CALLING ALL CREATIVES - .CENT MAGAZINE

A call for submissions ...
.Cent magazine is a beautiful, heavy, punchy magazine that comes in its own slip cover and costs an arm and a leg to post, it is that heavy. I hadn't heard of it, until I saw a call for submissions - each issue is a compilation of original work from artists of all kinds.
This from their website:

.Cent is here to celebrate creativity. It is that simple. The process, the people, the products.
We like being different so at .Cent we ask the creatives themselves to write the content instead of working with journalists. This way, readers hear all about fashion, beauty, art, music, design, illustration, architecture, literature, film, gardening, food, and more. The editorial content comes from the creatives, about what inspires and excites them, in an emotive language directly to the reader.

A call for subs, people. get to it! here's the email from the power that be.
Hello from .Cent magazine. We hope you are all well.

Currently .Cent is working on the forthcoming issue ‘Sense of Purpose’ that will be released in Spring 2010. The Guest Editor for this edition is Keith Reilly, founder and Creative Director of the club and record label Fabric.
For those who haven’t received this biannual creative writing email before then I'll briefly explain: the contents of every new issue of .Cent is split up into chapters. Every chapter has a title chosen by the Guest Editor. For each chapter we encourage writers to submit work that interprets its title. Chosen authors’ work will be printed in the magazine, leading a chapter's content.
For issue 15 the chapter titles are:

Cause and Effect
In Pursuit of Beauty
Improbable Perfection
Simplicity of Form

If you’d like to submit your writing then the brief is as follows:
• Strict maximum word-count of 350.
• Submission deadline is Monday 4th January 2010.
• You can submit poetry/prose/script.
• You may submit to as many chapters as you wish.
• Submissions and published work are on an unpaid basis.
• Please state if work has been previously published elsewhere. The work will still be considered however we’d like to know in advance.
• Please feel free to interpret the title as you wish, although it is worth bearing in mind that .Cent will select the piece that best encapsulates the chapter theme.
• The chosen submissions will be printed in the issue. If it is yours then you will be sent a magazine and tears.
• Submissions that are not selected to be printed in the magazine could potentially be published on the website.
• .Cent reserves the right to make the final decision.

To submit work:
• Please email submissions to natalie@centmagazine.co.uk by no later than 4th January 2010.
• Please state how you would like to be credited. Therefore, your name as you would like it to appear in print + mention a website? Or a current project? Perhaps published work? However we can support you.
• Please include within the submission your contact details- email, postal address and phone number.


Good luck!

KNIGHT CREW - Nicky Singer

Last night I popped over to the Jubilee Library in Brighton for the launch of 'Knight Crew', a novel for young people by a friend, Nicky Singer. Benjamin Zephaniah has endorsed the book, calling it,
‘A story for this generation . . . written with love passion and intelligence.’ It was lovely to see so many kids from our local community college, they have been working alongside her to produce marketing materials for the forthcoming opera based on the book!
Nicky's first children's book Feather Boy won the Blue Peter Children's Book Award and has been shown on national television, winning a BAFTA Writer's Award. It is now being adapted for the London stage.
Knight Crew is a modern retelling of the King Arthur myth, set today and peopled by gangs of hoodies.
It is also to be an opera for young people, sung mainly by young people, to be performed over three days at Glyndebourne in the Spring. Nicky has been working on the libretto. HERE is the detail.

THE BEST WATERSTONES??

It is entirely possible that Brighton Waterstones is simply the best one in the UK. They have a dedicated short story collection bookcase, where the collections are displayed front cover out - all of them. The collections are not all by the larger publishers, the larger names, although there are superb works there by Carver, Yiyun Li, Janice Galloway, A L Kennedy. There are also books by less well known writers, and from great independent publishers, such as Salt. Yay! Nuala ni Chonchuir's book 'Nude' is there, as is 'Glass Bubble'. I feel very honoured and very proud.
We have Sara Crowley to thank for this display, and for the choice of books.
So, whilst raising a glass to Waterstone's Brighton for the space and freedom, here's another glass to Sara. Who, in case you don't know, is a very very interesting writer.
Sara blogs HERE and I have shamelessly nicked the photo from her blog.
And just to embarrass her, here is a little about the lady, who does tend to hide her light under a bushel now and again, so I will switch on the spotlight for a bit...

Sara Crowley's novel in progress - Salted - was chosen as one of the four finalists in the Faber/Book Tokens Not Yet Published Award, and she is the winner of Waterstone's 2009 Bookseller's Bursary. Her short stories have won prizes and been published in many lovely places, some of which are linked on her blog. HERE She reviews for Waterstone's Books Quarterly, Pulp Net and The Short Review and has written nonfiction articles for a variety of publications including Writer's Market.

Congrats on those lovely things, Sara. Here's to your next amazing achievements. And a heartfelt thank you for all you do to support the short story.

ELEGY FOR EASTERLY _ THE WINNER OF GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD

Many congratulations to Petina Gappah, whose terrific collection Elegy for Easterly has been named as winner of the 2009 Guardian First Book Award. Announcement HERE
Petina and I 'met' while working on the One World Anthology. We didn't get on!
But whether or not one is mates with a writer doesn't (or shouldn't ) make one's response to their work any different - and we both liked each other's work.
One of the stories in this collection - a story called 'Midnight at the Hotel California' (what a title!) is among my favourites. Its up there on my list in Short Circuit alongside a few others by writers like Carver, Englander and Yann Martel. So tis lovely to know she's been recognised at this level. Congrats again.
Here's Petina Gappah's website and here (from her website), is the opening sentence of that story:

It is hard to remember that there was ever a time when you could buy a half dozen eggs, a packet of Colcolm sausages, two loaves of bread, a packet of Tanganda tea and still have change from a ten dollar note for two Castle Laagers and a packet of Everest.

Lovely unsolicited article about Short Circuit

I missed this one! The writer Tom Conoboy, who keeps a blindingly sharp and intelligent blog, has not only read but written up his initial impression of Short Circuit. HERE
Tom scares the pants off me, he is an academic and analyses texts with a rapier. But he is also an extremely able writer, and so I valued his opinion on Short Circuit.
Nice! Exactly what I want - it's giving even a writer like Tom, who is currently studying for a PhD in American Literature, food for thought. Thanks Tom.

I have invited myself onto his blog for a stay in the new Year, to discuss Short Circuit in more depth. meanwhile, I'll put up with quotes like this from him:

I think it may become a definitive work.

I’ve read half a dozen or so of the essays so far, and skimmed through the rest, and there is good stuff here. I’m not usually very good with ‘how-to’ manuals, mainly because I won’t be told ‘how to’: the contrarian in me instinctively makes me do the opposite of what I’m told, even if I agree with the advice. That’s Calvinist atheists for you – we do a good line in nose-cutting.

Anyway, the advice here is good, in large measure because it isn’t dogmatic. At one point in her article, Lane Ashfeldt says: ‘I have no wish to waffle mystically about ‘inspiration’ here. A book on the craft of short story writing should provide more concrete advice than that.’ Agreed, and I think she goes on to provide that advice admirably, but what I like about this collection of essays in general is that what you don’t get is the usual collection of ‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots’ of writing craft advice, the sort of nonsense that tells you to write two pages of drivel show in order to avoid telling the reader that ‘Johnny was in a fearful temper because he had a bad case of piles.’ No, what we have here is measured, considered advice on a range of subjects.

'HELP FOR HEROES' SKYDIVE

I am supporting my younger son, Toby, in his fundraising venture to raise £15,000 for Help for Heroes.
Tobs is seventeen, and in his last year at school. Whether or not you support the crazy offensives we've got ourselves mired in, the guys who go off and fight aren't that much older. In fact, Vijay, a great guy who was at school with Tobs will be going to Afghanistan after Christmas with the 4th Rifles, (previously the Royal Green Jackets).
When you're seventeen there's a lot of partying, and a lot of hard work trying to get to the right next step educationwise, or workwise. And this Mum is quite proud of her guy who wants to spend some of his time organising a fundraiser for something as worthwhile as this.
They are doing a skydive in the spring, and I gather that there are members of staff at T's school signed up, students, and parents.
Help For Heroes is a charity set up to help the guys who are wounded on our behalf, and their families. HERE it is online -
Three of Toby's mates walked the Southdowns Way earlier in the year, raising thousands for the same cause. They are a good bunch.
So although I wouldn't normally put fundraising widgets on here, I am making an ex ception.

There is a widget on the blog, over there, up top----->>> if anyone feels moved do add a wee bit to the total, HFH will be grateful.
Thanks.

WALTZING, STALLIONS & WALTZING STALLIONS.

Where do you go for a waltzing lesson? Vienna of course. The best place in the world for learning to spin and turn, slip and slide, grip and glide. With one's husband, naturally, and one's older son and daughter in law. Two Gebbie couples, one instructor, and a dancing school called Talmeyer. I have to say, if you are going to Vienna (and we were, an early Xmas pressie from son and wife, who can't be with us for Xmas this year) a waltzing lesson is a stunningly good fun addition to the menu!
The waltzing horses are of course, the Lipizzaner stallions , seen at the Spanish Riding School. but although it was a beautiful sight, in a beautiful and historic building, and golly were we lucky to get tickets - I felt sad for these animals. There was something undignified about the thing. So there's a stallion running free. Not waltzing.
Vienna is gorgeous, stunning architcture - but I couldn't quite get the image of swastikas hanging from high windows out of my head. A small pilgrimage to Juden Platz and the Rachael Whiteread memorial to 65,000 Austrian Jews, victims of the Holocaust was good. But reading that local business people are complaining that their trade is damaged by proximity to the memorial, demanding it be removed - was not good.
The memorial is a 'library' of stone books placed in reverse on stone shelves. Spines (and therefore names) hidden. It is strong, and beautiful, and resonant.
Continuing the celebration of things Jewish, the Annie Liebovitz exhibition was hosted in Vienna by the Hundertwasser House. Nick wanted to go, and boy was I grateful he did. Those iconic portraits of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, of the great and good of stage and screen. Movers and shakers in politics, royalty. And so many personal photos, some harrowing, some joyful.
And don't mention the Sacher torte...