Concrete Playground

They’ve asked us not to get the creepy-crawlies about this being the thirteenth Penguin Plays Rough. They’d probably ask us not to use the term ‘creepy-crawly’ either, because that’s a cliché and so hated by good writers. There will be a few of those on offer come Monday night, as usual throwing words from the coffee table.

Amelia Schmidt, who has the cutest red curls ever, tells us, “I am reading something I have or have not written, which is either deeply moving or rather gruesome, and probably quite long and I will try to read the pages in the right order this time.” We’ve got our fingers crossed for rather gruesome, medium length, with some page-muddling for kicks. Shag, who possibly also has curly-ish hair and is the cutest, says “I'll be reading out why I wrote a song that the Mountain Goats wrote — no exhaustive knowledge of the Mountain Goats required.” Zoe Combs Marr, who sports a gentle kick in her hair, is keeping mum on her material, perhaps believing more in the thirteenth jinx than the others. Instead, she promises to blow your mind “through an explosion of razor-sharp wit and sardonic whimsy with a sprinkling of social commentary. All served with a side of surreal observations and self-deprecating animal puns.” Yowzers indeed. Will the animal puns be about goats also? Or penguins?

Eddie Sharp, Sam Twyford-Moore, and Nick Sun will also be reading. And Penguin Plays Rough has said the floor is freshly vacuumed, so really, the chance of creepy-crawlies is low.