Author appearances, poetry and spoken word events in London this week
Thursday 7 November
Hear stories inspired by pop songs with Jukebox Story at The Harrison in Kings Cross. £6 / £5, 7.30pm
The Very Grimm Brothers and Roundhouse Slam champions join Bang Said the Gun for stand up poetry. £7 / £5, 8pm
Nii Ayikwei Parkes moderates an evening talking about reconfiguring truth at the Southbank Centre, with Brian Chikwava and Jennifer Makumbi. £8, 7pm
Lisa Jardine reads at the Wapping Project. £6, 7pm
Jo Shapcott wraps up her Keats House residency with a reading of new poems. £5, prebook, 7pm
The Gentle Author presents a Magic Lantern show of photos of London at Woolfson & Tay. £3, 7pm
Gemma Seltzer will be popping up all over London doing some live writing. Keep an eye out.
Ross Sutherland performs his fantastic mix of hypnotic video and poetry at the Rosemary Branch Theatre. One of the best things we’ve ever seen. £5, 7.30pm
Lloyd Bradley, Daniel Rachel and Xidus Pain talk sex, drugs and rock n roll at Salon XVLIII. £15, 7.30pm
Michael Arditti reads from The Breath of Night at West End Lane Books. Free, prebook at info@welbooks.co.uk or @WELBooks, 7.30pm
Graham Farmelo talks about Churchill’s bomb at the Richmond Literature Festival. £7.50 / £6, 7.30pm
Friday 8 November
Inua Ellams hosts Scratch Mixer at the Southbank Centre, with spoken word artists Dfiza Benson, Talia Randall, Dan Simpson, Nigel of Bermondsey, Ronak Patani and Vanessa Woolf. £5, 7.30pm
Dean Atta and Deanna Rodger host Come Rhyme With Me at The Albany in Deptford. Guests include Indigo Williams, Phoenix Martins and Bagel Project (and you get food). £5, 7pm
Stella Duffy, Tania Hershman, Adam Marek and Alex Preston are at the chilly Earlsfield Cemetery chapel for Word Factory. £15-£5, 7pm
Daisy Waugh is in Richmond talking about her latest two novels. £10 / £8.50, 7.30pm
Join an absolute ton of poets for the launch of South Bank Poetry’s Autumn/Winter issue at the Poetry Cafe. £5.50 / £4.50, 7.30pm
Iain Sinclair launches American Smoke at F in Stoke Newington. Free, 6pm
Saturday 9 November
A one day festival of writing and language, go to Wordstock at the Free Word Centre with guests including Kate Moss, David Parfitt and Dick Mullender. £72 / £62, from 9am
The Comica Festival presents two events at Foyles: Benjamin Dickson, Hunt Emerson, John Spelling and Tariq Ali discuss a visual history of protest among English speaking people (£6, 4pm) and then Gareth Brookes, Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Katie Green, John Miers and Woodrow Phoenix join writer and curator Paul Gravett to talk about graphic novels in the 21st century (£6, 6.30pm)
Paul Stones, Ros Barber, Michael Parker, Greg Downing, Jonny F, Justin Coe, Ptolyme, Yvonne and Bernadette Cremin perform at the Poetry Cafe for the Rolling Under Revue. £1, 2pm
Mark the 60th anniversary of Dylan Thomas’s death at Keats House. Free with admission to the house, 3pm
Glyn Maxwell reads at Poetry East. £8, 7.30pm
Patric Cunnane, Li Yan and Maggie Oke are the Dodo Modern Poets, performing in SW19. £5 / £4, 8pm
Sunday 10 November
Enjoy a Georgian Sunday lunch with John Keats (OK, Julia Bird and Mike Sims reading Keats) in Walthamstow for Words Over Waltham Forest. £30, 1pm
Charles Moore talks about Margaret Thatcher from his authorised biography of her, at Richmond. £18 / £15, 7.30pm
Monday 11 November
Lauren Child, Julia Eccleshare, Laura Dockrill and Ian Beck discuss their favourite children’s book at the British Library. £7.50 / £5, 6.30pm
The Brook Green Festival of Books starts with Lauren St John talking about her work and first novel for adults, The Obituary Writer, at Bush Theatre. £10, 7pm
Sign up for open mic with Kid, I Wrote Back at Bar Kick. 7pm
Viv Albertine, Emily Berry, Kate Tempest, Marawa the Amazing and Bryony Kimmings read at the Faber Social with Tatty Devine. £7, prebook, 7pm
Stephen Morrison-Burke is the special guest of Hammer and Tongue at the Green Note in Camden. £5, 7.30pm
Tuesday 12 November
Actors including Fresh Meat’s Zawe Ashton, Lindsay Duncan and Paterson Joseph read from the Forward Book of Poetry 2014 at the Bush Theatre for the Brook Green Festival of Books. £10, 7pm
Liars’ League stories are all about Cloak and Dagger, at the Phoenix. £5, 7.30pm
Simon Sebag Montefiore talks about his novel One Night in Winter with Suzy Feay at Daunt Books in Marylebone. £8, 7pm
Andrew Marr discusses his short book about drawing, at Foyles. Free, 6.30pm
Poets Anne-Marie Fyfe and Robyn Bolam read at the Richmond Literature Festival. £6 / £5, 7pm
Matthew Sweeney and John Hartley Williams read published and unpublished poetry at the London Review Bookshop. £10, 7pm
José Ovejero and Javier Montes launch new novels at the European Bookshop on Warwick Street. 7pm
Michele Hanson, Wendy Wallace and Caitlin Davies discuss writing about the Heath at West Hampstead Library. Free, prebook via West End Lane Books at info@welbooks.co.uk or @WELBooks, 7.30pm
Perform your own stuff at the Poetry Cafe open mic night hosted by Niall O’Sullivan. £5 / £4, 7.30pm
Wednesday 13 November
Rob Auton plays Ye Olde Rose and Crown in Walthamstow, part of Words Over Waltham Forest. £5.95, 8pm
Peter Culshaw is at Housmans recounting his travels with Manu Chao. £3, 7pm
The winner of Polari’s First Book Prize 2013 is announced tonight at the Southbank Centre, with guests Charlotte Mendelson, Dean Atta, Rosie Garland, Patrick Flanery, Helen Lederer and singer Dee Chanelle. £5, 7.45pm
Ramachandra Guha is in conversation with Lucy Moore about Gandhi, at Daunt Books Fulham Road. £5, 7pm
Labour MP Alan Johnson is in Brook Green talking about his memoir. £10, 7pm
John Grindrod launches Concretopia, about rebuilding postwar Britain, at Bookseller Crow. Free, 7pm
David Leavitt discusses his new novel, The Two Hotel Francforts, at Woolfson & Tay. £3, 7pm
Liam Hogan, Cherry Potts, Emily Bullock, Nicolas Ridley and Joan Taylor-Rowan tell Armistice Tales at the Ivy House in Nunhead. 8pm
More live writing at the Jewish Museum today. The author is TBC.
Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events.