Up to Date

DECEMBER

Of course this isn't up to date at all. Please send me anything for inclusion.

LIAR INC
BILLY LIAR ‘From the Frontlines to the Frontiers’
CD sized magazine of dirty realist fiction and poetry founded 12th December 1997.
‘Billy Liar’ was a part of ‘Liar Inc’ which runs writing projects for alienated young people.
‘Billy Liar’ was a part of ‘Liar Inc’ which runs writing projects for alienated young people. Issue one Volume 2 had a 20,000 print run and was given away with the style magazine ‘Dazed and Confused’.

LIAR REPUBLIC
A magazine of contemporary fiction, poetry, journalism, photography and interviews. Effectively replacing ‘Billy Liar’ as the magazine for ‘Liar Inc’ published twice yearly.

IAN DOWSON Writer, Poet and Editor
Co-Editor of Liar Republic.
Pamphlet ‘Smack Her Mother in the Teeth’ Echo Room Press’ plus anthologies and magazines.
PAUL SUMMERS Writer, Poet ,Painter and Editor
Co-editor with Ian Dowson of ‘Billy Liar’ magazine which started in 1998 and has now turned into ‘Liar Republic’. Ex co-ordinator for Morden Tower.
Poetry includes A pamphlet with The Echo Room ‘Vermeer’s Dark Parlour’ and ‘The Last Bus (Iron Press) as well as several editorial anthologies and/or magazines.

Some North Eastern poets/poets associated with Billy Liar/ Liar Inc
ALLY MAY
Enigmatic poet with a wry sense of humour and precise minimalism.
Lives in Newcastle.
STEVE MOORE
Not from the North East but lived in Newcastle. Now in Brighton.
DAVID CRYSTAL
Ex-patriat Geordie in London. Latest Collection 'Just Like Frank' (Two Rivers press)


THE POETRY VANDALS The Poetry Vandals have grown over the last few years to gain a reputation as performance poets not afraid to tackle difficult and unusual venues. In that time it has grown into a collection of six poets: Jeff Price, Aidan Halpin, Annie Moir, Scott Tyrrell, Kate Fox and Karl Thompson. (Kevin Cadwallender was briefly a member.)

PROUDWORDS
The creative writing festival for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals is now in its fourth year and is going from strength to strength. Due to demand from those who’ve attended previous festivals we’ve organised a series of workshops, readings, discussions, celebratory events and weird goings on that begin in April and go right through the year. As usual we’ve scoured the book shelves to bring you the best writers to inspire and guide those who’ve never written before and those who may need encouragement and fresh perspective. As a community we have so many stories and experiences that aren’t reflected in the mainstream. We’re a vibrant and expressive bunch, keen to get our voices heard. ProudWORDS seeks to give lesbians, gay men and bisexuals the opportunity to tell their stories in a supportive and relaxed atmosphere where the emphasis is fun and love of words. AND IT’S ALL FREE!!
If you’ve never attended a workshop before and are unsure about what goes on, now’s the time to banish the ghost of your English teacher at school. There’ll be plenty of breaks coffee and discussion. There’s no pressure to do anything you don’t want to.
www.proudwords.co.uk

The Hydrogen Jukebox was a cabaret of the spoken word mixing poetry and performance with music and comedy in a fresh format designed to take poetry out of schools and books into the everyday world. Teesside poets Andy Willoughby and Jo Colley set up the monthly event at Darlington Arts Centre with a team of teenagers working backstage and onstage to make THE HYDROGEN JUKEBOX the most exciting live literature event for a young audience . Original songs by young bands, original satire and music from the cabaret team of Industrial Junkies and the legendary Monsieur David "French" existentialist poet punctuates the performances by local and nationally recognised poets. Sparky, controversial performance styles and material are helping to create a new teenage and alternative audience for poetry. The emphasis at The Hydrogen Jukebox was freedom of expression, creating a space for the voice of those often ignored because of age, appearance, class, race and sexuality. The Hydrogen Jukebox brings the human voice joyously and furiously to life. The name ‘The Hydrogen Jukebox’ comes from a line in Allen Ginsberg's legendary "Howl" and the style of the Jukebox is in keeping with the Beat poet's ideas of expression, freedom and spontaneity. “Ultimately, the motif of Hydrogen Jukebox, the underpinning, the secret message, secret activity, is to relieve human suffering by communicating some kind of enlightened awareness of various themes, topics, obsessions,neuroses, difficulties, problems, perplexities that we encounter as we end the millennium." (Allen Ginsberg) The Hydrogen Jukebox was situated at Darlington Arts Centre in the Garden Bar.

THE MORDEN TOWER

'It just keeps Going'

Adam Fish. poet born on September 18th, 1977
First pamphlet, Diving for Yemaya, (Morden Tower Publications) was published and launched on October 11th (11/10/02) at the Morden Tower

The Long Dark Night of Frank Sinatra

Frank peeks out the curtains,
pours another Cuba Libre. It’s a joke
that isn’t funny anymore, a habit
he can’t break. The boys have gone:
they folded long before the dawn, but Frank
prefers to stick. To show his poker face
to sleep. To beat the night.

He’s heard that Dino’s making spy flicks.
Huh. Some jokes are sicker than his,
after all. And some jokers are wild
and scaly, slick enough
to beat a Jack, and lay the Queen
of Diamonds. Sam. John. Marilyn…

All dead. And more as well; the brother,
and the witnesses, the mistresses, the fall guy:
gone. Cashed out. No longer in the game.
All debts called in: now Frank’s a living relic,
blue-eyed fossil walking ‘round in snakeskin shoes.
And now there’s a hunter out stalking his playground,
rewriting the borders, rewiring the signs.

In a vision he sees it come down:
all the pirates pushed over the plank, Hughes, the mob
buccaneers, muscled out by movie studios. His stage
usurped by Elvis, relacquered with irony.
A thousand drunken Mackies filling karaoke bars,
without a killing on their conscience…

He can feel himself slipping; he pulls himself back,
sneaks a glance out the window.
The Vegas neon’s turning off, the clouds
are hyping up the sky, the sun’ll be on stage
in ten. He clears the rum away
like Peter Lawford hiding evidence.

He hasn’t folded this time.

Light's List of Literary Magazines 2003
Contains the names, addresses, price, frequency, page count and a brief note of interests (e.g. "Traditional: poems to 30 lines, fiction to 2000 words, reviews, artwork") of over 1400 UK, US, Canadian, Australasian, European, African and Asian small press magazines publishing creative writing and artwork in English.
(70 pages). 18th annual edition ISBN 1 897968 19 1
£3 inclusive of postage (US$7 surface; US$8 air)
Please make cheques or British postal orders payable to John Light.
Photon Press, 37 The Meadows, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, TD15 1NY, British Isles.

SWARLEY'S CLUB
The occasional club led by Keith Armstrong carries on into 2007.

SAND magazine and Press
A magazine and press started in 2003
Edited by Kevin Cadwallender (and originally Joanne Piesse.)


MOODSWING -Pocket Broadsheet.
A beautifully produced folded broadsheet. Lovingly made and edited by Consett based poet Steve Urwin. His own poetry includes 'Tightrope Walker' (Redbeck) and the forthcoming Dogeater Press collection.

FERANK MANSEED -Poet, D.J. and 'irritainer'
Newcastle based performance poet , rapper and 'underground' favourite.

www.gnosticgarden.com/ferank/intro.htm

The Bards Valentine VersesGulbenkian StudioWednesday 12 February 2003
Poets Gillian Allnutt, Julia Darling, Linda France, Cynthia Fuller, Desmond Graham and Bill Herbert, who are all members of Newcastle University's resident writers group, will be offering their own unique thoughts on romantic love and love in its widest sense. They will be performing their poetry together in a staged reading prepared by Duska Radosavljevic Heaney, the Dramaturg at northern stage and Newcastle University. Duska Radosavljevic Heaney said: "The aim of the evening is to create an event that is more dramatic than a traditional poetry reading. We hope to create a performance in which the poems are seamlessly woven together. The poems have been chosen to complement each other and will be accompanied by live and recorded music as well as lighting and props."

WRITERS FOR PEACE
On Sunday 2 March at Live Theatre, North East actors will perform one of the 568 readings of Aristophanes anti-war play Lysistrata which are taking place in 36 countries around the world. Conceived in January of this year by two New Yorkers, The Lysistrata Project is the first ever global theatrical event for peace. It was created to voice opposition against war with Saddam Hussein and its many participants include Kevin Bacon and Julie Christie. Written in 400 BC, Lysistrata tells the story of women from opposing states who unite to end a war by refusing to sleep with their husbands until the men agree to lay down their swords. Powerless in their society and distraught over too many of their children being slaughtered in battle, the women use the only tactic available to them: they withhold sex.In the Newcastle event North East writers Julia Darling, Rachel Matthews, Alice de Smith and Ellen Phethean have reworked passages of the riotously funny and sexy play to give it a strong contemporary regional flavour.