A Leap in the Dark 46

A Leap in the Dark 46   8pm  Saturday 5th September 2020

An eclectic mix of poetry, prose, performance and yoga with first-time Leapers Ruby Cowling and Ben Pester, representing Boiler House Press; the latest instalment of ’24/7 Brexitland’ performed by the magnificent Malady Nelson (by arrangement with Amy McCauley), a visit to the studios of Henningham Family Press with David and Ping, the poet J O Morgan reading from his epic At Maldon and The Pale Usher on Billericay’s Grey Walls Press (held over from last Saturday’s works outing to Essex). Unable to come up with an over-arching title for this Leap, the Pale Usher has opted for a weak alcohol-related pun: 

Liquorish allsorts

An eclectic mix of poetry, prose, performance and yoga with first-time Leapers Ruby Cowling and Ben Pester, representing Boiler House Press; the latest instalment of ’24/7 Brexitland’ performed by the magnificent Malady Nelson (by arrangement with Amy McCauley), a visit to the studios of Henningham Family Press with David and Ping Henningham, the poet J O Morgan reading from his epic At Maldon and The Pale Usher on Billericay’s Grey Walls Press (held over from last Saturday’s works outing to Essex). 

The Programme

1 The Pale Usher welcomes you

2 Ruby Cowling on This Paradise

3 Yoga with Guru Dave

4 Ben Pester on Am I in the Right Place?

5 Amy McCauley (as Malady Nelson) performs 24/7 Brexitland part 4

Interval 

6 David Holzer story

7 At Home with Henningham Family Press

8 J O Morgan reads from At Maldon

9 Grey Walls Press - 1940s Billericay and the avant-garde

10 The Pale Usher signs off

The Company

Ruby Cowling grew up in Bradford and lives in London. Her short fiction has won awards including The White Review Short Story Prize and the London Short Story Prize, and her publication credits include Lighthouse, The Lonely Crowd and Wasafiri. Her collection This Paradise (Boiler House Press) was longlisted for the 2020 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and is also longlisted for this year’s Edge Hill Prize.

David and Ping Henningham are co-founders of Henningham Family Press, a microbrewery for books since 2006. They publish fiction and poetry. Their handmade editions can be found in the V&A, Tate, National Galleries Scotland and Stanford University. Their Performance Publishing shows compress the creation of printed matter into hectic live events.

David Holzer is a dedicated yogi, author, blogger and journalist. He founded YogaWriters and has taught workshops in yoga for writers in Mallorca, where he lives. Hundreds of people have taken his Yoga for Writers course on the DailyOm platform (www.yogawriters.org). His writing appears regularly in Om yoga and lifestyle magazine. David will be explaining why yoga is so beneficial for writers and taking us through a simple yoga sequence that can be done by anyone of any age in the comfort of a favourite chair.

Disclaimer

Please take care when practicing yoga. Should a pose feel that it could be harmful to you, do not attempt it or come gently out of the pose.

Breathing is a key part of yoga. Please breathe comfortably and naturally through your nose at all times. If your breath becomes forced, slow down the speed of your practice.

If you feel any kind of sharp, sudden pain anywhere in your body stop practicing right away. Be especially aware of your joints, particularly your knees.

Amy McCauley is a poet and freelance writer. She is the author of OEDIPA (Guillemot Press, 2018) and 24/7 Brexitland (No Matter Press, 2020). Amy’s first full-length collection of poetry will be published by Henningham Family Press in 2021.

J O Morgan  lives on a small farm in the Scottish Borders. His first book, Natural Mechanical (CB Editions, 2009), won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and was shortlisted for the Forward First Collection Prize; its sequel, Long Cuts (CB Editions, 2011), was shortlisted for a Scottish Book Award. His third book, At Maldon (CB Editions, 2013), takes its bearings from the Old English poem ‘The Battle of Maldon’. It re-imagines the short-lived battle that took place on the Essex coast in 991AD, when a ragtag army of Anglo-Saxons was mustered to defend their land from Viking raiders.

In 2015, Morgan published In Casting Off (HappenStance Press), a poem-novella that tells a love story that is set within a remote fishing community. Interference Pattern, shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, appeared from Cape Poetry in 2016, and Assurances in 2018. Morgan's most recent work, The Martian's Regress (published by Cape in 2020) is set in the far future.

Ben Pester lives in North London. His work has appeared in Granta, Hotel, Five Dials and other places. When not writing fiction, he is a technical author in the technology industry. His debut collection of short stories Am I in the Right Place? will be published by Boiler House Press.  

Aea Varfis-van Warmelo is a trilingual actor and writer. 

The Pale Usher is David Collard, who organises these gatherings.

The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.

  Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The next Leap will be on Friday 11th September and will feature:

- The poet Sasha Dugdale reading from her latest collection Deformations

- Laura Waddell on the launch of her debut non-fiction book exit

- A Letter from Dinan by Susanna Crossman

- Linda Mannheim undertakes a close reading of a short story by Wendy 

  Erskine

- Wendy Erskine responds to Linda Mannheim’s close reading

- Kevin Davey discusses his forthcoming novel Radio Joan

- New work by poet Christodoulos Makris

Stay well!

The Pale Usher