Tag Archives: literature festival

Have we unleashed an orgy of trivia? Will robots manipulate our souls? Where’s the experimental writing?

These were some of the questions asked during a superb evening of writers (fiction, non-fiction and marketeer) talking about the future of their craft and answering a broad range of questions from a lively audience.

We touched on the democratisation of publishing, the future of the eBook and whether the big publishers are dying. Finishing up with the speculation that the future is one of artificial intelligence scripting our lives via mass produced personalised messages.

You can read more about it in an article by SilverWood Books.

I want to say a huge thank you to the organisers of the Fitzrovia Festival (“the people live here festival”) for inviting me to host the evening. Thanks also to Etienne Gilfillan for the ‘band’ photo above (left to right: Hannah Kowszun, Helena Halme, Stephen Oram and Allen Ashley) and to the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for providing the venue (and wine and nibbles).

Sadly, the camera ran out of space so we didn’t capture it all. However, you can watch most of it here…

Beer, wine and breakfast at the London Book Fair

7th May 2016

Stephen Oram

It was my second year at the London Book Fair and, although I was a bit skeptical about going, it was worth it.

Over a glass of wine I met a literature festival organiser who I’m hoping liked the idea of me doing a double act with a brain scientist enough to invite me to his festival.

The following morning was the SilverWood breakfast readings where I read a draft of my latest flash fiction – Logical Love. See if you can spot the difference between the final version and the draft I’m reading below. Later that evening in the bar I had a chance (ish) meeting with a man who was looking for novels to serialise – fingers crossed that Fluence fits the bill.

All in all a good couple of days.

Would anarchy maintain the status quo?

15th September 2015

Stephen Oram

Events 11 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I spoke at the Greenbelt Festival on whether a mature and confident society should encourage people to opt-out; if we have a successful and attractive way of living (capitalism and consumerism) then the number of people wanting something different would be insignificant and we should go out of our way to accommodate them, rather than bully them into our way of thinking.

Exploring this idea led me down a number of paths you might find interesting: Continue reading →