November's swarm of stories features baby rats, traumatised soldiers, uppity moths, self-consuming metafiction, 80s action figures, and a very sinister housing committee. No narrator is too unusual, no story too strange for our Us & Them event on Tuesday November 8th, as we hand over the mike to collective voices, extraordinary viewpoints and life-or-death clashes and connections. Click on the Facebook event for full details and let us know you're coming!
US & THEM WINNING STORIES
Letters from the Housing Committee by Joel Blackledge, read by Louisa Gummer
PTfuckingSD by Richard Jay Goldstein NEW AUTHOR, read by Nicholas Delvalle
Sharing by Judy Birkbeck NEW AUTHOR, read by Carrie Cohen
Five Baby Rats by Michael Sano NEW AUTHOR, read by Silas Hawkins
The Reading by David Guy NEW AUTHOR, read by Peter Kenny
We/She by J. A. Hopper, read by Charlotte Worthing
As ever we'll be bringing the wonderful as well as the weird, in the form of our infamous literary quiz, brand new books to win and all the sweets we couldn't finish from Hallowe'en :)
Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start and it's just £5 on the door (cash only).We usually finish around 9.30 and stick around for a drink after. Seating is first come first served - so it's an idea to get there a bit ahead of time if you want a good table - but if you have a party of five or more you can reserve a table by calling 07808 939535.
The venue is in the basement bar (accessibility note - there are stairs) of: The Phoenix 37 Cavendish Square London W1G 0PP
Nearest tube (a 5 minute walk) is Oxford Circus (Victoria, Central & Bakerloo lines).
George Vandemeer Jr., one of the most successful American writer-directors of his time, with a string of blockbusters to his name— but as yet no Academy Awards— was asleep in his palatial villa in the Hollywood Hills, dreaming pleasantly about his latest conquest, when he heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked in his ear.
“Wake up.”
He opened his eyes to see a nine-millimetre Beretta pointed at his face. A woman’s face came into focus, peering at him with a deadpan expression.
“Gaaah! What the fuck—?”
He jumped, falling back against his monogrammed satin pillows. Three other figures were gathered around his bed, shrouded in darkness. There was something distinctly menacing about them — dark, morbid, brooding. A powerful, rotten smell assaulted his senses, like dead cat.
Once I became aware of the scarecrow, I could think of nothing else. It was a few weeks after the harvest, approaching Hallowe’en, and one of the children had carved him a pumpkin for a head. I yelled at them for wasting good food, but they lied to my face and said they hadn’t done a thing, so I refused them supper. My wife argued, saying that they were good children, honest children. I replied that all people get the things that they deserve, and when she protested, I yelled at her, too, until she began to cry. I tried to comfort her, but she shrugged off my arm. I glanced up and glimpsed the pumpkin face at the edge of the field. The leering, jeering, moonface scarecrow watched me through the window. He’d seen it all. I marched outside, snatched the pumpkin from the pole, and tossed it into the corn stubble.
Next morning, the head was back on the stick. Some vermin had nibbled at the pumpkin overnight, so his smile was a little wider, his eyes withered in the corners. He was even more mocking than before. I simmered at the defiance, but — if it meant that much to the children — then so be it. I swallowed it down and set about my work in the fields.
“You must be the gravedigger,” he says. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” They sit under a bare yellow bulb, knees near touching. She notices the care he puts into dressing his salad, his manipulation of knife and fork — how his hands turn leaves. He admires her spooning of soup — working across the bowl until empty. The economy of it.
“Supposing this date goes well,” he says, “what happens next?”
“That’s easy,” she says, “we decide where to live.”
“Well I do have the mortuary, lots of bedrooms, steady income, but there is nothing better than the outdoors to grow a family. Perhaps your boneyard would be best.”
Spring? Doesn't feel like spring. These fields are colder now than they were in winter.
Hands all swollen, fingers fat and red.
Unless I just wasn't feeling the cold this much in winter.
Don't think about the cold. Work quickly, carefully mind. Don't hack at it. Let the knife do the work and don't think about the cold.
I pin the lamb down flat on its back, legs in the air. Around all four legs I knife circles skindeep.
I pinch the skin under the lamb's throat and stab into it, making sure I don't hit any veins and squirt blood everywhere like I did last time. I glide the knife through the skin covering the lamb's little belly all the way from throat to arse.
With hindsight, I can’t believe I agreed to cook Steve a romantic dinner – his first encounter with my cooking, and my flat – on Hallowe’en night: it really was begging for trouble. I suppose I didn’t want to spoil it. We’d only been seeing each other a few weeks, and after a chain of disastrous relationships with sticky ends, I was starting to feel optimistic about Steve.
Advantage #1: Steve was a fireman – which, sizzling calendars aside, meant he worked funny hours too, and didn’t mind meeting on midweek daytimes or at midnight after a late shift. Plus, the way I cooked, I might need his firefighting skills in the kitchen.
Advantage #2: he was into me, but not too much. He didn’t surreptitiously sniff my hair or hoard my nail-clippings, and so far I hadn’t discovered a shrine in his toilet.
It is the warm spot, where I am nestled. The cranny between the palate and cribiform plate. I occupy the pleasant moist section close to your brain. The warm air filtering through is delectable, maybe you’ve felt me wriggle from time to time. The sensation is utterly delightful, I must say. I love what you’ve done with the place and I really couldn’t ask for more. I do live a very peaceful life, you’ll be glad to hear.
Your nasal cavity is my lodging. I sure am sorry to trouble you with all of this. I do hope that I didn’t remove too many hairs, though they did tickle me so. Still, they’ve often provided a firm anchor for my pedipalps to latch onto. Usually it was when you blew your nose. Such a distasteful practice. Honestly, it causes me great inconvenience. I’ve noticed that as I’ve grown bigger you’ve been doing that more often. Is it my antenna that makes you itch?
Whew! The bodycount in the Flesh & Bone submissions pile was impressive (or perhaps alarming) - one of our biggest themes in recent months. Nevertheless our fearless judges hacked their way through a ton of gore to emerge, bloody but unbowed, brandishing the following winning stories in their dripping hands ...
First Date by Matthew Robinson NEW AUTHOR read by Clareine Cronin
The Dead Wives' Club by Ilora ChoudhuryNEW AUTHOR read by Gloria Sanders
Hefted by Gary Evans NEW AUTHOR read by Alex Mann
Baggage by Sophie Bloom NEW AUTHOR read by Susan Moisan
I Am A Worm by George "Aitch" Huntington NEW AUTHOR read by Tim Larkfield
What's for You Won't Pass You By by Simon Sylvester read by Cliff Chapman
This Hallowe'en month we're serving up plenty of fresh meat in the form of authors brand new to Liars' League, as well as embalmers and gravediggers in love, vengeful Hollywood wives, worms, livestock, bodyswaps, zombies, ghosts, revenants, and (naturally) loads of spooky sweets! We will also have a terrifying array of brand new horror and thriller books to win in our infamous interval literary quiz.
Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30 start and it's just £5/your immortal soul on the door (cash only).We usually finish around 9.30 and stick around for a drink after. Seating is first come first served - so it's an idea to get there a bit ahead of time if you want a good table - but if you have a party of five or more you can reserve a table by calling 07808 939535.
The venue is downstairs at: The Phoenix 37 Cavendish Square London W1G 0PP
Thanks to our faithful fans' nominations we were shortlisted (along with four other eminent & excellent events) in the Best Regular Spoken Word Night category at the Saboteur Awards 2020! We didn't win (though congrats to poetry night Punk in Drublic, who did) but we certainly basked in the glory ...
INTERVIEW ON THE STATE OF THE ARTS
In celebration of our one hundredth event, the fine folks over at thestateofthearts.co.uk interviewed us about the secret of Liars' League's longevity, here.
BEST REGULAR SPOKEN WORD NIGHT AT SABOTEUR AWARDS
We got nominated, we canvassed, we voted, we hoped, we prayed. Then we went down to Oxford - along with our publishing partners Arachne Press - for the Saboteur Awards and came away with a gong each! We won Best Regular Spoken Word Night 2014 and Weird Lies won Best Anthology.
LL IN GUARDIAN TOP TEN
Liars' League is one of The Guardian's 10 Great Storytelling Nights, according to the paper's go-out-and-have-fun Do Something supplement, that is. And they should know. The article is here and mentions several other live lit events well worth checking out.
ARTICLE ABOUT US IN WORDSWITHJAM
Journalist Catriona Troth came along to our Twist & Turn night, reviewed it and interviewed Katy, Liam, Cliff and author/actor Carrie. See what she said in her article for WordsWithJam here.
BUY OUR AUTHORS' BOOKS!
Longtime contributors Niall Boyce, Jonathan Pinnock & Richard Smyth all have books out which you'd be well advised to buy, then read, then buy for others. All genres are catered for, from novels (Niall's Veronica Britton) and short stories (Jonathan's Dot Dash) to nonfiction (Richard's Bumfodder)
KATY LIAR'S DEBUT NOVEL
Liar Katy Darby's debut novel, a Victorian drama called The Unpierced Heart (previously titled The Whores' Asylum) is now out in Penguin paperback. It's had nice reviews in The Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times & Metro (4*).
OUR INTERVIEW WITH ANNEXE MAG!
They came, they saw, they asked us a bunch of interesting questions. Interview by Nick of Annexe Magazine with Katy of LL: here
Flambard Press Publishers of Courttia Newland's short story collection "A Book of Blues", from which we read Gone Away Boy in April 2011.
Granta A great magazine full of new writing by established and up-and-coming authors.
Literary Death Match Watch blood spill and saliva fly, as writers fight for the LDM crown by reading their work and performing ridiculous tasks.
Sabotage Reviews An excellent review site which highlights the best of indie literature - poetry, prose and spoken word. They gave us an award, doncherknow?
ShortStops A fantastically useful site run by author Tania Hershman which lists opportunities for short story writers, from magazines to prizes to live events.