There’s another video book trailer cannonading around cyberspace. The video for Paranormal Cumbria can be found on this website here, on youtube and at bookreel.tv.
The trailer was put together by Jamie Cook, webmaster of this parish, and the book itself is due out on March 31st.
On Thursday 23rd February I’ll be in the St Andrews Public Library giving an illustrated talk on ghosts.
Entitled ‘Haunted St Andrews and Area,’ and based on the book of the same name, the talk will feature such supernatural denizens as:
The White Lady and The Haunted Tower
The event starts at 7.30pm and tickets (which are selling fast) are £3.50. Call 01334 659378.
Location: St Andrews Library, Church Square (off Church Street, between South Street and Market Street), St Andrews, KY16 9NN. More details and map here.
A few more details have been added to the schedule for the workshopiing on Monday January 30th).
As well as ‘I Walked With a Zombie’ there will be two parallel workshops on new writing by Stewart Ennis and Cicely Gill. The three directors working on the workshops will be Kenny Miller, Jennifer Hainey and Marcus Roche. The scenes for the workshops were chosen by Chris Dolan, who will be facilitating the creative outputs on the night.
Zombies, of course, are shuffling brain-dead quasi-humans driven solely by appetite.
But less of my working day…
On Monday 30 January one of my plays, ‘I Walked With A Zombie,’ will be workshopped at the ‘Stage to Page’ event in premier Glasgow venue The Arches.
‘I Walked With A Zombie’ centres around a group of art students making a short film in homage to classic zombie movies such as Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. But during the filming, all the participants are visited by their own personal zombies…
‘Stage to Page’ describes itself as “A chance for writers, actors and directors to collaborate by workshopping scenes from a new work together.” Each month, a guest director chooses scenes from an unperformed play, and actors turn up, are randomly allocated roles, and then collaborate in workshopping the scenes before performing them to everyone present.
The event is at The Arches, 253 Argyle Street, Glasgow G2 8DL (under Central Station). It starts at 7pm on Monday 30th and entrance for all is £3, which includes a drink (you can just turn up to observe the proceedings without participating, and many people do just that, to watch the creative process in action).
More info at www.thearches.co.uk/events/arts/stage-to-page. Stage to Page is an initiative of the Playwrights’ Studio, www.playwrightsstudio.co.uk/stagetopage.htm.
If you come along, I’ll be the zombie-like individual wearing the idiot grin.
On Thursday 12 January I’m returning as the guest of that fine gentleman Tim Prevett on his ‘History and Mystery’ show on RedShift Radio.
From 7pm I’ll be playing and discussing brain-frying soundtrack gems from cult films such as Donnie Darko, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, The Wicker Man, Rosemary’s Baby and The Dawn of the Dead – as well as Werner Herzog’s mystical-weirdo classic Aguirre: Wrath of God.
Then from 8pm the topic changes to the Jacobites and the Supernatural, with Tim and I discussing everything from accusations that a Jacobite general sold his soul to the Devil, to the alleged magical powers of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and a host of Jacobite ghosts. In addition, as RedShift Radio is based in Crewe, I’ll be exploring the propaganda surrounding the mystical prophecies of Nixon the Cheshire Prophet.
For more info go to http://www.redshiftradio.co.uk/programmes/history-and-mystery.
History and Mystery with Tim Prevett, Redshift Radio, 7-9pm, Thursday 12th January. Listen live at www.redshiftradio.co.uk .
There’s a new feature on the website – My Top Ten. I’ll be regularly adding ‘Top Ten’ lists from the world of the supernatural, the mysterious and the macabre.
The first My Top Ten is ‘My Top Ten Vampires’. And no, RPat and the poutsters from The Vampire Diaries do not make the list…