Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge returns to the St Ives Arts Festival 2013

Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge returns to the St Ives Arts Festival following last year's The Steampunk Opium Wars extravaganza that had a cast of thousands and played to a capacity audience of dozens.

This year, I'll read the first chapters of my novelisation of the The Steampunk Opium Wars: The Camellia and the Poppy which I'm having great fun writing. I'm also reading poetry from my "brilliant and dangerous" book, Reaching for my Gnu, published in Kindle and paperback.

I'm joined by the super-talented Charles Shaar Murray and Marc Jefferies, who'll be providing musical accompaniment and, in the case of CSM, reading his work as well.

In case you can have too much of a good thing, the adorable Bob Devereux, very funny Rob Barratt and the divine Steve Jones will be delighting our lovely audience with their spoken and sung words and music.

Should you find yourself in St Ives with time on your hands and a taste for a bit of kulcher among friends, then come and join us for the evening. Tickets should be avaiable on the door if they haven't sold out (this is the festival and that does happen). Advance tickets from The St Ives Visitor Centre, The Guildhall, Street An Pol, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 2DS

7.30pm Saturday 14 September 2013
St Ives Arts Club
Westcotts Quay
St Ives,
Cornwall TR26 2DY
£8.50 Tickets from The St Ives Visitor Centre: 0905 252 2250 or on the door if there are any left.
BYO drink

Look out for us at the Café Art where Charles Shaar Murray and I will be reading one early evening, exact date to be confirmed.
The Drill Hall,
Chapel Street,
St Ives TR26 2LR

We'll also be reading and playing at Bob Devereux's lunchtime Poetry in the Square sessions in Norway Square.

St Ives & Me: BBC R4 11.30am today

St Ives & Me: BBC R4 11.30am Thursday 1st December 2011
Available to listen on iPlayer for seven days

Put a face to the voices: pix here

St Ives, a Cornish seaside town 300 miles from comedian and poet Anna Chen's London home has been attracting artists for two centuries. A varied assortment of eccentrics, entrepreneurs and free spirits have turned the pilchard-fishing and tin-mining town into a popular cultural haven.

Anna has been holidaying there since she was ten and knew many of the famous artists who've populated and popularised St Ives.

In the late 1970s the bohemian fashion journalist and novelist Molly Parkin was a regular on the St. Ives scene and she recalls how, in the dark recesses of Mr Peggotty's disco, she introduced Anna to artist Patrick Heron. In his Porthmeor studio by the Atlantic, Heron used to make Anna mugs of tea while he painted and sketched her and their conversations opened her eyes to the arts. Revisiting those studios, she meets two present day painters maintaining the St Ives' tradition.

On a personal tour of the town, she returns to Barbara Hepworth's sculpture garden, hears about the unique light conditions that attract so many artists and reveals the vital roles Napoleon, Von Ribbentrop and the 1960s hippies played in promoting and preserving St Ives.

At lunchtime, in Norway Square, Anna performs her comic poetry in the St Ives Festival, which has been attracting trendsetters for thirty years.

And she waits on the beach, with bated breath, for the legendary 33rd wave.

Producer: Chris Eldon Lee
A Culture Wise production for BBC Radio 4.

St Ives Literature Festival 2010: Bob Deveraux and Ray Turner

A couple of quickie videos from this week's St Ives Lit Fest.

A review of the awesomely funny Murray Lachlan Young to come.


Bob Deveraux performs "Consider A Wave", accompanied by Paul Healy on flute, and Martyn Barker on guitar.


The second half of Ray Turner's blues poem, accompanied by Charles Shaar Murray on slide guitar and Buffalo Bill Smith on harmonica.

Having a fab time. Wish you were here.

St Ives Literature Festival 2010: Bob Deveraux and Ray Turner

A couple of quickie videos from this week's St Ives Lit Fest.

A review of the awesomely funny Murray Lachlan Young to come.


Bob Deveraux performs "Consider A Wave", accompanied by Paul Healy on flute, and Martyn Barker on guitar.


The second half of Ray Turner's blues poem, accompanied by Charles Shaar Murray on slide guitar and Buffalo Bill Smith on harmonica.

Having a fab time. Wish you were here.

St Ives Literary Festival party photos

Porthmeor Beach at sunset

Here're a few pix from Saturday's end-of-festival party at Bob Devereux's Salthouse Gallery after a great week in horrible weather.

Dorcas celebrates her first wages from the bistro

Anna and Dorcas

Phil, Bob, Paul Healy, Keir, Bob's publisher friend, Martyn Barker, Rod Bullimore

St Ives Literary Festival party photos

Porthmeor Beach at sunset

Here're a few pix from Saturday's end-of-festival party at Bob Devereux's Salthouse Gallery after a great week in horrible weather.

Dorcas celebrates her first wages from the bistro

Anna and Dorcas

Phil, Bob, Paul Healy, Keir, Bob's publisher friend, Martyn Barker, Rod Bullimore

Madam Miaow at the St Ives Arts Festival 2008: Photos 3

The third batch of photos from the St Ives Arts Festival, September 2008

Charles Shaar Murray and Julian at the Salthouse Gallery

Charles Shaar Murray and Bill Smith at Charles's Salthouse Gallery talk, Everything I Know About Rock and Roll

Charles Shaar Murray and Bill Smith at Charles's Salthouse Gallery talk, Everything I Know About Rock and Roll

Dorcas at the Salthouse Gallery for CSM's talk

A Midsummer Night's Dream on the Island

Titania enters on a horse at dusk

A Midsummer Night's Dream — the court

A Midsummer Night's Dream — rude mechanicals

Titania falls for Bottom

A Midsummer Night's Dream — rude mechanicals at play
With Dorcas McIntosh as Lion and Stephanie Moore as Wall

Bob Devereux, Norway Square

Bob Devereux and Paul Healy, Norway Square

Rod Bullimore in Norway Square

Buffalo Bill Smith's Blues Revue at the Lifeboat

Brenda, Keir and Jo dancing to Buffalo Bill's Blues Revue at the Lifeboat

Bob, Brenda, Jo and Buffalo Bill Smith's Blues Revue, the Lifeboat

Brunch — the daily Cornish pasty

Anna Chen asks, "Are you sure this is how Jeff Beck does it?"

Bob Devereux and Anna

The Sloop Cellar Bar
Where the locals got me rat-arsed at fifteen years old on five halves of Scrumpy after I'd bragged I couldn't get drunk. See the light above the door? I saw two of them.

Madam Miaow at the St Ives Arts Festival 2008: Photos 3

The third batch of photos from the St Ives Arts Festival, September 2008

Charles Shaar Murray and Julian at the Salthouse Gallery

Charles Shaar Murray and Bill Smith at Charles's Salthouse Gallery talk, Everything I Know About Rock and Roll

Charles Shaar Murray and Bill Smith at Charles's Salthouse Gallery talk, Everything I Know About Rock and Roll

Dorcas at the Salthouse Gallery for CSM's talk

A Midsummer Night's Dream on the Island

Titania enters on a horse at dusk

A Midsummer Night's Dream — the court

A Midsummer Night's Dream — rude mechanicals

Titania falls for Bottom

A Midsummer Night's Dream — rude mechanicals at play
With Dorcas McIntosh as Lion and Stephanie Moore as Wall

Bob Devereux, Norway Square

Bob Devereux and Paul Healy, Norway Square

Rod Bullimore in Norway Square

Buffalo Bill Smith's Blues Revue at the Lifeboat

Brenda, Keir and Jo dancing to Buffalo Bill's Blues Revue at the Lifeboat

Bob, Brenda, Jo and Buffalo Bill Smith's Blues Revue, the Lifeboat

Brunch — the daily Cornish pasty

Anna Chen asks, "Are you sure this is how Jeff Beck does it?"

Bob Devereux and Anna

The Sloop Cellar Bar
Where the locals got me rat-arsed at fifteen years old on five halves of Scrumpy after I'd bragged I couldn't get drunk. See the light above the door? I saw two of them.