29 Saturday Nov 2014
Posted in Competitions, Ed, Stories, Writing
The winning entry in the annual writing competition put on by the British Czech & Slovak Association last year was ‘The Window Seat’, by Frances Jackson. The text can be found at http://www.bcsa.co.uk/reviews.html . It tells the thoughts of an A-star Czech student on her flight home from Manchester, as she reflects on how her time in England hasn’t worked out as she’d hoped.
The winner of the 2014 competition will be announced shortly.
28 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Short Fiction is an annual literary journal produced by the Faculty of Arts at Plymouth University and edited by Tom Vowler. Submissions (email only and up to 5,000 words) will be accepted until December 31 for publication in October 2015. There is no payment but publication offers useful exposure to struggling writers. Marina Warner and Kevin Barry have had work featured and contributing editors include Ali Smith, Toby Litt and Helen Oyeyemi.
Details from http://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk
Little Brown’s digital literary imprint, Blackfriars, is holding an open submissions week from December 1, accepting unagented submissions until December 7. Publisher Claire Smith says writers should have finished their novel: ‘Finished as in having a completed narrative. A creative journey that’s complete. But not completely finished and edited.’
Details from http://www.blackfriarsbooks.com
Why wait for your New Year Resolutions’ list to push out your writing?
27 Thursday Nov 2014
P D James – one of the greats. RIP
20 Thursday Nov 2014
Posted in Maggie
With only 50,181 words completed so far on DOUGLAS DODD’S WOMEN I’m falling behind. This is embarrassing since November is the American Novel Writing Month, as well as being the more familiar (this side of the pond, anyway) NaNoWriMo challenge to complete a novel in a month. They only have four weeks, I gave myself ten.
Go to it girl!
19 Wednesday Nov 2014
Tags
Belgium, commuters, Czech, Ian Rankin, Jonathan Coe, Russians, spies
How I must have annoyed my fellow travellers on the train as I chuckled away and occasionally laughed out loud, reading Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe. Published last year, it’s an enjoyably comic novel set at the Expo 58 exhibition in Brussels in 1958. It contains spies, the British Civil Service, love interests, and twists in the tail. An author’s note at the end shows to what lengths he went to get verisimilitude, even in a committee meeting that I had assumed was just invented farce.
Our hero is Thomas Foley, who holds a junior position in the Central Office of Information. His mother was a Belgian refugee and he grew up in a pub, so he is thought to be the ideal person to go on the COI’s behalf to ‘keep an eye on’ the replica Britannia pub, part of the British exhibition there. His duties at the Britannia are vague (indeed we never get to learn what they are), but he is taken aside by two mysterious men from the British Secret Service, Tweedledum and Tweedledee-type characters called Radford and Wayne, and told also to keep an eye on what Eastern bloc folk might be getting up to at the Fair.
Among others we meet a beautiful Belgian guide/hostess, Anneke, for whom our hero develops a soft spot; her plainer friend Clara; Thomas’ roommate Tony Buttress (who is involved with the cutting-edge scientific Zeta Project); the Russian ‘editor’ Andrey Chersky, who befriends Thomas and is unusually interested in the Zeta Project; Emily from Wisconsin, who demonstrates vacuum cleaners in the American pavilion and who is keen on Andrey Chersky; the bulky British spy Wilkins; the alcoholic Mr Rossiter, the manager of the Britannia, who resents Thomas’ presence; and his able barmaid Shirley Knott (indeed!), who pals up with an American, Mr Longman. We learn through some brilliant letters between Thomas and his wife Sylvia that back at home she resents his absence and is getting too close to the obnoxious next-door neighbour, Mr Sparks.
Events get rather complicated. There is farce, and wryer (presumably ‘wry’ has a comparative form?) humour such as the brilliant Civil Service committee meeting near the start of the book. There are some great set-pieces such as an evening in a German bierkeller; a romantic meal for Thomas and Anneke in Expo’s best restaurant, the Praha in the Czechoslovak pavilion (which did indeed have that reputation, and was reassembled back in Prague after Expo); and a picnic in the Belgian countryside. There are sensitive passages too – such as Thomas’ reactions to a concert – and a poignant epilogue.
It is notoriously difficult to recommend humorous books to others – what makes me LOL may raise barely a titter from you. But Expo 58 worked for me. Now I’m reading a cracking Ian Rankin, so my fellow-commuters can snooze undisturbed.
14 Friday Nov 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
FISH PRIZE FOR SHORT STORIES
Short stories up to 5,000 words
Prizes: 3,000 Irish Pounds for first prize.
a week at Anam Cara Writer’s Retreat in
West Cork plus expenses for second,
300 Irish Pounds for third.
Entry Fee: 20 Irish Pounds
Closing Date: 30 November
http://www.fishpublishing.com
INK TEARS SHORT STORY COMPETITION
Short stories 1,000-3,000 words
Prizes: £1,000, £100 4x£25
Closing date: 30 November
http://www.inktears.com
WOMAN AND ACCENT PRESS WRITING COMPETITION
Unpublished mainstream women’s fiction by previously
unpublished novelists.
Prizes: publication with Accent Press plus a week-
long writing holiday at Chez Castillon
Free entry
Closing date: 30 November
http://www.accentpress.co.uk
WRITERS BUREAU FLASH FICTION
Stories up to 500 words, open theme.
Prizes £300, plus Writers Bureau course worth
£300, £200, £100.
Entry Fee £5
Closing date: 30 November
http://www.wbcompetition.com
12 Wednesday Nov 2014
Re-reading the last three volumes of the Forsyte Chronicles (Maid in Waiting, Flowering Wilderness and Over the River) for the first time in more than twenty years I’ve decided that Dinny Cherrell is one of my favourite heroines.
The trilogy (the End of the Chapter) begins after the death of Soames Forsyte and spans the late 1920s and early 1930s, a time when the old values of empire and church are being challenged. Dinny belongs to a traditional family who have long served the state as soldiers, clergymen and administrators, but falls fatally in love with the poet Wilfrid Desert. Galsworthy may romanticise his female characters in these last three volumes – they are all beautiful and have too many men falling in love with them – but Dinny is remarkable in that she is also brave, loyal and unselfish. Things don’t go well for her, but she will carry on and make something of her life that matters…
There must be modern heroines whom I admire, but one doesn’t immediately spring to mind. Does this mean we look for different qualities in a twenty-first century heroine?
Which heroines are favourites for other people – for varying reasons – in both traditional and modern fiction? We might think of our favourite heroes too…
11 Tuesday Nov 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself. Ludwig Wittgenstein had a point, and so did Julius Caeser when he said that men willingly believe what they wish. Not just politicians either. This delightful sentence from Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby illustrates the idea perfectly: “What do you mean, Phib?” asked Miss Squeers, looking in her own little glass, where, like most of us, she saw – not herself, but the reflection of some pleasant image in her own brain.”
Does anyone else have any favourite quotes about self-deception?
11 Tuesday Nov 2014
Reading reviews of one’s published writing can be a mixed experience. Grateful pleasure when the reviewer has understood what one was trying to achieve, a disconcerting recognition that a particular criticism may be justified and occasional irritation when it’s obvious that the reviewer has apparently only read the first and last pages.
A clear, accurate and sensitive review of Tanya van Hasselt’s novel All Desires Known in the Church Times 7th November written by Sarah Meyrick left the author feeling thankful that here was someone who appreciated the story for what it was – and who wanted more about the character at the religious heart of it. But this will have to come in another novel…
Here’s an extract from the Church Times review, reproduced with permission from the editor.
‘… an easy and enjoyable read. The author clearly knows the world of schools from the inside, and paints a largely convincing picture of a family in meltdown. The book asks questions about betrayal and forgiveness – just how possible is this? What are the boundaries between patient and psychiatrist – and where does the responsibility for a patient’s well-being begin and end? Do we have a right to be happy?
‘The author’s experience as a writer of short stories (she recently won joint first prize in the Barbara Pym centenary competition) shows in her sure touch…’
The link to the Church Times: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/
11 Tuesday Nov 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
A happy combination of two of my interests – the importance of punctuation and just how attached one can get to a dog – appeared in a recent letter from novelist Ann Patchett to the Editor of The New York Times:
I was grateful to see my book “This is the Story of a Happy Marriage” mentioned in Paperback Row (Oct. 19). When highlighting a few of the essays in the collection, the review mentions topics ranging from “her stabilizing second marriage to her beloved dog” without benefit of comma, thus giving the impression that Sparky and I are hitched. While my love for my dog is deep, he married a dog named Maggie at Parnassus Books last summer as part of a successful fund-raiser for the Nashville Humane Association. I am married to Karl VanDevender. We are all very happy in our respective unions.
Ann Patchett, Nashville
ninevoices 