Author appearances, poetry and spoken word events in London this week
Thursday 23 May: If you enjoyed Luke Wright’s interview with us, catch the show until Saturday, then Wednesday again at Leicester Square Theatre (7pm, £10 / £8).
Poet / owner of best cameo appearance ever for I Give It A Year / comedian Tim Key, John Osborne, Nick Hart and Tom McCarthy are at Invisible Dot telling Stories (7.45pm, £8).
Ben Fountain talks about his new novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk at the Big Green Bookshop with Sam Jordison (7pm, £3).
Children’s author Jon Klassen reads and draws at Foyles Westfield Stratford (3.15pm, free).
Anne Stevenson, Simon Armitage, Professor Stephen Regan and Fiona Sampson debate the state of contemporary British poetry at the British Academy (6pm, free, registration required).
Conn Iggulden is signing the latest in his Emperor series at Waterstones Leadenhall Market from 12.30pm, but we reckon you should be there earlier to stand any chance of getting pen to book.
Chill Pill celebrates the Albany‘s 30th birthday with a big line-up including Kat Francois, Benin City, Chris Redmond, Simon Mole, Deanna Rodger, Dean Atta, Mr Gee, Raymond Antrobus and Anthony Anaxagorou (7.15pm, £9 / £6).
Damian Barr is at Gay’s the Word chatting about Maggie and Me (7pm, £2).
Not quite sure who to be more excited about, Colum McCann or Jon McGregor at Waterstones Gower Street (7pm, £5 / £3).
Kemi Taiwo is the guest stand up poet at Bang Said the Gun (8pm, £7 / £5).
Suzanne Rindell launches her debut novel The Other Typist at Waterstones Covent Garden (6pm, free).
Storyteller Helen East presents folktales, fibs and facts about Islington at The Acoustic Cafe (6.30pm, free).
American poet Matthew Dickman is joined by award winning Ann Gray at the Poetry Cafe (7.30pm, £6 / £5).
Second chance of the night to see Luke Wright at Bookslam at The Flyover, along with Jon Ronson, Dominic Frisby and De’Borah (8pm, £10 / £12).
Friday 24 May: The Keats Festival kicks off at Keats House. Discover Alexander Pope (2.30pm, free), Cobbett and cottage gardens (4pm, £7) and a continuation of the Southbank Centre’s global Poetry Parnassus project (6.30pm, £5).
Saturday is Towel Day, so get in the mood with Vogon Poetry Night at Hackney Picturehouse (7.30pm, £5 / £4 in costume).
LA Times Book Prize for Fiction winner Ben Fountain is at Bookseller Crow on the Hill in Crystal Palace (7.30pm, £3).
Hylda Sims hosts Fourth Friday at the Poetry Cafe with Mark Gwynne Jones and Joolz Sparkes (8pm, £6 / £5).
Brother Niyi, Katie Bonna, AF Harrold, Greta Bellamacina, Bridget Minamore and Lucy Gellman are guest performers at the Farrago Poetry Exam Blues SLAM, with John Paul O’Neill MCing (7.30pm, £6 / £5).
Saturday 25 May: The London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre continues: highlights include more Poetry Parnassus (7.45pm, £8), Rupert Everett (7.45pm, £12 / £10), James Salter on his probable final novel (4.30pm, £10), SPIN for kids with John Hegley, Sally Pomme Clayton and BREIS (11am, free) and Rachel Rose Reid‘s tour of the Southbank Centre (1pm, £5).
Helen Simpson, Ben Fountain, Roshi Fernando and Anna Stothard read short stories at The Word Factory salon in Soho (6pm, £10).
More Keats: Arachne Press presents stories from the Garden of Eden (3pm, £5), Susan Brandt’s docu-play goes behind the affair of Byron and Claire Clairmont (6.30pm, £5), plus more workshops and talks.
Helen East leads another storytelling walk around Islington, this time meeting at Farringdon tube and directing us at the water beneath our feet (11am / 2pm, free).
Amy Key, Jacqui Saphra and Gale Burns host The Shuffle at the Poetry Cafe (7.30pm, £5 / £3).
Sunday 26 May: Back at the Southbank Centre for the London Literature Festival, the big draw is undoubtedly the full reading of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel by a ton of famous women poets and actors (7.30pm, £10-£25). We also like the look of Cornelia Parker (4.30pm, £10) and Adam Thirlwell, Sarah Hall and Adam Foulds, three of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists (4pm, £8).
Back at Keats House, Spread the Word and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama students present poetry set to music (2pm, free), Foyle Young Poets Flora de Falbe, David Carey, Sarah Fletcher and Alex Hartley (4.30pm, free) and winners of the flamingofeather poetry competition plus judges Mimi Khalvati and Peter Daniels (5.30pm, free).
Monday 27 May: Helen East is back in Farringdon for another Islington storytelling walk (7pm, free).
Another walk, earlier in the day, goes round Keats’s Hampstead (11am, £8 / £6).
Today’s picks of the London Literature Festival are Audrey Niffenegger (7pm, £10), AC Grayling (7.45pm, £12 / £10) and Sarah Dunant and Lisa Jardine (2pm, £10).
Suzannah Evans, Kathleen Jones, Agnes Lehoczky, Agnes Marton and Tiffany Anne Tondut combine art and poetry at the Poetry Cafe (7pm, free).
Tuesday 28 May: Horror and supernatural writer extraordinaire Joe Hill launches NOS4R2 at Foyles (6.30pm, £10).
Lucinda Hawksley talks about suffragettes and suffragists at Wanstead Library (7pm, £5).
Rob Auton performs his Edinburgh show about Yellow at the Gallery Cafe (7.30pm, £5 / £4).
Some excellent choices at the London Literature Festival: Claire Tomalin lectures on Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice (6.30pm, £10), Lionel Shriver discusses her new novel Big Brother (8pm, £10) and Christopher Fowler, VG Lee, Sophia Blackwell, Anny Knight and Greg Mitchell are guests at Polari (7.45pm, £5).
Patricia McCarthy, Jane Draycott and Pascale Petit, top winners in this year’s anonymous National Poetry Competition, are at Keats House (6.30pm, £5).
Niall O’Sullivan hosts open mic night Poetry Unplugged at the Poetry Cafe (7.30pm, £5 / £4).
Wednesday 29 May: Phill Jupitus (presumably under his Porky the Poet guise), Ross Sutherland, Richard Marsh and Katie Bonna are the guests of Tongue Fu at the Udderbelly (9.15pm, £12.50).
Join Matt Haig and Andrew J Lambie in the Great Northern Tavern for the Big Green Bookshop Bookswap (7.30pm, free).
Christopher Kul-Want gives an introduction to Slavoj Žižek at Housmans (7pm, £3).
Grab a ticket to the Saboteur Awards 2013 at The Book Club: nominees include Luke Kennard, Dan Cockrill, Vanessa Kisuule, Penned in the Margins, Bang Said the Gun and Come Rhyme with Me (7pm, £7 / £5).
Lyndall Gordon talks about Emily Dickinson as part of the Keats Festival (6.30pm, £5).
At the London Literature Festival, acclaimed short story writer George Saunders talks with Jon McGregor (6.30pm, £8) and Claire Tomalin turns to Thomas Hardy for her next lecture (6.30pm, £10).
Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events.