On Saturday 17th September I'm 'running' a writing marathon: a day-long series of writing workshops to raise money for the East Africa famine.

Some wonderful and generous writers are donating their time to run workshops, including: novelists Kitty Fitzgerald (author of Pigtopia) and Alex Pheby (Grace), poets Kate Fox (BBC Radio 4 Poet in Residence), Kathleen Kenny (Firesprung) and Ali Robinson (Stereograms of the Dead) as well as former Mslexia editor Daneet Steffens, with other big names from the region to be confirmed.

The workshops run 9am-6pm at the criminally cheap price of £2 each, with all the money going to charity. I'm then going to work all night to put stories produced from the day together to form a special issue of Friction Magazine, whichI hope you will sponsor!

And then, I'm going to run the Great North Run half-marathon.

If you want to come along and attend the workshops, then please visit: http://www.frictionmagazine.co.uk/write-for-east-africa/