Will Conway Tastes of Ink

Written by Lazy Gramophone Press on Friday the 1st of April 2011

Available to buy now from our online shop!


A message;
A history;
A quest;
A passing;
A death sentence;
A claim;
A sacrifice;
A confession;
A loss;

Nine stories, some sweet, some rather unsavoury... but all very tasty.

Will Conway's first book, complete with illustrations by Daniel Chidgey, is a collection of short stories about life, death and everything in between.

"His work is beautiful but challenging and forces you to enter his complex, at times disturbing, thought process.” ~ Ellie Besley, RIH Magazine

In today's world it can sometimes be hard to remember the intimacy of creation. By helping to support and showcase the work of emergent writers and artists - such as Will Conway's debut publication, Tastes of Ink - Lazy Gramophone aims to turn people's attentions back toward the bare bones of creativity.

"As well as performing at the Tate Modern, Trafalgar Square, the Poetry Café , Will Conway has been reciting his short sharp spoken word pieces at our live L.G. events for a couple of years now. We're all very excited about his first full publication.”  ~ Phil Levine, Lazy Gramophone Press




Introduction

Mr Conway is an affable chap, easy to talk to and generally pleasant the year round. He isn't however, always quite so friendly on the page. That isn't to say he exudes negative impression, quite the opposite... it is simply that, upon looking back, many people often struggle to explain the 'who', 'what', 'where', 'when' and 'why' of it all.
          "...five o'clock shadow-boxer," claims his postman.
          "Backseat slave-driver," retorts his pilot.
          "Hedge-fundamentalist," scoffs a local MP.
          "Encyclopaedophile," laughs his GP.
          "Anthro-apologist;" winks a nearby fisherman.
          "The thin king of thinking, ladies and gentlemen I present to you...." trumpet three barmaids in unison.
          In fact, the only consistent notion concerning our man Conway seems to be the idea that he was, "raised by wolves and smells like pickled onion." Fortunate for us all then, that he has finally set a portion of his words to stone... Within the pages of his debut publication lie a collection of nine tales (probably written between 2007-2009). The stories each inhabit a different world (though none at any point appear too far from this one) and much like a crossword they all intersect in ink... their only link? We'll let you decide. Think, if you will, of this book as a taste test, the tip of an iceberg. There is plenty more lurking beneath the surface.




Tastes of Ink Preview

Take a look inside Tastes of Ink by clicking on the links below:





An Interview with Will Conway

LG: So how would you actually describe your writing? Imagine you were speaking to someone who had never read a single word of yours before...

WC: Sometimes I can write some really lovely things but a lot of the time reading me is a little like being kicked in the nose while you're eating a sandwich.


LG: Okay, right, going to dig a little deeper now. Can you tell us... why do you write?

WC: It's a kind of therapy really; an attempt to appease the madness that I'm sure will otherwise consume me without so much as a backwards glance. Writing is like a little pressure valve so all this stuff in my head doesn't spill out and melt something. Partly ranting, partly a version of the 'What if...?' game, I guess I do it to save everyone around me from the sorts of conversations that begin with 'Why doesn't this ever happen...?' or 'Imagine if...' Maybe that's all rubbish and the only reason I write is because I'm obsessed with the creative power of calling all these characters and scenarios into being. Put like that, I'm basically a kind of closet megalomaniac.


LG: And what inspires you to write?

WC: I'm inspired when I see real craft at play from another artist. I also get a lot of ideas from seeing really shoddy writing; I say to Will, 'We could do better than that', and so we do. I like to go away from a film or book or picture feeling ill at ease. I find myself resenting artists who try to placate their viewers or audience. Good art should feel like a firm poke in the ribcage like, 'Oi, think about this, eh.' Every so often (ok maybe lots of 'so oftens') I am handed a fully formed idea from a dream (or daydream) that I almost feel guilty about passing off as my own.


LG: Can you reveal a little about your own personal writing process?

WC: I think a lot of writers get this feeling where they're doing it wrong, whatever that means, and I'm victim to that sometimes but, truth be told, my writing process is pretty boring. I get an idea - it runs around the head for a while until it gets tired or I trip it up. I sit down wherever I can and write it on whatever stationery I can find. I write it up on the computer and go back to it to check it makes sense.


LG: Our own lives and experiences often affect our work, but in what way does the act of writing affect your own life?

WC: I still feel like I'm showing off a bit when people ask what I do and I say 'I'm a writer' (more so before I was published), but when someone asks what I do I guess they'd rather know about that than my day job.


LG: Where is it that you do most of your current writing?

WC: Don't tell anyone but I write at work quite a lot. If I get a bee in my bonnet I have to get it out then and there. I wrote a whole story on the bus home once. I write in bars, on park benches, on trains, on sofas, I'd love to have SCUBA and a special pen and write underwater one day but that's probably just silly.


LG: Describe your perfect imaginary writing room...

WC: I'm not very good at doing what I'm supposed to be doing so I think the danger with having the perfect writing environment would be that I wouldn't actually do any writing. I'd probably get distracted by the harem girls or rocket launchers. I guess I'd need a quiet room with nothing but a pad and a pen and the thought that I'm not supposed to be there. Prison maybe.


Read the full interview here




Where to find your copy of Will Conway Tastes of Ink

Free advanced copies of Tastes of Ink will be available at the Tastes of Ink Book Launch, to be held at The Betsey Trotwood, Sunday 27th March, from 1pm. Full details of the Tastes of Ink Book Launch can be found here. Our online LG shop will be selling Tastes of Ink from Monday 28th March 2011, it will be on sale
nationwide from 1st April 2011.

Announce your Book Launch attendance officially by joining our Facebook group and visiting our Facebook event page.




About

Lazy Gramophone Press: www.lazygramophone.com is a London based publisher and arts collective. Through collaboration Lazy Gramophone Press hopes to establish a sustainable creative platform upon which each artist will have the opportunity and the recourses, to not only create their own work, but also to reach a wide audience once they have done so. Will Conway has been an active member of Lazy Gramophone for many years, he is a regular performer at London's spoken word events and currently writes for Rooms Magazine.

Follow Will Conway:
- (@tastesofink) on Twitter
- on Facebook

"I dange. I am a danger.” ~ Will Conway
www.lazygramophone.com/williamconway/

Tags for this post: Will, Conway, Tastes, Ink, Gramophone.
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