Julian in America!

Me reading a book in Alaska

This coming week, I will attempt to please the pants off you, my beloved readers, by reading fiction in Washington DC (March 5^th), San Francisco (March 8^th), and New York City (March 10^th).  (And if you don't know my stuff, I apologise for my presumption. Please, have one on me.) The fiction will be extremely, almost pathologically Irish. It may be, according to some, funny. It might even be award winning.

For those too lazy to click the links above – or who have just been afflicted by a deadly nerve toxin, spread on their keyboard by a rival in love, leaving them helpless, paralyzed, unable to click on the links above, no matter how bitterly they yearn to – I’ll slap in the details below.

Washington DC

The Washington DC gig takes place on Saturday, March 5 at 7pm, in Sova, 1359 H Street NE, Washington, DC. Get a seat at the front with a good view, for I am thinking of wearing my black damask silk frock coat and bright yellow trousers.

San Francisco

The San Francisco gig takes place on Tuesday, March 8^th from 7:00pm to 8:30pm, in the United Irish Cultural Center, Room 2700 45th Avenue @ Sloat Avenue, San Francisco. The wonderful Yiyun Li (author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, The Vagrants, and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers) will moderate, and boy do I need moderating. As Yiyun Li points out here, the last time she heard me read, I was accompanied by milking machines and cows.

New York

And the New York gig features me and Cady Finlayson. a “spirited Irish fiddler.” It takes place on Thursday, March 10, 2011, 6 p.m. at the Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy Street, New York, NY.

OK, now I've got to go pack. Tell your friends, lie to your enemies, and I'll see you down the mosh pit.

On Readings

A.L. Kennedy has been talking about readings, over on the Guardian Books Blog. I threw in a few comments, in the comments section. I may as well copy my first one here...

"Readings improve the work, and the confidence in the work. Having to read a chunk of prose aloud, you're forced to disentangle sentences that look lovely and literary on the page, but which are in fact merely incoherent and needed another draft. (Don't worry, good weird prose survives this process, you aren't going to flatten it all out to Ladybird Book level.)

And so much of good writing is about delivering information in the right order (especially inside the sentence, at sentence level). Reading it aloud to strangers (who don't already know it as horribly, blindingly well as you do), you can see where you've screwed up and delivered the tragic/comic punchline twice, or too early, before a vital piece of information needed to make it work. Or very simply that you've had a character do something in a new room before it's entirely obvious to the reader that she's walked through the door."

More on than topic over at the Guardian...

Covering Will Young's Buttocks With Butter

Will Young covered in butter

Well, that was a splendidly enjoyable reading in Kaffee Burger on Wednesday night. A lovely crowd, and excellent questions afterwards (except for Clare's one about bondage). One is always delighted with a crowd that contains both one's parents and Momus. (Giving the evening the air of a disturbing teenage dream.) I do like the way you can stay on in Kaffee Burger after the reading to catch the band, then the disco, and dance till dawn. (Though I wussed out, and only danced till 3.30am.)

I have just been contributing my opinion to a row on the Guardian's Books Unlimited about Will Young's fitness to judge the National Short Story Prize. I may as well cut 'n' paste my contribution in here too... Feel free to head over, and add your own thoughts...

I'm probably slightly biased in favour of the National Short Story Prize, as I won it in its second year.

But Alison, I think you are completely wrong when you say

"What's the point of having a literary prize if it isn't judged by someone with some kind of literary knowledge/qualifications?"

Wrong on two levels. The prize isn't judged by "someone", it is judged by a team of five. It's the overall balance of the team that you have to consider. I hope you agree that a team of, say, five professional semioticians would be very high in literary knowledge and qualifications. But they'd make for a lousy, unbalanced team of judges.

A short story contains a lot more than just literature. I note that the Guardian have linked, just below these comments, to an account of my 2007 win, headed "'Tipperary Star Wars' wins National Short Story Prize". Now, the team of judges in my particular year included the magnificent A.S. Byatt. I'm sure she got my references to Yeats, and to Voltaire's Candide. But I have no idea whether or not she got my story's references to, say, the Eurovision Song Contest, or knew what I was on about in lines like - "A brief chant went up from the Young Farmers in the Mosh Pit: "Who put the ball in the England net?" Older farmers, further back, added bass to the reply of "Houghton! Houghton!""

Yet I do know that the judges read and reread the stories, discussed them, and were unanimous in their final decision. And I believe a good range in age, sex, class, nationality, and experience of both life and literature can make for a richer collective decision.

This year, Margaret Drabble, for example, who was born before World War Two kicked off, needs a great deal of balancing in certain important areas. So, of course, does Will Young - but between them, there are very few references that they won't be able to explain to each other.

Last of all, but very important; a short story is not designed to be analysed by professionals. It is created to be read by human beings. If a short story, after several rereadings and much discussion with Margaret Drabble and others, still fails to make a connection with an intelligent young man who has read Ulysses, then it has on some level failed.

Will Young is OK by me as a judge (and no, I've no story entered this year, so I'm not covering his buttocks in butter with any selfish intent).

However, if you want a tip for a potential future judge from the pop world who likes his short fiction literary: I met Morrissey in a hotel in Galway when I was a teenager (long story). I happened to be holding a copy of James Joyce's Dubliners. "Dubliners!" he exclaimed. "Oh, you've read it?" I said. "Read it? I have it tattooed all over my body," he said.

I'm reading in Kaffee Burger on Wednesday

Just a reminder that I'm reading in Kaffee Burger, on Torstrasse, this Wednesday (March 25th 2009), at 9pm... Five euro in, and there's a band on after (a New England electrofolk trio called Erving).

I will extend to you the offer I just extended to my Berlin friends by email: If you'd like to come and you're broke this week, give me a shout and I'll try and get you in free... (There's an "Email me" button lurking somewhere on the sidebar.)

(Er, this offer is going to collapse into ignominious chaos, failure and bitter recrimination if more than three of you ask. But, this being Literature, that's not very likely...)

Not sure what I'm going to read... I might read The Orphan and the Mob, because it's won prizes, and it works well live, and I haven't read it here before. But it is also the opening section of Jude: Level 1, so some of you will be bored sick of it already.

Anyway, more information here.

And here.

And there's a charming picture of the magnificent venue here (it's not known as the Taj Mahal of Torstrasse for nothing).

See you down the mosh pit...

...And now I'm reading in Kaffee Burger, on March 25th (...2009)

Well, my first reading in Berlin went so well that I'm going to do another one, dash it. And this time my Berlin friends will get more than a day's notice.

I'll be reading in Kaffee Burger, on Torstrasse (just around the corner from my house! Why, my butler and pantry staff will be able to attend!) on Wednesday March 25th 2009. That's the regular monthly English language reading sponsored by Ex-Berliner, the rather funky English language magazine. The evening will kick off at 9pm...

I love Kaffee Burger, and have been to some great readings there (in both English and German), so I'm delighted to be invited. Kaffee Burger used to be the home of the semi-underground DDR poetry scene, and not all the stains have been cleaned from the ceiling. (Nor have they bothered to remove the old DDR price list, which still quotes you the one, fixed, national price for a cup of coffee across the socialist paradise. Doesn't CHARGE it, sadly, just quotes it.)

Great, great place, and host to some mighty club nights too (it's still home to Wladimir Kaminer's legendary Russian Disco).  And do stop to admire the building itself - a superb example of East Berlin architecture, in which the pre-wall-fall DDR aesthetic (a knackered concrete building made with sand and no cement) has been enhanced by the best of post-wall-fall Western urban street art (illiterate graffiti and some dogshit).

East Berlin architecture at its finest

I'm reading in Berlin on Saturday

Phil Rose took this picture of me in Berlin a while back

I'm reading a new piece from my next book (Jude: Level 2), this Saturday, January 24th 2009, at 4pm, in the Johann Rose in Kreutzberg. Why? Because the magnificent Nikola Richter asked me. Only a fool would say no, and my mamma didn't raise no fools. (Her Wikipedia entry is in German, but here she is in English.) I gather I'll be reading in the Hinterzimmer Salon (in the back room... I'll be everybody's darling...)

There will be cake. (In fact, I am being paid in cake.) This is, bizarrely, my first reading in Berlin. And I've never read this piece live before, so it may suck. But it may not. Anyway, it's free, so no whinging. Here's the address:

CafeBar & Lounge
Johann Rose
Forster Str. 57
10999 Berlin
U1 Görlitzer Bahnhof

Tel.: 0049 (0) 30- 55 10 35 90
news@johannrose.de

Elis will also be reading... Heck, read all about it in German (the key phrase is "Eintritt Frei"!)

Herzliche Einladung zum ersten Hinterzimmer-Salon im Johann Rose im neuen Jahr!

Come visit!

24. Januar: Wild komisch

Bei Kuchen und Kaffee und Musik vom Plattenteller geht es im Januarsalon am Samstag, den 24.1., darum, wie man eigentlich das Lachen in Texte hineinschreibt. Die Gäste sind:

Julian Gough ("Juno and Juliet", "Jude: Level 1"), Gewinner des BBC National Short Story Awards 2007, Sänger und Texter der literarischen und legendären irischen Band "Toasted Heretic", die mit "Galway and Los Angeles" einen Top Ten-Hit in Irland erzielte. Hier kann man erfahren, was er über den satirischen, lyrischen Autor Clive James denkt: http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=10530 Julians eigene Webseite findet man hier: http://www.juliangough.com/

Und Elis, Mitglied der Berliner Lesebühne LSD (Liebe statt Drogen), die jeden Dienstag im Lokal auftritt. Berühmt sind unter anderem seine McGyver-Geschichten bei der leider nicht mehr existenten Lesebühne O-Ton-Ute. Er liest neue Texte und vielleicht singt er auch eines seiner "Lieder für Kühe". Mehr hier: http://www.myspace.com/eliscbihn und hier http://www.liebestattdrogen.de/

Eintritt frei, Hutspende erbeten

----

Eine gemeinsame Lesereihe von Nikola Richter, René Hamann im Johann Rose, http://www.johannrose.de

Writing about David Foster Wallace. Reading about David Foster Wallace. Thinking about David Foster Wallace.

I've spent the last few days writing a piece on David Foster Wallace for Prospect magazine. It should be out next week, in their October issue. I'm happy with the piece. "Happy" has a fairly specialised meaning in this case, one writers will understand: I was depressed and anxious writing it, as I tried to understand, empathise with, and explain, a depressed and anxious writer who'd just killed himself. But I was also exhilarated and, yeah, happy, because the piece turned out the way I'd hoped it would: it expressed crisply and well some things I'd been vaguely thinking, loosely feeling. So I felt much better after it. Well, writing is weird. It fixes broken things. And the process is not sentimental.

The credit for that last photo of David Foster Wallace, by the way (and the two I'm using to illustrate this post): It was taken by Steve Rhodes, at a reading organised by the San Franciso independent bookshop, Booksmith, held at All Saints Church in 2006.

Out of interest, I googled, and found a couple of accounts of that reading on literary blogs. One of them is by a blogger trying to interview David Foster Wallace after the reading, even though Wallace has clearly and repeatedly said to the guy, before and after the reading, through his agent, his publicist, and face to face, that he is uncomfortable with that and would prefer not to. The guy keeps asking... it's just excruciating.

The other is by a blogger who fancies David Foster Wallace something rotten, though she has never met him. She dresses up for the reading (slit skirt, best bra, because "you never know"). And then she slags him off in her blog after the reading, ostensibly because she asked him a question and found his answer tedious. (Though she's really slagging him, you get the feeling, because he didn't look up from the lectern half way through the reading, recognise how special she was, throw his book aside, rush up to her, kneel, and propose).

Both bloggers can see the world very intensely from their own point of view, but they can't see how they must be coming across to Wallace at all. They don't seem aware that, though this moment is new and unique and important to them, for him it is yet another in a long series of almost identically unpleasant encounters with needy strangers. It's totally understandable (God, I have done worse), but the lack of empathy, on both sides, is also totally heartbreaking. They know his soul, because they've read his book (which is just his soul in code), and so they feel he is their soulmate. But he doesn't know their soul, because he hasn't read their book, and so he feels assaulted.

And both these people are obviously very nice, otherwise sensitive people, trying to make a real connection to someone they admire enormously, and the harder they try the more they fail, and now he’s dead and they never connected and it’s all intensely sad.

Jude: Level 1 is the Book on One in Ireland this week, again...

I just discovered that Jude: Level 1 will be (again!) the Book on One, on RTE Radio 1, each night this week (Monday August 11th till Friday August 15th 2008). Each episode will start at 11.45pm, local Irish time (which is, in fact, UK Daylight Saving Time... which is one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time... and an hour behind Berlin time... which is Central European Time... you still with me? An hour ahead of me? Or behind?), and will run for 15 minutes. RTE Radio 1 streams live, so you should be able to catch it anywhere. (Here's how to listen... I've never been able to make it work, but you might have better luck.)

Incidentally, I found out my book was being broadcast across Ireland next week by reading the news in the Galway Advertiser. Jeeez, nobody tells me anything.

Jude was the Book on One in April, so this is quite a quick repeat. I didn't do the adaptation, which is by the producer, Aidan Stanley. Conor Lovett is marvellous as Jude.

Croatia

 

I'm back from Croatia, and suffering an immense emotional hangover. That was one of the most intense, action-packed and enjoyable weeks I've ever had. I feel as though, since June 1st, I've lived an entire short, vivid life at high speed.

I was there for the International Festival of the Short Story, which took place this year in Zagreb and Dubrovnik. I cannot praise the festival highly enough. Best festival I've ever taken part in. And of course, as always, the quality comes down to the people. Charismatic organisers, magnificent volunteers, excellent translators, and great rattling crates full of terrific writers.

I'll post again on this, but right now I'm still too full of sights and sounds and memories I haven't processed.

Also, I can feel a lot of what happened in Zagreb and Dubrovnik already beginning the mysterious alchemical transformation into fiction. (Examples - I wrote a poem I really like, in the quarantine buildings outside the walls of Dubrovnik, and  got the entire plot for a damn good film while walking through the Square of the Loggia. And there's more on the way, I can tell by the tingle... It's extraordinary to think that in 1991, the year I was enjoying a hit single in Ireland with Toasted Heretic, this city was being hit by artillery shells and guided missiles.)

So, anyway, I can't really blog about the most intense or interesting stuff, because it would interfere with the fermentation process.

 But damn, I laughed, I cried, I swam, I ran, I nearly died.

On The Run In Croatia

I am currently on the run in Croatia, after an unfortunate pignapping incident got slightly out of hand...  I'll post properly soon, if possible, but I hear footsteps on the stairs... got to go now...

Don't worry, Will Self's pig is safe and happy, though jetlagged, and perhaps a little hungover...

Listowel Writers' Week

I'm going to be reading at Listowel Writers' Week, on Friday 30th of May 2008, at 2pm, in the Arms Hotel. It's a programme packed with some pretty heavy Irish names - Seamus Heaney, Anne Enright, John Banville, and my favourite Irish economist, David McWilliams - as well as the occasional top-quality foreigner, such as Lloyd Jones (author of Mister Pip).

There's also some good films showing in their Film Club. May I most heartily recommend Todd Haynes' astonishing, poetic, jittery, thrilling dream life of Bob Dylan, I'm Not There. In particular, Cate Blanchett's performance is as good as acting can get. It is more alive and true than most of our own lived moments. See it.

If you see me wandering down Church Street, don't be afraid to give me a shout.

Listowel rocks.

Jude: Level 1 is the Book on One in Ireland this week

RTÉ Radio 1 (the Irish national broadcaster) will be nationally broadcasting little lumps of Jude: Level 1 all this week, from Monday to Friday. The short extracts will go out at 11.45pm each night (Irish time), and can be heard live, anywhere on earth, and probably far out into space, on the RTÉ Radio 1 stream. They are read by the brilliant Beckett actor Conor Lovett. (One of the select few actors - a band apart, a very special breed - who have appeared in both Waiting For Godot and Father Ted).

I would have posted this earlier and given you a bit of warning, but nobody had officially told me that it was happening, and I couldn't find any advance mention of it on the RTÉ website. Maybe it's a secret. Maybe I shouldn't even be telling you. (Or maybe I'm just not very good at navigating the RTÉ website...)

No, I've had another poke around the RTÉ website, and they've just updated the Book on One page (after the first episode had aired, naturally) to plug Jude. Ah, there is more rejoicing in heaven over the sinner who repents than over the goody-two-shoes who updates his website punctually.

And I've just noticed, Lucille Redmond in the Sunday Business Post previewed it, in their Radio Review section:

The Book on One this coming week sounds enticing. It’s Jude: Level 1, in which a Tipperary orphan sets off for Galway, ‘the Sodom of the West’, when the Mob burns down his orphanage. After facial surgery reconstructing him in the image of Leonardo DiCaprio (but for an erectile nose), he endures a chase through the Dublin of Ulysses. It’s to be read by Beckett interpreter Conor Lovett. 

A woman of great taste and discernment, Lucille Redmond.

Anyway, I  heard some of the first episode as it went out (the live streaming kept breaking up, I really must tinker with my internet connection... chase those storks off my chimney, hunt the voles out of the DSL box, unpeel the clinging vines from my cables), and the bits I heard sounded mighty. Sorry I couldn't warn you in advance about the first episode, but you can tune in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 11.45pm Irish time for more, more, MORE of Jude's adventures across Ireland.

I  think he'll be walking through Tipperary, in the dark, tonight, and may well meet the mysterious Pat Sheeran, who will give him a lift on his motorbike to the Sodom of the West... I'm not sure where Jude will be tomorrow (possibly doing battle with James Bond super-villain Charlie Haughey, on Haughey's private island). On Thursday and Friday I do believe he'll be trying to preserve his innocence as he pursues former Supermacs employee, and his true love, Angela, through the Inferno of Dublin...

And if you like that sort of filth, you can buy the book here...

Blogging Live from Prague

Well, I've just had two blindingly good days in Prague. Met enough lovely people to hold a World Hugging Championships. Read to two of the finest, most receptive audiences ever assembled (in the Globe, and Shakespeare & Sons). They were both engaged and engaging, which is a heck of a feat. Sold all my copies of Jude: Level 1, which shows you how fabulously discerning they were. Wrote some of the new opening to Jude: Level 2 while sitting sipping cappuccino, in the sunlight, outside a cafe in Náměstí Míru (Peace Square). Bought all of Kafka's short fiction, again. And spent many fine hours in bars where the smoke grew so thick you could lie down on it and have a brief nap before returning, refreshed, to the scintillating conversation.

In short, I have been having far too good a time to blog, so that'll have to wait till I'm back in Berlin.

I'm reading in Prague! Later today! And again tomorrow!

 

Holy guacamole, I totally forgot to mention that I'm  reading in Prague later today, and again tomorrow. (Monday 7th of April 2008, and Tuesday 8th of same...) I should have had this up as a news thing weeks ago. Months ago.

Anyway, if you've any English-speaking  friends in Prague, tell them it'll be funny, intellectually titillating, and I may get my kit off if enough people throw their underwear at me.

I note with gloom that the Prague Daily Monitor has listed it as a poetry reading, so there goes my casual walk-in audience. (Just to clarify: It won't be a poetry reading. 100% uncut, hardcore prose, all the way.)

I'm planning to read the award-winning short story "The Orphan and the Mob" tonight, that's Monday night, in the Globe bookshop (as part of Alchemy Prague)... (For new readers, "The Orphan and the Mob" is also the prologue to my fab, book-of-the-year, comic novel, Jude: Level 1), which I strongly advise you to buy immediately.)

...and I'll be reading "The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble" (which had the peculiar honour of being the first short story ever published in the Financial Times), on Tuesday night in  Shakespeare and Sons.

It's practically a world tour!