Book Bar: Richard Foster – Flower Factory

A pop up event: the first of two! WORMie and author, Richard Foster will read a number of extracts from his book, Flower Factory. Expect tales of socio-cultural madness and birdwatching from the Netherlands of the noughties, a period when Richard worked in the Bollenstreek. The readings in total will last around 30 minutes. We will try to hook up some strange sounds too, from the Radio WORM booth.

Freedom of Movement wasn’t always an alien concept to the British. Flower Factory tells of an English seasonal worker going to live and work in the Netherlands at the turn of the millennium. These psyched-out remembrances are set in the Bollenstreek of South Holland, an area that produces flower bulbs by the billion. Casual workers from all over Europe created their own ecosystem of squats, parties and alternative living practices around the working seasons, raving hard and living for the weekly pay packet. In the year 2000 it seemed nothing would change in this free-and-easy land, but the narrator witnessed the last beating of the 24 Hour Party drum.

Richard Foster
Richard is an artist and writer. Currently, he writes about popular culture for English-language publications such as The Quietus, Caught By the River, The Wire and Louder than War. Richard’s work on the history of Dutch post-punk is published by Routledge, Cambridge Scholars and Intellect Books. He is also the author of two autofictions based in the Netherlands of the 2000s, Flower Factory (2022) and The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club, (2025), both by Ortac Press. He works here at WORM. Between 2004 and 2015 he was co-editor of Incendiary Magazine, a website whose main focus was increasingly based around new Dutch underground pop music. He runs the ongoing conceptual art project, The Museum of Photocopies.

Richard Foster is kunstenaar en schrijver. Hij schrijft regelmatig over cultuur en popmuziek voor onder andere The Quietus, Caught By the River, The Wire en Louder than War. Tussen 2004 en 2015 was hij co-redacteur van Incendiary Magazine, een Engelstalige website die focuste op nieuwe Nederlandse underground popmuziek. Richards werk over de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse postpunk is uitgegeven door Routledge, Cambridge Scholars en Intellect Books. Zijn debuutroman, Flower Factory, werd in 2022 gepubliceerd door de Britse uitgever, Ortac Press. Zijn nieuwe boek, The Punk Rock Birdwatching Club, verschijnt in februari 2025, tevens uitgebracht door Ortac Press. Hij runt The Museum of Photocopies. Voor zijn dagelijks brood is hij adviseur marketing en communicatie bij WORM, in Rotterdam.