I really feel like I am living a blessed existence at the moment. My new publishing business The Slab Press has been electrified into life and Northampton Arts Lab celebrated with a fantastic launch event on Saturday for Comic Zine, a horror zine, a Dream zine, and my first book – Dark Horses: A Science Fiction Anthology by Friends of the Arts Lab. We chose the date to coincide with Alan Moore’s 70th birthday. Happy birthday, Alan!
The book is going to have another birthday when it becomes available online to order, and there will also be an eBook. The first print has been selling remarkably well considering it has really only been available in Northampton at the launch and with me hand-delivering copies to people who couldn’t make the launch but don’t live too far away. I will be doing a post run at the weekend to the further flung.
The launch was incredibly fun, taking place at the Umbrella Fair Cafe on Northampton’s famous Racecourse park. There were speeches, signings, and later, poetry, music, comedy, and experimental music powered by potatoes (a rather clever interactive entertainment supplied by Yoshe and Scott).
Many thanks to our friends who came, and especially my namesake Donna who took these great photos for us.
Earlier we had bumped into Donna and Paul (Eccentric) at the pop-up Doctor Who exhibit at Northampton Art Gallery, in which fan creators and actors entertained the crowds.
What a fabulous weekend!
So much so, it rather overshadows what I was going to tell you about, and that was last weekend’s coast-based adventures. We returned to Great Yarmouth for yet another caravan-based music festival, this time PROG!
Our Christmas presents are sorted…
We also got to explore this local treasure: Caister-on-Sea. There is a fantastic Roman fort here. I cast my shadow on the Roman road, and we climbed over the hypercourse. So strange to think that when the soldiers were based in this fort, Caister was an island. The road where we had parked was the sea.
The beach was beautiful, almost desolate. We had a cup of tea at the lifeboat station and felt slightly bemused about how the boat was called Bernard Matthew (well, it is Norfolk) and the boat house was named after Jim Davidson.
May the wonderful magic continue. We are slightly benighted by ongoing efforts to restore the splendour of our Victorian shoemaker’s house, but this week we have atrip to the theatre to see Dave Gorman to look forward to. Also, I’m in the final of a comedy competition on Friday at The Big Difference in Leicester. It would be good to see folks there!
That looks amazing, I’ll be checking it out for sure!