Thanks to Chihiro Ono for sharing this great photo of yesterday’s reading for Resonance Extra, in what must be one of the most spectacular yet apt settings for a reading of The Holborn Cenotaph yet: the former chapel on Borough Road that has been the Resonance studio for the past year. At one point the sun flooded in behind me – and Chihiro seems to have caught that moment on camera. Thank you, Chihiro!

I was in the Resonance studio as part of LIVE FROM 82, a live radio event on the final afternoon before the studio moves to a new location. There were performances by Merlin Nova, Kate Carr of Flaming Pines, Steven J Fowler and Benedict Taylor, Miles Luko, James C Oldham, Milo Thesiger-Meacham, Sister Punch, Tony White, Chihiro Ono, Travis Wu, Miles Lukoszeviese. Plus exclusive works by Neil Luck, Agnes Pe, Angela Wai Nok Hui, Trash Panda QC, Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier, Bobby Jewell.

Thank you as ever to Milo Thesiger-Meacham and the Resonance team on the day for their excellent work.

I was thrilled to be part of such a great line-up, and did a short set ‘The Holborn Cenotaph and other stories’. The other story in this case being ‘Plain Speaking’, which was written to mark the 110th anniversary of the birth of Brian O’Nolan, better known as Flann O’Brien, a.k.a. Myles Na gCopaleen.

ICYMI ‘Plain Speaking’ is collected in Salt Publishing’s new Best British Short Stories 2022, edited by Nicholas Royle.

If you know a liberal ecclesiastical setting — or indeed any other venue, festival etc. — where I could take The Holborn Cebotaph next, let me know. So far it’s been to The Mac Belfast, the chapel at Kings College London, Festival Poligon in Mostar B-i-H, The British Library, Blast Theory studio, Turner Contemporary, Housmans Books, London Radical Book Fair, Iklektik Art Space, In Yer Ear, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts Galway, and about forty other spaces and events, from galleries to spoken word nights to supper clubs…

So if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear from you.

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Buy Tony White’s latest novel The Fountain in the Forest via publisher Faber and Faber

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