shortsore character
online gathering
There's no charge for taking part, so please make a donation, no matter how large, to The Trussell Trust. They organise food banks.
Sore chest, or catarrh?
(anag. 9,9)
Saturday 11th September 7:30pm
This week’s gathering is anagrammatical, made up of all the right contributors, but not necessarily in the right order.
We’ll have new combinations of brilliance from stalwart stablemates Helen Ottaway, Kevin Boniface, Paulette Jonguitud, Susanna Crossman, our swami-in-residence David 'Yoga Dave' Holzer and this week’s featured authors Venetia Welby and Roz Kaveney. Join us for this one-off event, and look out for shortarse actor Cher (9,9)
Programme
1. Introduction
2. Helen Ottaway’s Dedications introduced by the
composer
3. Letter from Mexico City by Paulette Jonguitud
4. Letter from Dinan by Susanna Crossman
5. Letter from Auckland by Oscar Mardell
6. Letter from Huddersfield by Kevin Boniface
Interval
7. Venetia Welby on her new novel Dreamtime (published
by Salt on 23 Sept)
Order from the publisher here:
https://www.saltpublishing.com/products/dreamtime-9781784632410
8. Roz Kaveney on her Selected Poems (2009-2021)
https://www.bookdepository.com/Selected-Poems-Roz-Kaveney/9781916356177
Ballads: Nightsongs and Neckverses:
https://sadpresspoetry.com/our-books/
9. David Holzer on strong medication
10. Next week’s gathering
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Blest as meat (9)
A bone knife, Vic! (5, 8) Kevin Boniface is an artist, writer and postman based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Over the years his work has taken the form of zines, exhibitions, artists’ books, short films and live performances. He is the author of Round About Town, published by Uniformbooks. kevinboniface.co.uk
Covid Lard Lad (5, 7) David Collard is a pandemic superhero and the man behind Cher’s hot arse carrot
O! Hard lez vid (5, 6) David Holzer a dedicated yogi, author, blogger and journalist. He founded YogaWriters and has taught workshops in yoga for writers in Mallorca, where he lives.
EU? Let Jung do it up, ta! (8, 9) Paulette Jonguitud ives in Mexico City. She is the author of Mildew (CB editions) and Algunas margaritas y sus fantasmas. https://paulettejonguitud.com
A very Kenzo! (3, 7) Roz Kaveney is a British writer, critic, and poet, best known for her critical works about pop culture and for being a core member of the Midnight Rose collective.[1][2] Kaveney's works include fiction and non-fiction, poetry, reviewing, and editing.[3]
Slam red coral (5, 7) Oscar Mardell is a teacher and writer originally from South Wales, but currently living in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a frequent contributor to 3:AM Magazine, and poet of the month at The Inquisitive Eater. He is the author of Rex Tremendae - a ghost story set in the rubble of the Blitz, and Housing Haunted Housing - a collection of poems about Brutalist architecture, published in June 2020 by the Manchester indie press deathsofworkerswhilstbuildingskscrapers. They also public his latest collection Great Works (2021)
M - raj goon? (1,1,6) lives and works on a farm in the Scottish Borders . He is the author of six poetry volumes, each of which is a single book-length work, with subjects ranging from ancient and modern British warfare to northern folkloric cultures and quantum physical theory. His first book Natural Mechanical (CB editions 2009) won the Aldeburgh First Poetry Prize and was followed by Long Cuts (CB editions, 2011) At Maldon (CB editions, 2013) In Casting Off (HappenStance Press, 2015) Interference Pattern (Jonathan Cape, 2016) and Assurances (Jonathan Cape, 2018), which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and won the Costa Poetry Award. His most recent work, The Martian's Regress (Jonathan Cape, 2020), is set in the far future. It considers "what humans become when they lose their humanity," and explores "what a fragile environment eventually makes of those who persist in tampering with it." It was shortlisted for the 2020 T. S. Eliot Prize. His altopian novel Pupa is published this month by Henningham Family Press
Not the ale way (5, 7) Helen Ottaway is a composer and sound artist. She is lead artist with Artmusic, creating and producing collaborative, site-specific art work. She has written for many forces from string quartet to choir and orchestra and has recently started to include found sound in her work. Her writing for hand-punched and hand-wound musical box began during an artist’s residency in Sri Lanka in 2017. Back in the UK she continues to compose for and perform on the instrument. She is Carthorse Orchestra’s composer-in-reticence. www.artmusic.org.uk https://helenottaway.bandcamp.com
A v. bitey eel, Wyn (7, 5) Venetia Welby is a writer and journalist who has lived and worked on four continents. Her debut novel Mother of Darkness was published by Quartet in 2017 and her essays and short fiction have appeared in The London Magazine, Review 31 and anthologies Garden Among Fires and Trauma, among others. She lives in London with her husband, son and Bengal cat. Find out more at www.venetiawelby.com or follow Venetia on Twitter @venwelby or Instagram @vvwelby for updates
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A regular highlight of the last six months of Carthorse Orchestra has been a performance of the latest section of ‘Remembering Leema’, an epic modernist poem by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo. Next Saturday (September 18th) we arrive at the seventh and final section, and to mark the occasion Aea (with the assistance of Samuel Skoog) will perform the poem in full. This will be a combination of performance, theatre and technology, and an attempt at conceiving a contemporary form of mythological oration. It’s an invitation-only webinar, so brace yourselves for a new format . . .