Warwick Books are hosting a Cinnamon Press reading by Nigel Hutchinson, Connie Ramsay Bott and Marg Roberts on Thursday, 15th March at 7.00pm. Tickets in advance can be bought from Warwick Books.
If you live in the area please support local writers published by an independent publisher and hosted by an independent book shop.

Find out more about Marg here: http://www.margroberts.co.uk/

Joel, who died in 2013, continues to have his work published in new collections, and this one from Dreampress looks particularly lovely:

(pic: Nicholas Royle).

‘The Mechanics’ Institute Review is Birkbeck’s (University of London) annual anthology of short fiction by emerging and established writers from across the UK.
With 14 issues published to date, The Mechanics’ aims to champion the short story as an art form, promoting diversity and opportunity for all while publishing new work of the highest possible standard. ‘

Below is a picture of Beard reading from his story ‘At Gloucester Docks’ at the Birmingham launch of the anthology. (pic: Yasmin Ali).

Beard’s flash ‘Spy Film’ is published in the recent edition of ‘Here Comes Everyone‘ Toys and Games issue. He also had a flash ‘Ladybird’ published on the Reflex Fiction site.

June 2017.

Polly has a new story ‘A Miracle of Rare Device’ in the collection ‘Listening with Non-Human Others’. The book is an ‘extensively illustrated collection of essays, stories, songs, drawings, and colour photographs explores creative ways of listening with the materials, energies and vitality of non-human life.’

Available to buy or as a free download here: http://www.authorityresearch.net/essay-collection-listening-with-non-human-others.html

Charlie has a story in this anthology of ‘weird fiction’, the seventh in a series that Peter Straub describes as: ‘a smart, soulful, illuminating investigation of the many forms and tactics available to those writers involved in one of our moment’s most interesting and necessary projects, that of opening up horror literature to every sort of formal interrogation. It is a beautiful and courageous series.’

Funny Bone: Flashing for Comic Relief is out today (23/3/17). Flash fictions are stories under 1,000 words, and are sometimes called short shorts. A fantastic line up of authors including Roddy Doyle, Bernard McLaverty and Lydia Davis, and all for a good cause.

The Doorstep Child is Annie Murray’s 21st Birmingham book and a sequel to War Babies and Now the War is Over. Out April 6th.

Annie has also started to write under another name – Abi Oliver, and Abi’s first book is also out in April. A New Map of Love is set over the hot summer of 1964. Country antique dealer George Baxter is newly widowed and looking for love.

‘A collection of dark, urban tales: the pros and cons of stealing a pensioner, a mothers prison visit, incipient love and roller skating, the guilt of a brothers death, and a past love burnt out by rioting. Stories that deal with loss, longing and hope.

Garrie Fletcher writes about the gaps between lives, the pauses between stations and the static hiss of the city. The moments he captures are fleeting and easily missed, but resonate like a steel string plucked above a pickup, distorted and electric.’

Launch in Leicester March 11th   Order it here.