It’s amazing how quickly we’ve got used to doing online events and meetings etc.

Twenty or more years ago, in late 2005, a tiny gallery called Ozone (O3one?) in Belgrade started using Skype to put on live international poetry readings: the poet Ana Seferović was there! Others around the world may have discovered the public and cultural potential of ‘video conferencing’ to the world of books, to writers and readers, around that time too, but O3one were certainly the first I was aware of using Skype in that way.

Now it’s totally normal.

In case you were wondering, here’s how it looks from my side: the standard set-up for an online gig.

This was the ‘venue’ for POST MODERN last night. POST MODERN was an online books event featuring authors who have worked or do work for the Post Office, including me, Kevin Boniface, Susanna Crossman and Paul Kavanagh. In attendance were writers and readers from all over the UK, from the Republic of Ireland, from France, Mexico and the USA.

Great fun – thanks, all!

My contribution, after establishing my ‘Ex-Facteur’ bona fides, was to do a short reading from Phantom at the Feast, out now from No Exit Press. It was an opportunity to try out a short reading I’d not given in public before but which I’m thinking of performing on the November episode of Literature Live, my monthly books programme on Resonance 104.4fm, so wanted to try out. (I don’t do a reading on every show, just occasionally!)

FYI Literature Live always goes out from 8:00–9:00pm on the second Monday of the month. You can listen live at 104.4fm in London, online, or via the Radioplayer app. The show repeats the following morning at 10:00am.

Listen again to previous episodes on Literature Live’s dedicated page on this website…

Watch this space for news of October’s guests on Literature Live —it’s going to be a good one!

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