Kerry Hudson's Blog, page 12

green carnations in the sun

First things first…Tony Hogan is only on the bloody Green Carnation Prize shortlist. It is a strange but lovely thing getting news like that in the scorching heat of Laos and I couldn’t be happier. There are some very fancy authors on the list and I’m honoured to rub shoulders with them for a wee while. Thank you very much Green Carnation Prize…I wear it with pride.  

Next things next...I’ve been away for a week now. Here are my best things: Trying to meet a deadline while all out of whack with normal hours, sitting in the deserted hotel canteen by the pool, typing into the wee hours, celebrating with a Chang bought from reception when I was done // riding Bangkok public buses, windows open to catch the heat and colour and smells…on every journey someone showed me a small kindness // the train journey to Laos - an overnight sleeper and then going to the dining car to watch morning bloom over the Thai countryside, listening to Adrian Crowley, my hand stretched out of the window so my fingers could caught the breeze // that in Laos you share the pavement with stray dogs and kittens, lizards and frogs // Vientiane isn’t so much a 1 horse capital as a 3 horse one but it is charmingly frozen in time, so gracious and very gentle // swimming laps in the 1930’s public pool and then falling asleep on a rickety wooden longer to the sounds of children laughing // sitting in a tiny little hut down a backstreet, while a fire boiled water fills little shack with lemongrass, lime leaf and mint scented steam, then going outside, drinking some nut tea and petting one of the many waggish stray dogs lying around the courtyard… 

In short…this has been a wonderful week. Still, I can’t go on like this, the kids need new shoes (by which I mean, I need to start writing). Today I’m cycling up to the Vietnamese Embassy and collecting my single entry, 3 month visa. Tonight I’m catching a 24 hour sleeper bus to Hanoi (yes, that’s 2 and 4 together…24 of your earth hours on a bus probably only a little less vintage than the Laos one below) then I need to find a room to rent, a bicycle to buy and get stuck into the writing good and proper. I can’t bloody wait…did I mention I was bad at being on holiday? 

See you in Vietnam you lovely lot.

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

Here I sit at Heathrow Terminal 4. Off I go back to Vietnam (via Thailand and Laos) to Make Things Up until next Spring. It’s bitter-sweet journey as I’ll miss so much about my London life though I’m excited to return to my Hanoi one.

My last supper? Mushroom soup with extra Panda (a stowaway gift from my godson). See you in Bangkok lovely folks…

i am unusually quiet - you lot should make the most of it

Hello you lot. I am sorry I’m so quiet…I am about to fly off to Vietnam for six months, I am wrapping up things in the day-job (or it is wrapping me up, one of the two) and I’m struggling to comprehend how my worldly possessions can equate to 120 books, 73 pairs of laddered tights and a plastic ring I got free in a packet of Japanese sweets…anyway! There’s also lovely writerly stuff:

Last Thursday I did a session of the Bristol Festival of Literature with Richard Beard, Director of the National Academy of Writing. I was talking process and getting the words on the page and raising your hand to say I have a story too. It was far and away one of my favourite ever events thanks to Richard, the lovely Festival organisers and the incredibly engaged and warm audience. I left incredibly inspired and humbled (and full of stout).  

Tomorrow I’ll only be allowed live on BBC radio. Anyone who’s ever been to one my (highly profane and verbally impulsive (not impulsive in a good way)) readings will know I am likely to say something very daft indeed. I’ll be on BBC Oxford drive time tomorrow between about 5.45 and 6pm. It’s live. I will almost definitely accidentally swear.

And I’ll be doing BBC Oxford because I’m doing events in the lovely city on Tuesday evening. I’ll start with a life writing workshop to Crisis members (who use the Old Fire Station for their classes) and then I’ll be at the frankly magnificent Short Stories Aloud with the hugely talented Tania Hershman at 7.30. Come, do come - you won’t even have to hear me read…they have proper actors…but you will have to listen to my verbally impulsive and possibly profane answers to questions.

Then…I’m off to do this….(maybe not exactly in this period fashion admittedly)

 

Bottom shaking good news

I’m actually a little bashful to be back on here with yet more bloody wonderful news. I’m sorry, I’m sure something shit will happen soon and in the meantime, for those who rightly think too many good things have occurred for me lately, console yourself that I have tightest most inflexible hamstrings on the planet.*

So I am not so embarrassed to tell you more good news not to tell you that Tony Hogan’s been longlisted (alongside some pretty swanky company - take a look below) for the Green Carnation Prize though. I should probably be too embarrassed to tell you this caused me to do a little bum shaking dance around my bedroom** but here I am doing so anyway. Chuffed, so chuffed!

*I know, it’s not much consolation but it’s all I’ve got at the minute. 

** Crappy hamstrings happily do not impede this (only the associated high-kicks)

Mais oui & nhưng tất nhiên

Remember I said I was feeling very lucky indeed last post? Well I continue to feel giddily and enormously grateful for all the Good Things that have come to me this year. 

Last year wasn’t bad either though - remember this time last year I ran away to join the jockeys at the Sultan of Oman’s Chateau in Paris? I ate cake and wandered the beautiful city streets and declared I would one day have the chic wardrobe and jutting collarbone of a true Parisian? Well, that didn’t happen…something better did…Tony Hogan is going to be published in 2013 in France by the wonderful Editions Philippe Rey. The publish one of my all time favourites Joyce Carol Oates. I am absolutely cock-a-hoop.

AND this is as good a time as any to say in five weeks I am journeying back to my beloved Vietnam to be a writer proper for about six months. I’ve not been since I wrote Tony Hogan there, rode bicycles and battled cockroaches, fell in love with everything inside the long thin country’s borders and gorged my body weight in Bun Cha and drip-coffee. I wrote a wee story about that here. This time I’m going to: read, write, ride bicycles and battle cockroaches, fall in love anew and gorge myself on bun-cha, drip coffee and the heady delights of Hanoi. 

See? I’m fucking lucky and very grateful indeed for every bit of it.  

august part 2: gypsy pancakes and mikes up skirts

So August was such a smorgasbord (yes, you read right, smorgasbord…) of good things that I’ve had to do a two-parter blog. I should warn you there’s a lot of my face in this post and for that I can only apologise and promise it won’t happen again (that soon…)

Gdansk isn’t just one of my August highlights but one of my year ones. As part of Once Upon a Deadline and the Polish Arts Festival myself and four other writers: Hamid Ismailov, Chris Shevlin, Peter Moore and Phil Terry went out to the beautiful Gdansk to write, edit and perform a short story in 11 hours transiting five secret locations that would only be revealed to us as we arrived at them. It was genuinely one of the best things I have ever done. The stories all perfectly represented the types of writers we are and I’m still developing the story I wrote now. If you’re curious about what the early story was like, here’s a wee link of me reading it there’s also a Gdansk Radio report of me ‘loving the see-saw best’ in a playground (I know…) I can’t thank everyone enough (especially Ros, Douglas, Rob and the British Council) for such a wonderful, creative, laughter-filled weekend. And here’s a picture of us lot before we took on the challenge: 

Then I got home and got to go film Buzz About Books with the very gorgeous and lovely Simone Thorogood. I’d never been in a proper studio before but it was the proper experience…I had a mike up my skirt and had to be de-shined and everything. I loved meeting Simone and everyone else at Buzz About Books and it was such a well-researched that the interview was a pleasure to do…you can watch that wee one here (sorry, it is more of my face)

There was also a frankly awesome spread in the Cambridge Journal who covered Tony Hogan as part of their monthly book group. The very kind ladies of Cambridge gave Tony Hogan a hootenanying 9 out of 10 all round and to the lady who said she’s read it twice, I doff my hat. Thank you very much Cambridge you made my day! 

As did my review in the Aberdeen Voice. Special to me because it’s like having a pat on the back from an old, good friend. Kerry, you see, is one of ours. That I am Aberdeen, that I am. 

See? Smorgasbord. I’m feeling very lucky indeed.  

yipee ki-yay

It was in the paper (and podcast (5.40 in)) and everything so it must be true. I am pleased as bloody punch, over the moon, fucking thrilled and so on. It’s an amazing longlist and I am beyond delighted and honoured to be included. Ta very much Guardian!

August part 1...think bagpipes, curry, whisky & ice-cream

So it has been a unique, exhilarating, perplexing month for me as I’ve been hither and thither doing book type things and because I like things in neat little chunks, here is part 1 when I went with my ex-wife (we were never actually married and I should stop introducing her as that…people get very awkward) to Edinburgh International Book Festival: 

Day 1: The train is full of excitable theatrical types circling the Fringe programme furiously // the buffet car chef gives me a giant slice of his 40th birthday cake (it’s carrot and I’m so chuffed it might as well have been his first born child) // I check into the festival and get a LANYARD it says I’m an AUTHOR (proof!) // The Yurt is just as exciting as expected - they have mini-millionaires shortbread and ciabatta and Authors’ Toilets which are correctly hyphenated // I am blown away by classy, fiery, blisteringly intelligent Janice Galloway // We walk the city. Avoiding bagpipes is hard // Then to Unbound to see a rap about Norfolk Brides // a man comes up to me to congratulate me on my book and it’s only bloody Alan Bissett // Playing pool (we win one game each).

Day 2: We leave out ‘chartacterful’ hostel and check into swish hotel on Charlotte Sqaure // Crack open the shortbread and mini-kettle straight off of course // A. L. Kennedy next. She is a genuine inspiration, full of heart and humour and the kind of writer I’d one day like to become // Amnesty Reading: I’m reading the poems of Liu Xiaobo which is such a privledge and an honour // I stand next to Neil Gaiman and watch Ian Rankin lugging his own boxes of books - I hope they will rub off on me (not in a rude way) // Peggy Hughes our rocking Chair for the following day introduces herself // I meet Lisa O’Donnell who I’m doing my event with. She is funny and brilliant and you should all BUY her excellent book // we drink too much // we have a bad curry // we drink too much again // I finish the night with McDonald’s chips (I’m not proud of this). 

Day 3: Reading day!!!! // I prepare for my reading by dancing to Rihanna in my underwear and curlers (I assume this is what Alexander McCall Smith does too) // someone tweets that mine and Lisa’s event is sold out. Bloody SOLD OUT…amazing, I was expecting no one // Legendary Edinburgh Festival photographer, Chris Close, takes my piccie for the Charlotte Sqaure exhibition I’m holding an ice-cream in it and ask him not to ‘use the licking shots // my editor travels up for my event and we snatch a few moments of  chatter before we’re off to our reading but seeing her smiling face in the audience is brilliant // the event goes well people ask questions and, miraculously, I often know the answer…no one laughs me off the stage for my poor Scots Accent // we go to sign books, at one point there is a QUEUE, I drink whisky and water, I don’t know why but it felt pretty cool // I am blown away by the day 

Day 4: I catch a bus to Portobello beach all by myself. I go swim in the Victorian baths and sit on the beach and have fish & chips and I am quiet and hugely, hugely grateful for the whole thing. Thank you. 

This epic trip was followed in quick succession by this and this - as I say I am in August fall out. More to follow…

Photo

The famous Authors' Yurt

irn-bru and scottish skies...take me home country road

That’s right you lot, I’m only off on my homecoming tour…or Edinburgh International Book Festival as others are calling it. 

I am totally beside myself (and totally shitting myself…please God, don’t let me shame myself more than the usual amount in front of the fancy literary types) and I’m thrilled to be doing this on Monday and then this on Tuesday. 

I’m also looking forward to filling my ears with the sound of home, getting hammered in the Yurt (it’s compulsory right?) and meeting some writerly folk who I’ve been dying to have a natter with.

And because you know I can’t keep a secret for love, money or toffee I’ll be tweeting all of the Edinburgh gossip with a #YurtChat tag and I’m sure someone will sleep with/slap/sign something in the signing tent so do follow…

Wish me luck!