Author, Author! Apperley strikes again

The esteemed author of Indeterminate Creatures is the cover star of The Warwick Review.

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A couple of things while I think about them.

I'm away in Poland with the England cadet epeeists for a few days so if you're looking for organ donations, don't wait until I get back. The same goes for office hours and academic advice.

In my absence, my friend Alan Apperley is launching his magnificent novel, Indeterminate Creatures, upstairs at the Old Joint Stock pub, Colmore Row, in Birmingham: Thursday at 7. Everyone's invited. It's a lovely book and there's a reading and q+a session, so you can ask him when he'll finish marking your essays.

Indeterminate Creatures

I've just been to a reading by Alan Apperley from his novel, Indeterminate Creatures, to be published by Tindal Street Press in January 2010. The title derives from an Elizabeth Goudge novel (she was a bourgeois, regional and religious novelist, completely unlike Alan) and the novel traces the simultaneous growth of creativity in a fecund and artistic sense during a young couple's first pregnancy (though it's much more profound than this summary makes it appear - and Hitler's in it too).

The reading was fun. Although an experienced lecturer and performer in other fields, he was clearly nervous and more comfortable talking about the novel than reading it - even though it went down very well in front of a crowd of lecturers, students and fellow novelists. I'd read the book in draft form a couple of times, and it was fascinating to hear how characters and settings were transformed into 'real' people and places simply by reading out loud.