Will is going to be opening Free Thinking on October 31 in Liverpool with a lecture examining the way in which the mind is represented in the novel. Does literature represent the mind as we really experience it, in all its terror, exhilaration and confusion?
For more information about the event, which will be on radio and online, visit here.
Will is going to be speaking at the Edinburgh book festival this weekend, with Martin Rowson at 3.30pm on Saturday August 23; at a Big Issue event at 1.30pm on Sunday August 24; and in conversation with Rodge Glass at 10.15am on Monday August 25.
September 6/7
Shetland Arts Wordplay 2008 Festival.
September 17
Despite this rather illiterate listing, Will is going to be talking about taboos at the Cheltenham literature festival.
September 18
7pm, SW11 Festival at St Mary’s Church, Battersea Church Road. Tickets £6. Tel 020-7978 5844. www.waterstones.com
September 22
6.30pm, with Zoe Heller at The Old Market, Hove.
September 25
8pm, Southport Arts Centre.
October 16
7.30pm, Birmingham Book Festival, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham, B3 3HG.
October 17
6.30pm, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Everyman Theatre, Regent Street, Cheltenham, GL50 1HQ.
October 19
7.30pm, Ilkley Literature Festival, King’s Hall, Station Road, Ilkley, LS28 8HA.
The literary salon Polari will be hosting a free evening next Tuesday, July 8, from 7pm at the Green Carnation, 4-5 Greek Street, London W1, where Will is going to read from and talk about his novel Dorian.
Here at www.will-self.com, we’re running a Q&A with Will to coincide with the publication of The Butt, which we’ll publish on the site and at Bloomsbury’s too. Simply email your questions to info@will-self.com and we’ll put the best of them to him. The deadline for sending in your questions is April 14.
Yes, it’s competition time again, to celebrate the publication of Will’s new novel, The Butt.
Will has kindly offered one of his very own copies of his first ever published work, a collection of cartoons he did for the New Statesman, Slump, as first prize (the winner will receive a copy of The Butt too). There were very limited numbers of the paperback book published by Virgin in 1985, and it remains one of the most collectable of Will’s books. Bloomsbury has also kindly offered nine more copies of The Butt as runners-up prizes.
For a chance to win, please email your answers to the following questions, set by Will, to info@will-self.com no later than April 14 with the subject line “The Butt competition”:
1. What is the name of the Enquire Within game invented by Dr Zack Busner?
2. What is the name of Simon Dykes’s girlfriend in Great Apes?
3. What is the name of the seminal anthropological text written by the Von Sassers in The Butt?
To find out where Will is going to be giving readings and attending events on his promotional tour of The Butt, to be published April 7 by Bloomsbury, visit Will’s author page at Bloomsbury’s website.
Will is going to be making an appearance at the Aye Write! festival in Glasgow on March 15 at 6.30pm to talk about his forthcoming novel, The Butt.
Hear Will Self and the author Iain Sinclair discussing the meaning of psychogeography and its significance as a new genre of writing at the V&A lecture theatre in west London, Friday February 8 at 7pm.
Listen to Will talking to Mariella Frostrup about the work of JG Ballard in her Open Book programme on Radio 4 at 4pm on Thursday January 31 (repeated from Sunday).
On Thursday, January 17 at 7pm, Will is going to be at Waterstone’s Gower Street branch in central London (82 Gower St, WC1E 6EQ, www.waterstones.com) in conversation with the psychologist Oliver James, whose new book, The Selfish Capitalist, looks further into the origins of what he terms Affluenza — “an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, that makes us twice as prone to depression, anxiety and addictions than people in other developed nations”. The paperback of Affluenza is also published. James will be giving a seminar first, “Making the rich richer and the rest of us mentally ill — the legacy of modern governments”. Tickets are available instore for £5 or you can call 020-7636 1577.
Will has written of Affluenza that “Oliver James is our foremost chronicler of what ails us. This book elegantly, authoritatively and devastatingly delivers his diagnosis, and heroically resists the kind of glib ‘cures’ offered by so many psycho-babblers. Affluenza should be mandatory reading for everyone, but especially those in politics, business and the media who are intent on upping our society’s dosage of toxic affluence.”
James has recently written an op-ed piece for the Guardian, outlining his thesis. James’s website is www.selfishcapitalist.com
will-self.com is the official website for British novelist and journalist Will Self. The site is managed by Chris Hall and Chris Mitchell.
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