The announcement of the results of the HappenStance Short Story Competition was delayed due to the large number of entries received, but the prizewinners have finally been posted on the HappenStance website. And despite the record entry, there's good news for a Deal Writer.
CONGRATULATIONS to Jo Field for winning second prize!
Judge Susie Maguirewas full of praise for Jo's story, Wrong Bus:'Like the first-prize winner, this story demonstrates the differences between a character’s desires or intentions and their actual behaviour. Here, it’s the gradual change in the central character from his interest in the glimpsed profile of a young woman to obsession and stalking, and then a final and ambivalent gesture. We are in the skin of (and can feel sympathy for) the character until almost the end, and I liked the way the writer shows the man looking for signs confirming his delusion. Though the pace is slow, it builds momentum nicely and has a haunting, cinematic quality, especially in the final few nail-biting ‘frames’.'
Excellent stuff! Well done, Jo.
*~*
Jen Kahawatte came First in Ramsgate Festival Writes of Spring poetry competition, organised by ThanetCan. In addition, Marilyn Donovan came Fourth and Jo Field was Highly Commended.
*~*
Marilyn also had three poems published this spring, one each in Orbis, Artemispoetry and Equinox magazines.
*~*
Paul Curd has a short story in the forthcoming Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special (due out in June) and two more in a Norwegian short story magazine.
*~*
Congratulation Jen,
Jen has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot prize (The TS Eliot prize is a poetry competition open to students at the University of Kent), 8 shortlisted out of 78, well done Jen!
*~*
Congratulation Ruth,
Ruth has once again won one of our proposed challenge. Considering the following quote "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Henry Ford: 1863-1947", the task was to write a short story and Ruth delivered a very dark and funny story who won the majority of the votes. The story will be available in the Hall of Fame very shortly.
Well done Ruth!
*~*
CONGRATULATIONS to Jo Field for winning second prize!
The announcement of the results of the HappenStance Short Story Competition was delayed due to the large number of entries received, but the prizewinners have finally been posted on the HappenStance website. And despite the record entry, there's good news for a Deal Writer.
Judge Susie Maguirewas full of praise for Jo's story, Wrong Bus:'Like the first-prize winner, this story demonstrates the differences between a character’s desires or intentions and their actual behaviour. Here, it’s the gradual change in the central character from his interest in the glimpsed profile of a young woman to obsession and stalking, and then a final and ambivalent gesture. We are in the skin of (and can feel sympathy for) the character until almost the end, and I liked the way the writer shows the man looking for signs confirming his delusion. Though the pace is slow, it builds momentum nicely and has a haunting, cinematic quality, especially in the final few nail-biting ‘frames’.'
Excellent stuff! Well done, Jo.
*~*
Bob's Dog Story Challenge *Winner*
As ever we received a remarkable range of high quality entries including Dogs & Families, Dogs & Drugs, Dogs & Old Folk, Dogs & Dribbling and, er, Dogs & Marmalade. One of our newest members, Ruth Jones, told an inspirational tale about an act of outstanding canine heroism on the wartime beaches of Dunkirk and her tale was judged the winner by a sentimental old-soldier who claimed to enjoy stories about courage, resilience, cocker spaniels and loose women. While the latter were not included in Ruth’s tale, Bob thought that three out of four wasn’t bad! Our meeting on Thursday night was graced by the presence of Spaniel Alffred of TawnyHills who, in Bob’s own non-competing entry “Diplomat’s Friend”, later became the main ingredient in a traditional ‘”Bo-sin-tang” soup prepared at a house on the Strand by a Korean lady named Mrs Kang. Ruth was presented with an antique Ming Dynasty china goblet and Alan was sent home for a cold shower.
*~*
Ghost Stories II
Congratulation to Jonathan Lamb who won our Gost story Challenge! Although there were many good stories among the entries, Bettine said it was Jon Lamb's story The Ghosts of Hawley Manor that was closest to the classic 'chiller' ghost stories.
You can read the winning entry HERE
*~*
Ghost Stories
The results of the February Members Challenge will be announced at the meeting on 21st February. Twelve members read extracts from their spooky ghost stories at the last meeting, and Bettine is currently reading through the full entries to decide on a winner. As the overall standard seemed very good we should consider publishing them as a one-off print-on-demand short story collection. Any thoughts?
*~*
Canterbury Festival (11th – 25th October)
The organisers of the Canterbury Festival have contacted us to let us know that there will be an extended literature and spoken word programme this year, with a wide range of events and activities on offer. Drama, including a brand new Cathedral Play; fiction, including an affiliation with the Man Booker Prize as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations; poetry, including the annual Poet of the Year Award; live literature shows, including the Rap Canterbury Tales, and much more in the pipeline to attend and participate in.
One of the ideas ‘in the pipeline’ is an umbrella event Writers Fair. The proposal is as follows:
CANTERBURY FESTIVAL UMBRELLA EVENT. This is not a new idea, but one which has had some difficulty getting properly off the ground in the last couple of years. There was one in 2005, but since then it's rather floundered.
The idea is to locate a couple of venues in and around Canterbury in which to set up stalls, exhibits with books and work -- in order to promote and 'show off' the writing/writers here in East Kent. The principle is the same as the 'artists' open houses' that have been running with great success (e.g. hundreds of viewers) for years.
Canterbury Festival are very keen to promote and support any venture through their marketing and publicity that writers in the area want to put together -- but the Festival cannot actually DO it for us. This means that we need to locate a couple of venues and coordinate the scenario ourselves.
Venues like Waterstones and the library spring to mind -- but also what about local buildings which have housed writers? Any ideas?
If this is going to happen, the brochure deadline is APRIL, so we need to know what we're doing by then. The Festival dates are 11-25 October.
It should be obvious that this is a chance to promote your work and that of your group or associates, as well as a chance to highlight the wealth of writing and writers in the area. Given the amount of it happening around here, it's silly not to do it ...
We have expressed an interest in taking part, but this is something we will need to discuss in more detail at a future meeting.
*~*
Anthology 2008
Ros and Jane C have volunteered to form the editorial sub-committee for this year’s anthology. It would be good to have one more volunteer (email Paul if you are interested).
We will automatically be putting forward the monthly ‘Members Challenge’ entries for consideration for the anthology, but you are of course free to submit any other piece of work.
We are looking for short stories, articles, memoirs, poetry, graphic stories – in short, creative writing of any genre and any theme (bearing in mind the anthology will be for family reading – so no pornography or unnecessary obscene language, please). Your work should be up to a maximum of 2500 words of prose, 40 lines of poetry or four A4 pages of graphic material. Submissions must be the original work of the author (no plagiarism, please!). The author’s name must appear on the front page of the submission. Entry is open to everyone who is a paid-up member of Deal Writers.
Schoolchildren’s Writing Competition
We agreed at the last meeting to sponsor and organise a schoolchildren’s story writing competition to be trialled at Northbourne Church of England Primary School. Following preliminary inquiries by Bob who is a parent and governor at the school, the school’s Head, Frances Chiverton, supported the idea and asked if it could be linked to National Book Week. We agreed that £50 contribution would be reserved to help meet costs and that a small committee should organise and judge entries. More information here.
Deal Today
Denis Hart, the publisher of Deal Today, is now working on a Spring issue of the magazine. Please send ideas for Deal Writers contributions to Paul.
Jo win travel log Challenge
Our Members' Challenge for January was set by Lorraine. The task was to write a travelogue that conveyed a sense of place, gave an insight into local people and customs, and made the reader want to visit the area in question. Jo Field's account of a visit to Nepal was the stand-out winner. Jo's prize, donated by Lorraine, was a book of landscape-inspired poetry. You can read the winning entry here.
Click here for the News Archive