Amongst the others on the top-notch bill were fellow VWCer Julie Mayhew and Proxima label-mate Niall Boyce (small world, eh?). It was also nice to finally meet Twitter chums Tim Aldrich and Sumit Paul-Choudhury, who were both in the audience.

Anyway, here’s my piece, “Rare Meat”, expertly read by Greg Page (text here):

Rare Meat

But… I did once write a post for another occasion when I was looking for submissions and I think it may be time to trot that one out again. So… *drum roll* … here’s a repeat appearance for Swiss Toni’s Guide to Writing Short Stories. That should give you a bit of a clue as to what I’m looking for.

In other news, I had a fab time at Liars’ League last night – fantastic audience (wow, it’s grown since the last time I went), some wonderful stories and an absolutely spot on performance of my piece by Greg Page. I’ll post the video when it’s available.

This is a story that searched long and hard for a home – much to my surprise, because there are plenty of lesser stories of mine that have been published. Still, who am I to judge?) Anyway, do take a look.

And if you’re in London tomorrow evening, do head over to The Phoenix in Cavendish Square, where by an odd coincidence a piece of mine called “Rare Meat” is going to be read at Liars’ League. Hmmm. There’s a bit of a theme developing here.

Finally, June Gundlack has reviewed Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens for issue #12 of The Pages magazine. No meat in this one, but a lot of tentacles.

Having done that, I wondered about recording other things and I remembered that Every Day Fiction have an occasional podcast, so I went through the pieces I’d done for them to see which ones might work, given my frankly rather limited range as a vocal artiste. I ended up choosing the very first piece of mine that they published, “Cock Up”, which duly went live yesterday. I’m still not entirely sure whether that was an entirely appropriate choice for Easter Monday, but there you go. At least there’s no French in it.

In other news, a Twitter haiku of mine has been selected for 7×20′s first anthology, and my very wonderful publishers, Proxima, have started a blog – make sure you add that one to your list.

(At this point, we should probably have one of those wavy dissolves where I drift off into a dream, from which I am rudely awoken by an irate phone call from one of my clients.)

Anyway, it’s just occurred to me that I haven’t yet pointed you in the direction of the piece that I read at the start of February at Sparks 12, “Ariadne and Her Lover”, a slightly skewed take on Greek mythology. I had a great time as usual there and I even managed to get back home by one o’clock in the morning.

But the next big event is the Get Writing conference on Saturday, which I am really looking forward to. Should be an absolutely terrific day: loads of ace speakers and the chance to meet several chums from the Twitterverse for the first time.

I like SPARKS, too. I’ve read there three times in the last year or so, and I’ve always enjoyed it. It’s always fascinating to find out what the photographer has come up with to go with your piece, too.

So if you’re in the Brighton area in the evening of February 1st, do come along to Upstairs at Three and Ten. I’ll be reading my new-ish piece “Ariadne and Her Lover”. The only downside is that having sent this one off to Jo, I realised that it would have been just right to submit to Liars’ League for their February “Cock and Bull” theme. One of my targets for 2011 is to get back into LL, so I may have missed an opportunity there. D’oh.

Had a great time at Sparks as usual last night. “Desert Culture” had a bit of a “meh” response, partly as a result of me fumbling the reading a bit and partly because it’s quite a slight piece anyway. But “Advice re Elephants” seemed to go down very well. I think it’s my favourite piece at the moment, and I think I’ll probably read it again at the VWC Open Mic night at The Goat in St Albans on November 25th.

If you don’t believe me (because, after all, I am slightly biased, being a member of the writers’ circle that’s organising it), read this account from one of last year’s attendees.

Here’s where you need to go to book. What more can I say? Get in there, and get in there fast, because it will sell out!

In other news, I’m heading down to Brighton tonight in the company of my good chum Oscar Windsor-Smith to read once more at Sparks. I’m going to be reading “Desert Culture” (as featured in the “50 Stories for Pakistan” anthology) and “Advice re Elephants”. Come along if you’re in the area – Sparks is always a great night out and an excellent way of driving the winter blues away.

And if anyone fancies hearing me read my contribution, “Desert Culture”, come on down to Sparks 11, Upstairs at Three and Ten, Steine Street, Brighton next Tuesday, November 2nd at 8PM.

And if you’re in the Brighton area tonight, do come along to SPARKS 10, which promises to be an excellent event with a positively star-studded cast. I’m really looking forward to this, although I’m not quite so looking forward to getting home afterwards, given that the through trains stop in the evenings and there’s a tube strike on.