The first Story Salon at The Society Club in bullet points

Here’s my report on the first Story Salon at The Society Club in Soho – the new monthly lit-night from Cathy Galvin, creator of the Sunday Times EFG Award.

• Meet Alison MacLeod at Oxford Circus. She has a new purple coat. 
• Arrive at the Society Club and meet Carrie Kania, one of the owners.
• GREAT selection of books here. Carrie says each one has a special reason for being on the shelf.  
• We try to be quiet while Cathy Galvin interviews tonight’s readers on camera. 
• We can’t be quiet, so go outside. 
• Will Cohu has an app that lets you to film something, then blow it up or crash a plane into it. 
• He films us in Ingestre Place and drops a giant wrecking ball on us.  
• There is wine. 
• Audience arrives. Full house. 
• Cathy Galvin welcomes everyone. Stories and companionship, that’s what the Story Salon will be about.

• Brilliant story readings begin:
  – Alison MacLeod on the London riots
  – Evgenia Citkowitz on adopting crack-orphans
  – interval: Emma Cantons tells me about her amazing mum who learned Russian by reading War and Peace.
  – Hazel Osmond on awful step-mothers
  – Will Cohu on rhinoceros hunters.
• Brilliant story readings end, but Cathy promises similarly great line-ups at future events.    
• Wow, look at that rain. 
• Talking bird poetry with Steve Wasserman: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ The Windhover and John Lillison’s (Steve Martin’s) Pointy Birds. 
• Is that a first edition of Naked Lunch in the glass cabinet? I covet it.
• There’s a tiny dog in here.
• Everyone hungry. We head out into Soho.
• Find tapas.
• We have the third floor to ourselves.
• All lean out the window to watch the Hare Krishna parade go by.
• Impossible to hear anyone say ‘patatas bravas’ without chuckling.
• Eat squid and meatballs, drink wine.
• Look at Victoria Cantons’ paintings of volcanoes and atomic explosions on her iPhone.
• We have trains to catch.
• Kisses. Handshakes. Paul McVeigh leads me and Alison back to Oxford Circus.
• Paul and Alison talk about their enthusiasm for Ceili dancing.
• I talk about the time I bought a ninja suit in Carnaby Street.
• Enormous soy latte on the train. Heart palpitations.
• Too tired to read my new book on metaphor. Listen to Sub Altern Podcast: Nikesh Shukla interviewing Evie Wyld.
• Naomi has waited up.
• Watch American Dad in bed.