7th March 2016
A great BookJam, which included a special Bowie Tribute, as well as readings from Ben Moor, Martin Millar, Douglas Thorp, Hestia Peppe, Kevin Cummins, Nathalie Dubruel, Christian Patracchini, Richard Skinner, Liz Zumin, Gigi Robinson, Stefan Clarke and Caroline Paterria.
Ben Moor is an actor and writer. Screen appearances include The IT Crowd, Casanova and the forthcoming A Monster Calls. Three of his solo theatre shows were published as short stories in More Trees to Climb (Portobello, 2009). His most recent piece Each of Us toured the UK and Italy after premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013. He is the creator of the series Elastic Planet and Undone for BBC Radio and his writing has appeared in The Idler, The Guardian Guide and Wired.
Martin Millar, a Scottish author, living in London. He is the author of such novels as Lonely Werewolf Girl, The Good Fairies of New York, and Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me. He also wrote the Thraxas series under the name of Martin Scott, for which he won the World Fantasy Award in 2000.
http://www.martinmillar.com
Douglas John Thorp writes approximately 500 words a week from a small room in South East London and thinks that’s about right. He was in a band in the 90s, restores historic buildings from time to time and is kind to animals. Amateur of Life and death is his first book and at the current rate, probably his last. Mostly witty, half-confessional, self- deprecating and somewhat delusional, Amateur of Life and death is a collection of 40 posts taken from Idle Eye’s weekly blog and beautifully illustrated by 20 contemporary artists. In his own words, “It is a paean to hard work, self-belief and New Zealand Marlborough Pinot Noir. It also serves as a template for young people to learn from and better themselves in their own life endeavours”. Amateur of Life and death was published by Ward 10 Books following a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for printing. The first edition will be a limited run of 1000 hardbacks signed by the author.
https://theidleeye.wordpress.com
Ian Curtis, Joy Division, 1978
Kevin Cummins was born within crying distance of Maine Road in Withington Hospital. His first game at Maine Road was a 3-1 victory over Leicester on 19 August 1961. Since then he has followed City over land and sea (and Stretford) for over 45 years. The rest of his time is spent earning a living as one of the world’s most venerated music and portrait photographers. After studying photography he embarked on a career that was to encompass a wide range of photographic work. The burgeoning punk scene in Manchester dominated his early work and he quickly became one of the premier documentary photographers of the era.
Kevin was instrumental in establishing City Life, Manchester’s ‘what’s on’ guide and was a founding contributor to The Face, the influential style magazine where he won an award for Magazine Cover of the Year. | http://www.kevincummins.co.uk
Stefan Clarke has had many careers. From a trainee ship broker, painter and decorator, carpenter, site manager and publican. Poetry was always his first love. He started to write his own poetry after a series of personal tragedies. He did performance poetry with the singer Rumer until she became famous and moved to the States. He then realised that there was no money in poetry, so he decided to go commercial and write a book.
This is his first book. It is called Love and Blood and the State of Grace. It is based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet and it is mainly a prequel to the play set in modern times.
Richard Skinner is the author of three novels, all published by Faber & Faber, three books of non-fiction and two poetry collections. His work has been nominated for prizes and is published in seven languages. Richard is Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy and he also runs Vanguard Readings and its publishing arm Vanguard Editions.
http://richardskinner.weebly.com
Hestia Peppe is an artist and writer who lives and works in South London. She writes a blog series and reviews experimental fiction for online literary magazine Full Stop.
www.peepsgame.net
Christian Patracchini is an artist, writer and curator. His performances have been featured in exhibitions and festivals in the UK, Europe and South America. He is the founder of flows http://wp-flows.tumblr.com/ a series of events presenting a platform which aims at developing the text-action association for both emerging and established artists and writers. http://www.christianpatracchini.com | http://reinvolvement.tumblr.com
Liz Zumin has presented experimental works varying from performance, video, sound, drawing and text based work at various exhibitions and festivals both in the UK and abroad. She is currently developing a poetic dialogue of gesture considering states of absence and transformation and the subtle movements that take place between presence and non being.
Nathalie Dubruel is a sculptor and occasional writer with a heavy reading habit.
MG Robinson brings us Sledge: The soul of Notting Hill. The life and times of the very first Rasta man of Notting Hill – in his own words. A generation of musical rebels whose mission was to spread the word of the Rastafari faith with music as their weapon.
Sledge: the soul of Notting Hill
C D ROSS is writing her first novel. She enjoyed a wild and wonderful early adulthood travelling the world on very little money and every whim. Now settled in East London with her husband and two children, she works in education where she is fascinated and a little shocked by the insanity of the world in which London’s teenagers are growing up. Her observations thereof inspired her to write Gangland.
