I will have become a real commuter the day I start religiously bringing a book with me. Not to read, but to carve out a space on the train, to ward off the noise and the spurious intimacy of rush hour. No wonder so many books are sold in London – they are sword and shield, blanket and magic potion.
Been going into work early, sometimes even early enough to get a seat. The Tube is very bedroomy then. No one speaks. Some women paint on make-up, hold out little mirrors to check they’re doing a passable job. But that’s rare. Sleeping or reading are the usual things. Mostly people read books. A guy next to me is reading history: the Age of Europe. 1600s, I think. He turns the pages incredibly slowly. I ask if it’s the Age of Asia now, but he says no, today we are in the Postmodern Age. He closes his book and gets off at Mornington Crescent, leaving me thinking, Funny that, because Postmodern sounds so old… Like aeroplane or Hi-Fi Stereo. Hovercraft, Information Superhighway. So what age do we live in? Perhaps the Age of Plastic. Yeah, still.
‘Dancing with Mr Darcy’ editors Sarah Waters and Lindsay Ashford were there to celebrate and endorse the book, which is a collection of short stories inspired by Jane Austen, published by Honno.
The authors gathered together to hear a reading of the winning story by Victoria Owens (pictured here in the centre). It was my first time having a story published in a collection in which all the authors were women, and I don’t know if that is why, but there was something extra nice about it.
Later I caught up with fellow London author Andrea Watsmore, and a few of us took Jane (and The Little Stranger) to the pub. I wonder what Jane Austen would have made of the girl with the bright blue hair?
Saw a copy of Punk Fiction for the first time at the launch in Soho the other night. Guess what? It’s a hardback. A first for me. Publisher Portico has made a smart-looking book, and a wild time was had by all - the only way to clear a path to the bar was to shout out that you’d just got off a plane from Mexico and needed a hot whiskey for your throat. Here’s a few of the assembled literati at Dick’s Bar, editor Janine Bullman, and one more outside on the Soho streets.
If you catch a No4 bus in London soon, you could hear one of my stories on your mobile phone. Just switch on your phone and it will text you an option to download some blasts of short fiction as you travel. There’s a piece set in the Angel by me, one in Highbury by (guess?) yes, Nick Hornby, and rumour has it they’ve roped in a bloke called Pepys to cover Fleet Street. All this free storydom is thanks to BBC.co.uk. More on this as soon as I can grab a No4…
The other morning when I took this photo, the other tube passengers bristled as the flash went off. But once they realised I wasn’t photographing them, they didn’t say anything. (Doubt they would have, anyway…. Northern Line, in the morning? Don’t think so.) Besides the sticker says it all really. Without offending nearly as much as the average free paper that people on the tube were busy reading.
I’ll be there. So will quite a few other writers, publishers, editors and so on. Not quite sure what I’ll be doing on the day but I’m currently working on building the programme and the Litcamp website for which we’re using PostCMS. Having a lot of fun with that. And working on another baby thing, too. All of which means fiction is on the back burner just at the mo.
