Valley Press Fest! - London

Friday 27th January 2012 - The Horseshoe, London, UK

At the end of January, myself and three plucky authors took our Valley Press 'wares' to the nation's capital, and put them on stage at an unlikely (but superb) venue, The Horseshoe on Clerkenwell Close.  I had been recommended The Horseshoe by the landlord of a different venue; this original venue was recommended to Jo Brandon by Tom Chivers, the guy who runs Penned in the Margins - one of the few publishers who could claim to be doing a better job than me, with similar resources - though he is five years older!  So it was recommended by a guy who knows a gal who knows a guy who I reckon knows what he's talking about; I took this as reassuring and pressed on with the booking.  It was excellent though, not to mention affordable; a bit like the 'Queen Vic' off EastEnders, but more poetic (on this occasion at least.)

As with all the recent events, a complete (and completely ace) photographic record has been provided for us by Marcos Avlonitis - see the whole set of photos at this link.  Really, do have a look; I was calling this guy a genius from the moment he first turned up at a gig, and his photos have just been getting better and better since then.  We actually did some posed snaps this time too, starting with the one below, which shows the entire starting lineup...

The protagonists: Norah Hanson, Jamie McGarry, Jo Brandon and Steve Rudd.

As you can see, I took a rather-more-overt-than-usual part in this gig, reading a poem from the Snail Diaries between each of the other writers' 15 minute sets.  The mindset behind this can be best compared to Sir Alex Ferguson being so invested in a Manchester United FA Cup Final that he can't bear it anymore, and races onto the pitch to take the deciding penalty himself.  I had invested an amount of money very close to £100 in setting up and promoting this London event, and I'm sad to say that's a sum of money Valley Press can ill afford to fritter away at this time of year - so I headed for the pitch, determined to do my best.  And it worked!  Although it's probably not considered polite to mention money on a polite publishing blog such as this, I ended up doubling my investment by 10pm.  We live to survive February!  (I bet Tom Chivers doesn't have to sweat over this sort of thing... but then he is five years older.)

Norah passes on some literary wisdom to Steve.

The London event actually turned out to be the most successful night for Valley Press of 2012 so far - the paying guests seemed to love it, and the authors were so enthused they vowed to reunite for a similar show in Newcastle next month; so look out for news on that.  As ever, I was filled with pride and delight as proceedings proceeded - though having run myself pretty much into the ground with events in the last couple of weeks, I find myself looking forward to a launch-free February!

Before I go, here's one last surprising development - due to the miracle of technology, for the first time ever you too can enjoy this leg of VP fest, wherever you are in the world!  I recorded the whole hour of entertainment on my trusty dictaphone, and present the file for your listening enjoyment below (or download the file, for iPods and so on, by right-clicking here, then click 'save as').  I'm the posh-sounding bloke who talks at the start, desperately trying to think of what to say, before falling back onto snail poems with relief - everyone else is introduced by name.



So enjoy that, and keep an eye on the homepage to hear news of future events.  Thanks for coming out, London - we'll see you again soon!