SUMMER READING

July 26, 2009 in Novella with Leave a Comment
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Has the e-book come of age? With Sony Readers, Amazon Kindles, and more importantly the iPhone and even netbooks, there is now a genuine audience of people who would like to read “on the move.” Whilst inevitably articles, reports and factual books may remain dominant, does this provide an opportunity for writers? Yes, and no, of course. Dan Brown or J.K. Rowling e-books will be as prevalent on the cyber-beach as the real one, just don’t get sand in your USB connection, that’s all.

Because there are so many different formats for e-books, I’m trying a little experiment. I’m going to make my 2007 novella “For the want of a gas barbecue” available to download via Feedbooks, which means its available in the following formats (I think!), PDF, EPUB and Mobiformat/Kindle.

For the Want of a Gas Barbecue

“Everything is perfect is Rob Collins life. He’s got a beautiful wife, Sarah, who he met at university, he’s working on Special Projects, which is transforming the company he works for, and whilst Sarah’s away in New York, they’re getting the garden transformed, with, best of all, a freestanding gas barbecue. But a midlife crisis doesn’t let you know that’s it about to start, and with Sarah away, there’s nobody to hold Rob up when he starts to fall. Often funny, occasionally dark, “For the want of a gas barbecue: a novella in 3 acts” is a contemporary morality tale from the barbed pen of Adrian Slatcher.”

At less than 30,000 words this novella is perfect for reading on the move.

Download from here and let me know what you think.

BEING A SUMMATION OF THE NOVEL “HIGH WIRE” USING MICROSOFT TOOLS

July 4, 2009 in Poetry with Leave a Comment
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Reading about flarf and conceptual writing in Poetry Magazine I went back to my own experiments in this area, at the turn of the century. This poem, written in 1999, which took my unpublished 80,000 word novel and continually re-used Microsoft Word’s summary tool until it just became a short lyric poem, was published in the Rialto.

Being a summation of the novel ‘High Wire’ using Microsoft® tools

Adam asked:
Adam cut short the call.
Adam smiled, mouthed a greeting.
Adam sighed.
Adam laughed.
‘Naughty, Adam.’
Adam walked on, unsteady.
Adam became an enemy.
Adam hesitated.
Adam smiled.
Adam smiled again.
‘Okay,’ agreed Adam.
Adam sighed.
Adam asked.
Adam fell silent.
Adam waited.
Adam answered truthfully.
Adam nodded.
Adam waited.
Adam shook his head.
Adam waited.
‘Hello,’ Adam said.
Adam waited, parked up on a yellow.
Adam walked in.
Adam insisted, speaking louder, moving closer.
‘I don’t understand,’ Adam said.
Adam asked, finally.
Adam was silent.
Adam laughed, shrugged.
Adam looked confused.
Adam emptied his glass.
Adam shook his head.
Adam turned.
‘Christ, Adam.’
Adam shook his head.
Adam felt angry.
Adam looked over.
‘Nobody’s interested Adam.’
Adam paused.
Adam laughed.
Adam snorted.
‘Hello, Adam, it’s about time.’
Adam walked, now in front.
‘How much, Adam?’
Adam felt a serene contentment.

EXPERIMENTAL FICTION

July 4, 2009 in Stories with Leave a Comment
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I’ve had a number of discussions recently about experimental writing, and how the internet hasn’t really led to much in the way of “new forms.” We still aim to write for publication (meaning: on paper.) Yet I’ve always approached more experimental writing from a different point of view anyway. For me, the subject matter dictates the form, so it would make no sense writing a story about acid house in the style of David Lodge for instance. This recent story of mine, “Aesthetic Sense”, appeared in Parameter Magazine. The story is in ten numbered sections.

Download Aesthetic Sense (PDF)

STANZAS FOR FUTURESONIC

May 20, 2009 in Poetry with Leave a Comment
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I occasionally like to be a Laureate and write a poem about an event. Last week at Futuresonic there was much to think about and I started thinking of a poem about the event as I went into work on the Thursday morning. Its took me a week or so after the event to complete it, but I think its important to have an artistic as well as a journalistic response to an event like this.

Stanzas for Futuresonic

The Manchester air,
Dense with expectation.
Sky colour of a silverfish.

Hidden static suffuses
Each nimbus cloud
The air is alive with data,

Artists merge with the artisans
In contrasting hues.
Bright silvers amongst the grey light.

A magnet attracts us,
Sets up poles.
Opposite me a simulacrum sits.

Rainclouds dense with data,
Networked fields
Of invisible shamanism.

A collision of intelligent lifeforms
Sat on the edge
Of a dark hole in space.

Our memories, words and thoughts
Bounce off the moon
Via Californian desert.

At an edge of something,
Do we see the whole thing
Or merely the horizon?

Sky colour of a silverfish,
Dense with expectation,
The Manchester air.

THE ELVIS POEM

May 9, 2009 in Poetry with Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking about how I might publish any poems on this website – as PDFs or as individual poems. I’m going to add the odd poem as and when it’s appropriate – maybe in relation to some other mention of poetry that’s going on, such as the news that Bono has written a poem about Elvis that is being broadcast, prompts me to publish here my own Elvis poem. Me or Bono, you’ve now got a choice…

The Elvis Poem

The chicadas went silent as the black gates opened
Onto that Memphis Hell. But no doubting his destination,
Right-hand to St. Peter showing him moves. The coroner
Had instruction to wipe away all evidence.
He did not need the asking twice, he was another fan.
“We will not agree on anything again, as we did on Elvis,”
And that is both wrong and right. Some do not love him…
But to hate Elvis is not easy; what is you don’t hear?
For always the voice will out. It struck me:
Keats and Dylan they say, which is the greater poet?
Yet no-one asks, Dylan and Keats, the greater singer?
There is no doubt. Yet how a dirt poor country boy
Became the president without an office, without successor…
If Rome had its Ceasars, and Greek its Plato,
Who’d America have at her heart?
Only Elvis, dirt poor Elvis, a boy that always dressed just swell,
Loved his mother, called old men “Sir.”
He listened to the black songs on the wireless
Dug the country fiddle players. Wore guitars
Like they only had one purpose: to beat out God’s voice.
A country needs a hero as barren land needs a seed,
And Elvis Aaron was scattered, not planted,
From Tupelo soil risen, to be annointed by the world.

WRITING THE NEWS

April 13, 2009 in Stories with Leave a Comment
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“Where do you get your ideas?” a writer gets asked. It varies. But because I write contemporary stories, sometimes, it is something in the news that sparks off an idea. “Life Grabs”, a new story, written in 2008, is one such story. I was struck by the media coverage of Shannon Matthews, the Dewsbury schoolgirl who went missing, eventually to be recovered, having being kidnapped by her own mother. It could have been other cases – such as the still unresolved tragedy of Madeliene McCann – but in all cases, these days, there is not just the testimony of witnesses, or the piecing together of the last time they were seen; but also the grainy few seconds of CCTV, sometimes from more than one source. A normal little girl, leaving school, or, a few video scenes from the last childrens’ party they were at.

In each case the footage is banal, as it has only assumed importance after the abduction. There’s something so normal about the few seconds you see on the news, that you somehow can’t believe that the footage doesn’t continue, like it would in a film.

Originally, “Life Grabs”, was going to be a Sci-Fi story, as I’d been writing a few in that genre, but it came out as something very every day. In many ways, the science fiction is there already in our everyday experience of surveillance, and the more mundane the details, the more realistic it becomes. One of the joys of writing is when you have an “idea” and then out of nowhere come the characters and the scenario that enable it to become a real story. Elvis and Simon in this story came out of thin-air, but its like they’ve always been there, waiting for the story to be written.

I think I like to take a contemporary trope – and missing children are common enough in contemporary literature(see Catherine O’Flynn’s “What Was Lost” for instance) – and explore a different aspect of the story than the one in the news. I think “Life Grabs” does that.

Download “Life Grabs (PDF)”

AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND FICTION

April 13, 2009 in Stories with Leave a Comment
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Although I doubt there is a story of mine that doesn’t include something of the autobiographical, some, through the form, the language, the setting and the main characters appear more autobiographical than others.

“A Cold Night for Drowning” was written whilst I was working in a closet at the University of Manchester, around 2000-2001. I’m not even sure it began as a story. I must have been reading something that inspired me, perhaps Bellow’s “Augie March”, whose beginning, “I am an American, Chicago born…” perhaps has an echo in the narrators’ description that starts the story, direct to camera. The closet – actually the stationery cupboard, was the only office available – and for the best part of each day I was alone in there. That melancholy time is reflected in the story, as is the subject matter, a protagonist, on his way somewhere, reflecting on life, his life. The real story only comes in at the end, and I think its a good example of the “slow reveal.” The original title gave the game away, a little bit, and a writer friend suggested a line from the story, “A Cold Night for Drowning.” She was right.

What surprised me, was that I’d written this and almost put it away, as a bit of self-indulgence, as a little too autobiographical in some ways, or as not having enough story. Shows how much I know. Everyone who read it then, liked it, and my co-editor at “Lamport Court” magazine, insisted it was published in her issue.

There’s lots of “me” in the story – particularly the observational humour of lines like “Doctors’ kids become doctors, actors’ kids become actors. And the children of men who work within offices ending up working in offices.” For the first time, perhaps, I realised that you could take something very nearly like life, and make it fiction. It’s not autobiography, any more or less than another story, but it does ring true.

Download “A Cold Night for Drowning” (PDF)

IN THE 2ND PERSON

March 24, 2009 in Stories with 2 Comments
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During 1998-9 (I think), I was part of Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppolla’s online writing community. In those dial-up days, I just had to log-on as fast as I could on getting home to see if anyone else had reviewed my story, or to review someone else’s. For a while Zoetrope was a brilliant community, where even if there were playground-style subgroups, everyone could find a little nurture. Then it turned nasty, of course – so big bad kids joined up and wanted to ruin every game. I think it just reached a critical mass that meant that newcomer’s railed against cliques, and the originators left in a pique.

Whilst I stayed there though, a lone British writer amongst Americans and Canadians, it not only provided a much needed sounding board for new material, but occasionally challenged me to writing exercises. One of these – a discussion about writing in the 2nd person – led to this story, “You, the Writer.” The original title was more opaque – I won’t use it here, as it ruins the surprise a bit. Set during the days of the Clinton/Lewinsky impeachment proceedings, it’s again an American story – but an urban and urbane one, rather than from experience. More McInerney than Faulkner or Ford.

“You, the Writer” hasn’t been published, but it has been used. It almost made a putative anthology of experimental literature, and a couple of writer-tutor friends have used it in workshops as an example of 2nd person writing. It is, in a rare piece of obvious meta-fiction, also about it’s form, and it is this sympathy between form and content that still pleases me.

When it was written there was no need to date it, of course, but I added the “Summer 1999″ reading it years later, when I felt that its historical moment needed emphasising. So do contemporary stories become historical ones.

Download You, the Writer (PDF)

THE FIRST AMERICAN STORY

March 23, 2009 in Stories with Leave a Comment
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In 1995, after completing my novel “Lineage” which got shortlisted for the Lichfield Prize, I was asked by a friend to join him on a bit of a road trip on the west coast of America. We flew into Seattle, drove up into Canada, and came back down the coast, stopping off a San Francisco, driving through Death Valley to Las Vegas, and flying back from L.A. About a year later, as I considered applying for the MA in creative writing at UEA, I decided to use my American experience to write a short story for that application. Eventually I’d write half a dozen “American stories”, but “The Ghosts of Coos Bay” was the first and the best. It got me an interview on the UEA course, albeit a year later.

We turned up at Coos Bay as my friend was going a little stir crazy driving down the Pacific Highway. “Let’s head to the coast”, I suggested as we hit Northern California. Desert motels were replaced by redwoods, and eventually we came to rest in Coos Bay, which is described in the story as “a goddam logging town full of Germans and Poles, working twelve hour shifts and driving back to wherever with a full pay check every month.” Indeed we stayed in a motel where the woman on reception was “carrying too much weight and stinking of spearmint, the alcoholic’s perfume.”

I think it was these details that made the story what it is. I have always been, and still are, in thrall to American literature, an Americanist, or, if you like, a Yankophile, and I think going there, and then writing some stories set there, freed me up to inhabit something of an American way of writing – I’ve never written a thing about the real Europe, in contrast. What is an American story? Its full of brand-names for description; its about strangers meeting by chance across the boundaries of their normal life; its about a certain “mouth full” desire to spill it all out in the writing.

I never did write enough stories for an “American Collection”, but “The Ghosts of Coos Bay”, imitation Americana or not, was an important story for me. It “told” a story, as well, and was autobiographical only in the observational detail. Its never been published; at over 5000 words, too long for most British magazines, and well, is it merely a simulacrum of an American story, or an accurate pastiche?

Download The Ghosts of Coos Bay (PDF)

INTRODUCTION & WELCOME

March 21, 2009 in General with 1 Comment
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Adrian Slatcher, 2009, photo by Alan Holding

Adrian Slatcher, 2009, photo by Alan Holding

I have decided to start a wordpress-based blog to showcase my writing for anyone who is interested. This will include links to web-based publications, specific pages published on this web site and other information as appropriate. It complements but doesn’t replace my literary comment blog, artoffiction.blogspot.com. Over the next few weeks I hope to be able to make available some of my writing, including poems, fiction and essays.

For a list of my publications, please check out the Selected Bibliography, which links to those pieces of work that are still online, including my most recent publication, “Writing Catastrophe”, an essay published by Horizon Review in March 2009.