Four TSFGers appear in the forthcoming Book of Birmingham – current members Alan Beard and Sibyl Ruth, ex member Kit de Waal and the late and much missed Joel Lane. The editor Kavita Bhanot is also an ex member. The book is being launched on Friday 5th October 2018 at the Conservatoire, Birmingham at 6pm. More here.

Mantle Lane Press have taken Garrie’s short story, Electricity, to be included in a wonderful anthology that focuses on outsiders. The collection is entitled Songs for the Elephant Man. They’re also going to publish a long short story of his called ‘Submerged’. More news on this soon.
On the performance front, he’ll be reading a short story as part of a Room 204 sharing session at the Birmingham Literature Festival on Sat 6 Oct, 10am, at Birmingham Rep and the ticket price includes a tea/coffee and a pastry. Join him and other writers like Jane Campion Hoye, Lisa Blower and Amarjit Nar and meet other writers and readers!

He is also appearing at a ‘Country Voices’ event, on Saturday 15 December, 2:30-4pm. It’s at the Meadow Inn, a charming venue above the River Severn in Ironbridge.

You’ll find more out about Garrie at his website.

Kit’s follow up to the wildly successful ‘My Name is Leon’, ‘The Trick to Time’ was praised on its recent release and made it on to the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018. Fingers crossed she wins it!

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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.’