Head over to the excellent Left Lion magazine for a wide-ranging interview about writing, music, The Descent of the Lyre, philosophy and all kinds of other things. The link is here: Interview on Left Lion.

Thursday is fast approaching, the day when the East Midlands Book Award is announced. I’m shortlisted for The Descent of the Lyre, along with Alison Moore, Jon McGregor, my colleague and friend Jonathan Taylor (with whom I share an office!) and others. The award will be announced on Thursday, and I’m looking forward to the evening event over in Oakham.

Meanwhile, the book has had a wonderful review in Nottingham’s excellent Left Lion magazine. Aly Stoneman’s review says,

“Buckingham draws on the ancient myth/metaphor of the hero’s journey, where the he must pass through a period of suffering to gain enlightenment. His fluid, economical prose follows a rich oral tradition of storytelling and myth-making, drawing the reader into the heart of the story… the result is a unique, timeless and enjoyable work of literature.”

You can find the link to the latest issue of Left Lion here (be warned, the PDF is rather large!). Meanwhile, I’m practising the guitar for an event at the Lowdham Book Festival, where I’ll be reading from the book, and playing music including arrangements of Bulgarian folk music. The event is next Saturday 22nd June, and you can find out more on the book festival website. Tickets £3!

I’ve been rather slow with updates here on WillBuckingham.com and also over on TheMyriadThings.com, in part because of changing web-hosts, which has been a long and rather arduous process (there have been quite a few sites to move), in part because life has been more demanding than usual in the last few weeks, and in part because I’ve had multiple writing projects and proposals on the go with deadlines looming left, right and centre.

But I thought nevertheless I should update the site to say that I’m now happily set up on the new server, and my websites should now be behaving rather better, and also to pass on the pleasing news that I’ve recently been made a Reader in Writing and Creativity at De Montfort University.

More anon about some upcoming events—conferences, talks and the like. But now back to those manuscripts that need my attention.

Well, it’s been a hell of a week ever since the servers running this site went into meltdown, but I’m now back in action. Just a quick request: if you emailed me in the last week and are urgently expecting a reply, could you resend? A few emails may have gone astray whilst the gremlins were doing their worst.

I’m very pleased to have an article in Reconstruction’s volume 13, issue 1, which is a special issue called “How Did I Write That? Reflections on Singularity in the Creative Process.” It’s another of my Yijing-based pieces, mixing reflection and storytelling. This one I’m particularly fond of, because of the strange overlap between the story, and the process by means of which I arrived at the story. The link is here, if you would like to have a read: Wrestling the Goat. Or click on the goats—they’ll like that.

Do have a read through some of the other excellent articles whilst you are at it!

I am delighted to be able to announce that The Snorgh and the Sailor has been shortlisted for the Stockport Schools Book Award. See the link here. It’s up against some strong competition, including Helen Stephens’s lovely How to Hide a Lion, which is also published by Alison Green.

For those in the East Midlands, I’ll be on Radio Leicester tomorrow (Saturday 20th April 2013), on the Ed Stagg show talking about whether—and perhaps how—books can change your life, as well as all kinds of other things. Catch me between 12pm and 2pm for a couple of hours of music and chat with the other guests. According to the blurb, on the show “The best minds in Leicestershire and Rutland unravel life’s little mysteries.” So I’m looking forward to a bit of unravelling.

I’m delighted to say that I’m taking part in the keynote round-table for the De Montfort University Legacy: Mythology and Authenticity in the Humanities conference, which will be held in June of this year. The conference aims to explore the cultural legacies and mythologies at play within humanities research, and I’ll be sharing the panel with DMU Vice-Chancellor, Dominic Shellard, and architect and theorist Sam Causer.

It should be a fun event, and there’s still just about time to respond to the call for papers (deadline 16th April) here.

I’m delighted to say that my EMBA shortlisted novel, The Descent of the Lyre is now available for sale on Kindle as well as in traditional hardback. You can get hold of the Kindle versionhere in the UK and the USA.

Well, I’m tremendously excited to announce—at the end of a very long and very busy day at the States of Independence independent publishers’ fair here at De Montfort University—that my novel, The Descent of the Lyre, is on the shortlist of the East Midlands Book Award.

I’m absolutely delighted with this news. The novel is published by Roman Books, a relatively new press with considerable ambitions, and I’m up against some formidable contenders. The full list is here:

• Will Buckingham – The Descent of the Lyre, Roman
• John Gallas – Fresh Air, and The Story of Molecule, Carcanet
• Graham Joyce – Some Kind of Fairy Tale, Orion
• Jon McGregor – This Isn’t the Sort Of Thing That Happens To Someone Like you, Bloomsbury
• Alison Moore – The Lighthouse, Salt
• Neil Roberts – A Lucid Dreamer, The Life of Peter Redgrove, Random House
• Jonathan Taylor – Entertaining Strangers, Salt

This is an impressive list by any standards, and it makes me realise what a darned literary part of the country I live in. As an example of the calibre of some of my fellow shortlisted writers, Jon McGregor won the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin award, whilst Alison Moore was also shortlisted for the Booker. It’s good, too, to be nominated alongside my colleague and very good friend, the Jonathan Taylor.

The final award will be announced in June. Which gives you time to buy all the books on the list, and make up your own mind…