Another lit fest...

This is great fun! And lucky too.
Another literary festival has contacted me to run a series of workshops, and I have agreed to do so.
It won't be easy sorting this one out for one reason and another, but they have been very generous and are paying for transport, which includes a plane...and a hotel.
I won't say which festival it is yet, as I am replacing a writer who is unable for personal reasons to do the week. As soon as it is public, I will post. But I LOVE teaching, its a real buzz. And this festival has some lovely writers coming to it... so I shall have a brilliant time.

SHORT CIRCUIT A Salt Publishing Guide to the Art of the Short Story

Thanks to the generosity, hard work and passion of the writers and teachers below, the final manuscript of SHORT CIRCUIT finally went to Salt Publishing this week.

It’s taken six months of hard graft, during which it has been well nigh impossible to write much fiction myself… it was as though that side of my brain had closed down. But thankfully, due largely to the buzz of the Fiction Workhouse, I’ve managed to keep some level of creativity up, and hope to return to normal form very soon.

In these pages are generous chapters from some of the strongest writers of short fiction I could find.
In terms of major awards, this team have among others, won the folllowing:
The National Short Story Award, 6 Bridport Prizes, 3 Fish Prizes, 2 Commonwealth Awards, the Asham Award, Pen MacMillan Silver Pen Award, Writers’ inc Writer of the Year.


When you are asked to source the content, contribute yourself, and edit a book like this, it would be easy to close down under the weight of responsibility. Responsibility to Salt, who are just fantastic and dedicated and who are throwing themselves behind this book (born out of a conversation in Cork last year), responsibility to the aspiring writers who may pick up this book in the hope that it will help them on their way… but also a responsibility to myself… I was NOT prepared to fail on this one. Also, I decided not to source all the major chapters from Salt writers, over half had to be with other publishers.

It took a few days of thinking, in a mild state of panic, back in September, when Salt gave me this commission. And I came to the conclusion that the best way to approach the book was to create the book I would have loved to have myself, when I was a relative newbie writer.

I didn’t want to be talked down to. I didn’t want the very basic things you can learn anywhere, fast. I wanted in-depth discussion of the individual craft elements set in context – within a close look at the creative practices of successful writers of short fiction including many very successful teachers of writing.

I did not just want theory (although there is a place for that, and theory can be found in many many places.) I wanted to read chapters from writers prepared to analyse their own working practices, their own creative inspirations.

It is astounding how much generosity these writers have, their willingness to share with each other, their willingness to share with those starting out.

What I have created is the book I’d have loved back then, but also a book I will love now. Where I can find the companionship of other writers sharing their creative thoughts. I will find writing exercises for when I need to stretch myself and try different things. I will find list upon list of inspirational short stories, stories that have planted seeds in the spirits of all these superb writers.

Twenty four writers. In-depth chapters in the form of essays, two interviews with Tobias Hill and Clare Wigfall (that was fun to do - hours on the phone, talking writing with two great people, great writers. What an excuse!) And a buzzy 'epilogue' from six Salt writers.

I know Salt are busy creating the cover, and as soon as that is done, I will upload it here. Meanwhile, thank you to Jen Hamilton-Emery for giving me this project. It’s been exciting, amazing and exhausting!

Below are the contents, with links to the writers.

CONTENTS
Introduction:
Graham Mort: Finding Form in Short Fiction
Clare Wigfall: “I Hear Voices”: Voice and building character
Alison MacLeod: Writing and Risk-Taking
Nuala Ni Chonchuir: Language and Style
Chika Unigwe: Settings. A Sense of Place.
Alex Keegan: Understanding Earthquakes. The Importance of Theme.
Lane Ashfeldt: Building a World
Adam Marek: What my gland wants. Originality in short fiction.
Catherine Smith: Myth and Imagination.
Tobias Hill: Character, dialogue, and much more.
Sarah Salway: Stealing Stories.
Elizabeth Baines: True Story, Real Story – Good Fiction?
Tania Hershman: Art Breathes from Containment
David Gaffney: Get Shorty. The micro-fiction of Etgar Keret.
Marian Garvey: On Intuition. Writing into the Void.
Elaine Chiew: Endings
Paul Magrs: Thoughts on Writing Fiction, at the End of Term
Vanessa Gebbie: i) Leaving the door ajar: Opening the short story
ii) Hard Work, Persistence, Luck and a Bowl of Fruit. The Short Story Competition game.

Epilogue: Some final thoughts:
Linda Cracknell,
Carys Davies,

David Grubb, Zoe King, Matthew Licht, Jay Merrill.

MANCHESTER FICTION PRIZE...£10,000 for a short story. Go for it, writers!

The Manchester Fiction Prize 2009
First prize: £10,000
Deadline for entries: 7th August 2009
Entry fee: £15

The Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University is launching The Manchester Fiction Prize – a new literary competition celebrating excellence in creative writing.

The Manchester Fiction Prize is open internationally and will award a cash prize of £10,000* to the writer of the best short story submitted. The competition is open to entrants aged 16 or over; there is no upper age limit.

A bursary for study at MMU will also be awarded to an entrant aged 18-25 as part of the Jeffrey Wainwright Manchester Young Writer of the Year Award*. Eligible entrants are asked to indicate on the entry form if they would like to be considered for the Manchester Young Writer of the Year Award in addition to the main prize.

All entrants are asked to submit a complete short story of up to 5,000 words in length. The story can be on any subject, and written in any style, but must be new work, not published or submitted for consideration elsewhere. The competition will be judged by distinguished novelists and short story writers Sarah Hall, M. John Harrison and Nicholas Royle.

The Manchester Fiction Prize celebrates the substantial cultural and literary achievements of Manchester, building on the work of MMU’s Writing School and enhancing the city's reputation as one of Europe's most adventurous and creative spaces. The prizes will be awarded at a gala ceremony, held as part of the 2009 Manchester Literature Festival.

To enter the competition, click "online entry" in the column on the left of your screen. If you would like a printed entry pack for postal submission, or if you have any queries, please contact:
James Draper
Project Manager: Writing School
Department of English
Manchester Metropolitan University
Telephone: +44 (0) 161 247 1787

Downloadable forms etc on their website HERE

An Elegy For Easterly -Petina Gappah

I would like to recommend this debut collection by Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah to anyone who loves short stories and anyone who has yet to discover their power.
My review of An Elegy for Easterly appears in the current issue of Pulp.net HERE
When this book wins something major, remember you read about it here. (and in most broadsheets!)

Courtesy in writing, editing, accepting and rejecting

I may be old fashioned, but I think, if you put out a call for writers to submit to you, and they do, that it is only right to respond graciously in due course. Whether you are accepting or rejecting the work.

Do As You Would Be Done By seems to be appropriate here.

Mentioning no names, no pack drill, but I am sure that the high falutin' editors of at least two very decent literary publications I have looked at in the last 24 hours would not be chuffed to be treated with the disdain with which they appear to be treating the vast majority of those who submit work to them.

Email submission is easy. And green. So is a return email with a standard 'thank you but no thank you' message after the appropriate time. And it makes it far more likely that those rejected this time round will keep you in their sights for next time. Unless, of course that is your real agenda. And what the rejects should be reading is 'Get lost. Your work is crap. Don't bother trying again."

"If you havent heard from us within four months, five months, even no time scale... hard luck," is, with today's technology, arrogant in the extreme. It is treating writers with disdain.

LES MURRAY at Goldsmith's

Last night Sara Crowley and I had a great visit to Goldsmith’s College where the Australian poet Les Murray, (winner among other things of the T S Eliot Prize and the Queen’s medal for Poetry) was giving a reading.
The last time I went up to London with Sara I manage to miss meeting her train at Hayward’s Heath. This time I was in plenty of time and was munching my way through a bag of crisps (late lunch) on the platform when the train came in.
Great to see both her and Les Murray, whose reading was simply great.
And it’s a funny thing, we were wondering afterwards, what synchronicities were at play in her invitation to attend. Then in her invitation to me.
I think we decided that it was a message from on high (or below) about being yourself, and just writing your own stuff. Not trying to ‘fit in’ with any movement, or requirements set by other people. And about not being blinded by bullshit, of which there are many peddlers about.

Sara blogs HERE
Les Murray has information and many great poems HERE

And HERE he is on Wikipedia:

T'was also lovely and fortuitous to meet Chrissie Gittins, whose latest book launch last week I has to miss, sadly. We had a natter about the precarious state of independent publishing.

Her latest book is a collection of poetry from Salt Publishing: I'll Dress One Night as You. The collection contains a sequence of poems chosen for publication by Les Murray himself in the Australian magazine, Quadrant.

The Commonwealth Short Story Competition

The Commonwealth Short Story Competition closes on 11 May. Get your entries in! You can send up to three entries, all under 600 words, and it is free of charge. What’s to lose?

From the website:
The competition

The Commonwealth Short Story Competition is an annual scheme to promote new creative writing. It was established in 1996. It is funded by the Commonwealth Foundation and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, who work together to administer the scheme.

The scheme exists to increase understanding and appreciation of Commonwealth cultures and to promote rising literary talents. Each year 26 winning and highly commended stories from the different regions of the Commonwealth are recorded on to CDs and broadcast on radio stations across the Commonwealth. The winner receives a prize of £2,000 and there are regional prizes of £500.

How to enter

The competition is open to all people who are citizens of a Commonwealth member country.

There is no age limit or requirement to write about a particular theme. Entries may be made by both amateur and professional writers.

Further details on the Commonwealth Short Story Competition website, HERE