Michael Logan

Novelist, Journalist and other things ending in -ist

Kwani Litfest 2008

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I just found out that I am going to miss much of the Kwani Litfest 2008, which has workshops run by such luminaries as Chimamanda Adichie, whose novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize in 2007.

Suffice to say I am very disappointed at missing out on the opportunity to meet and learn from authors of this calibre.

I get back on the last day of the festival in Nairobi before it moves on to Lamu, which means I will miss the long workshops.

Ever the optimist, though, I am going to contact the organisers and see if I can blag my way into the tail-end of one of the workshops.

The emissary

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I have been very fortunate to have the wonderful Vanessa Gebbie agree to read out my story at the Fish anthology launch in West Cork next week since I cannot make it.

I am convinced she will do a far better job than I would have done. I have never read in public before and I am not so sure my Glaswegian accent and ability to machine gun out a sentence in about 0.2 milliseconds would have worked terribly well.

Thanks Vanessa.

The emissary

by

I have been very fortunate to have the wonderful Vanessa Gebbie agree to read out my story at the Fish anthology launch in West Cork next week since I cannot make it.

I am convinced she will do a far better job than I would have done. I have never read in public before and I am not so sure my Glaswegian accent and ability to machine gun out a sentence in about 0.2 milliseconds would have worked terribly well.

Thanks Vanessa.

Blowing your own trumpet

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I am not normally one for blowing my own trumpet, but on this occasion – toot toot! (I am not sure I can accurately spell the noise a trumpet makes when I play it – something like thhhhhhhhhhsssseeeeeffffffffffffftthhhhhhhhttt-PARP!)

Anyway, I recently managed to win the Fish Publishing 2008 One-Page Fiction contest, with We Will Go On Ahead And Wait For You. I won’t tell you what it is about, because it will spoil it. You will just have to buy Fish’s 2008 anthology, which you will be able to get from their website and amazon from July-ish. Autographs can be added for the price of a tuna sandwich and a cup of tea when I next come to visit.

Unfortunately I can’t go to the awards ceremony at the start of July, since I have recently moved to Nairobi and West Cork is a bit of a trek. It is a shame, as I was hoping to meet Vanessa Gebbie – she who judged the competition and has since kindly accepted me into her crit group – in person.

Oh, and I know this is my first post in about a year. I will update this more regularly now I am in Kenya, as there are many things that don’t fit neatly enough into the press agency boxes to put out on the wire.

Blowing your own trumpet

by

I am not normally one for blowing my own trumpet, but on this occasion – toot toot! (I am not sure I can accurately spell the noise a trumpet makes when I play it – something like thhhhhhhhhhsssseeeeeffffffffffffftthhhhhhhhttt-PARP!)

Anyway, I recently managed to win the Fish Publishing 2008 One-Page Fiction contest, with We Will Go On Ahead And Wait For You. I won’t tell you what it is about, because it will spoil it. You will just have to buy Fish’s 2008 anthology, which you will be able to get from their website and amazon from July-ish. Autographs can be added for the price of a tuna sandwich and a cup of tea when I next come to visit.

Unfortunately I can’t go to the awards ceremony at the start of July, since I have recently moved to Nairobi and West Cork is a bit of a trek. It is a shame, as I was hoping to meet Vanessa Gebbie – she who judged the competition and has since kindly accepted me into her crit group – in person.

Oh, and I know this is my first post in about a year. I will update this more regularly now I am in Kenya, as there are many things that don’t fit neatly enough into the press agency boxes to put out on the wire.

Top US general in Iraq to create ‘Army of Smeaton’

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By Michael Logan

The US General in charge of the multinational force in Iraq on Tuesday announced that he planned to curtail the bloody conflict by creating an army cloned from John Smeaton, the baggage handler who foiled a weekend terror raid on Glasgow Airport.

“Factoring in just how hard Mr. Smeaton is, we figure we only need about 200 of him to kick f**k out of the whole country,” General David Petraeus told journalists in Baghdad’s Green Zone. “We believe that by creating an ‘Army of Smeaton’, we will be able to completely wipe out the insurgents within a month.”
Mr. Smeaton attained global attention when he was interviewed on CNN after foiling attempts by suspected terrorists to drive a burning car into the terminal building at Glasgow Airport. Early reports stated that the car missed the revolving door, but it is now apparent that the fact the car missed its target was entirely down to Mr. Smeaton.
“It was amazing,” said eyewitness Tam McPherson. “The car was coming right at him but he just booted it and it flew to the right, missing the door.”
“Then he pulled the two guys out – one in each hand – threw them forty yards into a police van without looking and them blew out the car fire with one might puff of his giant lungs,” Mr. McPherson continued.
Fan websites, including http://www.johnsmeaton.com/, have cropped up everywhere since Mr. Smeaton single-handedly saved Glasgow from certain doom and General Petraeus admitted that Internet acclaim helped make his decision.
“We were considering cloning Chuck Norris until John Smeaton came along,” he said. “For example, we had heard that were was no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live. Turns out we were wrong and it was John Smeaton all the time.”
Mr. Smeaton himself played down his upcoming role in ending the world’s most high-profile conflict, but pledged to put his superhuman genetic coding at the disposal of the army.
“Look, mate. Ah’m just daien wit anybudy wid dae in ma place, know wit ah mean,” Mr. Smeaton told the New York Times. “If ah can bring aboot wurld peece by letting ma clones put the boot in tae some o they terrorists, nae f**kin’ bother.”
General Petraeus denied that the plan smacked of desperation and warned that if they did not clone Mr. Smeaton then the insurgents would attempt to do it. However, Mr. Smeaton said that any attempts by insurgents to remove his DNA would be met with extreme force.
“Tell thum tae come ahead,” he said. “Ah’ll show the basturds wit happens when they mess wi Glasgow.”

ends

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