States of Independence '13

I have found myself with a bit of time to catch up with the blog. It's over two weeks since States of Independence was held at De Montfort University and by now most of the keen bloggers have blogged so before March is through I'll write about the event. Certainly 2013's 'States' seemed to be one of the busiest, well so it appeared to me. There were some fabulous panels, such as Ian Parks' talk on Chartist poetry; a talk on sex and censorship before 1963 by Kathy Bell, Gina Greaves and Elaine Aldred, and I read with Jonathan Taylor in the afternoon. A husband and wife act if you will. Jonathan's novel was shortlisted for the East Midlands Book Award and it was made public on the day.The shortlist also included Will Buckingham's novel The Descent of the Lyre which was a book I enjoyed reading last year. It was rather lovely to hear a reading from Alison Moore too. There was also ample opportunity to buy books as well and I purchased Angela France's Hide and Joel Lane's Flarestack pamphlet Instinct as well as others. It was also good to catch up with friends as well. If you're curious to have a look at exactly what the day consisted of have a look here.