Two launches

It's a while since I managed to keep up with reporting things right away or even at all, and here are belated photos of a launch I attended at the end of November, that of Jane Rogers' Hitting Trees with Sticks (Comma), her first short story collection after a string of award-winning novels. The moving title story here was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award; others in the collection were first commissioned by Comma's Ra Page for the science-based anthologies he has published, and previously, at a Manchester Science Festival event, I had heard Jane read her stunning story, 'Morphogenesis', about Alan Turing. Twice now I have heard Jane say that she isn't instinctively a short-story writer and only began writing stories on the urging of Ra, which, since this is the result, goes to show what a great promoter of short stories Ra is. Jane has also been writing for radio - when I was decorating in Wales, a wonderful play by her came on the radio - and 'Where Are You, Stevie?' is a story in four parts with four different narrators, written with radio in mind. At the November evening, Jane read an engaging and finally off-the-wall ghost story from the collection.

She was supported by Annie Clarkson, another contributor to Comma anthologies, who read a beautifully wry and ultimately searing story of two young girls and their elderly male neighbour.

 A week later I popped down the road to Didsbury Oxfam to hear my very good friend Livi Michael talk about and read from her new novel for young adults, Malkin Child, about the Pendle Witches, which was commissioned by the Lancaster Literature Festival. Livi talked most intriguingly about the subject of the Pendle Witches, and her book's original take on the story - the viewpoint of the young girl Jennet on whose testimony her relatives were convicted. And of course when Livi read I was entranced by the gutsy prose. Apparently the book has been as popular with adults as with teenagers, and it certainly went down well with the adult audience that evening.

MMU reading: Livi Michael

Another MMU reading last night, this time from prize-winning novelist and children's writer Livi Michael. Livi is now teaching in the Writing School there, and this was her introduction reading. Appropriate then that she talked about her whole career as a writer, first of adult novels (including Under a Thin Moon and All the Dark Air), then books for younger children, and most recently teenage fiction (The Whispering Road and The Angel Stone). Disarmingly informal and amusing, she told us about the hows and whys of this progression and her various personal influences, and the different experiences of publishing 'literary fiction' and more commercially-directed children's fiction.

I have long been an admirer of Livi's work (and am pleased to say we published one of her stories in Metropolitan). She makes ordinary lives extraordinary, and the writing is spare and direct yet tense with beautifully controlled undercurrents. I was amazed and admiring to find that her children's books retain this tone - a rare feat in a genre where patronisation is all too common.

Next Thursday (15th) novelist Martyn Bedford reads, and the following week finishes off this year's readings with poet Alice Oswald (20th) and on the 22nd a triple bill of Jackie Roy, Linda Chase and Jeffrey Wainwright.