Performing tonight alongside Will Self (Wed 9 July)

I will be sitting in with Will Self tonight at the Enterprise Club in Chalk Farm for an hour of improvised banter, from 10pm to 11pm. I will be interviewing him in my capacity as Editor of The London Free, London's Freest Newspaper, pressing him for answers to the questions that are on London's wet fat lips.

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Birth of my third child

Florence Eulalia De Abaitua was born on 21st May at three in the morning, under a full pink moon.
I am paternity leave as the family adjusts to its new shape.
I arrived back from a talk in London, at which i had been airing my misgivings about the effect of blogging on novelists, around midnight, only to find my infant son laughing and clapping in his cot, my eldest daughter twisted up in her duvet, and my wife refusing to come out of the bathroom. Florence was born three hours later.

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I didn’t win the Arthur C Clarke award

I heard there was some controversy about the inclusion of my novel The Red Men, along with such literary/science fiction hybrids as The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall, The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, Stephen Baxter's young adult novel set in Liverpool The H Bomb Girl: that's four out of the six shortlisted titles. I went into ceremony without the slightest illusion of victory: author Adam Roberts had posted an involved and perverse misinterpretation of scenes, lines, the whole thing really: my response remains drafted but unposted. You have to accept that people will hate your book, and if they are former nominees of the Arthur C Clarke Awards with numerous novels under their belt, then it's best to bow to their right to lay into first time novelists.

On the evening itself, I skulked around with Sam Jordison (he blogged about the Arthur C Clarke awards for The Guardian) and chatted briefly with Stephen Baxter and Steven Hall when we were all sat in the front row. Neither Hall nor I had prepared any speeches. I drifted on the three complimentary beers, was inspired by Paul Billinger's erudite and interesting speech and applauded the winner Richard Morgan. Morgan's acceptance speech was emotional and good on him for that.
Thanks to everyone at the Clarke Award for selecting me for the curious experience of award nominee.

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Updates

A brief reading of my short story 'The Sudden Transformation of Darby RR Martin' at Foyle's, organised by Tales Of The Decongested.
http://www.decongested.com/audio/matthew_de_abaitua.mp3

Will Self recalls our improvised performance at the Excess Express. The next one is on 9 July
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/04/half-cow-revealed-london

Here is my diary note about the gig, the best we have done together:

A couple of weeks back, I joined Will Self on stage at the Enterprise pub in Chalk Farm for an improvised set. I am not an actor. I have no stagecraft. Still, I find myself tucked backstage as the MC runs through our introduction, with only some hastily drafted material in my moleskine. I am to interview Will for my paper, the London Free: London's Freest Newspaper (you get two copies ).
Backstage, Will finds a child's till. I dig out a potato and chuck it in the cash drawer. In lieu of a plan, these objects will have to suffice.
The shtick is that I am conducting one of those "standard questionnaire" interviews, all lifestyle and no meat. As a back story, my journalist character is one of three people who work on the London Free. Other staff include Magda, who gives the paper away outside tube stations, and Terry, who goes around the underground afterwards picking them up. "When I was younger, I really wanted to be a journalist," I said, "Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would writing an entire newspaper." There is also a mysterious publisher, a cruel and fascinating man, musky like a bad Dad. He keeps a daschund in his desk drawer that he likes to finger contemplatively. Mostly, I keep this information to myself, to begin with, blurting it out later as my character starts to feel more vulnerable.
To my inane questions, Will dices the potato on the child's till, sending gobbets of spud spraying over the audience. I can't reconstruct his answers here. That is beyond my powers. But my notebook still has my questions in it.
"Will Self, do you wear anything special when you write?"
"Do you eat any special snacks?"
"Will Self: you are a writer of many books. What inspires you? The sky? The smiles of children?"
"As a writer, which I think you are, you have great wordy sense. But breaking that down more, focusing in on a level below words, do you have a favourite letter?"
"I notice from picking up your books and looking at them in the bookshop, that other writers have written nice things about you. People called things like Martin Amis and JG Ballard. Does Mr Amis have a favourite letter?"
"When you are on the underground, are you a jumper or a pusher?"
"Onto matters of great interest to readers of the London Free. Pete Doherty, genius or just really really good?"
"Amy Winehouse; rehab or wheeehab?"
"Immigration: upthumbees or downthumbees?"
"I read in an old book that the average human orgasms 4000 times in their lifetime. Does that sound about right to you?"
"Boris or Ken? At the London Free we are really backing Boris. Do you think London would benefit from being run like a giant public school, with prefects instead of policemen, and boroughs replaced by 'houses'?"
"Today we ran a story on the front page of the London Free about the creation of a human-cow embryo by British scientists. Now this new hybrid has great philosophical implications but I don't want to get into those: my question to you, Will Self, is; Cowman, fuck him or eat him?"
The interview wound up with the usual unvoiced questions.
"Do you know what I mean?"
"Do you like me?"
"Could we be friends after this?"
"I'm writing a novel. Would you like to read it? Now?"

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Short story in 3AM anthology and conversation with Will Self

A new short story of mine has been published in the anthology 3:AM London, New York, Paris

I read most of the anthology last weekend. Brutal, at times affectless, alienated new work, compelling and contemporary. I like it. But the sub-editor in me is not so punk.

On April Fool's Day, I will be indulging in an hour's conversation with Will Self at the back of the Sun & Doves pub in Camberwell as part of an art project organised by Mark McGowan. We'll be investigating performance in the widest sense.

"Wide" is the one guarantee when it comes to my live performances.

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The Red Men nominated for the Arthur C Clarke awards

I am very pleased to say that the Red Men has been included in the shortlist for this year's Arthur C Clarke Awards
http://www.clarkeaward.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=1&Itemid=50
The Guardian are carrying a report: hopefully they will correct their misspelling of my name and/or find someone who has read The Red Men before it goes to print.

Steven Hall, author of Raw Shark Texts and a Facebook friend of mine, expressed the hope that the shortlisting may lead to him being asked to submit a script for Doctor Who. I second that. Although, of even greater importance to me is the possibility of writing another novel in this area - once I have finished the relatively conventional literary one I am currently writing.

I attended the Clarke awards back in 2000 while I was filming SF:UK, a tv series about British science fiction. My decision to write The Red Men was informed by the books and writers I encountered that evening, so this nomination has pleasing circularity for me. I am confirmed lurker when it comes to online debates, and rarely contribute, certainly never in any revelatory fashion, so I will be following blog responses to the shortlist with silent curiosity.

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Interview about the Red Men with 3:AM Magazine

Sam Jordison has written up his long interview with me about The Red Men. It lives here

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/off-piste-reading-an-interview-with-matthew-de-abaitua/

See what you think. Let me know

best

mda

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Check out this event: London book launch for The Red Men by Matthew De A

Hosted By: Matthew De Abaitua
When: 18 Oct 2007, 18:30
Where: Queen Boadicea
292-294 St John Street, Clerkenwell
London, EC1V4PA
United Kingdom
Description:
Matthew De Abaitua

Click Here To View Event

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The Red Men published and film rights sold

My debut novel The Red Men is available in all decent bookstores now, including signed copies in Borders. Review copies available on request.

The film option has been picked up by Shynola, an animation collective who have made music videos for the likes of Queens Of The Stone Age and Radiohead. Shynola also created the Guide sections of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film by Hammer and Tongs. I've always kept an eye on their work, ever since they did the amazing titles for SF:UK, which I presented way back when.

Once the lawyers had finished their work, Shynola and I were free to enjoy a few drinks together at The George in Hackney. I was fresh from giving a reading from The Red Men at the Anything But Hackneyed event, so attacked the beer with disturbing gusto. Over the course of the evening, it became clear we shared many of the same reference points, from the comics of Alan Moore and Grant Morrisson to obscure sci-fi films like A Boy And His Dog and Zardoz. I can think of no better group of filmmakers to realise The Red Men, seeing as they are both intimate with its Hackney realism and steeped in the more fantastical elements of the novel.

By the way, any readers with book blogs or journalistic outlets can request review copies of The Red Men from the publisher, Snowbooks, here.

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The Red Men Extract

The opening chapter of The Red Men is now online on 3AM magazine.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/excerpt-the-red-men/

Floods permitting, I am joining The Idler magazine for performances at The Secret Garden festival this weekend. I failed to make my slot at the Port Eliot literary festival due to flooding at Paddington. I will spare you the tedious details.

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