William Sutton's Blog, page 41
October 18, 2014
Murder at the Teatray
Crime Writing Workshop
A razor-sharp cake knife. Arsenic in the marzipan. A teaspoon of poison…
Portsmouth’s own crime novelists, Diana Bretherick and William Sutton, offer a two-hour workshop to help you develop your own mystery, thriller or detective writing. Get down to the nitty-gritty of plot, character and location, in Southsea’s elegant vintage tearooms, with the crème de la crime. A fine cup of tea in vintage crockery will set your characters in motion, while the almond cake and Victoria sponge are good enough to murder for.
When? Sunday 2nd November, 2.30 – 4.30pm.
Where? Like a Teatray in the Sky, 31 Osborne Road, Southsea, PO5 3LR
£10 (£5 concessions). Pay on the day.
20 places only: book now via Facebook event page or by email to me at williamgeorgesutton@gmail.com
Diana’s City of Devils won Good Housekeeping Magazine’s first novel competition and was shortlisted for Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards.
William’s Lawless and the Devil of Euston Square is “first class crime fiction” (The Herald), “extravagant and thoroughly enjoyable” (The Scotsman).
Both have contributed stories to Portsmouth Fairy Tales.
October 15, 2014
Vof, Meuh, Flotz [Wednesday Words]
Illustrator/lexicographical explorer, James Chapman illustrates international sounds. What do cows around the world sound like? Like this:
I’ve long been enchanted by the joys of onomatopoeia: from buzz to blam, through ululations, moos and whooshes. This joy was redoubled in my years living abroad, for example, when I heard the song Cucurrucucu:
Caetano Veloso – Cucurrucucu Paloma by hiphopmomo
But ‘cucurrucucu’ may be the coo of a dove to Mexicans, or the cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster (which is chi-chi-ri-chi-chi to an Italian). In my years of idle travelling, I’ve passed pleasant hours in bars and stations asking locals what noise a cow makes in their language, or a bee, or an explosion. (All right, occasionally for the purpose of flirting.) I loved the Homeric range of battle cries and grief-stricken ululations: alalazo, elelizo, ololuzo and ululazo.
Imagine my surprise to discover James Chapman, not only an aficionado of the same questions, but an illustrator of considerable verve and invention, with a curiosity and love of language to match.
And this Buzzfeed article shows that I’m not the only one seduced by international onomatopoeia. “Euh, ahm, eeto”: I invite you to enjoy sounds.
October 14, 2014
Come and hear Portsmouth Fairy Tales [for Grown-Ups]
#PortsmouthFairyTales [for Grown-Ups] opens @PompeyBookFest 2014 with a coruscating evening of author readings to celebrate the paperback launch of this collection of new Portsmouth stories, available for pre-order now.
These grumpy-looking but talented writers will be reading tales of visionary pasts, warped futures and shimmering presents from 7,30 on 23 Oct @PortsmouthGhall: stories set far and wide across this island city, dotted with dockyard detritus and the inheritance of empire, dysfunctional families and dystopian dreams.
I shall be singing the theme tune, something along the lines of this effort:
PFT Teaser from Elysium Eight on Vimeo.
Let us know you’re coming along on our Facebook event page.
Tickets are free to book online: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/portsmouth-bookfest-launch-tickets-12411110967
Lord Mayor’s Room, Portsmouth Guildhall
Thursday 23rd October 2014 at 7.30pm.
More Bookfest events here: http://www.portsmouthbookfest.co.uk/2014-programme/
October 3, 2014
Day of the Dead II: Hello Darkness
Macabre. Poignant. Gut-wrenching. Pungent.
DAY of the DEAD returns to the Square Tower, as Portsmouth Bookfest presents a chilling evening of new writing:
Day of the Dead II: Hello Darkness
Last year’s show was a sell-out success, with fifteen writers performing original stories, featuring memoirs, song, and an Elvis elegy.
This year is shaping up to be wilder and darker still: murder, mayhem and cake; Freddie, Jack and Frankenstein’s monster; haunted houses, exorcisms and the Tibetan Book of Health and Safety. I shall be hosting a helter-skelter programmer of story and song, future and past, darkness and inspiration, featuring fresh voices alongside novelists, poets, short story writers and archly talented musicians.
There can be no more atmospheric place to spend All Hallows’ Eve than the mighty Square Tower, which has witnessed Portsmouth’s deaths, drownings and disappearances for centuries.
Expect the unexorcised.
Bookfest tickets: 023 92688037
Portsmouth libraries/Palmerston Road Library (Southsea)
Hayling Island Bookshop or https://portsmouthbookfest.eventbrite...
Fri 31st October, 7.15-9.30pm
Square Tower, Broad Street, PO1 2JE
See you there.
Bookfest tickets: 023 92688037
any Portsmouth library
Palmerston Road Library (Southsea)
Hayling Island Bookshop or
https://portsmouthbookfest.eventbrite.co.uk/
Say a ghoulish hello via our Day of the Dead Facebook page.
September 30, 2014
‘mafficking’ ‘jammiest bits of jam’ & other fine Victorian slang [Wednesday Words]
50 bits of fantastic Victorian slang.
My own mutton shunter, Sergeant Lawless, wears gaspipes in his latest outing but I will now insist on him backslanging it, sticking his parish pickaxe into podsnappery, and mafficking with the jammiest bits of jam. Or is that buttering the bacon?
Thanks to Betty Herbert. “The goods are not ‘afternoonified’ enough for me.
AFTERNOONIFIED
A society word meaning “smart.” Forrester demonstrates the usage: “The goods are not ‘afternoonified’ enough for me.”
GAS-PIPES
Especially tight trousers.
JAMMIEST BITS OF JAM
“Absolutely perfect young females,” circa 1883.
MAFFICKING
An excellent word that means getting rowdy in the streets.
MUTTON SHUNTER
This 1883 term for a policeman is so much better than “pig.”
PARISH PICK-AXE
A prominent nose.
PODSNAPPERY
This term, Forrester writers, describes a person with a “wilful determination to ignore the objectionable or inconvenient, at the same time assuming airs of superior virtue and noble resignation.”
September 29, 2014
Fairy Tales
As tickets go on sale for
a tasty piece about #PortsmouthFairyTales [for Grown-Ups] appears on p8 of Hampshire View Magazine this month.
Tessa Ditner, also know as @Culture Kiddo, writes about the 11 contributing writers who will be reading on 23 Oct in Portsmouth Guildhall as the launch event for Portsmouth BookFest 2014. Tessa tells amusing tales of our entertaining photo shoots with Nick Ingamells, while digging into the writers’ thoughts and processes (deeper delving in the lovely Portsmouth Fairy Tales Documentary linked below).
Collaborating does not always come naturally to us solitary souls who call ourselves writers, and it was quite a feat to get such a diverse group to give so wildly of their creativity. Yet our event in the Festivities in June was a shimmering night of tall tales, hugely enjoyable and a celebration of creative teamwork. The resulting book is a maelstrom of invention: sci-fi and horror, crime and passion, history and futurology, knowing cynicism and unabashed lyricism. I’m proud to be part of it and looking forward to our event next month in Portsmouth Book Festival 2014 at the Guildhall.
You can preorder via Fundrazr or buy the ebook on Amazon. I think it’s worth a look.
Portsmouth Fairy Tales Documentary from Elysium Eight on Vimeo.
September 26, 2014
Insomniac Discoveries
Sometimes in the dark small hours, I leaf through books I’ve forgotten I’ve downloaded. I’m not an electronic reader by nature, but the pale glow of the phone is less disturbing than even the most discreet nightlight.
Canongate’s celebration of their 40th anniversary looked a neat giveaway when I spotted it. Still a free ebook, it features a host of wonderful writers, and unusual angles on the theme, strangely told tales, and oddly listed aspects of writing and publishing.
The piece that blew me away, and soothed my soul in the sad blue nights, was Patience Agbabi’s beautiful poem Forty Below.
You’ll catch your death out there.
I open the window and shout,
Imagining each word rimed with itself…
I first saw Patience perform with the poetry supergroup Atomic Lip with my friend Geoff, the Speech Painter. Exciting to stumble upon her work again. I’d heard she was signed up to Canongate.
This is not only a poem filled with coruscating images and flooded with warmth, its lines form a palindrome: a dazzling exercise in verbal pyrotechnics. A poem rimed with frost and rhymed with itself.
Look it up. It’s free to buy in various e-formats.
Imagining each word rimed with itself,
I open the window and shout,
You’ll catch your death out there.
September 24, 2014
Knocker-up [Wednesday Word]
Knocker-up, Knocker-upper [noun] A job in the Victorian era: a human alarm clock
I have read that pea-shooters were another option.
“It’s a ticklish job, with some of the heavy sleepers. They take such a lot of hammering to wake ‘em that the neighbours don’t like it; and he’s been pelted from windows and had water chucked down on him, and all manner of things.” One of the Crowd, aka James Greenwood
with thanks to the Amateur Casual and VictorianLondon.org
September 17, 2014
September 10, 2014
Portsmouth Fairy Tales launch
Portsmouth Fairy Tales is a collection of wild and wonderful stories by talented friends of mine, ranging from the futuristic to the fatalistic, from memoir to noir. It features crime writers, fairy tales, magic realism, science fiction, a wolf, a whale, a frog, a flea and an elephant on Southsea beach.
Sergeant Lawless warily explores the back alleys of Spice Island, uncovering grottoes of iniquity and Russian sailors on leave.
The book will be launched on 23rd October at Portsmouth Guildhall as part of the wonderful Portsmouth BookFest.
If you pre-order it, you get all sorts of perks, like having your copy signed by all the writers, reserving your place at the launch, and this lovely literary map:
