Last Wednesday I drove
over to Newcastle - the ‘upon Tyne’
one, rather than the ‘-under-Lyme’ one, and no, I have no idea why one is not
hyphenated and the other is - for Noir At The
Bar NorthEast.
This is now the third
time a Noir At The Bar event has been staged in the UK. A US import, the first
was organised by Jay Stringer north of the border, in Glasgow. The second - and the first in England - was at Carlisle back in March, and I was
honoured to be one of the authors invited by organiser Graham Smith (of Crime & Publishment) to take part.
Wednesday night was
the first time N@tB has taken place over in the northeast of the country. The
lovely Vic Watson - known as Elementary V Watson, proof-reader, copy-editor and creative writer - and the equally wonderful Jacky Collins, brains behind Newcastle Noir, were the co-hosts this time around. Thank you
SO much to those two for putting on such a great event, and allowing me to take
part.
 |
| Vic Watson and Jacky Collins |
The venue was the
basement of The Town Wall pub in Newcastle, an atmospheric venue with
cracking food and a charming barman who bore a startling resemblance to Jon
Snow from Game of Thrones. They served very decent grub, too.
 |
| Jon Snow, who appeared to be moonlighting as the barman at The Town Wall pub in Newcastle |
I wasn’t officially on
the bill for Newcastle, but having gone to Carlisle it was such fun I decided
to make the journey anyway, with a friend, Shell, along for a night out. Quite
by co-incidence, I had an email on the morning of the event from Vic, saying an
author had been forced to drop out at the last minute due to injury, and would
I like to step in?
 |
| NOT Tess Makovesky |
The injured author was
Tess Makovesky, who apparently lost a battle with her
furniture and knocked herself about quite a bit in the process. I swore I was
nowhere near her at the time, but I’m not sure how much I was believed … Hope
you recover soon, Tess!
For anyone unfamiliar
with the N@tB format, it involves a group of authors being asked to come along
to a bar (crime writers and a drinking establishment, who’d have thought a
pairing like that would work …?) and read part of a current work. The names
were put in a hat and drawn out at random for the running order.
 |
| The miscreants: (left to right) Graham Smith, Gordon Brown, Danielle Ramsay, Jacky Collins, Zoë Sharp, Eileen Wharton, Vic Watson, Sheila Quigley, Janet O'Kane, Martyn Taylor, G.J. Brown |
It was a really fun evening, not only to hear some great stories, but also to mix with friends old and new, including finally getting to meet Noelle Holten of CrimeBookJunkie.
Vic Watson has covered the
authors and the work from which they read so well in her own blog that I’m
linking to it here. Well worth taking a look at! And the
 |
| Spooky or what? Me and Vic Watson. I am her Evil Twin |
I read from a short
story I recently finished, which is intended for The Strand magazine. It’s
called ‘Risk Assessment’ and came about through an experience I had when I
received my last car insurance renewal notice and decided to use an alternative
provider.
 |
| Reading from 'Risk Assessment' on the night. |
The events described
in the story were entirely made up, by the way, but the possibilities are very
real. And it is, after all, our job as crime authors to see the worst in any
given situation …
This week’s Word of
the Week is sesquipedalian, meaning to
use a lot of long words that most people do not understand. As distinct from orotund, which means using extremely
formal and complicated language intended to impress people, and also prolix, which is to use too many words,
and therefore to be boring.
And with that, I’ll
get me coat …
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