Authors Electric

A last minute edit to add a touch of controversy. This is from an interview with Adelle Stripe, who is headlining next week's Not the Oxford Literary Festival which I have been running for 4 years now. In 2006 she was the founder of Brutalism, often called the first literary movement spawned by the internet, and her latest collection, Dark Corners of the Land was 3am's 2012 Poetry Book of the Year (and the best poetry book published in the UK in many years IMO). What she says could apply just as much to contemporary prose as contremporary poetry and is an object lesson to all of us when we think that what we need is to produce better-edited, more professional works in order to make our mark. “Most poetry I have come across in recent anthologies has a peculiar corpse-like quality to it. It’s as though you have walked into an art gallery, and under glass boxes, on whitewashed plinths, sit a collection of porcelain roses. They are elegant to observe, immaculately rendered, objects...

This post is the result of a confluence of Karen's wonderful post about where we read and a photographic series I'm doing over on tumblr . And a lifelong crush on Lucinda Lambton. It's where many of us do much of our reading. And it's the only room in the house to have spawned a whole genre designed to be read in it (Schott's Miscellany, 21st Century Dodos etc). Yet we rarely celebrate the place itself. So here's to the literary loo. The three specimens on this page are from three of the shows I've performed at lately. And in each case it's a fabulous indicator of the show itself. 93 Feet East in Brick Lane is home to FULLFAT , a fabulous spoken word night run by Orange Prize judge, former Oxford University Poetry Society President, and stunning poet Clarissa Pabi. It's edgy, loud, full of fire and passion and one of those atmospheres that feels like it could explode at any moment into something spontaneous and remarkable. The night I was on the bill...