Is Cockney dying, with reports that it will disappear from the streets of London over the next 20 years? Or is it evolving, going from strength to strength, an evolving 660 year-old cultural identity of the ‘common Londoner?
A fascinating free online event at 12noon Thursday March 9th – brings together three experts and voices to investigate these questions and more, in a fascinating, engaging and interesting discussion.
* Discover what Jonnie Robinson from the British Library who will be sharing treasures from their sound archive of how Cockney has evolved over the generations.
* Meet Dr. Johanna Gerwin who runs ‘London Talks’ that investigates the language of everyday Londoners
* Hear author Tony White read from his cult classic novel ‘Foxy-T’, a story of love, jealousy and murder that captures the streetwise verve and linguistic gusto of modern-day London.
The event is part of the Modern Cockney Festival (March 3rd to April 4th) featuring a programme of events, academic lectures, and family fun.
The Modern Cockney Festival 2023 is organised by Cockney Cultures, a partnership between social enterprise Grow Social Capital and the Bengali East End Heritage Society.
Piece of Paper Press is delighted to publish new titles by two leading artists and writers working at the interface between visual art and literature. THE INCORRUPTIBLE by Sharon Kivland (POPP.041) is published simultaneously with BOOK DRAWINGS #1–12 by Andrea Mason (POPP.042). Each is distributed in a numbered limited-edition of 150 copies.
These mostly left the building yesterday. The photo above is of two bundles of the finished books by the respective artists, which as usual were wrapped in offcuts of the printed sheets. Sharon Kivland’s THE INCORRUPTIBLE emulates the house style of French publishing house Gallimard. And that face! Don’t you just love that drawing of Beckett by Andrea Mason?
Kivland writes:
THE INCORRUPTIBLE was written on a single day, one of mourning, on 10 Thermidor – it is the date, in Year II, on which Robespierre and twenty-one others were guillotined without trial in the Place de la Revolution, Paris. It is a short (and angry) account of unbearable loss, in which I speak for Éléonore Duplay, known as Cornélie, a daughter of the radical household in which Robespierre lodged. After his death, she was known as his widow, though the truth of their relationship is unknown.
Mason writes:
These book drawings – presented here in the order in which I posted them on Instagram – are a near-alphabetical inventory of novels I choose to keep, within the process of which there is a sifting and sorting, as well as an intimate process of revelation. This shelf of books largely contains books bought long ago. More recent piles of books sit elsewhere. As I continue the drawings, I will need to choose whether to disrupt my system further, or whether to divert across to books housed elsewhere, non-alphabetically, which reflect a more up to date self-portrait.
See full info and author bios etc. below.
ICYM, Piece of Paper Press was founded in 1994, designed as a low-tech, sustainable artists’ book project to commission and publish new writings, visual and graphic works by artists and writers. Each miniature copy is made from a single A4 sheet that is printed on both sides and then folded, stapled and trimmed by hand to create the book. There is no schedule; titles are published when they are ready.
It was a very happy accident that these two titles just happened to be ready to publish at the same time.
Piece of Paper Press titles are always distributed free, usually in a limited edition of 150. Fifty copies are distributed by the contributor, and around a hundred to the press’s slowly evolving mailing list, which is gradually displaced by past contributors. Remaining copies are added to the project’s archive. Some titles have been given away at special events, or as larger runs inserted in magazines.
A display of the entire project archive (then to date), ‘Piece of Paper Press: Artworks and Ephemera, 1994-2017’, took place at Site Gallery, Sheffield, in Strong Language curated by Tim Etchells for Off The Shelf Festival of Books, October 2018. See Chris Saunders’ photos of the six-vitrine display here…
Accessible collections holding Piece of Paper Press titles include Arnolfini archive, Bristol; Chelsea School of Art Library; Live Art Development Agency study room; and UCL Small Press Collections, London.
Print nerds might like to know that both titles were printed by Mixam, before being assembled (folded, stapled, trimmed) and numbered by hand. Kivland’s THE INCORRUPTIBLE was printed on 120gsm natural uncoated paper using an HP Indigo 12000. While Mason’s BOOK DRAWINGS #1–12 was printed on 90gsm white uncoated paper on an HP Indigo 7500!
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.
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.
Live From 82. 12-7pm this Sunday 29.1.23 A radio event live from the Resonance studios on Borough Road in South London. 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, 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.
I’ll be on around 2:25pm. Please join us!
Resonance Extra is the UK’s only 24/7 digital broadcasting platform dedicated to sound art, radio art and experimental musics. Based in London, it broadcasts online via its website, TuneIn and Radioplayer and on DAB+ Digital Radio to a footprint of 4 million people in Brighton & Hove, Cambridge, Greater London and Norwich.
This Thursday evening 26 January at 8:00pm, I’m thrilled to be presenting a new programme for the Clearspot on London’s arts radio station Resonance 104.4fm, called Literature Live on Resonance, with guest authors Mona Dash and Courttia Newland.
Please join us! Thursday 26 January 2023, 8:00–9:00pm
Here’s the blurb:
Literature Live on Resonance
NEW: London author Tony White presents an hour of readings and chat with some of the best novelists and short story writers around. Literature Live on Resonance is an occasional programme focusing on live literature, with the emphasis on authors reading from their own prose fiction. White invites authors to join him in the Resonance Studio in London to recreate some of the magic of the live literature scene live on the air, as they read short extracts from their fiction and discuss live literature, live.
Tony White is the author of novels including Foxy-T and The Fountain in the Forest (Faber), and a veteran of the live literature scene. In tonight’s episode for Clearspot on Resonance 104.4fm, he’s joined live in the studio by the authors Mona Dash and Courttia Newland.
Mona Dashis an award-winning author based in London. Her work includes her memoir A Roll of the Dice, a short story collection Let Us Look Elsewhere, a novel, and two collections of poetry. She has been published in various journals and listed in leading competitions. Her work has been presented on BBC Radio 4, included in Best British Short Stories 2022, and in more than thirty anthologies. She also works in a global tech company.
Courttia Newland is the author of eight books including his much-lauded debut, The Scholar. His most recent novel A River Called Time was shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award, and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. He co-edited The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain, and his short stories have featured in various anthologies and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a screenwriter, he has written episodes of Steve McQueen’s 2020 BBC series Small Axe.
Literature Live on Resonance, Thursday 26 January 2023, 8:00–9:00pm
I would guess that most of my author contemporaries have already registered for PLR – the Public Lending Right – which was campaigned and fought for in the 1970s by authors including (the great) Maureen Duffy and Bridget Brophy. (Duffy interviewed here by Jim Parker.)
PLR means that authors (illustrators, etc.) get a small payment for every library loan.
Here’s the blurb:
If you are a published author, illustrator, editor, translator or audiobook narrator you could receive remuneration as a result of public library book loans. This could be up to £6,600 per year if you register for the UK PLR scheme or up to €1000 per year for the Irish PLR scheme.
If you follow authors on social media, you may have noticed a flurry of PLR-related posts in the past week. That’s because the UK PLR statements are released in January every year. Payments are usually issued in February.
One of photographer Peter Clark’s many superb photos of live literature gigs in Soho and Fitzrovia.
Peter Clark is an unparalleled chronicler of a still-Bohemian Soho (and you can quote me on that)!
This was upstairs at the French House in 2018. I was reading as part of In Yer Ear, a great series of spoken word nights that were run by Julia Bell and Dave McGowan. I miss those nights!
I’ve been thinking about a grassroots live readings and spoken word scene which maybe hasn’t bounced back yet for prose fiction in the way it has for poetry. Or is that just me?
I know lots of authors hate doing gigs and readings, but it’s a big part of my work as a writer. In fact that was probably my way in to becoming a writer and getting published in the first place, so may yet be for others…
Anyway, I hope to see you out there sometime soon ;)
Thank you to Alison for sending this photo of The Fountain in the Forest on display over Christmas (and in some great company) at the lovely Owl Bookshop in Kentish Town, London.
Piece of Paper Press & tonywhite.london 
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