Eight people came to Brighthelm on Thursday. We sat in a loose circle in the Roof Room, which was the right size for it. I opened with the fabula/syuzhet distinction, which turned out to be a useful way in. Most people in the room had broken chronology instinctively, without a name for what they were […]
Where Are We: Session One Read More »
Brighton Interactive Fiction Lab is starting. The first session is this Thursday, 18 June, 3–4 pm, Roof Room, Brighthelm Centre. The topic is time and space in fiction: why some novels make you feel genuinely lost, and why that sometimes works better than knowing exactly where you are. We’ll look at three structural tools: chronology
Brighton Interactive Fiction Lab: Where Are We? Read More »
Yesterday I went to Shut Up & Write at The Archives on North Road. Ninety minutes, no agenda, no workshop critique. Just people and their WIPs in the same room. I wasn’t expecting much. I’ve had enough of writing groups where half the session goes on discussing what everyone is working on instead of actually
Writing in a Room Full of Strangers Read More »
I went to a Shut Up & Write session on Sunday. The Archives café, 103 North Road. Fitting, given what I was working on. Not many people showed up, which meant the whole place was essentially full of writers. Everyone quiet, everyone somewhere else entirely. Ideal conditions for horror. I’ve been listening to The Magnus
The Train That Shouldn’t Exist Read More »
January 2nd changed how I think about Russian audiences. Twenty people gathered at Ibis Hotel for experimental book presentation. Expected polite listening. Got intense engagement instead. Three-station format worked perfectly. Started in artificial darkness, train sounds filling the room. Read opening scene where Alexei wakes with amnesia. Watched faces change as story hit different people
Back Home: How Kaliningrad Received Blank Spots Read More »
Kaliningrad gets an unusual literary event this January. I’m bringing Blank Spots home in a completely new format. January 2nd, 1 PM at Ibis Hotel. We’re creating an immersive journey through the novel’s structure. Three stations, each representing a different stage of psychological recovery. The MC wakes up on a night train with amnesia, carrying
A Literary Journey Through Memory and Art Read More »
Spent Wednesday morning at 5am Writing Club in Kemptown Bookshop. Twenty writers, silent session, sunrise through the windows. The kind of thing that sounds insane until you try it. Cathy Hayward started these sessions in 2023 after regularly waking at five to write herself. Wondered if other local writers did the same. Turns out they
Writing at 5am: Notes from Kemptown Bookshop Read More »
Spent last night at Harbour Hotel listening to TJ Klune, V Castro, Keith Rosson, and George Morris De’Ath discuss horror and queer fantasy. The kind of evening where you leave with more questions than answers, which feels right for the genre. V Castro talked about body horror as cultural memory, how physical transformation reflects immigrant
Halloween Haunts: Notes from the Panel Read More »
Black Crow Books is hosting a horror panel at Harbour Hotel tomorrow evening, and I’m going. TJ Klune, V Castro, Keith Rosson, and George Morris De’Ath discussing horror fiction and queer fantasy in Brighton feels too good to miss. Castro’s body horror hits differently when you write about fractured identities. Rosson’s apocalyptic work does that
Attending Halloween Haunts Tomorrow Read More »
