Here's a link to the Money programme... dealing with publishing. Not very happy listening unless you happen to be a celebrity with a bio for sale, or a commercial writer who sits and writes with an eye firmly on the market. Losers? Literary writers, independent publishers and indie booksellers.
MONEY PROGRAMME LINK HERE
Friday, 13 February 2009
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Willesden Herald Short Story Competition Short List
Congratulations to all the writers who are on the Willesden Herald Short List. Especially to friend and fellow Salt author Carys Davies!!! I've linked Carys's bio below to her page on the Salt Publishing website.
The following is copied from Willesden Herald.
The following have been shortlisted for the Willesden short story competiton 2009:
"Propitiation" by Jenny Barden
"The Imperfect Roundness of Things" by Claudia Boers
"The Hate Club" by Ben Cheetham
"The Travellers" by Carys Davies
"Ante-Purgatory" by Carol Farrelly
"Amy" by Nick Holdstock
"Work" by Jo Lloyd
"Ebb Tide" by Margot Taylor
"Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena" by Jill Widner
"Tokyo Chocolate" by Morowa Yejidé
To find out who has won come back here or join us at the the Pulp Net Short Story Café event with Rana Dasgupta at Costa in Piccadilly on March 9th.
About the authors
Jenny Barden trained as an artist, then a lawyer, and for several years worked for one of the leading firms of commercial solicitors in the City of London. Chance research into a painting triggered a passion for writing. Journeys in South and Central America then led to ideas for a novel set in the New World during the Age of Discovery. That novel is now close to completion, and Propitiation derives from one of the chapters in an early draft. Jenny is represented by Jonathan Pegg of the Jonathan Pegg Literary Agency. For more about her writing visit: www.jennybarden.com
Claudia Boers is originally from Johannesburg and now lives in London. She left behind a career in fashion to focus on writing in 2007. She's been published in Your Messages (a collection of flash fiction) and was commended in the Ilkley Short Story Competition 2008. Claudia's currently working on her first collection of short stories and is fascinated by the imperfect roundness of life.
Ben Cheetham lives and writes in Sheffield. His short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The London Magazine, Dream Catcher, Staple, Transmission, Momaya Annual Review 2008, Swill, Hoi Polloi and various other magazines.
Carys Davies's short stories have won prizes in national and international competitions, including the Bridport, Asham, Orange/Harpers & Queen and Fish. They have been published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short stories Some New Ambush (Salt, 2007) was one of ten books longlisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year Prize and was also a Finalist in the 2008 Calvino Prize in the US. She lives in Lancaster with her husband and four children.
Carol Farrelly is currently a student of Glasgow University’s MLitt in Creative Writing. She has lived in Italy, London, Oxford and Brighton. Italy and London are the places she still misses. She has had several short stories published in magazines such as Litro and Random Acts of Writing.
Nick Holdstock’s work has appeared in Edinburgh Review, Stand, and The Southern Review. He recently edited the Stolen Stories anthology. http://www.nickholdstock.com/
Jo Lloyd grew up in Wales and now lives in Oxford. Her stories have been longlisted for the Bridport and Asham prizes. She is not [sic] working on a novel.
Margot Taylor is an ex lollipop lady who lives with her husband and two teenagers in Somerset, UK. Her spare time is divided between her passions for boating, running on the nearby Quantock Hills, and writing short stories.
Jill Widner was the recipient of a 2007 Artist Trust/ Washington State Arts Commission fellowship; she was a resident at Yaddo in 2007 and 2008; and she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena” is an excerpt from her novel in progress, The Smell of Sulphur, which fictionalizes her experience growing up in Indonesia in the 1960s. Other excerpts have been published or are forthcoming in North American Review, Hobart (online), and Kyoto Journal. Her fiction has also appeared recently in Memoir (and), 971 Menu, and Hitotoki (New York). She lives in Yakima, Washington.
Morowa Yejidé is a native of Washington, D.C. She was educated at Kalamazoo College, where she received her degree in International Relations, and graduated from an international exchange program at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Her short stories have appeared in the Istanbul Literary Review, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, The Taj Mahal Review, and Underground Voices, and others. Her stories often focus on the layers of relationships and the inner landscapes of her characters’ minds. Tokyo Chocolate is a tapestry of her own experiences and impressions. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three sons.
The following is copied from Willesden Herald.
The following have been shortlisted for the Willesden short story competiton 2009:
"Propitiation" by Jenny Barden
"The Imperfect Roundness of Things" by Claudia Boers
"The Hate Club" by Ben Cheetham
"The Travellers" by Carys Davies
"Ante-Purgatory" by Carol Farrelly
"Amy" by Nick Holdstock
"Work" by Jo Lloyd
"Ebb Tide" by Margot Taylor
"Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena" by Jill Widner
"Tokyo Chocolate" by Morowa Yejidé
To find out who has won come back here or join us at the the Pulp Net Short Story Café event with Rana Dasgupta at Costa in Piccadilly on March 9th.
About the authors
Jenny Barden trained as an artist, then a lawyer, and for several years worked for one of the leading firms of commercial solicitors in the City of London. Chance research into a painting triggered a passion for writing. Journeys in South and Central America then led to ideas for a novel set in the New World during the Age of Discovery. That novel is now close to completion, and Propitiation derives from one of the chapters in an early draft. Jenny is represented by Jonathan Pegg of the Jonathan Pegg Literary Agency. For more about her writing visit: www.jennybarden.com
Claudia Boers is originally from Johannesburg and now lives in London. She left behind a career in fashion to focus on writing in 2007. She's been published in Your Messages (a collection of flash fiction) and was commended in the Ilkley Short Story Competition 2008. Claudia's currently working on her first collection of short stories and is fascinated by the imperfect roundness of life.
Ben Cheetham lives and writes in Sheffield. His short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The London Magazine, Dream Catcher, Staple, Transmission, Momaya Annual Review 2008, Swill, Hoi Polloi and various other magazines.
Carys Davies's short stories have won prizes in national and international competitions, including the Bridport, Asham, Orange/Harpers & Queen and Fish. They have been published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short stories Some New Ambush (Salt, 2007) was one of ten books longlisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year Prize and was also a Finalist in the 2008 Calvino Prize in the US. She lives in Lancaster with her husband and four children.
Carol Farrelly is currently a student of Glasgow University’s MLitt in Creative Writing. She has lived in Italy, London, Oxford and Brighton. Italy and London are the places she still misses. She has had several short stories published in magazines such as Litro and Random Acts of Writing.
Nick Holdstock’s work has appeared in Edinburgh Review, Stand, and The Southern Review. He recently edited the Stolen Stories anthology. http://www.nickholdstock.com/
Jo Lloyd grew up in Wales and now lives in Oxford. Her stories have been longlisted for the Bridport and Asham prizes. She is not [sic] working on a novel.
Margot Taylor is an ex lollipop lady who lives with her husband and two teenagers in Somerset, UK. Her spare time is divided between her passions for boating, running on the nearby Quantock Hills, and writing short stories.
Jill Widner was the recipient of a 2007 Artist Trust/ Washington State Arts Commission fellowship; she was a resident at Yaddo in 2007 and 2008; and she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena” is an excerpt from her novel in progress, The Smell of Sulphur, which fictionalizes her experience growing up in Indonesia in the 1960s. Other excerpts have been published or are forthcoming in North American Review, Hobart (online), and Kyoto Journal. Her fiction has also appeared recently in Memoir (and), 971 Menu, and Hitotoki (New York). She lives in Yakima, Washington.
Morowa Yejidé is a native of Washington, D.C. She was educated at Kalamazoo College, where she received her degree in International Relations, and graduated from an international exchange program at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Her short stories have appeared in the Istanbul Literary Review, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, The Taj Mahal Review, and Underground Voices, and others. Her stories often focus on the layers of relationships and the inner landscapes of her characters’ minds. Tokyo Chocolate is a tapestry of her own experiences and impressions. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three sons.
Found Poetry
I suppose anything can be a found poem, if the finder finds it such. However. In 2008, when I started trying to write poetry, I also enjoyed finding lines everywhere that seemed to me to resonate, have rhythms, have something 'underneath' the words.
I played about on the Internet, finding places where poems 'appeared'. Found Poems aren't 'the finder's', though... the lines belong to others. So when I submitted a couple, expecting nothing, I always put the original sources in, and saw myself as 'choirmaster' or something. I did not expect them to be picked up, but they were, both by outlets of Ravenna Press.
Snowmonkey published Found Poem, HERE last month. All it is - lines from the suicide notes of the following, found on a website, selected from among many many others:
Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson, George Sanders, Terry Kath, Jon Erik Hexum, Kurt Cobain, Nicolas Sebastien Chamfort, Robert E Howard, George Eastman, Freddie Prinz, James Whale and Sara Teasdale.
But I thought the accumulated words built into something strange, it felt very wierd. As though all those people were in my study with me, nodding....
The partner of this found poem, Too Late For Fruit (I loved those words) was made up of lines from the last spoken words of some well known names, found on the same website: Stonewall Jackson, Amelia Earhart, Emily Dickinson, Victor Hugo, Jessica Dubroff, O Henry, Thomas Edison, Louis B Meyer, Pancho Villa, Woodrow Wilson and Walter de la Mare. Too Late for Fruit, published on Alba early in 2008, HERE
I played about on the Internet, finding places where poems 'appeared'. Found Poems aren't 'the finder's', though... the lines belong to others. So when I submitted a couple, expecting nothing, I always put the original sources in, and saw myself as 'choirmaster' or something. I did not expect them to be picked up, but they were, both by outlets of Ravenna Press.
Snowmonkey published Found Poem, HERE last month. All it is - lines from the suicide notes of the following, found on a website, selected from among many many others:
Virginia Woolf, Hunter S. Thompson, George Sanders, Terry Kath, Jon Erik Hexum, Kurt Cobain, Nicolas Sebastien Chamfort, Robert E Howard, George Eastman, Freddie Prinz, James Whale and Sara Teasdale.
But I thought the accumulated words built into something strange, it felt very wierd. As though all those people were in my study with me, nodding....
The partner of this found poem, Too Late For Fruit (I loved those words) was made up of lines from the last spoken words of some well known names, found on the same website: Stonewall Jackson, Amelia Earhart, Emily Dickinson, Victor Hugo, Jessica Dubroff, O Henry, Thomas Edison, Louis B Meyer, Pancho Villa, Woodrow Wilson and Walter de la Mare. Too Late for Fruit, published on Alba early in 2008, HERE
The IRREAL... fantastical writing.
The home page of The Cafe Irreal, one of my favourite places for inspirational writing, includes a short piece by Jean-Paul Sartre. It shows what Irreality is, far better than extensive literary analysis, for this reader/writer. Of course, there is always the danger that the reader will just think the work is 'mad'... meaningless, disjointed. But, if the writer creates a fictive world in which the absurd appears 'normal'... something magical is created.
After the short fictional example, he said this:
"... if we have been able to give (the reader)the impression that we are talking about a world in which these absurd manifestations appear as normal behaviour, then he will find himself plunged all at once into the heart of the fantastic." — Jean-Paul Sartre
The irreal fascinates me, it always has, and I am writing more and more. It's simply the way I 'see' things, sometimes. One example, written in a flash session, very fast and almost without thinking (which just shows what a strange place my brain must be!) is up on Cafe Irreal HERE
Other pieces of Gebbie irreality are in their archives.
Sunday, 8 February 2009
COMPETITIONS CALENDAR
I have to thank writer Sally Quilford for the Competitions Calendar she maintains on her blog. I have linked to it on the right... under blogs worth reading.
AND HERE!
AND HERE!
GOODBYE TO CADENZA MAGAZINE
I was very sad to get an email from Zoe King before Christmas, telling me that finally, she was pulling the plug on the little magazine with the big horizons, Cadenza.
I had only been associated with the magazine for a couple of years, but in that time, I learned such a lot about the hard work that has to go on behind the scenes to keep a literary magazine afloat. (ZK carried this publication in many ways for a long while... and I think that needs acknowledging.)
Not only the regular reading of submissions, but the constant search for subscribers, the pleas to independent outlets to stock the publication, the need to retain the existing subscriber base…fruitless attempts to get funding, liaising with the poetry editor, the planning, designing, working on the layout, negotiating with printers, organising distribution, all done mainly by editor in chief Zoe King, against the backdrop of the main efforts to bring in the cash to run the publication… the twice-yearly short story competitions.
This is where my involvement started. I was lucky enough to firstly get long listed in 2004, then short listed, then finally… I was placed in a Cadenza competition in late 2005. The magazine may have been small, but I knew how stringent John Ravenscroft and Zoe King (the then editors) were. I knew how strong the stories were that bobbed to the top in their competitions, and I was delighted to join ‘Caddy’s published prize winners. It meant that I was getting somewhere!! And I owed them hugely for that affirmation.
For the next competition, I took on some of the reading duties… helping to select first the long list, then the short list. And I was delighted to find that my judgements tended to chime with John’s and Zoe’s. That was such good experience.
The John announced his retirement, and I offered to help. I was delighted again when Zoe accepted, and we worked together on plans for the magazine. We worked on some marketing initiatives, collaborating with some other magazines, such as Riptide… publicising them in ‘Caddy’ and they carried our ads in return. We increased publicity for the competitions, and left the entry fee where it had been for years.
I could not contain myself when some people complained about paying to enter the comp. I could not understand it when lovely sites like Duotrope didn’t list us because we charged a fee. They listed us at first, but then emblazoned our page with the fact that they could not recommend us because of the comp charges. It was as though we were doing something wrong. But all the good comps charged! The Bridport, Fish… the big competitions in the USA. All the myriad smaller comps that seemed to be popping up all over.
How on earth were we meant to fund the magazine, except for subscriber fees, and competition entries? I had a few explanatory email exchanges with Duotrope, and they kindly changed the page, ultimately allowing us to be listed. But I wonder if some damage had already been done?
Anyway. Onwards and upwards. The competitions thrived, and twice a year Zoe and I had scripts to log, print out and read. We live a couple of hundred miles apart, but thank heavens for the Internet! We would both print out and read every entry a few times, blind (no not that sort of blind… anonymous entries.) We NEVER read entries on screen. This for many reasons, not the least of which that we wanted to level the playing field as far as formatting goes. And because printed work is easier to curl up with over a mug of coffee! And you can’t concentrate properly I don’t think, reading hundreds of short stories on screen. You flag. And we owed the entrants more than that!!
So a few hundred stories to print, twice a year, and hours of reading and re-reading spent by two already busy writers/teachers/editors…. And we would rate each story, and then swap our ratings after we’d decided… and always, we were very close in our choices. It was great. We’d meet; usually I’d go up and spend a day or two with Zoe, and we’d thrash out the shortlists and the winners… sometimes by email, the last details done via lengthy phonecalls.
Z had the lovely job of letting the lucky winners know of their successes. And she selected the non-competition stories for inclusion. And did the layout work. And wrote articles herself. And liaised with the printers.
And, most importantly she dug deep into her own pocket to pay the printing shortfall every time.
Magazines like Cadenza do not attract the support of funding organisations, no matter how hard you try. We weren’t linked to a University. We only published strong STRONG writing by often unknown writers, so many of whom then went on to publish short story collections, or went on to win in far bigger competitions than us! We published poetry - it had its own section, edited by William Connelly. I tried… sent a few pieces in under a pseudonym… never got a sniff!!!
I guess the mag could have gone online. But do you know something? The work is the same. And the rewards aren’t there, for the owners/editors. There is nothing to hold in your hand at the end of the day. There are no subscriber fees coming in, and you need to increase the competition entries vastly to cover that shortfall…. And remember, the work is all unpaid.
Anyway. I just wanted to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, and to say how much I valued working alongside Zoe for a short while on ‘Caddy’. I for one will miss it.
I had only been associated with the magazine for a couple of years, but in that time, I learned such a lot about the hard work that has to go on behind the scenes to keep a literary magazine afloat. (ZK carried this publication in many ways for a long while... and I think that needs acknowledging.)
Not only the regular reading of submissions, but the constant search for subscribers, the pleas to independent outlets to stock the publication, the need to retain the existing subscriber base…fruitless attempts to get funding, liaising with the poetry editor, the planning, designing, working on the layout, negotiating with printers, organising distribution, all done mainly by editor in chief Zoe King, against the backdrop of the main efforts to bring in the cash to run the publication… the twice-yearly short story competitions.
This is where my involvement started. I was lucky enough to firstly get long listed in 2004, then short listed, then finally… I was placed in a Cadenza competition in late 2005. The magazine may have been small, but I knew how stringent John Ravenscroft and Zoe King (the then editors) were. I knew how strong the stories were that bobbed to the top in their competitions, and I was delighted to join ‘Caddy’s published prize winners. It meant that I was getting somewhere!! And I owed them hugely for that affirmation.
For the next competition, I took on some of the reading duties… helping to select first the long list, then the short list. And I was delighted to find that my judgements tended to chime with John’s and Zoe’s. That was such good experience.
The John announced his retirement, and I offered to help. I was delighted again when Zoe accepted, and we worked together on plans for the magazine. We worked on some marketing initiatives, collaborating with some other magazines, such as Riptide… publicising them in ‘Caddy’ and they carried our ads in return. We increased publicity for the competitions, and left the entry fee where it had been for years.
I could not contain myself when some people complained about paying to enter the comp. I could not understand it when lovely sites like Duotrope didn’t list us because we charged a fee. They listed us at first, but then emblazoned our page with the fact that they could not recommend us because of the comp charges. It was as though we were doing something wrong. But all the good comps charged! The Bridport, Fish… the big competitions in the USA. All the myriad smaller comps that seemed to be popping up all over.
How on earth were we meant to fund the magazine, except for subscriber fees, and competition entries? I had a few explanatory email exchanges with Duotrope, and they kindly changed the page, ultimately allowing us to be listed. But I wonder if some damage had already been done?
Anyway. Onwards and upwards. The competitions thrived, and twice a year Zoe and I had scripts to log, print out and read. We live a couple of hundred miles apart, but thank heavens for the Internet! We would both print out and read every entry a few times, blind (no not that sort of blind… anonymous entries.) We NEVER read entries on screen. This for many reasons, not the least of which that we wanted to level the playing field as far as formatting goes. And because printed work is easier to curl up with over a mug of coffee! And you can’t concentrate properly I don’t think, reading hundreds of short stories on screen. You flag. And we owed the entrants more than that!!
So a few hundred stories to print, twice a year, and hours of reading and re-reading spent by two already busy writers/teachers/editors…. And we would rate each story, and then swap our ratings after we’d decided… and always, we were very close in our choices. It was great. We’d meet; usually I’d go up and spend a day or two with Zoe, and we’d thrash out the shortlists and the winners… sometimes by email, the last details done via lengthy phonecalls.
Z had the lovely job of letting the lucky winners know of their successes. And she selected the non-competition stories for inclusion. And did the layout work. And wrote articles herself. And liaised with the printers.
And, most importantly she dug deep into her own pocket to pay the printing shortfall every time.
Magazines like Cadenza do not attract the support of funding organisations, no matter how hard you try. We weren’t linked to a University. We only published strong STRONG writing by often unknown writers, so many of whom then went on to publish short story collections, or went on to win in far bigger competitions than us! We published poetry - it had its own section, edited by William Connelly. I tried… sent a few pieces in under a pseudonym… never got a sniff!!!
I guess the mag could have gone online. But do you know something? The work is the same. And the rewards aren’t there, for the owners/editors. There is nothing to hold in your hand at the end of the day. There are no subscriber fees coming in, and you need to increase the competition entries vastly to cover that shortfall…. And remember, the work is all unpaid.
Anyway. I just wanted to give you a glimpse behind the scenes, and to say how much I valued working alongside Zoe for a short while on ‘Caddy’. I for one will miss it.
Saturday, 7 February 2009
Pseudonyms
It struck me that I ought to explain why I have a pseudonym for my Fish entries.
I set it up in 2004, when I started writing and trying out comps. I used my younger son's Christian names, for luck. It seemed to work now and again! (There... that gives a hint as to which it is.)
It's easy to just carry on using it, for online entries, so I havent bothered changing it.
That's all. No great mysteries!
I set it up in 2004, when I started writing and trying out comps. I used my younger son's Christian names, for luck. It seemed to work now and again! (There... that gives a hint as to which it is.)
It's easy to just carry on using it, for online entries, so I havent bothered changing it.
That's all. No great mysteries!
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