Paul Magrs's Blog, page 19

Impact at the Library Conference

Impact at the Library Conference

The head of the English department of a university I used to work at jumps up on the stage. ‘This is a huge conference! There are so many of you! All those tables! And look at you all! I tell you what, I’ve only been here an hour, and I’ve learned one thing. Librarians have really, really funky shoes.’There is a scattering of enthusiastic applause at this. Everyone’s had a complimentary cocktail in the bar and they’re glad he’s buttering them up. We’re all dressed up a bit for the conference’s first night dinner and yes, our shoes are very funky indeed.The head of the English department starts talking about his world-class university and how, with their wonderful Writing School and the MA in Childrens’ Writing they are ideally placed to be a stakeholder in this vibrant conference of children’s librarians, and how they are proud to be sponsors of this huge, marvelously diverse event.‘Is anyone here from Norwich?’ he cries out. ‘Yes?’ And then: ‘Anyone in from Edinburgh..? Yeah..?’ There are a few cries and he nods, smiling. ‘Well, if you live there you know what it’s like to be a UNESCO City of Literature, and now we’re going to be one too! Thanks to the efforts of all my colleagues and myself, we are a going to be a World City of World Literature!’Lots of clapping at this. I get out my notebook at the table. I might look like a mad person with a pen that lights up and my Elsa Lanchester notebook, but I want to write down some of the phrases he’s using. He’s got all the language and he knows how to use it. ‘Literature in this city is about the vibrancy of what’s happening now… and it’s very impactful… that very impact on people’s lives… literature and its diversity in this city of vibrant living… literature itself brings diverse vibrancy into people’s lives and there has been important research at our very vibrant university about that very thing…’He describes all the wonderful trips he’s made to other universities in this country and abroad, talking about just these topics, spreading his impact. It’s amazing, he says, to feel connected to the world of literature like this, especially when you come from a city of world literature status. It’s bringing greatly added value to the world, and very impactful.Then he explains that the plasma screen behind him has been scrolling through pictures of local writers – living and dead – with little blurbs about them. ‘And several of them are here tonight, at our wonderfully diverse conference, at your very tables. They are here to talk to you all over dinner about their writing and the impact that this diverse and vibrant city has had on their work.’Then he reads out each writer’s name and pauses when they stand and wave their arms in the air and everyone claps a bit. When it comes to my turn he says, ‘And my old office-mate, Paul Magrs.’ I stand up, blushing of course, and everyone claps. I do not wave my arms. I swig my wine and narrow my eyes at him and sit down. Then we all have to clap the particular woman in the English department who ‘does such great work on the outreach programme.’ When they all clap her I could scream. Back when I worked at that uni, between 2004 and 2011 every single staff meeting and public event used to feature a moment when the head of department (this one and his predecessor) would say: ‘Let’s all clap her for all the wonderful work she’s been doing on the outreach programme.’ I could never work out why she always needed thanking so much. ‘How long have we been running our children’s writing course and events?’ the head of the department calls out to her.‘Ten years!’ she cries back. ‘Whew!’ and everyone claps.Yes, I think. I know it’s ten years, but it was me whose idea it was and it was me who started it and taught it at the beginning. Dreadful soup is delivered to the vegetarians while the clapping and the talking is going on. The woman next to me is a veggie. On her lanyard she has not only a printed name badge, but another card that says ‘Vegetable’ in large black letters. She holds it aloft, proudly, as the waitresses come round with their bowls of dreadful soup.But when the terrines of pressed ham and peas come round I start wishing that I was a vegetable, too.At least the head of the department has stopped talking. He has whipped them into a frenzy of diverse vibrancy and stepped down off the stage and gone to get his dinner.There are two bottles of wine and most of the ladies round our table want white. Good. There’s only me and the nice woman with the vegetable tag who want red. ‘Do you get out much to things like this?’ I ask them.‘No! Once a year! This is our trip out! This is our one chance to have fun and see other people doing the same kind of job…’The woman next to her adds, ‘No one talks to you when you’re a school librarian. It’s only when you come to this conference and meet other ones…’They’re a good talky bunch. We have almost two hours in each other’s company and we find that we’re all about the same age. We were all the last kids to do O levels. We all have interesting and clashing and noisy ideas about education and exams and reading and universities and courses and politics and we have a good old blether.The woman from the outreach programme yomps past happily at one point and gives me a big grin. And – this isn’t like me at all – I scowl at her. By the time dessert comes they’ve got two people reading and performing folk tales up on the stage. Tepid laughter follows a couple of corny gags. One of the writers cries out: ‘It’s meant to be funny, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t laugh – at least there’s still a point to our stories!’ Yes, I think. At least you have a point to your stories.I text Jeremy and my lovely pals who are off having a curry in Rusholme. ‘I hate it here! I haven’t even got a name badge! Buy wine! Have it ready when I get home!’ And then I get up and shake the hands of all the good librarians who’ve talked to me this evening and distracted me from loathing my whole self and my useless career with their very interesting chat.And so I hurry out of the ballroom, out through the bookshop, down a corridor, get a bit lost, find the lift and totter out into the Piccadilly night.

The Coming of the Martians

On our drive up to Scotland we listened to Sherwood Sound's new audio adaptation of War of the Worlds, 'The Coming of the Martians.' It's dark and scary and has just the right ratio of HUGE crashing, blaring noise with tense silence and almost whispered dialogue.
I really loved it because it feels brave: the way in which things just happen and there's no crude attempt at over-explaining everything to the listener. When our hero is hiding behind a door, hearing his fellow-prisoner being dragged away and eaten by a Martian, we just have to imagine what's going in as we listen to the crunching and slurping and sobbing. And after almost wordless scenes like this, soon enough we hear through the dialogue what's been happening, and we get a few more details. It's the same with describing the appearance of the Martians themselves, and their tripod machines - the details aren't shoe-horned awkwardly in. We are invited to imagine first... and that's important, I think.
So, overall, this feels very much like we're eavesdropping on an alien invasion of Edwardian England. It is submersive: plopping us down in the middle of the Common, in the drawing rooms and the ruined London streets and the catacombs under the earth. It does have its moments of overdone bombast in the music and sound effects, but that's all to the good, I think - these are balanced by the very quiet moments which rely simply on the language and the actors, as in the late scene when we are told how the Martians are lying dead in their machines with the birds pecking at them.
It's plain to see this is a labour of love and I liked it very much. I'm glad I pre-ordered it and saved it for a good long journey. It'll be something - like a handful of other audio dramas - that feels rich enough to return to for repeated listens.

Taking Stock of the Summer

Back home after a few days away. Glad to be home to do my own thing, and be in my study with my cat and do work that pleases me. I've been taking stock of the summer and thinking about three months of being busy with all kinds of things. The events that were good and worthwhile were small, people-centred, community-based and the product of people who cared. The things I went to that were awful were big and corporate and featured show-offs trotting out some line about their own amazing success. There were more of the former (the Huddersfield school reading, Levy Pride, teaching at Moniack, the Vworp convention, the Gay Men's Writing Group, the Jumble Trail, the children's part of the Edinburgh book festival) and mercifully fewer of the latter (Manchester Pride and the MMU contribution to the Libraries conference.) I will endeavour to cut down on my visits to places where there are blowhards spouting jargon and bigging themselves up and I want to carry on being around people who are doing real stuff and making art and work that they care about.

The Novel Inside You - available for pre-order

Look what's available for pre-order from Snowbooks! 

My book on writing, reading and all kinds of creativity -   
'The Novel Inside You.' 

Looks like a May 1st publication date! x

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Novel-Inside-You-Paul-Magrs-ebook/dp/B07H16WH4B/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537873953&sr=1-14&keywords=magrs

Impact and vibrancy and impact and impact!

Highlights from the notes I took listening gobsmacked to the dinner speeches on Saturday at that conference where I felt so demoralised and silly for even turning up to be a 'special guest'...
"‘Literature in this city is about the vibrancy of what’s happening now… and it’s very impactful… that very impact on people’s lives… literature and its diversity in this city of vibrant living… literature itself brings diverse vibrancy into people’s lives and there has been important research at our very vibrant university about that very thing…’
He describes all the wonderful trips he’s made to other universities in this country and abroad, talking about just these topics, spreading his impact. It’s amazing, he says, to feel connected to the world of literature like this, especially when you come from a city of world literature status. It’s bringing greatly added value to the world, and very impactful."

Fester Cat's Poem

I met someone yesterday who's just lost his beloved cat. I've dug this poem I wrote five years ago out of my files in case it might help.



Fester Cat’s Poem


I want you to remember things. These days of ours
Because I’ll only be part of
the storyI know your human lives are generally longer.
And you had all that life beforehand

And I was twelve when we met up…And you’ll have more afterwards, I hope
And maybe even…
Other cats..!

There might be othersI don’t know

I can’t imagine the futureBut I want you to remember this –
These long days together.
And don’t ever forget me?
Keep me separate
And special.

The human mind is bigger – with More room
The cat mind seems smaller
But I won’t forget
I would never forget any of this.
All your life has been goodbyesI really didn’t want to be another.
I tried my very hardest to stay.
I weighed myself down with all I could eat
I was digging my claws in as hard as I could
But I got lighter
And lighter

Thanks for keeping me goingThanks for keeping all my stuff
Going along…
And one day, if you see me Through the leaves,
On the fence,
Up the magnolia tree
I can’t promise to be there
I probably can’t come running anymore

But I did, didn’t I?I came running for you
Like no one else ever did.

I want you to remember things. These days of ours

My Sketchbook from Manchester Pride, 2018

He's Done Ever So Well For Himself by Justin David

My Manchester Pride weekend reading consisted of this new novel by Justin David, 'He's Done Ever So Well for Himself.' It comes from a very new, small press and it's exactly the kind of rollicking gay bildungsroman that I needed to read. It feels a bit like going back to my roots - to gay novels, the 1990s and a kind of freewheeling narrative hedonism.
The author and protagonist are just a bit younger than I am, and through them I got to revisit recent decades and some almost-parallel adventures. It's a novel that begins with Grandma's wool bag and the stultefying fug of a close-knit family and takes us through some really hair-raising encounters with wacked-out cults, drugs and older men. There's such a good eye for detail and ear for dialogue at work, and a voice that I just wanted to carry on reading. Highly recommended and it's incredibly, ludicrously cheap on Kindle just now. But it's probably something I want to buy again, in a proper copy, just to have on the shelf to revisit.

Lindsay Kemp

Lindsay Kemp

I was sad when the all clear soundedI’d been giving my all as the bombs were dropping,Doing my repertoire of famous ladiesIn the air raid shelter with the street agogAnd then suddenlyMy audience was gone.
But when the red velvet curtains of Sunderland EmpireFlew open and there were the fairies in cheap make-upAnd there were the villainous dames decked in flowersI thought: here’s my world.
I danced on the ferry from North to South ShieldsAll dressed in crepe I’d cut myselfI danced on the sands under Marsden rockIn a kimono brought home too late for my sisterI danced for her memory in the grotto with my raincoat Turned inside out, to show the flashy silk lining.
South Shields was all so beautiful to me,Even the wrecked hulls beached at Tyne Dock,Where I played and made up characters to be.
Now I’m in Livorno, Dancing still in paint and feathersA little stiff, maybeBut I believe to this day that dancing isThe quickest way to get to heaven.
I watch the ferries coming home And it looks just like my own homeI fancy it could even be South ShieldsAnd me a boy, which I’d quite like to be again,Having been everything else, And even thoughI never like to do anything twice.

With Paul McGann at 'Vworp' in Manchester

On Sunday 9th September in Manchester, I'll be on a panel with Paul McGann at 'Vworp!', which is going to be a brilliant celebration of Doctor Who. I've never actually met Mr McGann, but i've written for his Doctor quite a lot over the years. That very weekend marks precisely twenty years since 'The Scarlet Empress' was published, and if we're lucky... there might well be a reading...

http://www.vworpcon.com/