‘A conversation on the creation of male characters by women between Drag King Pioneer Diane Torr and acclaimed Scottish writer Zoë Strachan.

Thursday 17th November, 6pm to 7.30pm (£3/free)
15 Berkeley Street, Glasgow, G3 7BW

Diane Torr has been teaching women how to dress and pass as men on city streets around the world for twenty years. Zoë Strachan has recently published her third novel – Ever Fallen in Love – and has, for the first time, created a gay male protagonist. What happens when women ‘inhabit’ the bodies and psyches of men? What can be learnt by undertaking this gender shift and how has this work, along with the work of other women writers and performers playing with sex and gender, impacted on ideas of gender and masculinity.

Booking is essential. To register your interest please visit the GWL website or call us on 0141 248 9969. If you are not already a member of the library you can join here and it is completely free.

Diane Torr, “Sex, Drag and Male Roles: Investigating Gender as Performance“, co-authored by Stephen Bottoms is published by the University of Michigan Press.’

Sunday 13th November, 5-7pm in the Studio Theatre at the Arches, Glasgow.

Here’s some more info from their website (links are still not working here, which is frustrating as I’d like to link to the other shortlisted novels):

Chair of the judges for 2011, and co-founding member of the prize, Simon Savidge said “Firstly I want to say what an incredible longlist of books we had this year, it certainly made for some interesting and and passionate discussion over the last twenty-four hours. I think we as a panel have chosen six incredible reads and a shortlist where each one of these titles could easily win… which of course makes the job of picking one final winner all the more difficult.”

The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge – Patricia Duncker (Bloomsbury)
The Proof of Love – Catherine Hall (Portobello)
Red Dust Road – Jackie Kay (Picador)
Remembrance of Things I Forgot – Bob Smith (Terrace Books)
Ever Fallen in Love – Zoe Strachan (Sandstone Press)
The Empty Family – Colm Toibin (Penguin Books)

Last year’s chair and co-founder author Paul Magrs said after the deliberations “We’ve arrived at last at our top six! I think these titles demonstrate a brilliant range of genres, forms and styles. Go and read them at once! I think you’ll find new all-time favourites amongst these.” Blogger Nick Campbell, who has also been with the prize both years, said “these are books to make you miss your bus-stop. Each had its own surprises and seductions, and I can’t wait to press copies upon friends, relatives and casual acquaintances.”

The award keeps a judge, or two, from previous years as a form of continuity, author Stella Duffy who joined this years panel said “I love that these books cross genre and gender, that the choices range through memoir, novel and short story – an excellently eclectic list.”

I’ll be reading with my co-patron William McIlvanney on Thursday 10th November:

Burns Monument Centre
7:30pm – 9:00pm
£7/£5 concession

We’ll be chaired by Colin Waters from the Scottish Review of Books, and after our event we’ll present the prizes for the 5th annual Imprint Writing Awards. The awards encourage and support emerging East Ayrshire writers and this year we challenged entrants to produce a 500 word short story on the theme of ‘Five’. I read all the entries and there’s no doubt that this year’s were the strongest yet. After working out a shortlist with colleagues from the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Glasgow, we sent entries to the Writer in Residence at Glasgow University and Glasgow School of Art, Louise Welsh, who acted as special guest judge.

I’ll also be introducing Alasdair Gray at the Festival Finale on Saturday 12th November:

Burns Monument Centre
7:30pm – 9:00pm
£10/£8 concession

Finally, you can read my piece ‘The Key’, commissioned for the festival’s 5th anniversary, here:

http://www.imprintfestival.co.uk/awards/thekey.asp

Along with lots of other authors, I’ll be reading in a performance of Alasdair Gray’s Fleck, A Verse Comedy on Thursday 27th October at 8pm in the appropriately named Fleck Dance Theatre.

On Sunday 30th October I’ll be reading with Rana Dasgupta, Esi Edugyan and Prue Leith in a session hosted by Nathan Whitlock. That’s at 2pm in the Studio Theatre.

For more information visit authors at harbourfront centre: http://www.readings.org/?q=ifoa (still having trouble with links, but brilliant web designer Chris Dooks is going to help me!)

University of Iowa Theatre Building (200 N Riverside), 8pm on Saturday 15th October

(This is the view from near the Theatre Building rather than the Theatre Building itself, but it looks pretty.)

And tomorrow, Friday 15th October, at noon I’ll be speaking on the Iowa City Public Library and IWP Panel on ‘Freedom’s Limit? Core Values in a Changing World’ alongside Milena Oda, Francisco Suniaga and Jeremy Tiang.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0151w9x/

It was a lovely and quite emotional experience.

The full longlist is:

By Nightfall – Michael Cunningham (Fourth Estate)
The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge – Patricia Duncker (Bloomsbury)
The Proof of Love – Catherine Hall (Portobello)
Red Dust Road – Jackie Kay (Picador)
The Retribution – Val McDermid (Little Brown)
Purge – Sofi Oksanen (Atlantic Books)
There But for The… – Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)
Remembrance of Things I Forgot – Bob Smith (Terrace Books)
Ever Fallen in Love – Zoe Strachan (Sandstone Press)
The Empty Family – Colm Toibin (Penguin Books)
Role Models – John Waters (Beautiful Books)
Before I Go To Sleep – S.J Watson (Doubleday)
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? – Jeanette Winterson (Jonathan Cape)