My writing prompt for today is ... golden shoes.

I can't remember the last time I've been so excited to get a book through the post, but today my order of Pug Hill by Alison Pace came from Amazon, and I was literally dancing round the kitchen. I love pugs with a passion my own dog, a border terrier, barely forgives me for, so as soon as I heard about this novel set in a part of Central Park reserved just for pugs and their walkers, I knew I had to read it. Checking on the internet, I see that Pug Hill really does exist, and I was also pleased to find out that the author Alison Pace has a blog, on which I read that she is about to speak on the emerging trend for 'dog lit'. If I didn't have to work today, I'd be in paradise, but sadly the pugs will have to wait until tonight!

JUNE EVENTS at the London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL
Tel: 020 7269 9030 Fax: 020 7269 9033
Email: books@lrbshop.co.uk

George Saunders 31 May at 7 p.m.
George Saunders, whose work has been described by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic and funny", and who was recognized as one of the 20 best American fiction writers by the New Yorker, will discuss and read from his new collection of short stories, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (Bloomsbury), which includes the winner of the National Magazine Award, The Red Bow. He will be in conversation with Scarlett Thomas.

Gautam Malkani on Londonstani 8 June at 7 p.m.
One of this year's most talked about novels, Londonstani, set close to the Heathrow feed roads of Hounslow, exposes a city where young Asians struggle to assert their own brands of Britishness whilst simultaneously trying to preserve ties to their parents' traditions. Written in the swirling slang of these young men, it explores aggressive machismo, tribalism and racial integration in Britain's neglected suburban communities.

Stephen O'Shea: The Cross and the Crescent 21 June at 7 p.m.
In partnership with the British Museum and as part of their Middle East Now programme (18 May to 3 September), Stephen O'Shea will read from his new book Sea of Faith (Profile) and lead a discussion with Robert Irwin and Inayat Bunglawala on the shared history of Islam and Christianity, and the lessons that can be learnt from the past.
NB This event takes place in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Tickets are £5 (£3 LRB subscribers) and are only available from the BM box office (0207 323 8181 or boxoffice@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk).Further details at: http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/middleeastnow

Platonov's Fourteen Little Red Huts 29 June at 7 p.m.
In association with Academia Rossica, Robert Chandler, leading translator of the Russian writer Andrei Platonov, will introduce the play, explain how it came to be written and compare the relative differences in translating a play from prose. After a brief interval, a shortened version of the play will be performed by professional actors under the direction of Noah Birksted-Breen of the International Freedom Network. The play, written in 1932-3, addresses the hunger, trauma and confusion which accompanied a period of rapid collectivization and the unmasking of unexpected "class enemies".

Other Events upcoming:

* Bill Buford on Heat July 13
* Michael McClure on The Beard July 24
* Jenny Diski July 27
* Banipal Arabic Writers August 15
* Andrew O'Hagan on Be Near Me September 13 (changed from August 31)

The shortlist for the Turner Prize has been announced and I'm torn between using these two as my writing prompt for today. On the one hand, I love the idea of using Mark Titchner's 'dream' quote literally, and having a character behave along the lines of The Dice Man where everything she dreams must come true, but on the other hand there's something about the haphazard structure of Rebecca Warren's sculptures that's calling me...

Am all thought-out at the moment, but this Bubble Wrap link came up on a forum I'm a member of, and is proving deeply satisfying. Go pop... you know you want to!

There are some different reading suggestions from Dan Rhodes up on the Pulp website, and good choice of best opening line -

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head.
From A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

- although I'm in favour of Carson McCuller's, The Heart is A Lonely Hunter. I remember reading it in a bookshop for the first time, and just feeling a chill of delight because I so badly wanted to read on, and yet it was satisfying just in itself:

In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together.

Not forgetting fashion rainwear for the dogs, of course.

I got this wonderful umbrella from my mother-in-law for Christmas, and if there's anything that could cheer me up as the rain keeps pouring down, it's being able to go out under something beautiful, and that can make other people smile. Very pleased then to offer my first rainy-day fashion tips by finding the Umbrella Art site, and falling in love with this one in particular:
And my writing prompt is going to be ... butterflies in the rain.

POETRY THURSDAY!

Well, only my second contribution but I'm already looking forward to reading everyone else's. Not one of mine today, but in tribute to one of my writing heroes, Raymond Carver, whose birthday it would have been today, I'm going to suggest you read Loafing. It's also raining here and miserable and I feel like doing nothing, so it's the perfect poem for justifying that. Here are the last lines...

Malingerer! my uncle yelled at me
so long ago. He was right.
I've set aside time today,
same as every day,
for doing nothing at all.

How does Carver manage to get so much atmosphere in so few words? And so my writing prompt is this extract from Last Fragment, which always makes me cry:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

(from 'Last Fragment')

Erotic Writing and Women

On Wednesday evening 14 June, join critically acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto at Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross for a discussion about the writing and publishing of erotic fiction. Topics to include censorship, the reaction of the media and buying public to erotica by women, a discussion of good sex writing versus bad sex writing, plus information on the major imprints in the erotic market. Mitzi will be joined by Emily Dubberley of Scarlet, a sex magazine for women which currently attracts 40,000 readers per month. The event is sponsored by Women in Publishing, a non-profit organisation devoted to promoting the status of women in publishing.

Date: Wednesday 14 June 2006
Time: 6.30 for 7 p.m.
Venue: The Boardroom (3rd Floor, off the music section), Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EB
Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court Road
Admission: free to members; £3.00 non-members

Mitzi Szereto has more than a dozen books to her credit, including the critically acclaimed Erotic Fairy Tales: A Romp Through the Classics; The World’s Best Sex Writing 2005 (non-fiction); Dying For It: Tales of Sex & Death; Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers; and the Erotic Travel Tales anthology series. She’s also penned several best-selling erotic novels as M. S. Valentine. Mitzi is the pioneer of the erotic writing workshop in the UK and Europe, teaching them from the prestigious Cheltenham Festival of Literature to the Greek islands. She’s been featured in publications ranging from the Sunday Telegraph (London), Independent (London), Toronto Star, Family Circle, Writing Magazine, Scarlet, and Forum to Bravo UK Television, Telecinco TV 5 (Madrid), and BBC Radio. Her outspoken views on the erotic literary scene have made her 'the author and editor who has put the "literature" back into erotica.' Her work as an anthology editor has earned her the American Society of Authors and Writers’ Meritorious Achievement Award. Originally from the USA, she now lives in England.

For further details, contact: publicity@wipub.org.uk
www.wipub.org.uk

Yep, you have read that right! Abe Books have put up a selection of authentic looking but unlikely sounding books as part of their birthday celebrations. The Not Books Campaign also includes one on 'Chicken and Beef, favourite Airline recipes' which, sadly, I'm sure someone somewhere has put a proposal in for.

So my writing prompt for today is going to be to come up with a list of strange book titles, and then write from one of them!

“Whether or not you write well, write bravely” Bill Stout

And my writing prompt for today is going to be ... brave writing.

I recently subscribed to the American fiction magazine, Glimmer Train, and have read the two issues I've received so far cover to cover. It's the best short story magazine I've read so far, so I'm pasting below an email I've just received from them:

Dear Readers and Writers,
In these crazy times we have to keep our eyes on the things that matter most: the life and health of our families, our communities, the planet. And to keep our sanity, some of us need to reserve a bit of time for reading and for writing.
If you already subscribe to Glimmer Train Stories and Writers Ask, we two sisters thank you so much for your support.
Glimmer Train Stories is an intimate collection of beautifully written, emotionally affecting, literary short fiction by both established and emerging talents. Although each quarterly issue is quite handsome, there's nothing commercial about it. There are no ads. And rather than simple lists of professional achievements, each author bio provides readers with a most unusual and personal glimpse into the writer's life. Find out what we're publishing these days—the very best of all the wonderful fiction that is submitted to us. Subscribe, and you'll find yourself eager to check the mailbox as each new season arrives.
Writers Ask is a different animal. It looks like a newsletter—16 big pages, no ads—but you'll find no news in it. Instead you'll read the insights and perspectives of dozens of well-respected authors talking about their techniques, their personal and professional challenges, and what they teach their creative-writing students. Especially valuable to writers, it's also great reading for the seriously curious.
Subscribe online: www.glimmertrain.org. Thank you.
Warm regards,
Sisters and co-editors

WE DID IT!
So this morning at 6am, we arrived back to this wonderful pink confection of a tent in London's Hyde Park after walking for seven hours, and covering 26.3 miles ... and we were still smiling! The Moonwalk rocked right from the minute my train up to London stopped at the first station along the way and a small group of other walkers in pink caps got in. And the same thing happened at the next, and the next, until I was full up with a mixture of nerves and excitement. When I got a taxi to the park, the cabbie told me about a friend of his who had breast cancer and was walking also, and only charged me half fare. Hyde Park was full of women (and some men) wearing the same pink hats, t-shirts with glittery pink bras on them, some wearing tutus, grass skirts, angels, devils, some with bras lit up with fairy lights, bras covered with fruit, ... and the queues were snaking their way towards this breast shaped marquee photographed here. 'Like Jordan's wedding,' someone said. Well, she would certainly have approved of us as we stripped down to our bras!
As we all set off - 15,000 of us with staggered start times - the starter said how proud she was of us, and that seemed to be the theme of the walk. 'You're doing fabulous, girls,' people shouted at us all the time along the route, 'we're so proud of every single one of you.' My friend and I agreed how proud we were to be women there tonight, and how beautiful we all were with our different shapes and ages and fitness levels, and so many of the men walking said how proud they were to be included too. Do I sound gushing? Well, it was a wholly non-cynical evening - non-competitive, ego-free and supportive - and how cool to be walking round London powered only by yourself. And London did us proud too. The rain held off (mostly), the cars passing hooted for us, people came out of pubs and houses to cheer us on, and we even managed to do some high-speed window shopping as we passed through Knightsbridge. One drunken guy came out of a bar straight into the middle of our snake of walkers. The look on his face as he spun from one woman dressed only in her bra, to the next, and then to a guy wearing a bra too made us laugh so hard. I'm guessing he'll wake up this morning wondering if it really happened. We walked over Tower Bridge, past Battersea Power Station, through Chelsea, round the Nine Elms flower market, in front of Buckingham Palace and back to Hyde Park. By the end, I could feel every muscle in my legs, my feet felt I was stepping on glass, and it's been the first time probably since I was a child I've cried tears of pure and utter tiredness, but, boy, did it feel good crossing the finishing line. A really whole-hearted thank you to the organisers, the crew who were just brilliant, organising us and cheering us on although they were probably colder and much more knackered than us, and also, of course, to all the people who sponsored me. It was worth it - in the middle of all the reminders of loss (names and photographs of people who have died commemorated on t-shirts and the sharing of stories about friends and relations on every side), to me what the Moonwalk was most of all was a celebration of, and optimism in, the future. I just wish we could have harnessed some of that power and sent it to Downing Street (where, by the way, we didn't walk).
And my writing prompt for today is ... tired feet!

I'm really proud, nervous and excited to be doing something quite mad tomorrow night - walking 26 miles (a full marathon) across London in my bra and in the middle of the night! It's part of the Walk the Walk charity fundraising programme, designed to raise money for cancer charities, but also to raise awareness too. And it seems to be succeeding - there will be 15,000 of us. If you want to support the charity, and my effort, then I've just set up a webpage at Bmycharity for raising sponsorship. Every little helps ... and I'm sure I'm going to find plenty to write about!

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting Katharine Hepburn

And my writing prompt for today is going to be ... different ways to support yourself.

We work to become, not to acquire.

- Elbert Hubbard

My writing prompt for today is going to be ... clever dogs, stupid owners.

For Poetry Thursday...

The man who used to live in our house before us (three years ago, actually not three months) was a solicitor working from home so we still get about three letters for him a day. I used to forward these on religiously, but gave up about a year ago because thought they couldn't really be that important. There are mornings when it still worries me though, so this poem came about ...

Gone Away

Three months after you move in
and the letters keep coming
until you stop forwarding,
let them pile up by the door,
dusty, unread. Only sometimes
do you flick through, imagining
the offers, demands, claims
unclaimed from all those women
waiting patiently in Kettering,
North London, Leicester
and, once, Rome, for the response
that now will never come. Mr Jones
of Forest Road, can you afford
to ignore us. Those cat tongues
licking envelopes never opened,
a puzzle of what might have been.

If I'm honest, the town where I live, Tunbridge Wells, isn't known for being an active feminist centre. It's a by-word - if you don't know it - for the kind of old-fashioned Colonel who has time to write letters to newspapers about anything even slightly new or radical, and a quick google for the catchphrase, Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells brings up 39,400 entries! So hurrah - once again - for the internet as I've just discovered feministing, and can get a daily feed of what's happening in New York. There's also a great interview with the founder, Jessica Valenti here, and I just liked her more and more as I read on. This woman is FUNNY. And inspiring. This is what she says about blogging:

Blogging is my activism. I mean, I certainly do “real world” activism as well, but there’s something really satisfying about doing Feministing. I think about it as a blog that has the potential to inform women’s activism. I think that feminism and blogs just make sense together. I mean, the whole feminist mantra of “the personal is political” is played out in a really amazing way through blogging.

Though blogs and women’s organizations really should be collaborating more. I always think back to how when the Bureau of Labor Statistics said they were going to stop reporting on women’s wages (they’ve since reinstated the reporting), Feministing posted on it almost immediately. They tried to bury it with a two sentence little release in this obscure place on their website. Several months later I got an “urgent action alert” about it from a women’s organization. If the immediacy of blogs could be combined with the grassroots organizing power of women’s organizations . . . I think it could be really something.

I've no excuse now. Not even the town where I live. Yours undisgustedly...