Tag: reading

Launched

~ Jan Kaneen ~ Leave a comment

Had a wonderful night on Thursday at the launch of Hostile Environments and have been so thrilled so see copies winging into the world. Above are some that have found their forever homes and/or a place in the best bookshop ever. One is on Northodox’s ‘for sale’ table at the fabulous northern indie that is The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley. Northodox are this month’s indie publisher of the month at The Grove and so have a promotional table there during August which is full of amazing Northodoxian Books. And I’m very happy to report that Hostile Environments has sold out it’s first order there. Thanks so much to everyone who posted photos of their copies including The Grove, who you can read more about by following the link to their website, here: https://www.grovebookshop.com/

And I’m very happy to see from the flowers in some of the photos, that there’s several potential contenders for plant of the day – though I’m not expert enough to be able to identify them all. This being the case, I’m going to nominate the fern in the last photo which I do recognise. I love a fern and grow several myself. They provide lush green backdrops for the bursts of colour provided by petunias and nasturtiums in the flower bad outside my writing shed, but they’ve struggled this super dry, hot summer and needed a bit of additional TLC. But their time is coming, and soon it will be September – cooler shadier days that they much prefer, and even in winter when everything has died back they still make the garden feel alive with their feathery fronds and fractal shapes. Hoping it will be the same for my newly born book which houses several dark and weird stories very well suited to drawing-in evenings and nights by the fire. Going to be doing some spooky season readings in the coming months to help promote Hostile Environments and though the launch is now in the balmy past, the book’s future is only just beginning – which feels really exciting, more of which next time when I should also have good news about the PhD project I’ve been banging on about in previous posts. Safe to say it’s been quite the week in the writing shed, one that I’ll remember for the rest of forever. Thanks for sharing it with me blog buddies. Wouldn’t have been the same without you and if you fancy getting a copy of Hostile Environments either in paperback or as an e-book, here’s the links: https://www.northodox.co.uk/product-page/hostile-environments-paperback https://www.northodox.co.uk/product-page/hostile-environment-ebook

Hostile Environments – the launch

~ Jan Kaneen ~ Leave a comment

It’s day 7 of my week of blogging to celebrate the publication of Hostile Environments and today I’m mostly promoting the on-line Zoom launch which will be on Thursday night between 7 and 8pm UK time. I’ll put a link to the Eventbrite page where you can book tickets at the end of this blog. It’s free but you do have to book.

But first – plant of the day – Celosia argentea or plumed cockscomb, or silver cock’s comb, or Lagos spinach. I bought this one (pictured here) from Aldi when I was doing a shop earlier in the year. It was sitting outside in that heatwave we had in spring, looking almost dead and I felt sorry for it, so, not knowing what it was I bought it and brought it home, watered it and it grew and grew. I had no idea what it was but it’s easy to identify and turns out it’s considered an invasive weed in parts of India and china and is grown as a beloved veggie in west Africa where it’s served as boiled greens. It thrives in hot sun (if watered adequately) and is easy to grow – just the sort of plant I like then and perfect for my potager’s garden. I think I will always grow it from now onwards – for the gorgeous brightly coloured grassy flower heads, which are soooo lovely as much as for the leaves which do taste very like spinach. It’s a win win win plant – lovely to look at, great to eat and easy to grow. Wish writing stories came so easily. It’s funny because quite often folks are surprised that writing a teeny flash can take such a long time. To be fair, in my life BCW (before creative writing) I too, thought authors just sat down and wrote and there it was finished. I had no idea that writing was re-writing, editing, experimenting with what you’ve got, leaving everything alone to settle in a drawer, coming back to what you’ve written some time later, then maybe repeating that process all over again, and again, and maybe even again.

Mark Twain got it right – he once wrote to a friend, sorry about the long long letter but I didn’t have time to write a short one. And then sometimes stories do just pop out ready formed – you put pen to paper and ta-dah – a flash. For me this is very rare though because I like to experiment and pare things down, to do an Ursula Le Guin i.e. cut down the word count of a story by half – a really fab exercise to do – why not give it a go? It’s amazing when you do it for the first time, you learn a lot about editing, crafting and your own style of writing. Reet going to finish there today because you know – brevity. Will write more about the PhD application later in the week but in the meantime, here is the link for the launch on Thursday where I’ll be doing readings, a lighthearted generating writing ideas ten minutes, and answering questions from Northodox Press. Bring a brew or some fizz or whatever you fancy and spend an hour in cyberspace talking Hostile Environments. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hostile-environments-book-launch-tickets-1480973193689?msockid=1f3453cc4e1460930acc46d94f126195

Exciting Writing Times

~ Jan Kaneen ~ Leave a comment

Seldom do I write posts here that are only about writing, I chat about life, the universe and random stuff-and-shit that’s been happening to me, the family and the world in general, and all of that has, of course, still been going on since last I blogged – Grandpeep birthdays, another dose of covid, harvesting the first of this year’s crops – cherries, courgettes, beans and new potatoes, the huge success that growing pak choi has been (seriously plant some even if you only have a window box – 100% germination rate, you can cook it like spinach, add to soups or eat as a super delicious salad and you keep cutting the leaves and they grow back again and again.) And during all this local stuff the world beyond the garden has continued to be bat shit crazy with wars, escalations, billionaires running riot over the planet, power mad potentates killing at will and elected leaders still putting their fingers in their ears when anyone mentions the word genocide, but, as I set this page up all those years ago to talk about my writing journey, I reckon focussing on a book when I have one out is what I should mostly do right here right now so…

My new book Hostile Environments will publish on 7/8/25 and is available now for pre-orders. Above is the cover and here is the pre-order link https://www.northodox.co.uk/product-page/hostile-environments-paperback which takes you direct to the paperback ordering place at Northodox. There’s more deets there about the book but in a nutshell it’s a collection of dark short stories and flash fictions that each speak about what makes a place safe or dangerous and how this is as much about who you are and who rules the roost than actual geographical location. Addressing contemporary anxieties like the climate crisis, gender identification, the need for the me-too movement, BLM, the growth of populism, fake truth, the impact of the pandemic, the perils of navigating cyberspace and social media, these stories explore how one person’s sanctuary can be another’s hellscape. I will also be having an on-line Zoom launch on 14/8/25 from 7-8pm. I’ll post more details including how to book a (totally free) ticket to this soon but to whet appetites, it will include readings from Hostile Environments, a Q&A sesh and a super-brief 20 minute writing workshop. It has been proper hard work putting this book together and not at all straightforward what with having to get my weird story shapes and conceits onto the page and every single tale having an accompanying illustration.

Still its very nearly done now thanks to the wonderful peeps at Northodox, to whom I am so grateful and whose 5th birthday it was in June. To celebrate, they had a birthday bash in Leeds Central Library as part of the Leeds Lit Fest and I travelled back oop north to do a reading, including a flash from Hostile Environments which was good practice for the launch. Here’s a photo of me at the gorgeous gothic space that is Leeds Central Library, and another afterwards down the pub with a constellation of other Northodox authors who are just the most lovely and talented bunch of humans. It really was a fun and happy event.

There is however still a lot to do before Hostile Environment’s publication day, highlights of which include my youngest son fighting in a Mauy Thai bout on Saturday which (heaven help me) I’m going to London to watch, then I’m off to Gdansk on Sunday to help with grandpeep Leyla, then its the Flash Festival the weekend I get home, and before any of that, I’ve got to do final, final, final text revisions, so better crack on with those right now and stop all this blogging. I’m not going to sign off though without saying how grateful I feel for all these exciting writing times – a moment of personal joy in this crazy mixed up and often vicious world. All this and I haven’t even mentioned another writing iron I’ve just put into a very different scribing fire, more of which next time if everything progresses according to plan, but suffice it to say that this writing life that I took up at the age of 50 to sort out my mental health and see where it led has brought such joy, affirmation, brilliant friends, a whole new raft of knowledge, a different perspective on the world and, shortly, three published books of which I am seriously proud. I really am so so grateful.