"This was the year of the car-crash." says Alison Clink. She's giving the lowdown on entries to the Festival Short Story Contest, which she organises annually, to the writers crowded into the Library children's section on Sunday Morning. Old Peoples' Homes are an overly-used theme too, and this year's obligatory anthropomorphic viewpoint was that of a motorway. Intriguing... and a very successful event too, with helpful winning tips from both senior judges. Maria McCann in her excellent short talk spoke of the importance of language, and avoiding both the'forced epiphany' at the end and the 'fossilised title' at the start. Crime writer Peter Lovesey needs to feel in safe hands, which is something that happens when the story is compelling enough for him to forget about style altogether. After useful & encouraging information from the experts, three of the winning stories were read aloud so we could all reflect on Maria's reminder that "ultimately it's all down to personal choice" and then go & enjoy a salad buffet in Divas.

Then on, via Green Fair in the Cheese&Grain, passing fabulous strains of Elgar in rehearsal at St John's, to Jazz in the Park - Victoria park, where there's enough sunshine for picnics and children racing round the bandstand as us oldies hummed along to Night and Day....

Mark Thomas brought his new one-man show Bravo Figaro to Merlin en route to Edinburgh. I'd seen, and raved about, Mark's previous show Extreme Rambling, about his walk along the Palestine border which he dubbed '723 kilometers of national self-delusion', so I wasn't sure what to expect from this 'work in progress' about his relationship with his opera-loving father. It was simply brilliant. With all the passion, insight, and stand-up-comedy skills of his more overtly political piece, Mark told an amazingly personal story "not of redemption or forgiveness - the story of a gift." The vastly enlarged photograph of his father, looking uncannily like Mark in a joke-shop beard, gazes across the auditorium as Mark describes this family despot ~ "there was no greater bigot" ~ who sang Figarofigarofigaro across the rooftops of South London although 'he can't sing and he doesn't know the language or the words." The complex feelings of a left-wing activist whose father combines addiction to opera with extreme and violent intolerance are in themselves a fascinating story which touches profoundly on the difficult nature of family itself, but the heart of this piece is an extraordinary reunion. When his father was debilitated with palsy and dementia, Mark had the chance to stage a concert in his home to try, finally, to connect with him. We hear the actual words as Mark's father speaks, laconic but lucid, about this event. And that's really all we need. "My dad and I are never going to 'make it up', we're never going to heal the wounds. I wanted to say goodbye."

In a blur of Street Bandits, dance bands, and street poetry, the 10th Frome Festival has stage-dived into town and is scorching its way through the week, with the sunshine as support act. On Saturday, Gordon's Soap-Box Poets event offered timely words on every hour to entertain the passers-by on Cheap Street (thanks Roger Hyman for the pic) while Writers In Residence penned their competition entries in shop windows.
Then on Sunday the excellent Writers and Publishers Day, organised by Bev Jones - who also organised our souvenir bags which I suppose makes her a kind of literary bag-lady - also included the Short Story Contest Results event for which my friend Kate Harrison was senior judge. Kate seems an unlikely senior but she gave a very good talk crammed with useful tips like "The shelf life of a new book is longer than milk but shorter than yoghurt – but hey, you can wear your negligee to work!” and I was delighted for the chance of a catch-up to hear about her new life in Barcelona.... lucky Kate, and if that's not enough she has a new contract too for a trilogy of YA books which sound like they'll march right off the shelves. Alison Clink, the driving force behind the Short Story Competition, gave an entertaining breakdown of the principle topics in this year's record (555) entry: "Violent murders – a lot of simmering bitterness ending in graphic decapitation. Ghosts and Care Homes were definitely in, this year, too, sometimes combined.”
And then we all had lunch in the Black Swan garden.
It was impossible to get to all the talks, but I made it into Life Coach Annie Lionnet's inspirational talk on writing a self-development book.
Sunday evening was the long-awaited opening of Frome's new Pub Theatre, Upstairs at the Lamb, with a production of St Nicholas by Conor McPherson, performed by Matt Ward, and brought to Frome by Nevertheless Productions - the inspired instinct of Rosie Finnegan, Frome's own Supergirl, who I am thrilled to be working with on this project. Phew. Exhausted and it's only Monday...
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