BEST OF THE SHORT STORY - VOLUME 1

This came in the post today, my copy of 'The Short Story' anthology. I recently was placed third in their competition for this year, and so I have a story in this anthology - it is called 'KEEPIN THE NUMBERS DOWN' and I am quite pleased with it. 

It's always a pleasure when one's work makes it into print to find that the editor has taken great care with the presentation of the work. This is the case here, so a big thank you to Kerry Barner whose 'baby' this is.

(and by the way, this is a first: I took the picture of the book for this blog post!)

1000 words - something to read

After garnering some positive responses to my 8-Days of Ether submission, 'We Are Stardust', then the same piece being dubbed the winner for day 8, and one of those five star positives coming from Natalie Bowers and she said that some of the flashes submitted were just the standard of work she was looking to post up on her site '1000 words', well, I thought I ought to submit something.

What you have to do is write something inspired by one of the photographs on their site - and they have hundreds to choose from. So I had a quick squint, picked one, and set to the task of writing. Took me less than 50 minutes. Then I sent it straight off to Natalie and not only got a response within ten minutes but my piece was up there, too. That's quick - about an hour from nothing to publication!

If you want to look at what I wrote here's the link:

http://1000words.org.uk/old-souls-and-new-souls/

The piece is called 'Old Souls and New Souls'.

BRITTLE STAR - A PIECE OF NEWS

I have been keeping this one under the proverbially hat for a wee while, sworn to secrecy until the launch made official all the announcements. I am talking about Brittle Star Magazine’s inaugural short story competition. The magazine is into its 34^th edition but running a competition was a new venture for them. They secured the services of two fine judges for the occasion – David Constantine for the short story section and Mimi Khalvati for the poetry.

I put in a couple of stories, an old one and a new one. After the initial sifting, 51 stories were then sent to David Constantine and he had the task, seeing the stories ‘blind’ (no names attached), of selecting a 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd and a few commendeds. This time two of my stories ended up on the podium with 3^rd and 1^st place, which I was delighted with (and quite embarrassed about when it came to the awards ceremony).

I always want to go to the prize-giving events when there are such things, but all too often the day job gets in the way, that and being so far away from where it's at. However, the launch of Brittle Star’s 34^th edition, combined with the awards ceremony, fell neatly within my school holidays and so I was able to attend. Of course, hot footing it down to London and staying over for a night and then getting back punches into nothing the prize-money won, but as I solidly maintain, entering these competitions is not ever about the money.

The launch event took place on Wednesday of this week in the Barbican Library and I was invited to read my 1^st place story there as part of proceedings. Now, who wouldn’t want to do a reading in such a big named place - I mean, THE Barbican! The occasion got to me and I think I delivered one of my best readings and the story went down very well and garnered lots of positive responses over the pimms and strawberries afterwards (to those who came up to me to say how much they loved my story, many many thanks).

I should like to pass on my sincere congratulations to all the other readers at the event. I was thoroughly entertained by what was read, the poetry and the prose, and there were some new names for me to look out for in the future. I should also like to thank the judges for the work they did. And finally, I should like to thank Jacqueline Gabbitas and Martin Parker for putting together the competition, for doing such a brilliant job in producing the magazine (and any writer would be pleased to have their work in such a well presented piece of publishing), and for being such incredibly warm hosts on the evening.

As for the magazine, it is a lovely thing, so well produced and full of good stuff. You should take a look for yourselves.

ETHER BOOKS - GOLD

Ether Books is an online bookshop for short stories and articles. The app is free and then you can download stories direct to various appliances, including your phone. There are also a whole bunch of free stories for you to download - a whole bunch.

I have a couple of stories up there.

And, recently, they ran a flash fiction competition called ‘8 Days of Ether’. They posted a different theme each day for eight days and invited submissions. Writers had twenty-four hours to submit something before the next theme went up. Then Ether Books hung the stories up for free downloading, inviting comments and rating scores from all readers. Finally, to close the competition, they chose a winning story for each day and named the single story that had received the most downloads.

On day eight, I submitted a story. It received a number of five star reviews and comments were all very positive. My story was ultimately named as the winning story for Day 8. You can go to my stories on Ether Books and download it for free – it’s called ‘We Are Stardust’ (It did well in another competition: second place at ‘Flash 500’ some time ago).

I did also notice on Ether Books that I am now a recommended author and my status in this regard is ‘Gold’ – meaning that Ether Books think my stories are very good. There aren't too many gold status recommended authors, so it's nice to have that.