Literary Lounge
Acts for 2012 are to be announced.
Last year we had the following performers:
Howard Marks
Welsh author, former teacher and drug smuggler who achieved notoriety as an international cannabis smuggler. At the height of his drug career, he was said to have controlled 10% of the world’s hashish trade. He is the author of Mr Nice along with its follow up Senior Nice and a novel.
Lana Citron
Actress, novelist and comedian, whose A Compendium of Kisses is described by The Economist as‘an intellectual and indulgent treat.’
Zoe Margolis
Author of the international bestseller Girl With A One Track Mind, a memoir based on her sex life, and the blog of the same name, ranked by the Observer as the 24th “Most Powerful Blog in the World” and described by Nerve.com as: “The world’s most famous sex blog”.
Monique Roffey
Her highly acclaimed debut novel, Sun Dog, was published in 2002. Her memoir, With the Kisses of his Mouth, is the story of an extraordinary love affair, a devastating break-up and what happened next: a sexual odyssey…
Lee Rourke
Lee Rourke is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel The Canal (winner of The Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker Prize’ 2010) and the short story collection Everyday. A work of non-fiction A Brief History of Fables: From Aesop to Flash Fiction is forthcoming in September 2011.
Sophie Cameron
Fascinated by words, Sophie has been writing since she could spell. Born in Yorkshire and shaped accordingly, Sophie likes the toad in toad in the hole and the hole where the wood should be. Now taken with speaking poems out loud, Sophie presents a broken mirror up to society. Not for the faint hearted.
Tim Wells
He has a laugh that’s more like a caress. He walks properly. He knows that wide, floating trousers are only good for wearing on a veranda with a cocktail in your hand. He has fought and defeated monster hangovers for years. His latest collection, Rougher Yet, is published by Donut Press.
James Bridle
James Bridle takes us on a journey into the dark underbelly of internet fiction, featuring Star Trek, Harry Potter and Top Gear.
Stuart Evers
A former bookseller and editor who now writes about books for the Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Time Out and many other publications. He is also the author of Ten Stories about Smoking.
Sophia Blackwell
A nationally renowned performance poet who has appeared at Glastonbury, The Big Chill, the Secret Garden Party and the Edinburgh Festival among many others. Her debut collection of poems, Into Temptation, was published by Tollington Press in 2009.
Rebecca Hunt
Her first novel, Mr Chartwell, was long listed for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for the Galaxy National Book Awards New Writer of the Year.
Amber Marks
A lawyer, journalist, occasional DJ and author of Headspace. As part of the Fallen Angels afternoon she will explore the definition of whore-like behaviour in English law and seek to identify any whores in the audience.
Nikesh Shukla
The Costa First Novel award shortlisted author will be experimenting with notions of what makes us man and what makes us machine, what happens when you play god and give life to a robot that will teach you to dance. Who will be the master and who will be the slave?
Travis Elborough
Ranging from Jane Austen to Agatha Christie and the Prince Regent to Aleister Crowley via Billy Butlin and Brighton Rock, Travis Elborough will explore our often masochistic love affair with the seaside.
Sebastian Rayner
Reading a monstrous and divine selection of poems inspired by myths from throughout history and providing a celebration of the international pantheon in all its weird and brutal splendour.
Dan & Dan
Dan & Dan’s YouTube videos are an online phenomenon with Stephen Fry saying: “I love them so much it hurts!” Now they’ve started doing their thing live. This involves a video projector, a screen, a guitar, and the kind of precision timing that makes your head hurt.
Chimene Suleyman
Having chronicled her monstrous cigarette habit in her confessional coming-of-age piece ‘A Platter of These Things’. Chimène has recently finished a commission for a text installation for the Royal Opera House, and is a writer and spoken word artist.
Ben Johncock
A Beta male (incomplete, slightly unstable, with some known issues) who hopes he’ll move up to Alpha soon. ‘The Importance of Being Benjamin’ charts his journey from big city to small town, from young man to young father, from unreliable to responsible as Mrs JC’s maternity leave ends and he becomes a full-time dad in a small-town world.
Joshua Idehen
Co-founder of the collective known as A Poem Inbetween People, the host and organiser of the spoken word event PoeJazzi, and a spoken word artist himself.
Nicholas Hogg
Nominated for the 2010 IMPAC International Dublin Literary Award for his début novel, Show Me the Sky, and winner of the New Writing Ventures prize for fiction, his award-winning short stories feature alongside leading writers Hilary Mantel, Lionel Shriver, Louis de Bernieres and Sir Paul McCartney on the innovative mobile publishing venture, Ether Books. He will be reading from his most recent novel The Hummingbird and the Bear.
Philip Womack
Philip Womack is the author of two novels set in an alternate reality – The Other Book and The Liberators – which concerns two monstrous beings with godlike powers inflicting chaos upon a rainy London.
Hannah Lowe
Her poems have been published widely in magazines and her pamphlet “The Hitcher” was published earlier this year by The Rialto. She has a first collection forthcoming in 2013.
Tiffany Anne Tondut
The pin-up poet will be reading from her new collection Descent into Paradise. Inspired by writers Todd Moore, Richard S Prather and Chelsey Minnis, the poet descends through genres of hard-boiled noir, pulp poetry and avant-garde expressionism, fusing themes of violence, gender, loss and reconciliation.
Evie Wyld
Her acclaimed first novel After the Fire a Small Voice won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize and was shortlisted for the Costa.
Ashna Sarkar
A 19-year-old barmaid/student/poet with a fondness for bawdy verse and America’s Next Top Model, her work veers wildly between bad boyfriends, bad jokes, and both sides of the river. She is the youngest ever winner of Literary Death Match, and plans on bringing the smackdown to Standon Calling.
Niven Govinden
Used to work in the music industry until pampering pop-star egos lost its allure, and now writes full time. He is the author of acclaimed novels Graffiti My Soul and We Are The New Romantics.
Marius Brill
A prize-winning writer whose debut novel Making Love: A Conspiracy of the Heart was published to great acclaim. How To Forget is his second novel.
James P Honey
Providing alternative rap his group, A Band of Buriers, are playing elsewhere in the festival during the weekend.
