The Reader Let’s go on a spree… Join Victoria Gosling on April 25th from 11-5pm at Another Country, Kreuzberg for a rule-breaking workshop. Click here for all the details.
Every month, or thereabouts, we take over Galander Bar in Kreuzberg for a Sunday Salon. Hosted by Victoria, the salon brings together author readings, live music, a lively audience of readers and writers and the best damn cocktails in town. Scroll down to see what’s coming up and for details of past salons! If you’d … Read more
We’re very happy to announce the winner and nine finalists of our 2014 Short Story Competition. For all the details and a word from our judges, just click here or go to our COMPETITIONS page.
After much consideration, and more than a little arguing (and a tiny bit of shoving), we are proud to reveal the names of the 25 stories that have made our shortlist.
It’s on! WEEKEND CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP IN COPENHAGEN. On January 10th and 11th, The Reader Berlin will be visiting our friends at ark books in the Danish Capital. Join us to kickstart your writing in 2015. More details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/785280568211626/
Coming soon… Do you have a suggestion for an event? If so, email us and we’ll see what we can do!
Subscribe to our mailing list Email Address DAYTIME COURSES – WINTER / SPRING 2017 KICKSTART YOUR IMAGINATION – PART ONE (*New Class*) When: Tuesday afternoons (2pm–4pm) Start Date: January 17th Where: Prenzlauer Berg Course Length: 7 sessions Maximum Participants: 11 Cost: 150 euro LAST CHANCE! – Faber author, BBC National Short Story Award Winner, and long-time … Read more
We’re thrilled to be announcing our second ever writing competition! With exciting prizes, fabulous judges and sponsors, we’re hoping our competition will inspire you to create something really special. Read all about it here. And then get writing!
Lee Holt, who we had never met before, arrived promptly at Fort Gorgast on the Friday afternoon. His first words to us are The Reader’s favourites when assembled in this particular order: ‘What can I do to help?’. Help Lee did, for which we would like to thank him. I would also like to thank … Read more
The following terrifying tale is by Marcel Krueger, a good friend of The Reader Berlin. I first read THERE IS NO HOPE AND THE NIGHTS ARE COLD some time ago in one of my workshops and I thought its harrowing nature would suit our purposes well. Marcel not only joined us a mere week or so after his wedding (we hope his bride forgives us for borrowing him so soon), he also kindly contributed an introduction which gives a little background to our erstwhile weekend home.
To appreciate it fully, you may want to imagine yourself deep amongst Gorgast’s dark tunnels, at the foot of a lightless broken staircase. You turn to your left and there, in the gloom, you make out the shadowy silhouette of a figure smoking a pipe…
As the founder of The Reader Berlin, it isn’t often I get to share my writing. Sometimes, I feel bad that after all the butchering I do with my editor’s pen, I don’t offer participants a chance to return the ‘favour’. So it seemed only fair that I contributed something over the course of our Fort Gorgast festival. This little piece is actually adapted from a novel I wrote that never saw the light of day and I confess it felt absolutely wonderful to let it slip out of its dark drawer and float loose amongst you.
V.G.
YOUR HEART’S DESIRE
Welcome to Fort Gorgast and the first of our terrifying tales. It is wonderful that you could all join us. This is the first event at which we have all got together, albeit it in a cold and shadowy tunnel, and while it might be a touch hippy-ish of me, I would like you to do something you may be familiar with from yoga class. I would like you each to set an intention, that is, to make a little wish. Eyes closed everyone. Out goes the torch…wishes done…? And we’re ready.
As one of the organisers of this weekend’s festivities, I had planned to write my own scary story but I am afraid things got a little busy, so this one is from a decaying book I found in a pile in a decrepit second hand bookshop in Berlin. You are, no doubt, familiar with the kind.
This story begins with a group of friends sitting around playing cards late into an autumn night in an ancestral home in one of the English shires, shortly before the beginning of the First World War
Now our Summer Intensive Courses are nothing but happy memories, it’s all about For Gorgast. For those of you who haven’t heard, The Reader Berlin has managed to get it’s ink-stained paws on a ruined Fort surrounded by a moat full of spikes which looms a little over an hour from Berlin. Join us for … Read more