of one-man-and-his computer myths such as 2001, a Space Odyssey; and a reflection on the limits of love and power. Zoë Fairbairns
The Stories vary widely in style, from fairy tales to Greek myths, from wild romance to 20th Century realism, but all contain surprises,and challenge or assumptions about who is, or was a lesbian. Those elderly ladies wheeling stiffly across the floor at a tea dance? Helen of Troy? That stuffy quiet, middle-aged school teacher? Your Mother? Across age and race and history we are challenged.Why do I assume, though I am a lesbian, that all my relatives are not?…This collection trips and twists and jars us into seeing afresh…We are legion and have always been so. After I’d read this book I wandered round Leeds and saw lesbians everywhere.‘The Lone Dyke’ Northern Star 14/1/1993
An entertaining tale of intrigue in space … the characters develop their own eccentric momentum and I was sorry to say goodbye to them when I reached the end.Lucy Whitman, Lesbian London
‘Mosaic of Air’ is an interesting parable featuring a proto-post-feminist lead, a computer programmer whose programme becomes sentient which surprisingly encases an abortion debate.
If you read nothing else in this book you must read ‘Arachne’s Daughters’; this takes apart a myth about Arachne (a human) challenging Athene (the goddess): ‘”Now, can you believe anyone would be so stupid?” ‘. It’s set as a speech given at a women-only meeting with a clever twist on why so many women shouldn’t fear spiders despite the extra legs and pincers ‘ “Forgot something though didn’t they?…[Men]… How many Cancers and Scorpios are in the audience?”
Sabotage Review
British Fantasy Society Review
The incredibly generous Ms Darby informs me I have misunderstood her, and she is offering a WHOLE workshop, ie TEN places.
So all you writers who want to wow a live audience, there are nine places left... put down you pens, clear your throats and learn how to really get your story across live - appropriate for the festival! An absolute bargain at £50 per person.
If you are wondering why Katy is your go to gal on this, she is a writer and actor, and founder of Liars' League, the world-spanning award-winning live literature event where actors read your stories - started when Katy heard one too many authors mumbling into their books. She knows her stuff, and will impart her wisdom to you!
