Coffee Night

"So where you at Derby?"
- Michael Frearson, "Derby Boy"

Over a week has elapsed since the launch night of our first book, so with a bit of distance we'd like to tell you HOW MUCH FUN we had.

That's Ray: Man Of Words. He opened the show with a few selections from his repertoire of performance poetry. Everybody laughed, and everybody applauded his brilliance. Here's Jonezy and Michael Frearson:

Look at 'em go! Jonezy let loose a stream of inspiring and realistic, existentially positive rhymes. You can meet Jonezy at City-Zen this Saturday. Michael Frearson...he works for cheese, and I tell you, he's worth his salt. Delivered like a sensitive man mad with his mic, that was some amazingly passionate poetry. Also features the hit single 'Derby Boy.' Our fourth guest we didn't get a live photo of, but here's him at the rehearsal the week before the show:
His name is Kevin Wallace, and he will take you on a human journey through history. His poetry follows trails as vast as the Americas he grew up in, and ends up as tall twisting forms delivered to Derby, his new home.

This is turning out to be a big post but I think that's okay because it was a big night. We launched our book (and sold more than half of the hand-bound first edition) and performed pretty much all of it. Emma read a segment of 'What People Are Made Of' in the first half, and in the second half did 'Communion' in it's entirety from memory! Not only that but she had the packed out Big Blue in the palm of her hand. So did Nathan. He did 'Condensation' in the first half, and the much longer 'Company' in the second. It was a real pleasure watching people watching what is a fairly long piece, but being encapsulated all the way through. Here's Nath doing that one:

I read 'The Tape Ran Out As The Coffee Fell' and sang 'Eras'. Here's me doing the latter:
We haven't got a picture of Emma performing, as we were instructed not to dare try. So here's one of us three - The Time Travel Opportunists. We've been together for about ten weeks, this was our first performance, launching our first book...and as you can tell we're really pretty chuffed with how it all went:
Thank you to:

Catherine Rogers and the folks from Literature Development at Derby City Council (without whom none of this would have been possible, or anywhere near as good!)
Michael, Kevin, Jonezy, and Ray for honoring us with their presence.
The staff of Big Blue for coping.
Everyone who came.
Everyone who bought a book.
Hannah Fox for taking the photo at the top.
Jim for taking the rest.

Love from Biff, Emma, and Nathan

P.S. We'll be doing another launch at Big Blue on Saturday 28th June for our next book: TIME.