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Showing posts from 2015

FACE VALUE: Northern Crime Short Story Winner/FRANK'S WILD YEARS: New Edition/TED LEWIS: Update

"From rural noir to urban terror, high concept drama to blunt force trauma, Moth Publishing presents its first collection of prize-winning short stories."   2015 is about to end with a result. My story  Face Value  is a winner in the inaugural Northern Crime Short Story Competition. With the winners' anthology released on Monday 7 December in paperback and E-book, it's a great way to sign off after a hard-working but not always the most productive of writing years. I'm especially pleased  Face Value  made the grade.   This week also sees the publication of a new edition of Frank's Wild Years . I'm grateful to publisher, Caffeine Nights, for the opportunity to put right a few of the things which have bugged me since it was originally let loose on the world, and for continuing to show faith in the book. The altogether sharper Frank's Wild Years  will be available online, in bookshops and at WH Smiths travel stores from 3 December.    

James Varda: Chance And Time - One Year On

On his ABC (Australia) radio show The Inside Sleeve last week, Paul Gough introduced a couple of tracks from Chance And Time, the last album from James Varda who died in June this year. He introduced the section with a few words about how he came to know Varda's music in the late 80s through the John Leckie-produced LP, Hunger . He spoke about the strength of the songwriting and how the record had stayed with him over the years. He played Beside The Sea , the haunting penultimate track on Chance And Time , and Only Love , which, in a sense is the centrepiece, closing the Chance section of the album. For me -   and I've listened to the album many times - there was something different about hearing the songs on a radio programme broadcast from thousands of miles away. It lacked the static and hiss of an old time analogue radio show, but felt no less distant.   It's a year since Chance And Time was released and nearly five months since James died. He would, I'm su

JAMES VARDA

JAMES VARDA: PRESS RELEASE Small Things Records are sad to announce the death of James Varda, one of the most distinctive singer songwriters of his generation, at his home in Sheringham, Norfolk on 12 June, 2015. James had lived and worked with a rare form of cancer for some time. He had known this day would come and until a few weeks ago was reading and listening to music, as always inspired and inspiring in equal measure. On 2014’s astonishing album, Chance And Time ,   James turned his songwriting talent to chronicling the experience of confronting illness and death, and in doing so, created a unique language and music of love and pain, family, landscape and loss. It is undoubtedly his best work.   James was the rarest of musicians, always and only making records on his own terms. His 1988 debut, Hunger , marked him out as the original indie acoustic outsider. His gigs in those days were an electric experience and led to invitations to appear on Channel 4’