Next PPR Night

Friday March 2

4 Lackey St St Peters

8pm

On Friday March 2, Penguin Plays Rough is turning its focus off-shore.

Fully wet-suited and flippered, we will present to you:

1) Norwegian novelist JOHAN HARSTAD.

Johan’s first novel, Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? has been described as “A modern saga of rocketships, ice floes, and dreams of the Caribbean.” It’s won awards, and has even been made into a TV series starring The Wire’s Chad Coleman. We’re incredibly lucky to be able to host Johan at PPR this March.

2) Boxer, baker and BMX-rider MONIQUE SCHAFTER.

Monique is a Walkley Award winning producer/reporter who co-hosted the ABC’s current affairs program Hungry Beast. Monique writes a weekly column for Australia’s highest circulating queer newspaper, Star Observer, and currently works with “grown ups” on 7.30.

3) Associate Artistic Director of the Tamarama Rock Surfers, playwright, performer and Australian acquisition from the United Kingdom, PHIL SPENCER.

Phil Spencer was responsible for curating the recent and very excellent Horse’s Mouth festival at the Old Fitz last year, for which he also baked a cake on stage, and stuffed his audience full of sugar. We’re not saying he’s going to do the same at PPR, we’re just saying that’s the type of person Phil is.

4) New Scientist reporter and soon-to-be researcher for ABC’s Catalyst, WENDY ZUCKERMAN.

Apparently, Wendy will be reading a story about using decomposing pig carcasses to predict the time of death of a drowning.

We promise there will be no props or audience participation for Wendy’s story.

Also, don’t forget to bring your own one page stories. Think ice floes, whales, pirates, offshore processing of refugees, Atlantis, islands, underwater caves, krill, lonely polar bears, & etc.

Saturday January 21

4 Lackey St St Peters

8pm

January’s PPR is all about going places, and getting lost. Or going places to get lost. It’s about road trips, back-route highways, ghost towns, or paths that connect people the long way round.

Featuring stories by:

HADLEY (from Mr Fibby) of Our Nation’s Capital. He performs stories in a band and runs a radio show and is currently busy piecing together the You Are Here festival due to explode all over Canberra in March. He will have to travel up a highway to get here. You can’t get much more Method than that.

ZOE NORTON LODGE of the Many Talents including NYWF Co-ordination, theatre making, editing, producing, and writing of hilarious and delightfully odd stories. Zoe can be found at Story Club, and published in Our Book, Going Down Swinging and Seizure Magazine.

FELICITY CASTAGNA, who can be found in Our Book, and whose collection of short fiction, Small Indiscretions, was published by Transit Lounge last year.

ROB WILSON of the Sonorous Voice. Rob usually writes poetry, and some of it can be found in the second Ampersand Magazine and on the Red Room Company’s website. But this time round we’ve bullied him into writing us a story.

and lastly…

a surprise. Which we will tell you about shortly.

In the meantime, YOU should get writing a one page story about highways, and WE will try to dream up some kind of highway-related novelty drink.

Saturday November 19

4 Lackey St St Peters

8pm

With more focused energy than the Large Hadron Collider buried under the Franco-Swiss boarder, Penguin Plays Rough and Seizure Magazine are going to explode some of the mysteries of SCIENCE into tiny, quivering quarks.

You may or may not hear a brief history of teleportation, what happens when geometry has its own country, find out about the superpowers of cockroaches, experience a projection of what might happen just before the Apocalypse, and learn why Pythagoras concealed irrational numbers from his minions.

Featuring:
New Scientist Magazine’s Wendy Zukerman
Seizure Editor in Chief Alice Grundy
Theatre Director Jimmy Dalton & sound design genius James Brown
the rather intelligent and quite amusing Adam Yardley

and the first ever public appearance of sci fi author Terence Bumbly.

As we have limited ourselves to a mere five programmed readers, we require YOU to write a one page short story about all the other parts of science we haven’t covered above, of which, we have been assured, there is much to say.

You will also be able to purchase the latest and most futuristic SEIZURE MAGAZINE and see a theremin up close in the metallic flesh.

Friday 14th October

Level 2 of the Kings X Hotel

248 William St

6-9pm

If you are sick of staring at your navel, or of watching your friends stare at their navels, or of hearing about how your flatmate’s navel hooked up with their friend’s navel, rest assured we understand your sickness, and have concocted a navel gazing antidote otherwise known as an evening of STORIES FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Featuring a story from inside the internet, a story from Iraq, a story from the Creator of the Universe, a story from outback NSW and more.

By: ABC journalist SARAH DINGLE, international globe-trotter MATT THOMPSON, Crack Theatre Festival director JANE GRIMLEY, goat aficionado ADAM NORRIS and the cuddly but searingly political PETER POLITES.

We’re also calling all wildcards to bring ONE PAGE stories set somewhere else, about someone else, or written somewhere else, to read on the night, which will be held, not at our usual digs, but at that Kings Cross brand of somewhere else otherwise known as FBi Social.

Following the stories, we’ll be hearing tunes from the Vasco Era, and then Tyson Koh will spin some tunes on the music playing device.

A mind-expanding evening to cure even the most stubborn of Narcissists.

Saturday September 17th

8pm

If you drive about 12 hours south of Sydney there lies a strange city peopled only by writers, private school children, musicians and AFL players. The gigs never cease, the sky scrapers have been gutted and turned into vertical AFL fields. The literary journals are so many, that their editors have to clamber over each other like desperate puppies, bound up the coast, and have AS MANY LAUNCHES AS POSSIBLE in NSW, just to get seen.

Geoff Lemon, editor of Going Down Swinging, has done just this. Hopefully, this September 17, he will have made it unscathed to 4 Lackey St for ONE OF THREE NSW LAUNCHES.

For the event, he has managed to charm the following 5 writers from the journal to read:

Rebecca Giggs
Fiona Wright
Steven Brozovich
Zoe Norton Lodge
With cello composition from Rosanna Stevens
and a short film screening from Vanessa Hughes

He has also generously allowed room for the usual wildcards to air their one page masterpieces.

See you on the 17th,

Pip & Lucy xx

Saturday August 20, 8pm

4 Lackey St, St Peters

Featuring NICK MARLAND, ALEX LEE, PATRICK LENTON, TOBY FITCH, NAT RANDALL and YOU.

This coming Saturday you will hear tales of haunted iPod shuffles, encounter selections from the Encyclopedia of Notable Persons Never Born Due to Contraception, see something performancy, and hear something poetical. It will be the last PPR in Sydney until OCTOBER so make sure you come and plug in your short fiction batteries to tide you over for the spring.

We will also have a warm alcoholic beverage for you to dip your mugs in. So please remember to bring mugs, for dipping.

AND NOW FOR A SEARINGLY IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT WILDCARDS:

In the past, Wildcards have been asked to read five minute fiction. As it turns out, five minutes is an elastic thing that stretches in all sorts of directions. What five minutes feels like to some people, is actually more like twenty minutes to everyone else. This time-slippage prompted a small uprising on the facebook group page last month. So, what we’re going to do from now on is ask that wildcards read whatever they want, as long as it fits on ONE SIDE OF ONE A4 PAGE. If you interpret that to mean size 4 font on one side of one A4 page, you may go blind, and never read again, so it may not be the best way to deal with the situation. The BEST way to deal with the situation is to just write a killer 500 words that knock everyone’s socks off and have us salivating for more.

BUT PLEASE DON”T LET THIS NEW TIME-LIMIT FASCISM BE A DETERRENT! Wildcards are really important to PPR. Without them, it’d be a stately affair, with the same old recycled readers. And how boring would that be? So please do come and read.

See you on Saturday!

Pip & Lucy x

Saturday July 23

Bring your own mug and cushion to 4 Lackey St to witness

Tom Cho
Ryan O’Neil
Sam Twyford-Moore
and two special secret people

read out loud with your very own eyes

(the witnessing will be done with your eyes, not the reading out loud. Though if you can do that, you will probably upstage everyone, so all power to you).

Pip has been hassling TOM CHO to read at PPR for over a year. And now, what with Japanese residencies out of the way, it’s finally happening.

Tom published a collection of short stories a few years ago called Look Who’s Morphing, in which the central character undergoes a series of transformations, shape-shifting through figures drawn from film and television, music and books, porn flicks and comics. He is Godzilla, a Muppet, and Whitney Houston’s bodyguard; the Fonz, a robot, a Ford Bronco 4×4 – and, as a climax, a fifty-five metre tall guitar-wielding cock rock star, who performs for the people of Tokyo, and an adoring troupe of sexy fans.

Tom’s book was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (South East Asia and Pacific), 2009 Age Book of the Year (Fiction) and Melbourne Prize Trust’s 2009 Best Writing Award.

But for PPR, Tom tells us, he will be sharing a brand new story (which will even feature a short film!). So this is definitely a PPR not to miss.

Tom is coming all the way from Melbourne to read to you – and just in case that didn’t make you feel special enough, RYAN O’NEIL is going to press pause on his very own house-building and schlep all the way from Newcastle to read to you too.

We’re also going to hear SAM TWYFORD-MOORE’s very nearly prize-winning story, Everything We Did in a Different Order.

Oh, and there are two ladies waiting in the facebook shadows I’m yet to surprise you with, and the cosiest of heaters to toast you up all the way to your very toes.

See you on the 23rd,

Pip & Lucy

Thursday June 16 @ 8.30pm
Surry Hills Library

Surry Hills Library may be very smug in its boots what with all its architectural awards, eco-friendly this and hip-postcode thats. But come Thursday June 16, the infant terribles of literary hoi polloi, PPR, will get their crayons out and DRAW ON THEIR RECYCLED BAMBOO WALLS. Well not quite. More accurately, we will be partaking in the free wine and cheese that the library staff will kindly be filling our frozen mitts with. We will be asking their permission to maybe, if it’s ok, and doesn’t get in anyone’s way, bring our own chair.
And we will probably be quiet when the librarian shushes us. But only after we’ve heard the ear-coddling tones of A Casual End Mile, and the words of: the face-melting Rebecca Giggs, the giggle-worthy Ben Jenkins, the cat-hating Rebecca Slater, the mind-smashing Luke Carman, and the I’m-not-a-scientist-but-I’m-pretty-sure-we-could-live-without-tides Max Lavergne.

Hosted by Zoe Norton Lodge.

And guess what? IT’S BLOODY FREE! But you should book, by calling 02 8374 6230.

As always, in addition to the programmed readers there will be wildcard slots, so bring something under 5 minutes and read it.

We will also be selling our books at a special bribe rate yet to be determined. So bring cash. Lots of hard, plasticy cash.

Wednesday 19 May 8pm 1/475 King St

8pm(ish)

We couldn’t wait any longer to tell you that STEVEN AMSTERDAM (www.stevenamsterdam.com), winner of the 2009 Age Book of the Year Award for ‘Things We Didn’t See Coming’, and participator in the 2010 Sydney Writers’ Festival, is coming to this very lounge room on WEDNESDAY MAY 19.

Wednesday?? That totally throws your PPR compass, right? Well, as we are slaves to good taste, we thought it was more important that Steven Amsterdam was able to come, than that we stubbornly strap PPR into a Monday night time slot. We have no idea what sort of unpredictable repercussions such a wild shift in structure might bring with it. But, Children of Chaos, there is only one way to find out.

Now. Let me tell you a bit about the other people who are reading…

ZOE COOMBS-MARR is just about to take a solo show called And That Was the Summer that Changed My Life to the 2010 Next Wave Festival. She was one half of the team behind the MAD MAX RE-MIX, and is one third of the performance trio POST, who won The Age 2007 Melbourne Fringe Festival Performance Award and The 2007 Adelaide Fringe Festival Award- Paradisical Performance for their show Gifted and Talented. She has a ridiculous list of other good things behind her which you can check out at: http://2010.nextwave.org.au/festival/projects/90-and-that-was-the-summer-that-changed-my-life

ANNA HOUSTON is an actor who has performed in everything ranging from Bell Shakespeare national touring productions to Tim Tam ads. She’s recently written a play through the Griffin Playwriting course, and my spies inside the course tell me it’s damn fantastic. Apparently it might have something to do with the woman who shot Andy Warhol, but that’s hearsay. What it WILL be about is interesting things. That, I can be sure of.

SAM WEBSTER is a freelance writer and photographer who is studying a Masters of Creative Writing, and working on a novel about the Kings Cross jazz scene. He has a website here: www.samuelwebster.com which looks very impressive indeed.

JAZZ ANDREWS is coming all the way from Newcastle just to read at PPR #16. He just had a story published in the recent AMPERSAND magazine which had something to do with sticking penises in ice cream because of an Allen Ginsberg poem.

If Allen Ginsberg makes YOU want to do something similar, maybe you should come over on Wednesday May 19? Don’t worry, this is not an orgy in disguise as a high brow literary event. It isn’t even high-brow, or very literary. But it IS an excuse to dredge your stories out of the depths of your hard drive and send them out into the world.

So get dredging, and we’ll see you there,

Pip & Amelia

Monday 19 April 8pm 1/475 King St
8pm(ish)

Dear Everyone in the World,

We are feeling very good about ourselves for a variety of reasons:

1) We have a funny guest who is coming to our night ALL THE WAY FROM OVERSEAS. (See, Australia, you are important. DeAnne Smith, comedienne, and resider of Montreal seems to think so. And no, I don’t think it’s just because her girlfriend is from Sydney).

2) We have another guest who the banking public of Adelaide thinks is important, also. How do I know this? Because he won the Bank of SA People’s Choice Award at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. His name is Tim Spencer, and he wrote and performed in his own show, ‘Words We Make With Our Mouths.’ But if you ask him nicely and give him a drink at the same time I’m sure he’ll make words with other parts of his body as well.

3) We’ve even dragged a writer down from a cave in the mountains. A little writerly cave called Veruna, where Felicity Castagna has been beavering away at something that I’ve no doubt will be fantastic. How do I know? Because an important sounding bio of her that I found on the internet said: Felicity Castagna is a teacher, youth arts advocate and writer who won the 2004 Qantas SOYA for writing. She is widely published in literary journals and anthologies.

That’s right. LITERARY journals.

4) If you were around two months ago, you may have heard a story by Anneliese Constable about having sex with a taxi driver. I thought it was one of the best stories we’ve had here.

Well…

She’s reading it again at the Red Rattler this Friday night, but she’s going to read something brand NEW for us.

5) Lexi Freiman is about to go overseas and study writing with potential Pulitzer Prize winners. But before she does that, she’s going to read you a new one of her stories

aaaaaattttttt…….

PENGUINplaysROUGH #15!!

We’re even going to serve Autumnal drinks and (maybe) sweet biscuits.

But before you stop reading this really long message – I just want to give you two more exciting pieces of information.

1) What with Elly skipping off to London in a month, Amelia Schmidt has stridently walked up to the PPR chalice and claimed it for her own. She may only be 21, but you must now only refer to her as Leader Schmidt. If she is feeling benevolent she might look at your writing and programme you, or give you a drink, or take five dollars from you at the door. I welcome my new co-leader with much gratitude and respect, and sadly wave goodbye to co-founder Elly, who must from now on only be referred to as Elly the Good.

2) We are putting on a play! That Australian girlfriend of DeAnne Smith I mentioned earlier, who’s actual name is Sarah Quinn, and who is, according to her show’s poster, magnificent, is in a show that only she is in and that was made just for her. It’s playing at our house on the 23rd and 24th of April. I will send you more propaganda about that soon.

I hope my breaking down of exciting information into a numbered list helped you process everything calmly and effectively. It sure helped me avoid an aneurysm due to over-excitement.

See you at 8 o’clock on the 19th of April,

Pip

PS – don’t forget to bring your own stories to read! You will get a free Autumnal bevvy for it!