Zarf at Wharf Chambers, Leeds
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
If your whistle has been whetted by February’s The Other Room, when Zarf editor Calum Gardner and Zarf contributor and pamphleteer Jazmine Linklater made up two-thirds of the line-up, then head over the hills for one of the regular nights held by the poetry magazine team at the wonderful Wharf Chambers co-operative arts venue. (Zarf Editions also published Vicky Sparrow, appearing at The Other Room’s 10th birthday – and final outing – in April.) The Leeds-based literature night serves up poetry, text, speaking and the written weird, and features live performances by contributors to Zarf magazine and other special guests from around the country.
Zarf 9 is on Friday 23 February and welcomes three writers to the stage: one from Lancashire (Jessica Tillings, co-organiser of Ormskirk’s Reverb reading series); one originally from Lancashire but now in the Big Smoke (Tom Crompton, whose work can be found most recently in para.text, adjacent pineapple and, of course, Zarf), and one from the Big Smoke, Eley Williams, whose poetry pamphlet Frit is available on Sad Press and whose short story collection, Attrib. and other stories (Influx Press), was listed among Best Books of 2017 by The Guardian, The Telegraph and The New Statesman, and was chosen by Ali Smith as one of 2017’s best debut fiction at the Cambridge Literary Festival.
Zarf 10 on Thursday 21 March hosts the poets Maya Chowdhry and Nathan Walker, among others. Maya’s collection The Seamstress and the Global Garment is on Manchester’s Crocus Books while Leeds-based Peepal Tree Press published her most recent, Fossil. She collaborated on Manchester Literature Festival’s immersive Tales from the Towpath project, shortlisted for the 2014 New Media Writing Prize, and she has been published in numerous anthologies, including Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), and magazines such as Ambit. York-based Cumbrian Nathan is a performance artist and poet with work in 3:AM, Gorse, Datableed, Alterity Studies Journal and Huellkurven, and publications including Action Score Generator (If p then q Press – who celebrate a decade in July. Watch this space for more).
