Oh how I wish I could add a little rocket emoji to that heading. Last week saw the launch of Near Future at DINA Venue in Sheffield. It mostly felt like a party. I was lucky enough to have my lovely publisher Jane Commane from Nine Arches Press on hand to sell books, and Jane also treated me to one of her world-famous introductions which made me feel rather special.

I wasn’t alone in performing, either: I had friends, which is what everyone needs at such a time.  Roy Marshall started the evening with some poems including a fish-based dystopian one that I hadn’t heard for a while and like a lot. Roy is a friend who has been really helpful in putting together the book, we exchange poems for feedback quite often and his first opinion often tends to be exactly right! His most recent book is The Great Animator (follow the link) 

Helen Mort also read a short extract from Exire (Wrecking Ball Press). Helen has been very helpful in the book’s coming together, early on she read some of the poems and has been an optimistic follower of their fortunes ever since. She also wrote me a really nice quote for the back of the book.

Exire is a hybrid book, it feels like a novel composed of short stories, set in a dystopian world where the mentally ill are no longer supported by the health service and as a result a profit is being made by companies offering assisted suicide, with professional writers who’ll create you a bespoke suicide note. It’s a dark, bleak book and I’d recommend it hugely.

Musical entertainment came from TSARZI, an incredibly talented Sheffield musician and friend whose music I don’t really have the vocabulary to describe (words for music are one of my great linguistic blind spots). It is both musically and lyrically inventive, and with a good few apocalypse-themed tracks in there as well.

It was a really enjoyable evening, and I had so much fun. No-one tells you this, but seeing your book in print, although it’s the just the beginning for the reader, also feels like an ending:  this is the result of your hard work – six years of work in my case – and it has achieved the most final form it is ever going to achieve. It is completely out of my hands now, and all I can do is let it go into the world and wish it the best of luck.

Oh and there was an especially apocalyptic cake from Steel City Cakes too…