The Birthday Issue

The fourth anthology, aptly named The Birthday Issue, as it's been a year since we started at The Castle Hotel, is now available to purchase.

You can find it in Incognito in the norther quater, via paypal from this website (by the tab on the right) or by coming to one of our events.

This issue includes words from the wonderful and attractive: Fat Roland, Sian Rathore, David Tait, Nija Dalal, Michael D Conley and many many more.

Pick up a copy for yourself, or for a christmas present...

Retale

What is Re:Tale?

Six writers.

Six stories.

One shop.

Re:Tale is an inventive literature event taking place on the 17^th November 2011. In the labyrinthine setting of Jigsaw in the Triangle, six of Manchester’s writers will perform six brand new stories.

On the 17^th November at 7:30 pm sharp, take a tour through the strange, fascinating world of working in customer service.

Tickets £4 adults.
£2 concessions.
Please purchase your tickets in advance from:http://retale.eventbrite.co.uk/

Visit: http://retalemcr.wordpress.com/ for more information. 

We are proud to be performing this unique event at Jigsaw’s store in The Triangle in Manchester.

Creative Writing Opportunity

[Creative Writing Opportunity] Inside

Monday 26th Sep 2011

To compliment their forthcoming exhibition, Inside, Blank Media Collective will be producing an accompanying piece of related writings – short fiction, reportage, memoir, and poetry. These may be existing works, or works created in response to the brief. The publication is intended as a bespoke lateral accompaniment to the Inside exhibition; a provocation of unexpected thoughts and connections in the consciousness of the viewer.

Who: Emerging writers
Location: BLANKSPACE, 43 Hulme Street, Manchester, M15 6AW
When: Public Preview Thursday 26 January 2012 | Exhibition Continues Friday 27 January – Sunday 12 February 2012
Charges & Fees: Free to submit work. Artist fees TBC

What:
Inside is an open call-out to practitioners working within a variety of mediums, which explore the psychological connection between the viewer and the work. Through a process of immersing the participant within the viewing space, Inside aims to focus on the notion of art as a trigger for the generation of a personal narrative. Work submitted may be ambitious, subtle or intimate and can cover a range of mediums including (but not specific to) sound, sculpture, installation, text and so on.

There will be a special drop-in session on Tuesday 13 September, 5-7pm at BLANKSPACE where you will be able to meet with the curators to discuss any questions that you may have and to get advice about your submission.

Submission information:
Writers are invited to submit:

ñ Poetry up to 40 lines in length

ñ Short Prose (Fiction or Non-Fiction) of up to 1000 words

ñ 100 word biography of the author

Deadline for Submissions: Deadline Extended: 14 October 2011 (Midnight)

Important Dates:

ñ Tuesday 13 September 2011: Drop in Session (5-7pm, BLANKSPACE)

ñ Friday 14 October 2011 (Midnight): Deadline for submissions (Extended)

ñ Friday 21 October 2011: All artists will be notified

ñ Thursday 26 January 2012: Public Preview

ñ Friday 27 January – Sunday 12 February 2012: Exhibition continues

Please contact us for further information or assistance about the submission process. Submissions should be sent via email in pdf or .doc format to exhibitions@blankmediacollective.org clearly stating ‘Submission: Inside - Creative Writing’.

Omniversity

We at Bad Language are always keen to support interesting local projects, none more so than Mad Lab.

The Northern Quarters community arts space MadLab has been growing from strength to strength, initiating a wide range of projects from community co-op support events to hosting DIYBio seminars and alternative life drawing collectives.

They are now pooling their resources to provide top quality courses for individuals who want to expand their interests, career prospects and creative spectrum, with the Omniversity.

The upcoming Short Story Writing Workshop is being run again, due to popular demand. Its led by Jim Hicks, an editor for Comma Press, an initiative set up for short story publishing. The course will take the participants through narrative voice, structure, dialogue and other aspects, and its proactive nature means that participants are challenged throughout by writing a story before each session, so they can exercise what they learn and continually develop and analyse their work in a friendly environment.

Please see here for more details.

Bad Shoes Festival

You might be surprised, or disappointed, to learn that Bad Shoes Festival is not about your embarrassing footwear.

Instead, it is collaboration between Bad Language Manchester and Shoe String Magazine, two budding young writery projects from Manchester. Their aim is to create an exciting, interactive arts festival that will bring all ages and lovers or all art forms together for one Sunday afternoon.

The event will take place on Sunday 25^th September from 12.30pm, in two venues across Chorlton, Manchester; Electrik and Dulicmer. The Dulcimer will be home to music and art exhibitions and just down the road, Electrik will host a spoken word stage, craft stalls and book stalls for you to spend your guilty Sunday pennies.

There will be secret interactive art projects, and writing competitions to get involved with throughout the day, and yes, there will indeed be bad shoes to be won.

If you wish to get involved or want to ask more questions, visit www.badshoesfestival.wordpress.com or e-mail badshoesfestival@gmail.com.

Applications from artists, musicians, zines and crafts people welcome.

The festival is free but does encourage donations.

Events

We had a fantastic time hosting the Flash Language Literary Pub Quiz last night. Hope you all did aswell!

This month we have a couple more events we're running.

Bad Language at Oxfam Bookfest
In partnership with Oxfam Bookfest, Bad Language will be showcasing some of their best open mic performers at Apotheca.

We will have performances from:

Bad Language:
Daniel Carpenter
Nicola West
Joe Daly

Flash Mob:
Fat Roland
Dave Hartley
Tom Mason
Ben Judge
Clare Conlon

And a special guest performance from the incredible Fergus Evans.

We will be taking a suggested donation of £3 on the door.
All proceeds will go to Oxfam.

Bad Language @ The Castle Hotel

Bad Language will be running another brilliant night of poetry, prose, general amusement with a special guest performance from Tom Fletcher.

It will take place on Wednesday 27th July and will kick off at 7.30pm.

Our headline act this month will be novelist Tom Fletcher.

His first two novels, The Leaping and The Thing on the Shore are published by Quercus and are available now. He is currently working on a third, called The Ravenglass Eye.

http://endistic.wordpress.​com/

If you wish to take part in the open mic section, please e-mail events@badlanguagemcr.co.u​k from 1ST JULY onwards to book a FOUR MINUTE MAXIMUM SLOT.


http://www.thecastlehotel.​info/

Flash Language Literature Pub Quiz

Flash Mob and Bad Language have teamed up to take part in the Not Part Of festival and created a night of bookish questions to twist your nerdy brains! There will be questions, prizes and a few little surprises!

The quiz is £1 per person to enter and maximum team size is 6 people. You can register your interest at skiddle,facebook or just turn up on the night!

The Not Part Of festival was born in 2007 when Gareth McCann realised that what made Manchester International Festival unique, was that it was comprised of commissioned, curated work. Not Part Of is a festival for all creatives to take part in without the barriers. 


You can view the full programme for not part of here.

Free e-book!!

Here's the e-book for the 12 shortlisted in the Flash Mob Writing competition that took place recently in the Chorton Arts Festival... Have a flick through and tell us what you think....

Electric Sky Exclusive

So our book launch is only two weeks away, the book is coming together brilliantly and we've just got a little bit of time to reveal the cover and the books lineup:


1. James Harvey – The Casting
2. Sian James – Watch
3. Jennie Bailey – Epitaph
4. Ben Judge – Brains
5. Dan Carpenter – The Healer/ Skiving
6. Anna Percy – World Switch
7. Red Newsom – digging up flowers
8. Fatima al Matar – Somewhere
9. Calum Kerr – A Slice of Time
10. Fergus Evans – The Hurricane / On Euclid Avenue
11. Dave Hartley – The Ghost of a Sceptic Haunts this House
12. Roy McFarlane – Dreams of Rivers / Truelove
13. Giuseppe Albano – Ascending South
14. Joe – tba
15. Nick Garrard – Darolin
16. Ted Smith – Dark Down Here
17. Jo Bell – Censored
18. Nici – Fixed
19. Anna McCrory – Speling iz ovarated

Exciting stuff right? Wait until you see what we've got for a cover. The fantastic Laura Richardson has designed this based on Fergus Evan's poem, 'The Hurricane'




Pretty brilliant, right?

You'll see more in the coming weeks, and you can pick up a copy of Electric Sky at our book launch.

We will see you on the 25th!

Bad Language events and other exciting stories

For those of you who haven't heard the bad news; National Poetry Writing month is now over for another month. But don't fear, here are a few highlights from the past month where Bad Language's Daniel Carptener and Nici West have been taking place.

For a treat, if you can call it that, here are the three worded poems that were written:

Tonight by Nici West

Tonight,
Only you.



Hamartiologist by Daniel Carpenter

Unfaithful
hamartiologist
repents

To keep themselves entertained for the month of May Bad Language are now also taking part in somethingeveryday run by Max Wallis. For every single long draining day ever in the month of May 2011 (a little dramatic) , Bad Language will be taking it in turns to update the website with brand spanking new writing. So follow our progress and show your support.

Well, it's a lucky day for you because we leave you with this little delight: the flesh of Daniel Carpenter (with all the rest of his body of course) reading at This is May Day last night.



Oh, one last thing before you hang up: Bad Language will be having a book launch for the third anthology entitled Electric Sky (title taken from Fergus Evans poem The Hurricane which is featured in the book). It will take place in our favourite place The Castle Hotel in Manchester on the 25th May, where the writers and poets featured in the book will read their work and you can bring some coins to buy some books.

Invite yourself along here:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=500368878#!/event.php?eid=220518171292434

No really, it's ok, you can come.

A little taster of what has been happening with NaPo WriMo

So we're in the wild mist of the National Poetry Writing Month and 2 of Bad Language's very own have been taking part. As a little taster here's a pick of two poem's that have been written fresh! Fresh!

Here's one from Daniel Carpenter written in the early days, day 3:


For two women waiting outside Victoria station on a Saturday night.



You share cigarette smoke chatter, under

train station canopies and practise cartwheels

on the gravel. Under glowstick Manchester

sky you change into comfy shoes, tossing

neon purple high heels with dismissive regal

hands. There is electric blue air dancing,

sparking, swaggering around and fractured

disco ball glisten spotlights dancefloor puddles.



A couple embrace under departure board green,

threatening their children with further displays;

you giggle a fifteen year old girl's giggle,

twenty years in waiting; polish off plastic

glass of wine and walk on, leaving no trace,



but a single slippered heel.
 
 
Here's a taster from Nicola West's effort from day 3:
 
Sunday Morning




Your toes, touch the tips of mine,

As we lay side by side.



Sticky summer heat, creeps down my skin,

As I let it rest against yours.



And,



Sometimes, only sometimes

Your lips fit perfectly into mine.

 
We want to know who else is taking part in NaPo WriMo so get in touch!

NaPoWriMo: day 3

National poetry writing month has been upon us for a few days now, and whilst the other results can be seen on my blog Winter Hill but I thought I'd share my contribution for day 3 on here.

For two women waiting outside Victoria station on a Saturday night.

You share cigarette smoke chatter, under
train station canopies and practise cartwheels
on the gravel. Under glowstick Manchester
sky you change into comfy shoes, tossing
neon purple high heels with dismissive regal
hands. There is electric blue air dancing,
sparking, swaggering around and fractured
disco ball glisten spotlights dancefloor puddles.

A couple embrace under departure board green,
threatening their children with further displays;
you giggle a fifteen year old girl's giggle,
twenty years in waiting; polish off plastic
glass of wine and walk on, leaving no trace,

but a single slippered heel.

Once more and again... Bad Language at The Castle Hotel

Bad Language will be running another brilliant night of poetry, prose, general amusement with a fantastic special guest performance from Rod Tame. It will take place on Wednesday 27th April and will kick off at 7.30pm.

Host of Write Out Loud Sale and ‘Rhyme and Dine’ at Manchester’s Earth Café, Rod is a poetic Performance Artist and actor.

You can find out more about Rod on his website http://www.rodtame.com/

There will also be copies of our wonderful second anthology Scattered Reds available and performances from Bad Language themselves.

If you wish to take part in the open mic section, please e-mail events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk to book a FOUR MINUTE MAXIMUM SLOT.

http://www.thecastlehotel.info/

 

We hope to see your lovely faces down there. x 

Bad Language @ The Castle February 23rd

Bad Language will be running another brilliant night of poetry, prose, general amusement with a fantastic special guest, Jo Bell.

From her website: "Jo is a writer and performer, facilitator, workshop leader, editor, live literature promoter and manager of creative projects across the UK. Her main job is to co-ordinate National Poetry Day, for which she is the Director. She is also a director of Living Derby and a trustee of Ledbury Poetry Festival.

Jo devised the online/ hard copy writing project Bugged and is currently writing a play for young people with Action Transport Theatre."

http://belljarblog.wordpress.com/
http://www.bell-jar.co.uk/

There will also be copies of our wonderful second anthology Scattered Reds available and performances from Bad Language themselves.

If you wish to take part in the open mic section, please e-mail events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk

The event will take place on Wednesday23rd February and run from 7.30pm - 10.30pm

http://www.thecastlehotel.info/

Submissions the third.

Good news writers! Submissions are now open for the third Bad Language anthology of new writing!

Please follow these guidelines as failing to do so will result in your entry being rejected.

Please only submit to one of the following categories.

Short Stories

Short stories to be no longer than 2500 words.
Only one short story per person.
Stories to have not been published elsewhere.

Poetry

Poetry to be no longer than 40 lines.
Maximum of 3 poems submitted per person.
Poetry not to have been published elsewhere.

Flash and Micro Fiction

Flash and micro fiction not to exceed 500 words.
No more than 3 flash or micro fictions to be submitted per person.
Flash and micro fiction not to have been published elsewhere.

Other

We will also be accepting graphic fiction (as an A5 sized PDF, maximum ten pages of story).

We also accept extracts from novel's, following the same guidelines as short story submissions, however the extract
has to be able to stand alone.

You may also submit non-fiction articles that have a clear relation to literature. These must follow the short story guidelines.




House guidelines.

You must attach your submission as a .doc file to an e-mail (unless it is graphic fiction.)
You must include a 50 word biography as the body of the e-mail
Your e-mail must be titled 'Bad Language Submissions'

Please note we cannot read the same submission twice. If you have had an entry rejected from a previous anthology, please do not re-submit the same piece. We love to read new work!

Due to the large amount of submissions we cannot accept any that do not follow submissions guidelines.

Submissions should be sent to submissions@badlanguagemcr.co.uk by 10pm on the 2nd of March.

Bad Language at The Castle

Dear lover of all things literary,

In nine days time Bad Language will be hosting our second event at The Castle Hotel in Manchester. We've got the brilliant David Gaffney headlining the night, providing his off-kilter short stories and reading from his excellent new book, The Half Life of Songs.

There will also be performances in the open mic section from some of Manchester's finest poets, storytellers and bloggers.

If you wish to attend the event, you can sign up to the Facebook page or check out the fanpage for ourselves here

There are still places in the open mic section left, so if you're interested in performing in one of the nicest venues in Manchester, in front of a lovely, welcoming crowd, then e-mail us at events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk and we'll book a four minute slot for you.

We will be announcing big things at the event and one of us may or may not be performing poetry made up entirely of Arnie's dialogue in The Terminator...this will almost definitely depend on the amount of ale consumed beforehand.

We hope to see you down there.

Bad Language.