reading & competition!

Hello, fine people! Happy New Year and the likes. Here in Casa Valerie, we're gearing up for another house-move (gah - our fourth since 2008 and this time avec baby) sometime in February, so my minimal posting might get even more minimal for a while around then. I'm also sure we'll be without broadband for a while because the broadband-switching-bastards never want to make it easy for us. But then I'll back and I might even be living in a house! I've forgotten what it's like to have more than two rooms. Anyway.

On Sunday 15th January, Peter Wild, my good mate and the man behind Bookmunch, is launching his first novel, The Passenger! If you're Manchester-based, or even further afield, come along - as well as readings from Pete himself and the likes of Socrates Adams, Nicola Mostyn, Simon Crump and me (me!), there'll be live music from (hooker) and The Slow Readers Club. It's in Soundcontrol on New Wakefield St, right near Oxford Road train station. Also: buy Pete's book, The Passenger - it's excellent!

Also. There's a micro-fiction competition running at the moment as part of National Flash Fiction Day, and I'm one of the judges. Send your stories of up to 100 words (including title) by January 31st and you could win a whole bunch of books as well as getting your story published on the site (and maybe on postcards and posters too). Do it.