Shindig! in Leicester

It's that time again - the next Nine Arches Press Shindig is on Monday, April 12th, with readings from 7.30pm, at the Looking Glass, 68-70 Braunstone Gate, Leicester LE3 5LG.

The featured readers this time around are Myra Connell, Lydia Towsey and Simon Turner. It's another varied and very entertaining bill, I think - we're lucky to have three such talented poets in town together.

Lydia Towsey is a poet and performer. Commissions include: Freedom Showcase in 2007 and Beyond Words in 2009. Residencies include two weeks with Theatre Royal Stratford East and years inside Leicester’s coffee shops... Lydia has performed with John Hegley, Jean Binta Breeze and Keorapetse Kgositsile, the South African Poet Laureate. Her latest publication is within The Great Grandchildren of Albion (a forthcoming project of Michael Horovitz). She comperes and coordinates WORD! the longest-running East Mids poetry night (www.myspace.com/wordleicester) and in 2009 was the Artistic Director of The Lyric Lounge (www.lyriclounge.co.uk). She’s doing an MA in Writing and putting together her first collection. She drinks a lot of tea.

Simon Turner was born in Birmingham in 1980. Heaventree Press published his first collection, You Are Here, in 2007. His poems and reviews have appeared in a number of publications, including Tears in the Fence, The Wolf, Horizon Review and The London Magazine. With George Ttoouli, he co-edits Gists and Piths, an experiment in blogging dedicated to the publication and discussion of contemporary poetry, which has been up and running since 2007. He lives and works in Warwickshire.

Myra Connell’s first collection of poems, A Still Dark Kind of Work, was published by Heaventree Press in 2008. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, and her short stories in two collections from Tindal Street Press, Her Majesty and Are You She? Her new collection, From The Boat, is just out from Nine Arches. She lives in Birmingham and has two grown-up sons.

Entry is absolutely free, and you can sign up on the door for the open mic.

I should add, by the way, that Simon's new Nine Arches collection, Difficult Second Album, might even be out by the time of the reading. I loved his first book, but at the reading in Leamington the other week, he warned not to expect a re-tread, saying that there was a 'Zen Arcade' feel to the new book. Now, anything that in any way recalls Husker Du's classic double-album is OK by me, so I'm more eager than ever to see the collection.