Tag Archives: Karen Jones

Upcoming literary events & activities

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Celebration of the Book bannerI’m looking forward to a few weekends jam-packed with literary hi-jinks.

Saturday 26th October 2024 The Great Festival Flash Off, online

At this online session, I’ll be teaching a one-hour version of my ‘Writing on Water’ workshop, inviting flash writers to explore different ways of using water to inspire or shine up themes in their writing, with generative exercises, examples from a variety of writers, and time to write.

The full day (11.00am to 6.30pm) only costs £30, with two hour-long workshops and one 90min workshop, plus readings, breakout rooms for chats, yoga for writers and a competition each time.

In addition to ‘Writing on Water’, the 26th October edition of the Great Festival Flash Off includes workshops with Ingrid Jendzrejewski and a discussion/reading/Q&A with Karen Jones and Diane Simmons.

Book for The Great Festival Flash Off here.

Friday 1st November, Clevedon LitFest Writing Competitions prize-giving
Jubilee Lounge, Clevedon Community Centre, aka Princes Hall, BS21 7SZ, from 7.30pm

CompAwards showing KatLyon, bristol poet 2024, on orange and blue backgroundTo announce the winners Clevedon LitFest Writing Competitions, there’ll be an inspiring evening of celebrations and performances. As one of the judges for the short story entries, I can’t wait to meet the writers of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd award-winning stories, and the writer of the highly commended story.

With a performance from the current Bristol City Poet Kat Lyons. it’s going to be a very special night indeed.

There’s no need to book for this free event – just turn up. See you there?

Saturday 2nd November, Celebration of the Book
Clevedon Community Centre, aka Princes Hall, BS21 7SZ, from 10am

Clevedon LitFest’s Celebration of the Book returns as a one-day convention of books and book arts.

A day-pass for all talks, discussions and readings costs just £15, with workshops costing extra.

Find full details for Celebration of the Book and book here.

I’ll be helping out with talks and panels throughout the day, and sharing a story or two of my own from 5.30pm as part of ‘Exploring the Edges: Literary fiction readings.’

Sunday 10th November, The Laurie Lee Prize for Writing 2024
Lansdown, Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 1BB, from 5.30pm

As one of the shortlisted authors, I’ll be there to celebrate being part of the legacy of one of my long-time favourite authors and hear readings from the winning entries and those “which most captivated our judges” as part of Stroud Book Festival 2024.

The event will feature a performance of ‘April Rise’, a poem by Laurie Lee, set to music by Jonathan Trim and performed by Every Other Monday Choir, which sounds wonderful!

Book your free tickets for The Laurie Lee Prize for Writing 2024.

Saturday 30th November, The Festival of Stories
SPARKS (the old M&S), 78 Broadmead, Bristol, from 10am

The celebration of storytelling is a free day bringing together an “eclectic mix of seasoned storytellers, emerging voices and passionate listeners for a day filled with tales that span generations, cultures, and experiences.”

I’m part of the ‘stories for grown ups’ line-up and can’t wait to discover what else is going on.

Novella review – Burn It All Down by Karen Jones

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Burn It All Down by Karen Jones_front_coverImagine a farm on a seashore where two sisters celebrate the possible death of their brother-in-law, and the third, his wife, isn’t sure whether to mourn or join in with her sisters’ revelries.

Imagine a home where chickens, guinea pigs and hedgehogs roam free with the memory of a pheasant on a leash.

Imagine if you couldn’t be sure what was real.

Inspired by the artwork of Andrea Kowch, Karen Jones paints a world where loneliness etches figures against the dusk. Beth has been married off to a man she doesn’t love, which means that the farm where she grew up now belongs to strangers. When her husband fails to return from a sea voyage, the mood grows unstable and Beth’s main concern is whether she will ever be touched again.

Her sisters Olivia and Esther are wild, riddled with spite and mockery, yet seem to want more than anything to lift Beth from her melancholy and infuse her with their unbridled joy. They are also uncanny creatures, who, Beth notes, “know my thoughts and dreams, even though I have never told them of these fancies. They knew my mind as if it were theirs.”

The stories turn you like waves with dreamlike passages soaked through with stark realism as the sisters claim they need no man, and pragmatic Beth disagrees, stating in ‘There Goes The Bride’: “They are naïve. No one would trade with us. No one trades with women, except to take advantage.”

The last line in the same brief tale offers an excellent example of the author’s capacity for wielding wit to devastate unwary readers: “Alone in my marital bed, I counted my blessings; it did not take long.”

The ekphrastic writing is so vivid, it’s easy to envision the paintings they sprang from, but it’s well worth a quick Google – like having a rumour satisfyingly confirmed.

The penultimate story is also the title tale and contains the full novella pinned to just enough words to fill a page. It’s a gorgeously compact work of prose poetry. The rhythm offers echoing refrains and vivid scenes to revel in, from “an ungrateful cat” who spits out milk to the desire to “knead your skin and bruise it like the berries for tomorrow’s pie, because there must always be pie.” These are sentences so artfully crafted they engage all the senses and seem richly scented and as seething with heat as a crowded kitchen.

The entire novella is a feast of impressions, where grief tangles in the wind with delusions and uncertain wishes. By the end of the book however, the yearnings have settled into something satisfyingly sure and possible. An enrapturing read full of heady passages that weave together to draw you inescapably in.

Burn It All Down by Karen Jones is published by Arroyo Seco Press and available to buy here.

This book was given to me in exchange for a fair review.

What are you reading? I’d love to know. I’m always happy to receive reviews of books, art, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Book review – When It’s Not Called Making Love by Karen Jones

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when-its-not-called-making-love coverFewer friendships are more complicated than the same-sex ones we have as we near and break into our teens. In ‘When It’s Not Called Making Love,’ Karen Jones draws us into the intimacy that straddles bullying and lust, as innocence sloughs off cell by cell.

Jones makes powerful use of the novel-in-flash form, with each of her 16 flash fictions building on the last as her characters hurtle towards adulthood.

While each story could be siphoned off to stand alone and shimmering in solitary perfection, each plays such a crucial role to the overarching tale that should any be removed, the whole structure could shatter. This contributes to the tension of the underlying story, with a sense of characters clinging on by their fingertips.

The novella opens with ‘Recommended Stopping Distance’, a flash that rings out for almost a full page in one long torrential sentence, before finally a full stop allows us to take a breath. There’s so much crammed into this first sentence that it’s worth reading twice – once for the sheer exhilaration of it, and again, to catch the details that may become important later.

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