Cherry Potts's Blog, page 9
March 20, 2015
The Wetland Way at Liars’ League HK
Jeanne Lambin. reading The Wetland Way for Hunter & Prey at Liars’ League Hong Kong. The sound isn’t great but still…
March 3, 2015
More From Cut a Long Story
More stories up on Cut a Long Story…
Starkridge: Don’t Mess with Mountains…
Glory, or Hope: two goddesses meet on a beach…
Prairie Rain: a flash fiction set on a porch near the town of Normal, Illinois
Déjà Vû: A radical retelling – Sleeping Beauty and Snow White seen through the prism of The Stepford Wives
Eye of the Beholder: Bill keeps seeing the same woman – at least, he thinks it’s the same woman… a ghost story set in Brockley.
Judges: What really happened to Jael and Sisera – not quite how it’s told in The Song of Deborah.
February 25, 2015
Cutting a Long Story – update
Some of the stories that were originally published in Tales Told Before Cockcrow are up on Cut a Long Story. Pleasingly quick. Buy them now!! (thank you).
All Hallows
The Red Dress
Tales Told Before Cockcrow
The She-Lord and her Tailor
and (not in Tales…) We Apologise for the Delay (complete with spelling mistake in the title – my fault – dizzy fingers.
More to follow.
Reach them through my page on the Cut a Long Story site.
Hear me read from one of these, and several others 7pm tomorrow, Thursday 26th February, at Richmond Lending Library, Little Green, TW9 1QL £2 which includes refreshments (booking in advance not essential but POSSIBLE here)
I still need a good image for several stories… offers of assistance anyone?
Cover image for Tales Told Before Cockcrow
February 22, 2015
Cutting a Long Story Short
NAWE’s new website ‘Cut a Long Story‘ is finally live, and you can or will soon be able to find several of my stories on there to buy as single story ebooks. The fastest way to find my stuff is via my profile page. I’ve only got one story up at the moment, but I have loaded some others from Tales told before Cockcrow, which would otherwise be out of print, and should be live within a fortnight.
I’ve spotted some Arachne Press friends authors and poets, on there too, it’s early days but there are some interesting stories to be had.
What is slowing me up is the need for a really good image to go with the story – that I have permission to use. I’ve used my own photographs (some manipulated) for the one’s I’ve loaded but I’m a bit stuck. Any arty folk out there want to help out? All that’s on offer is gratitude and a credit! I need an illustration for The Knight Who Didn’t, and Tante Rouge in particular, and possible Glory, or Hope You can find extracts from these here. Get in touch if you are interested in coming up with a ‘cover’ image for any of them!
February 10, 2015
Celebrate 800 years of Magna Carta in song
Lester Simpson
of Coope Boyes & Simpson
in celebrating
800 years of Magna Carta
with
Songs of Liberty
A Folk Song Workshop
St Hilda’s Church HallCourtrai Road
London SE23 1NL
Saturday 18th April 2015 12:45- 5:15
£25
Tickets available here advance booking essential
February 1, 2015
A busy February: LGBT History Month and a whole lot of Love
February is a busy month for me, readings, publications, A’s birthday…
Just published
my story Neutral Ground is just published in international anthology 52 :Loves – a story for every week of the year, all about Love, but not necessarily how you’d think. Kindle only at the moment but you never know.
On Thursday 5th at 7:45 in my capacity as publisher, I’m ‘compering’ a reading of Devilskein & Dearlove by at Lewisham Library 199 Lewisham High Street SE13 6LG more details over on the Arachne Press Website.
On February 23rd, my story The Wetland Way will be read at Liars’ League Hong Kong (without me, it’s too far to go!)
LGBT History Month
Thursday 12th I’m at North Kensington Library, 108 Ladbroke Grove, W11 1PZ
6-7:30 pm
with VA Fearon where we will each be reading from our books, and interviewing each other about coming out as writers…
Shouting about Lesbian Literature – coming out as a lesbian writer.
Cherry Potts first collection of lesbian short stories, Mosaic of Air was published over 20 years ago, and she now owns her own independent publishing house, Arachne Press.
V. A. Fearon’s first self-published crime thriller, The Girl with the Treasure Chest came out last year.
What has changed for the Lesbian author in the interim? What has the recent surge of self and indie publishing done for lesbian literature (and what is it anyway)?
Two personal approaches, with readings.
Thursday 26th I’m at Richmond Lending Library, Little Green, Richmond, TW9 1QL at 7pm doing readings and talking about writing and publishing.
Join writer and publisher Cherry Potts for an evening of readings and informal discussion of Lesbian & Gay writing with a whirl through anything from myth, to science fiction. Cherry will read from her own work and others published by her award-winning publishing house, Arachne Press.
October 29, 2014
The What Else in the Water read at Liars’ League Leicester
Eleni is reluctantly accompanying her cousin Jane on a cold morning walk when they find something surprising in the river
read by Sophie Talbot
follow the link toLiars’League Leicester
October 21, 2014
Review of Root: New Stories from North East Writers
My review from The Short Review of short story anthology ‘Root’
Originally posted on The Short Review:
ROOT: New Stories from North East Writers
Edited by Kitty Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s third anthology for Iron Press.
Iron Press, 2013
Reviewed by Cherry Potts
“‘… Shame you can’t find a good solid man,’ Nan said.
‘You make blokes sound like tower-blocks,’ Mam said.”
It is no accident that the cover of this book has a tall building on it. The built environment plays a strong role in several of the stories, as does “The Neighbour”, but despite that there is a heavy dose of the fantastic in this anthology, with child mediums, houses which reject their owners, would-be suicides turning into birds, and casual sidestepping of issues such as a probable murder.
The most fun had is in Angela Readman’s There’s a Woman Works Down the Chip Shop, in which a child interprets her mother’s burgeoning lesbian identity as her being possessed by the spirit of Elvis. It is a…
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Review of The Woman Who Loved the Moon and other stories
My review from The Short Review, of Elizabeth A Lynn’s ‘The Woman Who Loved the Moon’.
Originally posted on The Short Review:
The Woman Who Loved the Moon and other stories
by Elizabeth A. Lynn
Berkley Fantasy (Now part of Penguin US), 1981
Reviewed by Cherry Potts
“I need your skills, and your strength. I need your knowledge of men. I need your guile, my traitor, and your deceit” (Wizard’s Domain)
I first read this collection when it was originally published back in 1981, an important year for me, coming out and on the lookout for (to be honest, any) books that were positive about lesbians. As a convinced fantasy enthusiast I fell on the work of Elizabeth A Lynn with delight. Thirty plus years later (long enough to have forgotten all but the general shape of the stories with the exception of the title story which haunted me for years), these stories have worn well, although I can see their faults more. Lynn does herself no favours…
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Review of Bones of an Inland Sea by Mary Akers
My Review of Mary Akers magnificent collection ‘Bones of an Inland Sea.’ One of those ‘I wish I could do that’ books.
Originally posted on The Short Review:
Bones of an Inland Sea
by Mary Akers
Press 53, 2013
Reviewed by Cherry Potts
“ Looking back, he sees it now. Twirling was Dani’s escape, and Rosie a twirler, too, with him. Twins, they twirled together. Two as one, coltish, early…Holding hands to spin together, faster, faster. Tandem spinning. Spinning till your hands broke apart and you staggered around, drunk with the swirl in your ears. “
This is a cracking collection, by turns lyrical, gritty, warm, funny, frightening and eccentric. Mary Akers‘ imagination is given full flight, from a historical story with just the suggestion of a ghost (The House of Refuge), through to a devastated future world of plagues and cults (Waste Island), by way of marital infidelity (Bones of an Inland Sea), murder (Viewing Medusa) and sex change (What Lies Beneath). Through it all flows the…
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