Brixton BookJam
Set List - 2nd December 2013

Set 1- 8-8.30
Tom Watson
Marianne Hyatt
Anna Mazzola
Dave McGowan

Set 2- 8.45-9.15
Martin Millar
Caspar Addyman
Tessa Ditner
Miranda Miller

Set 3- 9.30-10
Sally Harris
Keith Lewis
Jill Moffat

Compered by Doc Williams


The Brixton BookJam is a free quarterly literary event, held at the Hootananny in Brixton. Find out more at http://www.brixtonbookjam.com

Set 3 - Sally Harris, Keith Lewis, Jill Moffat

Listen to our BookJam on Monday 3rd October, at our regular venue the Hootananny in Brixton. We heard from:Deserter, Roșie Wilby, Ivy Ngeow, CJ Schuler, Ned Beauman, Kwaku Osei-Afrifa, Graham Buchan, Zelda Rhiando, and Celine Hispiche …presented by Mik Artistik, with music from Rebecca Hollweg.

Brixton BookJam - 3 Oct 2022

Two imaginary podcasters discuss my forthcoming novel 'Night Shift'

Night Shift podcast

An imaginary podcast about my novel Fukushima Dreams, which came out in 2018.

Fukushima Dreams - podcast

a-deep-dive-zelda-rhiando

Set 3: 9.30pm 
Martin Millar 
Belle de Neige 
Montague Kobbé 
Robert Eaglestone

BookJam Set 3

Set 2: 8.45pm 
Jenny Stallard 
Rosie Wilby 
Courttia Newland 
Susie Cornfield

Music by DJ Andy

BookJam Set 2

Set 1: 8pm 
Angela Wilson 
Lucy Ribchester 
Paul McVeigh 
Ben Byrne 

Music by Raleigh Rye

BookJam Set 1

The Brixton BookJam is a FREE quarterly literary event that is unpredictable, eclectic, and aims to curate the very best in South London writing. Appearing on this recording are: Jim Bob, Ruth Ware, Marc Nash, Tamim Sadikali, Frances Mensah Williams, Chris Chalmers, Dominick Reyntiens, Toby Downton, Zelda Rhiando and Yana Stajno. See more at: http://www.brixtonbookjam.com/

Set 3

zelda-reading-magpies-eva-brixton

Recorded live at the Brixton BookJam, a free quarterly literary event. Including readings from: Jenny Stallard, Eleanore Etienne, Jacqueline Crooks, Richard Skinner, Fraser McAlpine, Tom Pollock, Yolanda Zappaterra and Jan Fuscoe, Kevin MacNeil, Kit Fraser, Nikesh Shukla, Matthew Redford and Shazea Quraishi, and music from Ese Music Experience. 

See more at: http://www.brixtonbookjam.com/readersspeakers/#sthash.TOChqIQp.dpuf 

BookJam - 07/12/15 Set - 2

Stevan Alcock is a writer, editor and translator. A born and raised Yorkshireman, his debut novel Blood Relatives has received widespread critical acclaim. The Guardian described it as ‘refreshing, even radical’, The Times said it is ‘written with a daring and assurance’. Blood Relatives was longlisted for the 2015 Green Carnation Prize and is currently shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize.
@StevanAlcock


Irenosen Okojie has been named by writer Ben Okri as an exciting talent to watch. In 2016, she published her short story collection Speak Gigantular and won a Betty Trask Award for her novel Butterfly Fish. Her writing has been published in literary journal Kwani?, magazine Phati’tude and newspapers The Guardian and The Observer.
Irenosenokojie.com  / @IrenosenOkojie


David Kessler is a writer of thrillers and other books, published by Hodder, HarperCollins and more recently for the Kindle. His most recent books - written under the pen-name Adam Palmer - are conspiracy thrillers, linking history with modern events. He also writes legal thrillers under his own name. His most recent book COLD TURKEY - written under the pen-name "Dave" - is about a pair of drug-addicts who kidnap a right-wing shock-jock and get him addicted to heroin in revenge for disparaging comments he made about drug addicts on his radio programme.
http://davidkesslerauthor.com/


Tom Tomaszewski grew up in south London and works as a psychotherapist specialising in addiction. His father came from a family of dissenting Polish patriots. His aunt died in Auschwitz and his grandfather was regularly prosecuted for writing an anti-Prussian column ‘Polish Fire’. The Eleventh Letter is a story about desire, ghosts and trying to change the past.
tomtomaszewski.com  / @tbt_tom

Brixton BookJam 03.10.16 - Set2

The Brixton BookJam is a FREE quarterly literary event that is unpredictable, eclectic, and aims to curate the very best in South London writing. Playlist includes:
 Set 1: 8-8.30 - Carla Valentine Chris Jackson Nazima Kadir Jim Gleeson
Set 2: 8.45-9.15 - Irenosen Okojie Jo Clayton Jacqueline Crooks Dzifa Benson
Set 3: 9.30-10 - Desiree Reynolds Richard Skinner Zelda Rhiando Sherbaan V. Valean

BookJam - Mar6 - 17 - Set2

BookJam - Mar6 - 17 - Set1

This book is currently funding at unbound: https://unbound.com/books/fukushima-dreams Please show your support if you want to see it published!

Fukushima - Dreams - Chapter - 3

SET 1: 8-8.30
Zelda Rhiando is a Dublin writer who has spent most of her life in London. Her first novel Caposcripti came out in 2012. Zelda travelled to Japan to research her second novel Fukushima Dreams and is currently working on a third Good Morning Mr Magpie. When not writing she can be found child-wrangling and making digital products. @badzelda / www.badzelda.com
The only child of two writers, Merlin Sinclair grew up in a world that revolved around literature. Breaking the family tradition, he rebelled and joined the corporate world, where he worked as a copywriter and
marketer. However, unable to escape the inevitable, he has now completed his debut, a historical novel inspired by a trip to the Prado in Madrid.
Paula Lennon is the sixth and last child in a family of boys, born to Jamaican parents in the West Midlands, England. Paula lived in Jamaica during her teens and attended high school in Chapelton. She currently resides in Jamaica, where she is always actively plotting, writing, and being distracted by the Caribbean Sea. Murder in Montego Bay is her debut novel released on 9th June 2017 by publisher Jacaranda Books, London. @PaulaDL16
Leila Segal was born in London. Breathe: Stories from Cuba (Flipped Eye, 2016) is her debut short story collection, and originates in the time she lived in Havana and the Pinar del Río province of Cuba. Leila is director of Voice of Freedom, a project with formerly trafficked women, enabling women who have escaped their captors to use text and photography to talk about their lives. @leilasegal / http://www.leilasegal.com
Robert 'Hacker' Jessett writes Urban-Country, a genre that could loosely be defined as a lyrical blend of rock, electro, folk and alt-country. He has recorded six studio albums with his band Morton Valence, one of which (Bob & Veronica Ride Again) was accompanied by a 110-page novella of the same name, and another, Europa was recorded in seven different languages.

BrixtonBookJam - Jun17 - Set1

An unpredictable, eclectic and inspiring literary night - “Brainfood for a Monday night”. Featuring:
Set 1:Miranda Gold, Alex Cristofi, Barry Stewart Hunter, Alyssa Warren
Set 2: Erinna Metler,  Rosie Wilby, Nick Harkaway, Bonnie MacBird
Set 3: Dave McGowan, Hamja Ahsan, Josh Winning, Jack Blackburn

BookJam Oct 17 Set 3

BookJam Oct 17 Set 2

Audio from the Brixton BookJam, December 2017

Set 1	0:00.000
JM O Sullivan	1:40.097
Zelda Rhiando	16:15.448
Jon Newman	25:54.859

Set 2	35:59.871
James Benmore	36:26
Martin Millar	45:06
Sophie Sparham	54:59
Damon L Wakes	1:02:53

Set 3	1:08:03.611
Mark Bowsher	1:08:13
Sarah Jane Stratford	1:18:10
Dominic Canty	1:29:27

BookJam December 4th 2017

30. Headshrinking: 2
The Photographer’s kitchen was one of the smallest rooms in the apartment, more reminiscent of a laboratory or a surgery than a place for the preparation of food. It was inhumanly clean and glittering, with surfaces and cupboards sheathed in antiseptic stainless steel. Along one wall he had installed
a giant Aga some years before, modified according to his own specifications. Along the other was an unusually long drainer with deep round sinks set flush in the metal.

Hidden away behind the immaculate surface, in a myriad of drawers and cupboards, was the accumulation of several years of research, minutely organised and tucked away, catalogued and sorted, so that if you opened one of the cupboards you would find racks of glass tubes and jars filled with mysterious substances, rather than the expected ketchup, tinned soup and tea. This drawer contained
rare substances procured from his South American and Caribbean agents, this a selection of knives and scalpels, forceps and catgut; that one notes; and in yet another hanks of hair, desiccated skin layered like tissue paper with sheaves of intricately drawn designs for tattoos.

The refrigerator would not, at first glance, give you any clues as to the purpose to which he sometimes put it – its usual contents a bottle of wine, a pint of milk, a few camera films, and the inevitable gentleman’s relish, relic of some ancient hamper. The sole clue, perhaps, is the lack of a central shelf, leaving enough room to store a polythene-wrapped head in each of its stages of preparation.

The Photographer was half-way through the process that
would reduce the head to the size of an orange, and provide him with another fine piece to add to his collection. Naked of hair and minutely inscribed with characters, it rested on the stainless steel worktop in readiness for the next stage. On the Aga was a large pot that had been filled with water, and simmered for hours with roots and dried plants until it had reduced to a watery paste.

The latest subject had proved problematic, and provided little for the Photographer to work from. He had starved himself rather than eat the food prepared by the Photographer – food that had been mixed with drugs designed to intensify the effect of the dark padded chamber, of 24-hour-a-day silence and isolation, of timeless incarceration.

He had proved resistant to all these methods: the relationship stillborn, holding his secrets inside. Perhaps it had been a mistake to take him – but it was too late to go back now. There had never been any question of his release. For 28 days they had carried on an invisible battle, and finally the Photographer had won, had heard on his tapes the pleas for release gradually giving way to an endless mumbling, a litany of life whose vocabulary had become diffused until nothing but a long susurration had issued from the spinning reels. When he had opened the room he had found only Gerard’s emaciated corpse, his feather-light form, the smell of fear and faeces. In some essential way he had escaped, had stolen away, and left the Photographer no closer to the solution.

Still, they all went in the end – and perhaps even Gerard who had clung so hard to the lie had something to add to the pattern. The Photographer smiled with grim satisfaction at the thought that if nothing else he would contribute his energy to the apartment, flesh to kilowatts, body becoming a shape in ashes in the hot coals of the Aga. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes – dirt we are and to dirt will we return. The body is nothing – the mind is the temple of the self. His head will hold all that there is of him, all there already, his life
his knowledge – just waiting for the needles to bring it out. Done now.

He’s fed enough now to the hungry Aga to keep the temperature constant for a few hours under the giant cauldron that had once been used for boiling puddings. A visit to one of the catering shops in the Edgware road, armed with a set of precise instructions, had furnished his cooker with the necessary modifications, the Aga equipped with a large deep hotplate which he uses to heat black sand whilst the head is simmering on the other ring. Flesh falling from the bone. Tender as a well-broiled ham.

The Photographer lays Sabbatier knives, medical scalpels and long pins ready on the sideboard. Rolls of absorbent cotton and lint are lined precisely in front of him, behind a tripod that has been modified so that he can use it to support a head. All is ready now. Right tools for the job. Ritual observed but modernised. And why not? Is this not after all the twenty-first century? He had a feeling the old man would have approved – well, possibly.

Deftly he lifts the head out of the pot with a set of long shining tongs, and stands it on the tripod. His critical eye notes that it has survived the first stage of the process remarkably well.

Surgeon’s gloves and surgeon’s grace – the neat incision from crown to nape, the scalp rolls back easy as the skin on a Sunday joint. He lays it out on the pile of sand, which moulds to the shape of the face and supports it whilst he deftly trims the fat, razors the attachments to the bones. Gently now for the bridge of the nose, fingers trace eye
sockets, and the sharp blade follows them almost lovingly, teasing, pinching, rolling, rubbing the recalcitrant flesh. Quickly now before it cools too much. The skull comes away clean and blanched. Stack it on the shelf with the others – he’ll deal with that later.
Trim the neck, remove the flesh inside with a sharp scraper, preferably with rounded edges. Remove the fatty excess, the slight jowls. Smooth and cauterise slightly with a hot stone. He imagines describing this process. What had the old man felt the first time he watched it? The black sand packs in smoothly, hot and dry, moulding to every hollow.

Sutures prepared, butterfly stitches hold the flaps together, quick tacking ready for the neat seam. Lovely bit of needlework there. Practice makes perfect.
Standing back he admires his handiwork – but only for a moment. Turning and smoothing the hot skin, flat stones heated on the back shelf of the Aga. From here on he’s entirely faithful to the ritual – even if the stones are from the beach at Brighton rather than some Amazonian riverbed, they’re suitably smooth and rounded. Soft pads of cotton absorb the sebum leaking from the shrinking pores. Lips sewn shut. Fine needles hold eyes and brows and nose in shape; redundant acupuncture. There’s a symbolism to where they’re placed. He’s done some research on Chakras. Always struck by the parallels between these ancient cultures.

The first batch of sand has already cooled, compacted and cemented slightly with the fatty juices that it has absorbed. Gently he scoops it from the shell, delicate and flexible as a deflated balloon. The head has already become somewhat smaller, but retains its shape. It’s going well so far. He gathers up more hot sand and pours it through the neck hole.

The rhythmic motion of hot stones smoothing the planes of the face, sculpting the death mask, the shibboleth. The tattoos become a black tracery of etching on the dark skin, taking a shine like mahogany, upon which rich beads of grease appear as the head desiccates, and are wiped away.

The Photographer has great faith in processes, carrying
out the most intricate plans, step by step, performing each necessary element with care, and attention – the pleasure of watching as all the elements come together to form the perfect pattern. Ideally he would like to control everything, pinpoint everything in existence with omniscient accuracy, fix it in its place in the divine order. From this perspective every situation becomes a weighing of the odds, a balancing of all parameters – a Euclidean curve of potential and possibility.

In the journals, in the Explorer’s meticulous recording of the Caposcripti’s practices and beliefs, he can sense a kindred spirit. What are the Caposcriptan tattoos if not graphs mapping the individuals’ journey from birth to death; forking lines suggesting avenues of possibility to be explored? Playing with life, and playing with patterns. Language, Logos, the word, creates and destroys. Say something and make it so. The grand author. The architect. What was there for God to fear in the tower of Babel?

And so he measures and marks, describes and makes so, weighs the odds and continues his grim business – each addition to his gallery a strategic pruning of the messy tree of life.

Within the Photographer’s plans there is no room for deviation. Because if the word is fact, is a making, it is also logic; the hard truth of the percentage. And how can it be that the Caposcripti, with their thorns and berry juice, drugged visions and wandering descriptions of the moon, the stars whose children gallop across the sky – can have grasped so complex a pattern?

Chapter 30: Headshrinking - 2

An unpredictable, eclectic and inspiring literary night "Speed dating with books"! 

Featuring:

Set 1
Stevie Russell as Glenda Read	0:14.088	
Vicky Grut	7:06.880	
Tamsin Gray	12:59.128	
Deserter	19:27.010	


Set 2
Rebecca Hollweg	29:21.120	
William Ryan	39:06.335	
Martin Millar	46:06.344	
Anna Mazzola	55:04.448	
Marianne Kavanagh	1:02:57.441	

Set 3
SK Perry	1:10:23.007	
Jill Johnson	1:17:50.823	
Stefan Clarke	1:24:16.160	
Yolanda Christian	1:33:30.729

Brixton BookJam - Oct 18 - Set 2

Jack Blackburn	12:41.469
Chris McCrudden	20:18.254
Jack Dowd	28:15.266

The evening was compered by crack librarian Glenda Read.

BookJam December 18 - Set 3

Listen to the Brixton BookJam on Monday 3rd December 2018 at our regular venue Hootananny Brixton. 

SET 1: 8-8.30 
Toni Scott
Barry Stewart Hunter
Ivy Ngeow
Padraic Walsh
Dave McGowan
	
SET 2: 8.45-9.15 
Stephen Leslie
Lucy George
Zelda Rhiando
Alice Fitzgerald
	
SET 3: 9.30-10 
Jack Blackburn
Chris McCrudden
Jack Dowd

The evening was compered by crack librarian Glenda Read.

BookJam December 18 - Set 2

Listen to the Brixton BookJam on Monday 3rd December 2018 at our regular venue Hootananny Brixton. 

SET 1: 8-8.30 
Toni Scott	0:00.755
Barry Stewart Hunter	7:54.509
Ivy Ngeow	15:18.613
Padraig Walsh	23:43.612
Dave McGowan	29:45.184

with compere, crack librarian Glenda Read.

BookJam December 18 - Set 1

Zelda Rhiando reads Good Morning Mr Magpie at Brixton BookJam, December 2018.

Night Shift - Brixton BookJam

BookJam returns on the 6th May 2019, when we’ll be hearing from Joshua Idehen, Jim Bob, Greg Chivers, Naomi Foyle, Ian Maleney, Hanna Jameson, Emma Grae, Maximilian Hawker, Zelda Rhiando, Mark Bowsher, Will Eaves and Gaar Adams …presented by crack librarian Glenda Read.

Brixton  BookJam - May 2019

Set 2

A podcast from the December 2019 BookJam, including words and memories from: Jordan Mooney, Gail Thibert, Martin Millar,  Garth Cartwright, Kevin Cummins, Chris Roberts, Eamon Somers,  Zelda Rhiando, Chrissie Cromer and music from Adelie. Compered by Glenda Read, Crack Librarian!

Brixton - BookJam - Dec19 - Set - 3

Brixton - BookJam - Dec19 - Set - 1

Claire Collison is the winner of the inaugural Women Poet's Prize, and her work is widely published in print and online. She's been performing her life modelling monologue 'Truth Is Beauty' in venues across the country for the past 2 years, and a series of posters, 'All The Single Breasted Ladies' featuring words and images from her performances are currently fly posted on the streets of Liverpool.


Desmond Coy - Author, Gentleman and the Original Accidental Outlaw. @descoy

Zelda Rhiando is a Dublin writer who has spent most of her life in London. Her first novel, Caposcripti was self-published in 2012, and went on to win the Kidwell eBook award. She travelled to Japan to research her second novel, Fukushima Dreams, and is currently working on a third, Good Morning Mr Magpie.

Bookjam - Mar - 2020 - Set - 3

West Camel was born and bred in South London, and has worked as a book and arts journalist, and as editor at Dalkey Archive Press, where he edited the Best European Fiction 2015 anthology.  He currently combines his work as editor at Orenda Books with writing and editing for arts organisations, including editing The Riveter magazine for the European Literature Network. He has written several short scripts and was longlisted for the Old Vic’s 12 playwrights project. 
Attend is his first novel and was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. 
@west_camel | westcamel.net

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Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a writer from South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019. It was recently long listed for Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 and last year Yara was nominated for various other prizes including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019.  She’s writing her second novel now.
Yara is also a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe for and by Latin American women.
@yazzarf | yararodriguesfowler.com

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Annabel Banks is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose. Her work can be found in such places as The Manchester Review, Litro, The Stockholm Review, Under the Radar and 3:AM, with recent commissions by the BBC and the University of Cambridge. Her writing has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize, with further nominations for the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Short Fictions, Blazevox’s Bettering American Poetry, Best News Poets [US] and the Derringer Awards and was longlisted for the Royal Academy/Pindrop Short Story Award. Exercises in Control (Influx) is her first short story collection.
@Annabelwrites | www.annabelbanks.com

Bookjam - Mar - 2020 - Set - 2

Simon Rumley is one of the most successful and prolific UK directors of his generation, and has directed 9 feature films and 2 anthology films, including Red White & Blue, Fashionista and a segment from the ABCs of Death,  His films have played at festivals around the world including Toronto, Rotterdam, SXSW, Sarajevo, Tallin, Transilvania, Buenos Aires, Sydney, London, Rio and Stockholm, and won almost 50 awards collectively including best films or director at Sitges, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, Frightfest, Lund, Fantaspoa, Ravenna and Boston Underground amongst others.  His latest film Once Upon A Time In London peaked at No3 on Netflix. He’ll be reading from his first novel.
simonrumley.com

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Andrew Leach writes novels, short stories and the occasional poem. He has had work published in a number of anthologies and collections, most recently The Mechanics' Institute Review issue 16 (the Climate Issue), and he was also Highly Commended in the 2019 Seán O'Faoláin International Short Story Prize. Other publishing destinations include Reflex Fiction, Magma Poetry, Strix Magazine, STORGY, Ellipsis Zine and two volumes of Stories for Homes for charity Shelter. His novel Boom Babies, a book which follows a group of characters coming to terms with the climate emergency and the lack of action taken to address its causes and consequences during the past 30 years, is currently being pitched to publishers by his agent.

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Rosanna Amaka was born to African and Caribbean parents. She began writing The Book of Echoes twenty years ago to give voice to the Brixton community in which she grew up. Her community was fast disappearing – as a result of gentrification, emigration back to the Caribbean and Africa, or simply with the passing away of the older generation. Its depiction of the unimaginable pain redeemed by love and hope was also inspired by a wish to understand the impact of history on present-day lives. 
@RosannaAmaka | https://rosannaamaka.com

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Lenny Hayden has worked as an actor and director in Dublin for over 25 years And has only recently made the move to London.
Most recently he played Lear in King Lear for Mill Productions Dublin and Directed a devised play Savage Love by Sam Shepard for Imagine Arts Festival in Waterford. He has also written some short stories, short film scripts and a one man stage Show which he performed for an Exquisite Corpse night in Waterford.
Having not written poetry or songs for many years, Lenny wrote
There’s No one at the Wheel to fulfill an artistic pledge made 6 months ago, and will be performing it at BookJam!

Bookjam - Mar - 2020 - Set - 1

An excerpt from my new work....enjoy!

"Vanity, vanity – all is vanity."
Another Brixton preacher, doing his daily rounds in Brixton Market. She can hear him in the distance. It's the same sermon every day, and perhaps he's right. She had long thought Christians were vain, if it came to it: a religion based on shame, not honour, not self-reliance. A culture ruled by men.
Don't fool yourself – you're still ruled by men. 
Every time Eva put on her make-up, her battle-paint, prepared herself for another 'date' with a stranger, she reaffirmed their hold over her. How could they be expected to respect a woman they had paid for? Chattel; her life in their hands.
"Hold on loosely to the things that are of this world. Hold on tightly to the spirit. Eternal life will be yours if you submit to His will."
Charlie said he had once been a famous boxer. He holds himself erect. His skin is ebony; his clothes immaculate. He is courteous; she's seen him pause his preaching for a sleeping baby.
"The road to hell is wide. The road to Heaven is narrow, and takes many twists. Yet, take ye the narrow path, for it leads to righteousness. Only the righteous are pure."
If he knew what I was he would label me Jezebel. There's no room in his liturgy for me, or the likes of me. It's not vanity, it is power; taking back control. I will not surrender to a vengeful God. I choose to send these souls to Satan. A small service...
As she walked down Brixton High Street his voice faded into the distance. By the time she reached Coldharbour Lane she couldn't hear him any more; his words drowned out by the traffic, the shouts of other preachers. 
From the corner of her eye she caught a flutter of motion, almost out of range. She turned her head, tracking it, and spied the magpie as it perched on the cast iron railings across the road. Catching her gaze the magpie stared at her steadily, head cocked. Then it hopped down off the railings and sidled along the pavement, still watching her. Eva paused and then continued along the pavement. The magpie tracked her on the other side of the street, fluttering from perch to perch until she was halfway down the road, and then flew up to the rooftops, the better to get an angle on her movements. 
The magpie was in the North quarter, associated with air, and signifying sleep, death, winter. She waited to see if it would land. 'If you come leftwise, and it calls before you, he is a doomed man on whom it calls thus.' 
Back home they signified death. If you saw one on a house it was considered very unlucky.
Eva quickened her pace. She didn't want to think what it might portend; what she might be required to do next. She needed to see Charlie.

Zelda reading Night shift with Magpies

Novelist, Brixton BookJam founder, and maker. I hope you enjoy my work :)

All of these books are available to buy. If you can't afford to, please consider sharing my work, or leaving a like or review. Thanks!

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