Change of venue: Joseph D’Lacey, Adam Nevill and Jasper Bark live at Coventry Central Library

As fans of our Facebook page may have already noticed Saturday’s fantastic launch event for Roadkill by Joseph D’Lacey featuring award-winning authors Adam Nevill and Jasper Bark will now be taking place at Coventry Central Library and NOT Waterstone’s. The venue is on the same street – Smithford Way – and is in the city centre (although as perceptive readers we trust you may have gathered that from ‘Central Library’). The event still kicks off at 3pm and you will still be treated to an excellent afternoon of performance, readings and interview. The event is now one hour as the library closes at 4:30pm but we promise we will pack two hours of entertainment into that hour: Jasper Bark is hosting for goodness sake!

You may wonder why we have changed the venue at such short notice? That’s because I – Michael Wilson, Editor of This Is Horror – received an email yesterday morning cancelling the event.

Unfortunately I have been told to cancel this weekend’s event by my senior managers as they do not want any events on a Saturday or any community activity accounts.

It is unfortunate that senior management made this decision. Particularly given this was arranged well over one month ago for SATURDAY 8 June. I later learned it was the, at time of writing nameless, Regional Commercial Manager who made this curious decision. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that Waterstone’s has cancelled events. Events in Cheltenham and Nottingham organised by other members of the horror community were cancelled previously. Now that said, Waterstone’s have hosted some wonderful genre events before, take for example a great deal of the Twisted Tales events up in Liverpool. So it’s not all bad.

Joseph D’Lacey says:

I’m very disappointed with the attitude of Waterstones, Coventry senior managers, who have seen fit to cancel an event with great authors – I’m talking about Adam Nevill and Jasper Bark – and one that promised to be well-attended, many people having booked travel in advance from around the UK. But that they’ve done this with only three days notice is beyond my understanding. I’d love an explanation, not from a junior staff-member, as it stands, but from whomever made the decision.

One author commented on the matter, “Waterstone’s should be begging for events like this not cancelling them.”

But what is Waterstone’s loss is the Central Library’s gain. So please support your local library because they truly care about the scene and have heroically helped out This Is Horror in their time of need. It’s also fair to say thank you to other venues who stepped forward to help us out including cafes, universities and restaurants. There’s a real community spirit in Coventry and we strongly encourage you to come along to the event and make the Roadkill launch the success it deserves to be. Attending not only supports Joseph D’Lacey, Adam Nevill, Jasper Bark and This Is Horror but it supports the library and it supports community. Join us.

In the face of adversity we remain strong.

MICHAEL WILSON