Outsideleft superstar favorites from the Brum writing scene, Charlie Hill, Meave Haughey and Alan Beard are accompanied by three other greats, Kavita Bhanot, Helen Cross and Malachi McIntosh for an evening of storytelling in aid of Birmingham Hospice. Wow! What a line up of lit greats. This is all happening at the Hospice Superstore on Harborne High street. That’s the M&S end, not the Waitrose end.
Last year we featured Six Days with Alan Beard. Given that there are way more than six days in year it was never going to be enough but oh boy was that just great while it lasted. You can revisit (right here) the time Alan came to stay with Outsideleft for those six splendid and sometimes uncomfortable days sharing the stories, Wants to Get High, Too Many Bags, Slightly, Gone, Riot, and Whatwastherethematterwithher?
Meave Haughey's work has been gathered up into the Best British Short Story collections and fiction inspired by the Buzzcocks. Additionally, as a contributor to Outsideleft, has brought some of Outsideleft’s only reasonably literary insights and fab interviews and features with big names we couldn’t reach, look here.
And Charlie, well, Charlie is simply our darling, of course. Here’s Charlie’s lovely interview with Wayne Dean-Richards from 2024 where he gets to talking about Katherine Mansfield. Who does that, enough?
The night also features Helen Cross — who wrote the book that became the film, My Summer of Love; writer and translator Kavita Bhanot who edited the astonishing and superlative collection, The Book of Birmingham - one of the more successful local anthologies. Finally but far from least of all, Malachi McIntosh, his book of short stories - Parables, Fables, Nightmares - won the Edge Hill Prize for best first collection. Prepping like a very diligent prepper, I have been preparing interview questions for Malachi since I ran into him and stepped on his foot when Jenny from the Bear Bookshop introduced us one sunny afternoon probably a hundred years ago. Aside from all of the other impoverishment I endure, I am time poor. So that’s where that’s at. Malachi those questions are coming. But let’s make this all about me. And him.
If you’ve never been to the Birmingham Hospice Superstore you are in for a treat. If like me you have a penchant for barn size US thrift stores this is the nearest you’ll find to that 'round here. Kind of reminded me of visiting Echo Park’s HIV charity store ‘Out of the Closet’. Really, that cool! Two floors. Fab breakfast spot with super friendly staff. These are straightened times for the support services that are attempting to plug the gaps left by the government. I am reliably informed come the end of March, many social and charitable entities will be facing their toughest financial year ever. I live in a poor country with a few rich people in it, who will step up to pay to support the work of the Birmingham Hospice? It’s gotta be you right?
Tickets are £10 in advance from Event Brite here
The stories start at 8.
Essential Info
Tickets are available here
