It’s the next day and I’ve just arrived at the open mike event – for local authors – at our nearest town’s literary festival.
The time is 7.30pm… and the event appears to have started earlier than advertised on the ticket. When I walk into the room (which is in a chain hotel near the centre of town) things are already well underway.
I find my way to a seat, whilst listening to the gentleman at the podium – a septuagenarian plummily reading out something in the vein of a PG Woodhouse story.
As the septuagenarian is about to tell us exactly what the vicar told the doctor’s wife, he’s interrupted by a loud, rude PAARP.
No, it’s not Toad of Toad Hall, in his motorcar. Or someone farting. Or Toad of Toad Hall farting, in his motorcar. The compère – a lady with a quiffy buzz cut – has just blasted a large brass car horn… meaning the elderly gentleman’s time is up. He dodders off the podium, sadly.
Just to explain quickly… the reason for the horn is… we only have TWO MINUTES to pitch our work and read an extract, before we get PARPED off stage and the next literary wannabe takes our place.
Two minutes is hardly enough time to say anything, I feel. But on the other hand, none of the people here look like slick London literary agent types. It very much appears I’ll only be pitching to other (unpublished) authors, so uncharitably I think, honestly, who gives a fuck how this goes?
Next up is a self-proclaimed ‘working class poet’ (better not mention my first name is Piers, if I get into a conversation with her). Her poem isn’t really my kind of thing, and I notice she gets slightly longer than two minutes to read her poem before getting PARPED (maybe I won’t mention to the compère my first name is Piers, either).
Following the poet is a male, middle-aged, dark-jacketed crime writer with a strong Midlands accent. His book sounds quite nutty and dark, and who knows how it reads, but I’m quite enjoying his pitch.
The crime writer gets PARPED too and I wonder at the ignominy of it all. I bet Maggie O’Farrell (who’s doing a Hamnet talk down the road) isn’t getting PARPED. Is the main incentive, to become a literary sensation, that you don’t get PARPED off stage at festivals?
The pitches keep coming as do the PARPS. I begin to notice a worrying trend. There seem to be a LOT of people who’ve written books about serious illness… either their own or their partners’.
These illness memoirs seem to come under the ‘heart-breaking but inspiring true story’ category. One lady is even giving any proceeds from her book to charity (not something which has crossed my mind at all, being a selfish sort of person clearly).
One unifying theme connects all of the illness books. Each of the authors who’ve written one seem to have done it partly for self-therapeutic reasons… and partly to record, and make some kind of sense of, a particularly awful part of their lives.
I begin to feel a bit hot under the collar. In the face of all these other examples, what makes my illness memoir so special? The fact it has a slightly dubious, possibly disturbing sense of humour? Is that enough? I won’t deny it… I’d love to get Stop Telling Me I’m Brave published as an actual book. But I had no idea that the genre of illness memoir had spread like… well, a contagious illness.
Suddenly, my name is called and I’m up! I waste about twenty seconds of my two minutes rambling pointlessly, and then I get into it… explaining that it’s OK to laugh at my illness book, that’s kind of the point (I don’t really know how this comes across. ‘Oh… my illness memoir isn’t about me, it’s about my partner. And it’s OK to have a bit of a giggle at it!’ Does that make me sound like a sociopath? Oh well, too late to stop now…).
I read the fourth entry of Stop Telling Me I’m Brave… the one called ‘You’re So Brave.’
I get a few game chuckles as I recite it. But is that a sigh of relief, when I finally get PARPED? Oh god, surely I’m just being paranoid.
Moments later, I’m back in my seat as my open mike experience blurs itself to an end.
The compère announces we’re halfway through the evening and it’s time for a twenty-minute break. Everyone’s free to grab a drink from the bar and go and chat to each other, if they want.
I remain in my seat, trying to look important. Maybe one of the audience members is an important literary agent from London and will come and talk to me!
That doesn’t happen. Although the writer I met at the party last night – the one who suggested I come – does swing by to say hello.
No-one else comes to chat, however – even though other authors are mingling with each other (in a social rather than sexual way).
I begin to feel a little sad. Maybe Stop Telling Me I’m Brave is just too tough a proposition to sell… a mixture of over-familiar subject matter and too out-there interpretation of it.
It’s then that I see a hand proffered in front of my face. I look up – the hand belongs to the dark-jacketed, middle-aged crime writer with the Midlands accent. I shake it.
‘I really like the sound of your blog,’ says the Midlands crime-writer. ‘I’m going to read it!’
‘Great, thanks!’ I reply. ‘Er… it has quite a dark sense of humour… which might appeal to you, I’m guessing!’ I think of the writer’s pitch of his own darkly comedic, slightly sick-sounding thriller.
‘Definitely!’ smiles the crime writer. ‘Also, my wife is just recovering from cancer, so I get it.’
We chat for another twenty seconds or so, and then the Midlands crime-writer goes back to his seat.
The crime-writer seems nice and I enjoyed chatting to him. But I’m slightly left pondering… are the only people who’ll enjoy my book, if it ever gets published, crime writers with sick senses of humour and (previously) sick spouses?
That’s a very niche market.
May 2023
P. D. Clifton 
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