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We've been doing a lot of soul-searching about you. When we said we needed to take some time off from our relationship with you, it was just to reinvigorate our souls - so we could come back and love you better.

Can we please just put this whole break-up behind us? Can we get back together again? We're ready for commitment because you're 'the One'.

We know it was tough on you, and trust us, we had a rough time too. We just miss you so so much. How you used to visit us every month and how you used to listen to our shenanigans and how you used to weave narrative-new-media-spoken-word-art-awesomeness for us was just tops. And we know we're supposed to say 'let's take it slow babe and make the most of our second chance at love', but we kinda have this idea...

Let's get back together with a big party! A big huzzah!

We'll call it Cottonmouth XVIII and you know what that means? We're turning 18. And that means we're all kinds of legal now.

Oh won't you rekindle the fire with us for our first night back together again in our monthly affair?

The inimitable and illimitable high-steppin' and high-croonin' Tomas Ford returns to ringmaster us through a night of spoken-worders, poets, sound artists, playwrights, new-media-welders and narrative grandstanders.

And bands, oh sweet glory, the bands!

Open mikers, blessed open mikers, your new Open Mic host is none other than the infamous and, in the matters of love, indefatigable and never ineffable Sir Byron Bard! And just wait until you hear what he has in store for you dear open mikers. The Bard giveth and the Bard taketh, and for you sweet open mikers, the Bard doth only give, Give, GIVE!

We almost forgot... did you know we made something special during our separation? We called her Cottonmouth: An Anthology of New Australian Writing. And she's beautiful.

Our 'zine COTTONMOUTH will return in October and we'll tell you more about it when we see you on 2 September.

It'll be the perfect night for you and us to get back together and make up.

With performances by:

Lily Chan
Sam Fox
Kaitlyn Plyley
Julian Staltari
Allan Boyd
Matt Giles
Amber Fresh
Tristan Fidler

Musical guests:

Rachel Dease
Gilbert Fawn (Matt Aitken)

When: doors open 7:30pm, Thursday 2 September 2010, and then the first Thursday of every month

Where: 459 Bar Rosemount Hotel 459 Fitzgerald St North Perth

How much: $5 entry, or $20 entry + anthology

On Saturday February 27, the Cottonmouth animals crawl out from underground, returning for 2010 with a peacock-bewildering, hula-spinning outdoor spectacular. Because we've missed you so much, we wanted to throw a hell of a party to kick off a year for which we have pretty grand plans. In conjunction with the Perth Writers Festival, we're treading the boards of UWA's New Fortune Theatre with a coterie of the region's most exciting spoken word performers gathered from the Festival and beyond.

Cottonmouth favourites Simon Cox, James Quinton, Rebecca Giggs, Amber Fresh, Patrick Pittman and Scott-Patrick Mitchell will be presenting new work alongside five very special out-of-towners, with music from Chris Cobilis and Seven Weapons.

Brisbane poet and raconteur Samuel Wagan Watson stole the show last time he came for the Festival in 2007, and he's been somebody that we've been wanting to see on our stage for a while. His stunning 2004 collection Smoke Encrypted Whispers won the NSW Premier's Literary Award, but much more importantly, his festival bio mentions the following: he was recently commissioned by the Japanese Aeronautical Exploration Agency to write haiku for the pleasure of the astronauts on the International Space Platform.

Melbourne writer Tom Cho's performance at the final Cottonmouth of 2009 was one of our favourite things in our first run, so we're pretty thrilled to have him back. Last time, he destroyed a call center with ninjas. Enough said.

Hailing from New Zealand, and joining us on respite from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is the rather amazing Eleanor Catton. Her debut novel The Rehearsal has been gathering rapturous reactions and sundry prizes from all over the shop. Last we heard from her, she'd been writing a fantasy novel in an Iowa bar, which makes us think she's going to fit Cottonmouth pretty perfectly.

Josephine Rowe's poetry and short fiction have been published in HEAT, Island, Overland, Best Australian Poems and The Age, and read on Radio National. Her collection of short stories, How a Moth Becomes a Boat, is about to be re-released by Hunter Publishers. The ace lit journal Torpedo calls her one of the most talented short story writers in Australia. We agree.

AND DID WE MENTION THERE WILL BE HULA HOOPS? Writer and circus performer Judith Lanigan's excellent debut novel A True History of the Hula Hoop was recently published by Picador, and you can hear her talk about that at the Festival. But we mouthers wanted more -- we wanted the hoops. Judith will be performing her interpretation of the ballet The Dying Swan with something like 30 hoops. This, we're pretty sure, will BLOW YOUR MIND.

How much for all of this? FREE! As in no money! (Thanks, Perth Writers Festival!). So you can spend the money you would have spent either at our bar or at the mammoth zine table that the Perth Zine Collective shall be providing. We'll also be taking over whatever wall space we can negotiate with the peacocks (who guard the theatre) to bring back our typewriter wall, because it wouldn't be a Cottonmouth without it.

MC Byron Bard shall kick things off at 7.30. Get down early at 6.15 to catch the launch of the latest issue of Indigo, featuring Alex Miller and many more readings and performances. We go ahead rain or shine, we've got a backup tent planned if the heavens aren't cooperating.

You remember how we said we weren't doing anything until next year? That was almost completely the truth. This one was just too exciting to pass up.

We've teamed up with Amnesty to put on a mother of a show for their ARTillery Youth Arts Festival, bringing you an evening brimming with narrative art on Thursday November 26 at the Astor Lounge, 659 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley.

Performers on the night will use their own unique craft to respond to the theme: demand dignity. Poets will consider, debators will contend, storytellers will weave, mc's will wax lyrical, songwriters will play and activists will proclaim.

Audience members should bring their best typing fingers as our largest typewriter wall to date will await your opinions.

Open mic hopefuls who would like to "Demand Dignity" should come down to register between 7pm and 8pm.

Our spectacular line-up for the evening will include:

On Sound

• Field of Sound
• Jon Michell (Melb / Mum Smokes / The Ancients)

On Speech

• Jeremy Balius
• Alf Taylor
• Coral Carter
• Ray Grenfell
• Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig (with Vivienne Glance)
• Mark lloyd
• Gladys Milroy
• Giovanni Torre
• Deborah Hunn
• Dave Leigh
• Allan Boyd

On Sight

• Two short films!

Tickets are $8 on the door (including the special edition Cottonmouth / Amnesty zine).

If you would like to contribute something on topic for the zine, email submissions to Jessyca Hutchens (jessyca@mac.com), no later than November 19.

Oh, June, we haven't been looking forward to you.

What's that? Yes, you're right June, we have put together a lineup that makes you the biggest Cottonmouth ever. Yes, June, people will be fighting each other just to get in and see you. But here's the sad bit, and the reason why they're going to such an effort: you are the very last monthly Cottonmouth for 2009. June, how could you?

Here's a strange Wikipedia fact about the number 17:

"In Italian culture, the number 17 is considered unlucky. When viewed as the Roman numeral, XVII, it is then changed anagramatically to VIXI, which in the Latin language it translates to 'I have lived', the perfect tense implying 'My life is over'."

We have lived. After a year and a half wrestling with this crazy beautiful word-beast we've built, proudly watching her grow up to become one of this town's and this country's most eligible word-beasts, we're in need of a little time to recharge.

So. Hiatus-warming party, anyone? This lineup is a greatest hits collection with no filler whatsoever, featuring a selection of some of the most outstanding readers from the last sixteen installments plus three of your favourite Cottonmouth musical starlets.

Firstly, a greatest hits collection needs a new track to entice you, and we're not going to just give you some lame outtake that wasn't even worth a B-side. No sir. Leading the lineup for this last-hurrah-for-now is shapeshifting Melbourne guest TOM CHO, whose new short-story collection "Look Who's Morphing" has the West Australian calling him a "modern Ovid" (and the Sydney Morning Herald incisively decreed that he "is obviously clever and can write well").

Backing up Tom are ten of the strongest performers we've had in our time together so far. All are wonderful. If you've been to at least one Cottonmouth before, you'll likely have encountered and loved at least a couple from this delectable selection:

• Patrick Pittman
• Scott-Patrick Mitchell
• Simon Cox
• Tristan Fidler
• Gabrielle Everall
• Lily Chan
• Jay Pruyn
• Anna Dunnill
• Byron Bard
• MC Able

And I haven't even mentioned the bands, June! RABBIT ISLAND will once more take the stage with LI'L LEONIE LIONHEART (hopefully armed with their sketchbooks)! And CARBUNCLE will blow your minds just as they did last year when they were on a slightly different SalamandaStrong sort of trip! Some of us are still recovering.

Meantime, come down to the 459 Bar, Rosemount Hotel, 459 Fitzgerald St, North Perth, on Thursday June 11 to help us celebrate what we've all built together. Five bucks, doors open 7.30, musical mayhem at 8, spoken words soonafter.

If you want to take part in the final open mic, make sure you get down early to get your name on the list before it fills up. As ever, if you've got zines, books, CDs, badges, manifestos against capitalism or anything else you want to sell at our front desk, bring them down. We don't take any commission, we just love to sell your stuff and give you the money. Drunk people also seem to like to buy your stuff, particularly if it's pretty.

Let's do this, June. Let's make 'em proud.

The Future?

While the engines cool over the next six months, we'll be back with a few very special one-off events, so we're not going to be too far away. It's a hiatus, okay? We're on a break. Just spending some time apart?

Regular monthly Cottonmouths will return in the early part of next year, and we'll soon be sending a callout for new committee members along with information on some of our special gigs throughout break time (including the launch of our "it's looking bloody amazing" anthology somewhere around September). Her life is not over, and she'll be back with you before you know it.

Sign up to the mailing list using the box over to the right if you want to stay up to date with us, or hook up on Facebook, or, y'know, subscribe to an RSS feed or something. We have many options for instant Cottonmouth Fact Delivery. It's Your Choice.

The winter refuses to come. We keep it at bay. We're pretty sure it should be colder by now. We're starting to wonder when we get to wear our big coats. We gather in crowded bars with splendid friends, share secrets and swap stories of the Shangri-Las. We turn sixteen and we wonder why we don't bake cakes any more. It is May already? It is.

Blowing in from the east, feature reader STEVE SMART is well known to anybody who has frequented the scungy poetry bars of Melbourne -- we're pleased to invite him into our own for a performance you're not likely to forget. And just check this out for a hell awesome¹ complete lineup, wandering down many strange corners of the darker narrative arts:

• LISA MACKINNEY
• KEVIN GILLAM
• SAM CARMODY
• MAX NOAKES
• JAMES BERLYN
• JEREMY BALIUS
• MICHELLE GOODWIN.

Music? Just as awesome. That will be SPLENDID FRIENDS (Cottonmouth faves Craig McElhinney and Camryn Rothenbury) and BENJAMIN GOLBY of New Rules For Boats (and a quite marvellous solo release last year).

For his performance, James Berlyn will be collecting your deepest, darkest secrets in a jar, so please make sure they're not repressed when you get here -- we'll be directing you towards our confessional typewriter for an in-confidence purge.

Join us, please, and keep the winter away just a little bit longer. Bar 459 at the Rosemount, Thursday May 14, doors at 7.30, stuff starts at 8. Be early to register for the open mic. If your ears are bleeding with drum and bass, you're in the right pub but the wrong room. Just keep calm and carry on through to the back, where we'll be ready and waiting to bleed your ears in that special Cottonmouth way.

If you've got zines, books, CDs, badges, cookbooks or anything else you want to sell at our front desk, bring them down, even if you're not performing. We don't take any commission, we just love to sell your stuff.

^1. For your reference: on the scale of awesome, "hell awesome" sits just above "damned awesome" and only slightly below "I got Springsteen tickets!".

Cottonmouth XV happened at the 459 Bar on Thursday April 16. It was a great night, and probably one of my personal favourites of late. Both Pex and Pond sent the crowd into off-kilter musical frenzies (or frenzied mind trips at the least), and special guest MC Byron Bard threw down hard on Tomás Ford's home turf.

Want to keep the love alive? Well, you can download our April zine here. Or you can listen to some of the performances below. The audio recorder crapped out in the intermission, so we've only got the first four, but the video is making its way up as we speak.

We'll be back in May -- keep an eye on the site for more details. (And yes, I know there's lots from past months we still have to upload. We will. Promises.)

Performers

• Joanna Gould
• Tiffany Ha
• Janet Jackson
• Jimmy the Exploder
• James Quinton
• Leonie Brialey
• Bec Giggs
• Paul Harrison

As well as musical performances by Pond and Pex.

As always, doors open at 7:30pm for an 8:00pm start. Entry is $5. Bar 459, Rosemount Hotel, 459 Fitzgerald St, North Perth. Please get down early to sign up for the open mic, and please make use of the typewriter, which might actually be there this time.

Do you have a birthday in autumn? Does the season remind you of party dates that were forecast to be sunny but were inevitably rained out? Did your mother make you clean up the fast-disintegrating scavenger hunt clues in the yard after your friends went home early? Do the gathering clouds compel you toward bars and stitched speech?

If you answered yes to three or more of these questions, you are a tragic individual. You might also enjoy Cottonmouth! This month's performers are a lusty bunch:

Musicians

• Gilbert Fawn
• Bekk Rezcek (The Bank Holidays)

Stitchers (Not Belly Itchers)

• Anna Dunnill
• Stephen Finch
• Alex Kannis
• Kolya Lebedeff
• Janice Loreck
• Darren Moroney
• Ben Mulvey
• Patrick Pittman
• Emily Taylor

Guest MC for the evening will be the illustrious Byron Bard.

They are wry, recondite and raring to go. Bar 459, Rosemount Hotel, 459 Fitzgerald St, North Perth on Thursday March 12. Doors open at 7:30pm for an 8:00pm start. Entry is $5. Please get down early to sign up for the open mic, and please tell us your terrible secrets on the typewriter.

Can we have a third please? Please keep your eyes out for an anthology of the best and brightest contributions to Cottonmouth in the coming months. We are currently accepting new submissions for this project from previous performers and zine contributors. Contact us at info@cottonmouth.org.au for details. Submissions close April 1.

Please join us for Cottonmouth number ten, where we will celebrate everything exceptional about the semi-meandric, noncototient, biprime number by bringing you ten commanding performers.

1. Silver Bulletin
*sustained acoustic dirges*
2. Ray Grenfell
3. Alan Fyfe
4. Miriam McKenna
5. Craig Silvey (FEATURE)
*Rhubarb author and ukelele whiz-kid*
6. Carbuncle
*tales from psychedelic caves*
7. Ferron Dearnley
8. Leonie Brialey
9. Ben Young &
10. Bec Giggs

A dewey decimal library full of literary delight to the power of ten!

Takes place at the usual haunt, Bar 459, Rosemount Hotel, 459 Fitzgerald St, North Perth on Thursday November 13. Doors now open at 7:30pm with Silver Bulletin marching this decapod army forth at 8pm. Five bucks!

Last week Cottonmouth was proud to release 12 mad frolicking, free falling, tongue waggling individuals upon the National Young Writers Festival in Newcastle. There they spun out of control into every part of the festival, voices falling upon multiple microphones, zines flying into eager eastern states hands and words dropping and flailing upon every page, stage and street corner Newcastle had to offer.

Still reeling, they have returned home just in time for Cottonmouth IX. So come to the 459 Bar of the Rosemount Hotel, 459 Fitzgerald St North Perth, and join in welcoming home:

• Tomas Ford (Performing as well as MC-ing!);
• Scott-Patrick Mitchell;
• K (The Ponies);
• Jessyca Hutchens;
• James Quinton;
• MC Able;
• Jay Pruyn;
• Byron Bard;
• Amber Fresh;
• Patrick Pittman; and
• Simon Cox.

Our stray travelers will be joined by the note-moulding magic of Field of Sound and Mystic Eyes, who will provide both audio and visual pleasures.

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!

Western Australia is evacuated of twelve of its best emerging writers this month, as Cottonmouth leads a caravan across the plains to the National Young Writers' Festival, part of This Is Not Art 2008. The NYWF is held in Newcastle NSW from 02-06 October. If you find yourself adrift in that city around those days you should come down to see Amber Fresh, MC Able, James Quinton, Kristy Felton, Jay Pruyn, Patrick Pittman, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Tomas Ford, Rebecca Giggs, Simon Cox, Jessyca Hutchens and Sam Knee wax lyrical at numerous readings, panel discussions, performances and roundtables. We'll be back with our mouths full of new words to showcase at Cottonmouth IX on Thursday, October 16.