Authors Electric

Being relatively new to the professional writing scene, I don't have that much experience with events and festivals. I organised many FantasyCons in the late nineties and early noughties, and have attended lots of conferences and festivals as a reader and wannabe-writer, but very few where I've been up-front, where people have actually turned up to see me. I'm still convinced that in many cases they just didn't want to leave their comfy chair after the last speaker, or were simply having a chat to their mates in the vicinity of a stage.       There was Wales in March at Sci-Fi Weekender . And then there was the Northwich Literary Festival in June. Now we're not talking Hay-On-Wye here - Northwich is a small market town in mid-Cheshire, but this is, I think, the third year in which it has run a small literary festival, consisting of a couple of dozen events in local cafes, libraries and theatres - talks, readings and discussions. Plus there was a "poetr...

When a band comes along that ‘sounds’ like another band – one that has preceded them by some years, it is generally regarded as acceptable; a knowing nod to those bands that have influenced and inspired that particular band. With no Beatles, there would be no Oasis, with no Black Sabbath there would be no Metallica and, well you get the drift. Did these bands sound a little like those that had inspired them? Absolutely. Did Oasis get criticised in their early days for sounding too much like Lennon and McCartney? Yes, one more than one occasion. Did Metallica use the template of hulking riffs pioneered by Sabbath’s Tony Iommi (among others) as a blueprint for how to construct a great heavy metal song? Yes, Sabbath’s impact on them is undeniable. Both Oasis and Metallica have gone on to inspire and influence many, many other bands that are active today and would not even exist if not for the aforementioned bands. Yet when a writer draws on their influences, and sources that have in...