20 Friday Sep 2013
Coming in after the start to an interview on “Woman’s Hour” this morning I was sure I was listening to A S Byatt. But no, it was Margaret Drabble. The intonation was so very similar. Margaret Drabble was talking about stories she has written for ‘Black Country Women’. You can catch the interview at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03b2z9x, with Margaret Drabble coming on 21 minutes in.
19 Thursday Sep 2013
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Zadie Smith fans may like to know that she’ll be on ‘Desert Island Discs’ on Radio 4 on Sunday, 22 September, at 11-15 in the morning. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bg4v7 .
16 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in News
10 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Competitions, News, Stories, Tanya, Writing
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I suppose an unmarried woman just over thirty, who lives alone and has no apparent ties, must expect to find herself involved or interested in other people’s business, and if she is also a clergyman’s daughter then one might really say that there is no hope for her.
This entirely wonderful sentence comes on the first page of Barbara Pym’s novel Excellent Women – and how could anyone resist it? Certainly not me, so to be invited by the Barbara Pym society to a lunch at St Hilda’s college in Oxford at the beginning of September was the perfect summer treat. Meeting a crowd of men and women who are fans of Barbara Pym has got to be an altogether delightful experience – and it was! The lunch was part of a centenary weekend – members had come from all over the world to enjoy a feast of Barbara Pym related activities and entertainment – and extra guests like myself were there to be given our prizes in the centenary short story competition. It’s difficult to express the sense of fun and enormous goodwill that pervaded the gathering – everyone so full of eager friendliness and happy congratulations. They’re going to publish the winning stories on the society’s website some time in the Autumn.
I’ve come away with a splendid book too, Barbara in the Bodleian – Revelations from the Pym Archives by Yvonne Cocking. It’s full of excerpts from Barbara’s notebooks. Nobody could ask for more.
03 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Competitions, News, Uncategorized
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Our ridiculously modest Tanya Aydon was quietly awarded joint first prize in the Barbara Pym Society’s short story competition, for her piece ‘Unexpected Flowers’, on Saturday 31st August.
This involved lunch at St. Hilda’s, Oxford, and all sorts of jollities that we will have to pry out of Tanya with a snail fork. She has such an elegant, generous, dazzling talent, we can only marvel at the care with which she arranges the bushel. We are terribly proud of her!
Photo borrowed from the Barbara Pym Society Facebook page: <https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153186939240032&set=p.10153186939240032&type=1&theater
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