The Quiz of Literature Things

Thank you to all of those who came along on Thursday and a BIG thank you to the guest performers Max Wallis and David Gaffney who added brought extra zing to the night.

After everyone had filled up on pink cupcakes and alcoholic drinks from the bemused barmaid, the night kicked off with an as usual exciting performance from local performance poet Max Wallis. He stunned us all with his articulate delivery of shennangians at festivals, and my personal favourite, Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Max is starting the creative writing MA at Manchester very soon and you can find more of his poems and his next performance at www.somethingeveryday.co.uk where he endevours to write something everyday.

Once the audience were sufficiently warmed up, (quite literally as the pub's ancient windows were glued shut) Bad Language's very own Daniel Carpenter tested their literature brains with the pub quiz. Most did surprisngly well even getting questions from what we thought would be the toughest round: one star amazon reviews. Congratulations to the winners A Blair Fiction Project, who I believe was represented by some of the Manchester Literature Festival peeps, who won among other things a signed David Gaffney book and a bottle of wine! Let us know what the wine is like! And an even bigger congratulations to the best team name winners with Pushing Up Swayzes, who won the best book in the world: Zombie Comics, which Max struggled to carry home.

Once everyone had recovered from the brain ache, David Gaffney came to perk the audience up with some Powerpoint antics and humourous tales of a poor man who had to do a presentation to himself. Check out David's website for more of his tales and details of his next performance dates. My personal favourite is Potatoe Smiles. www.davidgaffney.weebly.com

Then we watched as people crowded around the book table as David sold more books until closing time when we were all turned out on the streets with empty cup cake shells and the enlightenment of the right answers.

Thank you to all who filled in our feedback forms and all the comments made. We're stepping up the game for the next Literature Pub Quiz with tougher more challenging questions, so you better get your thinking caps on and start studying now!

You can also see another write up of the event at:

http://wordsandfixtures.blogspot.com/2010/09/questions-questions-questions.html

The Literature Pub Quiz

Time	September 2 · 7:30pm - 11:00pm
Location	The Waldorf, 12 Gore Street, M1 3AQ Manchester, United Kingdom
Created By	Bad Language
More Info	Can you remember what the opening line of Oliver Twist is? Would you recognise your favourite book from the cover alone? Do you know what George Orwell called himself when he went undercover? Then come along to The Literature Pub Quiz to see if you really know. Be there and be square. Plus amazing special guest peformances from Max Wallis and David Gaffney! ...£2 per person. Maximum team size 6 people. For more information contact: events@badlanguagemcr.co.uk Or 07850029658

The art of the short story

In this age of fiction - where airport literature rules the roost and new authors struggle to make a name for themselves - one definite area is being largely ignored by the masses. In fact, this area has nearly always been ignored, has never really made anyone any money and yet among writers, is one of the most popular formats for their work.

The short story.

I've tried submitting short stories to publishers before, who have told me that there is no market for it. The only people who seem to have a large enough fanbase to publish them en masse? McSweeny's, Granta and the BBC with their yearly short story award.

All of which leaves me thinking that, like poetry, the short story is really a case of art and technique of popularity. It's a format that writers can play with. And, since no-one else is reading, they can be as daring and as challenging as they wish. How about Roald Dahl, with Tales of the Unexpected who managed in one fell swoop to stop being a children's author with these sinister Twilight Zone esque stories.

It boils down to the fact that novels, for all intents and purposes are primarily about making money - just ask Grisham et al. Whereas short stories, they free authors to do whatever they want to do. Take this for example by Dave Eggers, a series of 'short' short stories (why don't they just call it micro-fiction?) on The Guardian website.

What do you guys think?
Any other good links for short stories?