Tales Of Whatever

Tow #4 went off with a very pleasing whizz-bang last week, and as ever our brilliant speakers did an absolutely amazing job. We’ll be posting a couple more of the live recordings as mp3s over the next week - in the meantime, here’s who got up to talk to us, and a quick synopsis of what you missed if you weren’t there:

@totmac
Tom Mason writes. He claims he still doesn’t know how to use semicolons properly, but blogs beautifully at 330 Words all the same. He told us about accidentally finding himself on a horseback-riding, river-rafting, rock-scaling Texas adventure that didn’t immediately chime with his slight fear of basically everything.

@gilliandonovan
Gillian Donovan makes radio documentaries, cakes and (as she would have it) ‘the best of things’. We’re inclined to agree. She told us about tackling and eventually coming to terms with social invisibility – specifically, in her past life as an apron-sporting barista for a famous Seattle-based coffeehouse chain. (Ps: it was Starbucks, obviously.)

@elle_c_emm
Laura Maley blogs about the arts at Cultural Shenanigans, and studies literature at the Open University. She wrote her first short story in 2011 for 330 Words as an essay avoidance tactic, and has been addicted to telling tales ever since. She told us about a litany of terrible first dates, including one that was so bad it made the international broadsheet press.

@threads_letters
Rebecca Willmott is a Children’s Writing MA student and creative education workshop leader who makes things with threads and letters at her appropriately titled blog, Threads And Letters. She told us about a childhood passion for collecting Star Wars memorabilia, and how it eventually landed her at history’s most awkward fancy dress pageant.

@mydearboys
Sonya Kunawicz enjoys showing off (her words). She’d just nipped over from Buenos Aires, making her our longest-distance ToW commuter (previously Carlos from Chicago, back in September) by some way, and told us about a terrible Argentinian sightseeing trip ending in mysterious oaths sworn over an unconvincing plastic llama.

It would also be remiss of us to forget Luke - we didn’t get your Twitter link or anything fella, so drop us a line! - who manfully took to the stage during the midway open mic slot to tell us about…well, frankly, being urinated on in Amsterdam after misunderstanding a ‘menu’. Of sorts. It was hilarious. Thanks a million Luke!

In other news, it was an absolutely fantastic turnout - sorry to anyone that spent the night standing squashed up at the back. We were unbelievably chuffed to see so many new faces, and the Twitter response was pretty amazing…the words ’new favourite night in Manchester’ were spotted flying around, and we weren’t even giving that person an atomic wedgie at the time. Thank you all so very much for the continuing support and input.

Our next event is on Wed Feb 15, usual time (7.45pm - turn up early or risk possibly having to limbo your way into some awkward cranny, if last week was anything to go by) and usual place. We’re already more or less fully booked in terms of speakers, and I can categorically say it’s set to be a good one. Because I know who they are. More on that nearer the time…

Anyway, big cheers all around - as ever, drop us an email or tweet with any thoughts, reflections, suggestions, or offers of doing the Superbowl halftime show whenever that’s supposed to be happening next.

Keep an eye (ear?) out for those mp3s soon, and hopefully see you in February! x

ToW #3 went off beautifully last week - we saw a bunch of new faces show up, furthered our growing mastery of the sound desk, and even had a bit of indoor snow. Which was sort of worrying in retrospect, but hey. These were the champs of the night:

Nici West - tweets as @nicolarwest, runs Manchester-based literature night Bad Language, and told us about the time she found herself quaking in a New Zealand tent gripping a blunt picnic knife for protection.

Guy Garrud - tweets as @guygarrud, and told us about being stranded alone on a mountainside in Snowdonia and discovering a hitherto undiscovered appreciation for the humble bivvy bag.

Nija Dalal - tweets as @nijabird, and told us about the little things you spot in the confined spaces of family road trips that you’d long worried might not actually be there at all.

Geriant Thomas - tweets as @Dot_Communism, and grabbed an open mic slot to tell us about the childhood Christmas in Saudi Arabia when his dad overflowed a swimming pool thanks to illicit home-brewed hooch.

Laurie Pink - tweets as @lauriepink, brought not one but two gorgeous whippets with her, and told us about the time she devised what turned out to be a very ill-advised method of cleaning out a birdcage.

Michael Mayhew - tweets as @thisismayhew, and told us pretty much anything we wanted - like a shout-operated human jukebox - about his frequent (and frequently bizarre) travels as a live artist.

Thanks as ever to all the above for stepping up brilliantly - everyone had a blast, we grabbed some lovely audio, and I’ll be posting a couple of stories from the night up here as mp3 downloads shortly.

Our next event is on Wed Jan 11, so join the mailing list if you want a reminder - more importantly, come along on the night, and drop us an email or a tweet ASAP if you fancy getting a bit more involved.

ToW #2 happened last night, and frankly, we think it happened pretty darn well. After a few eleventh-hour shifts in the line-up, the following roster of heroes and champions strode boldly to the stage:

Dan Carpenter - tweets as @DanCarpenter85, runs Manchester-based literature night Bad Language, and told us about the time he found a dead body. Well, sort of.

Claire Symonds - tweets as @claire_roses, and told us about a mix-up that landed her on the stellar judging panel of a high-profile international film festival, despite knowing roughly zero about film.

Sian Rathore - tweets as @helpimburnt, and told us about recognising her childhood babysitter in worldwide news reports on a shocking and notorious crime.

Lowri Evans - tweets as @lowrievans, is an artist, and told us about the problems of attaching patriotic nipple tassels while on a (possibly) ill-advised booty call to Brazil.

Rebecca Willmott - tweets as @threads_letters, took advantage of our monthly open mic slot for shorter or off-the-cuff stories, and told us about the time her perceptions of an old schoolteacher were shattered by a rogue glimpse of sock.

Lee Moore - tweets as @fullofpenguins, usually goes onstage as a stand-up, and told us about how repeated attacks by enraged animals (geese, monkeys, deadly arachnids) brought about the death of a childhood dream.

We got all the audio recorded pretty nicely, so once it’s been edited down and approved for use by the respective storytellers, we’ll bung one or two of them up on here as mp3s for you to download and listen to as a podcast-type thing.

So that was that - our two ‘warm-up’ sessions have both gone fairly wonderfully, it seems. We now feel ready, charged, prepped and indeed bang up for stepping in to our first regular monthly slot on Wed Dec 14. (From that date on, we’ll be every second Wednesday of the month - so Jan 11, Feb 8, etc.)

More updates on next month’s event, along with those audio files, coming soon. In the meantime, drop us a line via email, jump on the mailing list or follow us on twitter (all details at the top of the page) to be kept in the loop.