A busy week

• Last Sunday I read my story 'Laurence Holloway's Cartoon Babylon' as part of Short Fuse's Nouvelle Noir night. Also reading was Danny Hogan from Pulp Press and AK Benedict. It was a fun night, and people seemed to respond well to my story. twhume and I enjoyed AK Benedict's piece, which included some horrifying information about what happens to men's testicles after death.
• Wednesday I went to see Luke Haines at the Hanbury Ballroom. Haines seemed to enjoy the gig, and played his hits alongside the new album, as well as two of my all-time favourites, Baader Meinhof and Bad Reputation, pausing the latter to describe the horror of playing a song about Gary Glitter to an audience of Ricky Gervais fans.
• Thursday was Hammer and Tongue (poet and novelist Lou-Ice talks a little about the evening here). The night featured Byron Vincent and my favourite poet from outside Brighton, Ross Sutherland. It was a busy night (we were at capacity for part of it) and featured the final heat of the slam before next month's final. The final should be good, with Spliff Richard, Adam the Rapper and The Speech-painter among the qualifiers. I might also be doing the sacrificial poet slot, which is likely to be be only ever poetry performance.
• Friday night was the Trailer Trash Zombies vs Vampires night. Kitty Peels made me up as a zombie and I was part of the group dance act, which included part of the thriller dance – so that's a childhood dream achieved. Kate Kamikaze has some photos here, and there should soon be some photos of zombie-James (and possibly video of the dance routine!). I'll post more about the night when I get some images.

I didn't get home from Trailer Trash until three, and then had to remove the gore and make-up before bed. I checked my email before turning in and received some great news: my story 'finis terrae' has been accepted for Sparks 7. It's very different to my recent pieces and has a female narrator. I'm looking forward to seeing what the photographer makes of it (as well as figuring how best to read it live).

Following my late Friday, Saturday and Sunday have been very slow. I managed about 5 hours sleep on Saturday before the block's fire alarm went off. The weekend has since been taken up with napping and rest. I emerged briefly this morning for the Brooks Brighton 10K, although I had to run 2 miles to make it to the start in time! I'll post about that another day though.