The Last Read of August

And it is going to be a totally amazing one. Firstly, it is at the legendary Speigaltent at the Book Fest. Second it is to celebrate the Rodge Glass edited anthology of killer new Scottish Fiction titled “The Year Of Open Doors” and as such with have one of Scotland’s finest readers — The Alan Bissett. Plus — there will be music from Burnt Island & Adrian Crowley.

Monday, 30 August, 8pm -- Edinburgh International Book Festival, Speigal Tent — FREE

The Year Of Open Doors:Final Night

Here’s a Taste of Adrian Crowley

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And Don’t Forget

My poem is in The Year of Open Doors — a very excellent collection of new Scottish Fiction. Do Buy the Book. It is quality. It features great new stories from people like:

Alan Bissett

Sophie Cooke

Kirstin Innes

Kapka Kassabova

Anneliese Mackintosh

Kevin MacNeil

Duncan McLean

Aidan Moffat

Suhayl Saadi

Tawona Sithole

&

Ryan Van Winkle (That’s ME!)

Check Out Cargo Publishing’s Website for News, Contests, Videos and all things Open Doorsy — See you at the Gig!

10 at 10 at the Book Festival — FREE

I was proud to be asked by the lovely Book Festival Peoples if I would read a few poems on the last, final, ultimate day of the festival. I’ll be doing just a short little thing  — 10 minutes of poetry at 10 am. It is free and the last reading I’m going to doing in Edinburgh for a while. So, please come, because it would be brilliant to see you and to hang out in Charlotte Square one last time this August.

Where: Edinburgh International Book Festival — Charlotte Square, Edinburgh

When: 30 August, 10am

How much: FREE!

Any Good: It will be the best I’ve  got.

The Golden Hour in Stornoway, 4 Sept!

Check Out This New Book! On sale in t he forpub.com shop!

Now available for a bargainous £2 is the fifth issue from Forest Publications’ Chapbook Series, Volume 2: a collection of poems entitled, Mosquitoes by Krystelle Bamford.

From The House at Westerly, Rhode Island

The house was the sea.
Or a ship on the sea.
Or a deer-blind
deep in the woods.
From the deck, they watch bitterns
skulk at the hem of vernal pools,
while green-heads
bomb through the dusk.
He is a wooden Indian
and she is a corn-husk doll.
He stormed the beaches
and she had a thousand sad children.  Read more!

Product details

• Title: Vol.2 Iss.5 ‘Mosquitoes’
• Author: Krystelle Bamford
• Pamphlet: 12 pages
• Publisher: Forest Publications (18 July 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-0956338891
• Amount: £2

GET YOUR COPY TODAY from the FOREST PUBLICATIONS STORE!:

THE GOLDEN HOUR goes to the EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL!

August 25th, 2010
9pm
Highland Park Spiegeltent in Charlotte Square
Free! Free! Free! (With Free Drinks and all sorts too!!!)

Featuring:

Ryan Van Winkle – Reader in Residence at the Scottish Poetry Library

&

Surprise Book Festival Guests

With Music From:

Withered Hand – intense, eccentric, bittersweet and very wry original songs.

The Sea, The Sea – lyrical lushness from Jed Milroy and Hailey Beavis featuring bouncing bluegrass licks and double bass band.

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Black Diamond Express ‘are like the fastest train of the Lehigh Valley Railroad… a nine-piece band soaked in poetry, myth and bourbon.’ (Mark Edmundson, The List). The Black Diamond Express live and perform in Edinburgh.

Come get UNBOUND with us!

(and check out the other hot free events on as part of the Unbound series at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.)

Naked Reading at Naked Brunch

That’s right — in the history or dumb things I’ve agreed to do, this would be one of the dumbest. I’m reading naked at the Naked Brunch. You ask: What is the Naked Brunch — well, pretty much what it says it is except with art, music, poetry, clowns, comedy and burlesque. You can read more about it here (and buy tickets if you think it sounds too embarrassing to miss. But, remember, you’ll have to be naked too!). I was invited to read by Natalie Bak, who is super lovely and has a great event planned for you with delicious food from Henderson’s. Plus, our friend, Baba Brinkman (who does all that great hippy-hoppy stuff) will be there and I’m pretty sure he’s quite fit. If nothing else, it will be an experience. I hope you are all too hungover to attend. Here are other events where I will (probably) not be naked.

Where: C Central, North Bridge

When: Sunday, 22 August, 11am

Cost: £10.50

The official blurb:

Eat. Drink. Bare all! A celebration of collaboration and the human form. An invitation for festival participants to unite and share their most intimate details. Encounter life as art and feast on a collision of naked performance including circus, dance and comedy. Pay tribute to artists brave and bold through music, movement, mastication and naked networking! Be a part of an experience to remember – certain to stimulate the senses and inspire your creative juices! Brunch included. Warning: nudity non-negotiable.

Ryan Reading at SALT Gig 23 August – 6.30pm – Free

I’m happy to be joining the gang from Salt for a free reading at UTTER! The show will be MC’d by Rob “The Hurt Machine” Mackenzie and feature other spectacular Salt poets with silly nicknames (I made up) like: Simon “The Barracuda” Barraclough, Julia “Can’t Touch This”  Bird, Isobel “Iron Tongue” Dixon, Mark “Golden Boy” Granier, Rob A. Mackenzie. Andrew “Keys” Philip, Eleanor “Wolverine” Rees, and Ryan “Never Had a Nickname” Van Winkle.

My book – Tomorrow, We Will Live Here – comes out from SALT in November (start saving now everybody) but check out their amazing stock and support poetry by visiting their website.

For Those of You Who Don’t Buy Books…

I’m pleased to tell you that you can read a new poem of mine, “One Day The Will” FREE on the AGNI online site. AGNI is an excellent print magazine out of Boston which regularly publishes writers like Simon Armitage, Tomaz Salamun, Rita Dove, Robert Pinsky and many other poetic heroes. It is lovely to be tangentially attached to the magazine and the excellent writers who continue to appear in it. Check out my poem for free here but remember — magazines need cash to survive. If you don’t subscribe, who will? So, have a look at the quality and maybe consider a subscription. Go on — treat yourself — only $20 for a whole year!

And If You Want More … Go Here

and read my five World Cup poems specially produced for the World Cup Poems site and Chapbook. If you have £3 you can even have your very own physical book featuring myself, Dave Coates, Sasha de Buyl-Pisco, Al Innes and Kona Macphee. Darling poets all.

But like I said you can read everything for free on the World Cup Poems site. Do enjoy. I wrote poems on:

* Slovenia * Argentina (oh my, The Hand of God!)* Algeria * Honduras (The Football War) * England

Go Here to Read All the World Cup Poems For Free

An Intimate Poetry Performance with Forest Fringe

“Red Like Our Room Used To Feel” is many things. It is an intimate poetry performance from Ryan Van Winkle. It is an audial experience featuring new ambient noises from Ragland that will crawl up inside you. It is an art installation with paintings , photographs and object d’arte from a host of Edinburgh artists. It is joy, memory and loss condensed into fifteen minutes. So, come, lay down, have a cup of tea, enjoy a snifter of port, close your eyes and be where you want to be…

Download the FREE CD HERE

The For Pub Don’t Stop

Presenting New Work From Chloe Morrish and Katie Craig — only two little pounds from Forpub.com!

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Now available for a bargainous £2 is the fourth issue from Forest Publications’ Chapbook Series, Volume 2: a short story entitled, Chicks Dig Scars by Katie Craig.

Excerpt:

I will never pull hair from a plug-hole without thinking of the ovarian cyst Celia had. It was made entirely out of hair and teeth – apparently that’s what cells find it easiest to mutate into.

“Did you see it?” She’s been out of hospital for two days but I’m just back. From a week-long training course in Leamington Spa of all God-awful places. The longest we’ve gone without seeing each other in years.  I’ve felt lurching and dizzy, seasick on land with the worry.

Read more!

Product details

• Title: Vol.2 Iss.4 ‘Chicks Dig Scars’
• Author: Katie Craig
• Pamphlet: 20 pages
• Publisher: Forest Publications (18 June 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-0956338884
• Amount: £2

GET YOUR COPY TODAY from the FOREST PUBLICATIONS STORE!:

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Now available for a bargainous £2 is the third book from Forest Publications’ Chapbook Series, Volume 2: a collection of haiku poems entitled, Snow by Chloe Morrish.

A sample:

bare trees, a crow shape
neatly cut out of the snow
behind it, the dark

the snowflake symbols
on the weather forecast
are all identical

Read more!

Product details

• Title: Vol.2 Iss.3 ‘Snow’
• Author: Chloe Morrish
• Pamphlet: 20 pages
• Publisher: Forest Publications (18 May 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-0956338877
• Amount: £2

GET YOUR COPY TODAY from the FOREST PUBLICATIONS STORE!:

A Round-Up of Some Nice Things

* Nick Holdstock (aka My Man Husband) has a humorous, yet intellectually rigorous, travel piece on”International Pynchon Week” in Poland. You’ll find the text in the very respectable N+1 Magazine. Read it for free.

* Friends Rob A Mackenzie, Tracey Emerson, Aiko Mother Fucking Harmon, Brian Johnstone, Ewan Morrison, & Sally Evans all slid through my mail slot today in the new, very orange, issue of Gutter. Check it out and buy a subscription here.

* The Genomics Forum and SPL are running a lovely sounding poetry competition … “Write a poem of no more than 50 lines on the theme of ‘improving the human’.” My poem will be about getting bitten by a radio-active spider. If you want to enter — find details here.

* And Lastly — The SPL & Don Paterson are curating a host of poetry events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. They’ve got: Paul Muldoon, John Glenday & Simon Armitage on the bill plus loads of wonderful others. Check it — here.

Unreadable Font / Great Songs

Lucky me, lucky you! Forest Records has released a brand-spanking new compilation with 22 great tracks featuring many of your (soon-to-be) favorite artists. There’s even two poems of mine — one with the brilliant St. Jude’s Infirmary performed live at the Ten Tracks Halloween Bash and one from Red Like Our Room Used to feel with Ragland.

But, more exciting than my contribution is the long-awaited release of songs like Mikel Krumins’ “Zombie Girl”, Silk’s “Mr Creepy” plus many more jems!

You can stream the whole cd here and get and you’ll be able to buy a download / physical cd from Forest Records soon enough.

Forest Records Presents… X

Celebrating 10 years of the Forest. Dedicated to all our volunteers who made it happen August 2000 to August 2010… x

Features 22 tracks – brand new, unreleased or recent classics from members of the Forest Records Collective and a selection of special guests. 500 copies limited edition CD – buy your copy today at the Forest.

Press play, take off all your clothes and prepare to be touched intimately by the sounds of the Forest. Enjoy sampling these choice tracks and buy a copy at the Forest – out now!

Tracklisting:

01. Robin Schlochtermeier “Seventeen Or More”

02. The Sea Is Salt “Kennoway And Star”

03. Edward Shallow “Pillars”

04. Billy Liar “Is It Me?”

05. Danseizure “Holes In Walls”

06. Rootmitten “Big Dub”

07. Hailey Beavis “In Any Case”

08. The Hemulen “Echo Plex”

09. Ryan Van Winkle (with Saint Jude’s Infirmary) “Walker”

10. The Homecoming String Band “The Cuckoo”

11. Enfant Bastard “(Bonus) (Level) (Track)”

12. Caro Bridges “Right Now”

13. Danny Mullins “Time Out”

14. Kyon And Dyems “Polygon Faced”

15. Ragland “Going Down”

16. Jonny Berliner “Moochin’”

17. Sam & Mike “Second One”

18. Silk “Mr Creepy”

19. Mikel Krumins “Zombie Girl”

20. Robin Grey “Roses From Africa”

21. Ryan Van Winkle & Ragland “The Duke And Pines”

22. Sycamore Drive “End Theme”

And While We’re Talking about Forest Records

You better believe that in the run-up to FOREST X, the music arm of Forest has been dropping great free releases like a goose. If you haven’t visited the website and grabbed a dose of awesome new music, do so now!

Here’s a selection of my favourites!

The Sea is Salt EP

Jack Richold and Faith Nicholson unite and conquer!

The Sea is Salt lull you into a dreamy wonderland with sparse guitar, piano and violin overlaid with achingly lush vocals. Then, just when everything seems safe and sublime, they release a pack of wild bears to go roaring for the throat. Kennoway and Star is their debut EP, comprising four musical nuggets of folklore, laments and Elvis mythology. Download it for free now!

Hunnibug EP by boletes

“Mushroom hunters refer to fungi in the genus Boletus as boletes. However, individual species vary widely: some boletes are tasty edibles, while others cause severe distress. Boletes are harvested all over the world, but proper identification can be tricky.”

Beware! Hunnibug the debut EP from boletes will blow your mind!

2009 – 2010 by Sycamore Drive