Aesthetica's Annual 2016

Just to say that I have a story in the now published Aesthetica Annual 2016. Some names I recognise in there too. Feels good to have made it to the finalists list in the competition. Congrats to the poetry and the fiction winners. Congrats to everyone who has made it onto the finalists list and so has made it into the anthology.

Go here to see the full list: http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/creative-writing-award/shortlist-2015/

BOOK WEEK SCOTLAND 2015 - Uni of Aberdeen Library Flash Fic Comp

Just to say that Aberdeen University Library runs an annual flash fiction competition for Book Week Scotland. Been doing it for four years. They give you four picture prompts and you can enter one flash per picture. I graduated from University of Aberdeen way back when I was new and wide-eyed. Out of some feeling of loyalty and a sense of fun and wanting to be part of things, I have been putting stuff into this competition ever since it started.

Last year two of my pieces received a special commendation; this year one of my pieces has won the competition outright with some nice comments from judge Wayne Price. Thanks to everyone involved.

If you want a look, here's the link:

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/about/special/book-week-scotland/

PARIS, NOVEMBER 13TH 2015

NUTHATCH

This summer at Lumb Bank I saw my first ever nuthatch. Got quite excited and made a note of it in the book in the cottage. Today, in my garden, my second nuthatch. Couldn't believe it. Such a pretty thing (the picture above is not mine) and sleeker and sharper than the one you see here.

And three grey squirrels running and skipping along our garden wall. And tits and crows and pigeons and chaffinches. And a nuthatch of our own. Lovely.

SHORT STORIES VERSUS NOVELS

Down the years, I have frequently heard writers of short stories (and I am sometimes such a writer) bemoaning the situation re publishing short fiction. The idea is that publishing does not really appreciate the appetite for short stories that is out there and that publishers are just not brave enough, or not far-sighted enough, and publishing is simply unable to see that there is a market for good short fiction. What publishers want are novels, you see, and that is a blindness they have. At least that's what short story writers would say. After all, WE'RE writing them and WE like them so publishers MUST have it wrong. And it is sometimes said that this is a realtively modern phenomenon, given that DH Lawrence published short stories, as did Kafka, and Katherine Mansfield and Silitoe and so on and on and on.

I confess that I have not always been won over by this argument. At the stage that I am, being older now and less patient about books and with so much still to read and so little time in the busy day (I tell myself the days are busier, but it may be I am slower), well, I do tend to pick up the slimmer volumes from the shelves of bookshops… but I confess that I prefer, hands down, the shorter novel to the short story collection. And just don't get me started on reading flash fiction collections… love writing them, too, but really find reading collections of them almost tedious, with only flashes (pun unintentional) of worth.

Anyway, I read this today and I thought it was worth sharing:

'It must also be taken into consideration that the public for a connected, comprehensive prose work is naturally much greater than that for a collection of short prose pieces.'

I draw attention to that word 'naturally' and to the fact that this was a comment from a publisher called Kurt Wolff - a comment he made in 1921! 

AN ARVON COURSE at LUMB BANK

So, about a year ago I won this competition – The William Soutar Prize. And that was a thrill, because I got to read out from my winning piece to an audience at Perth Library and they said such warm things about my story, and Zoe Strachan was the judge. Anyway, as if that wasn't enough, the prize was a week on an Arvon course of my choice.

I chose to go to Lumb Bank near Hebden Bridge. Ted Hughes once lived there. I chose the course not for the course but because it fell neatly within my holidays as a school teacher. I didn’t know what to expect and I drove all the way there – which is probably the furthest I have ever driven myself, and it was motorway and I don't really like motorway driving.

The title of the course was something about ‘How to beat your demons’ – writing demons that is. And there were two tutors: Emma Jane Unsworth and Stephen May. And upon arrival I discovered that I was the only male signed up to the course along with fifteen women writers. I was consigned to the woodshed – they said it was for my safety, only it wasn’t like any woodshed you could imagine: it had it’s own toilet and shower (en suite) and a comfy bed and two windows and a desk that just said ‘please sit at me and write’.

The week just flew by and I loved it so much. The other writers were so passionate about writing and so warm and welcoming. And the workshops were fun and we all had lots of time to just write and write and write - or talk about writing, which is good, too. And the food was just fantastic and there was cake and puddings and wine. And all set within the most wonderful countryside. Oh and I saw a nuthatch, which is my first ever.

Yes, so what I am trying to say is that if you are thinking of doing one of these Arvon courses, well, you should. I will again, I am sure. And you meet such lovely people on these courses, too. And Emma Jane and Stephen were such wonderful tutors and so encouraging and warm. Yes, so thank you to one and all: The Perth Library for running the competition; Zoe Strachan for picking me as the winner; to everyone at Arvon who helped with the booking and the whole organization of the week; to the tutors, Em and Stephen for their fizz and their fun; and to fifteen lovely ladies who made the week so memorable for me. Thank you!

(PS on the far left of the picture above, that thing that looks like a wee lean-to, well that's the woodshed - my woodshed is how I think of it now!)

WINNER of the NEIL GUNN MEMORIAL PRIZE 2015

I don’t enter so many competitions these days. Just a handful, really. I use them to test stories, to see if they have legs and can stand up for themselves. So, to have one stand tall and take its first steps and for those steps to be confident and striding, well, that’s something very pleasing.

Today the results of the Neil Gunn Memorial Prize 2015 were made public. This is a competition that comes round every two years. It was once won by Michael Faber – yes THE Michael Faber, so it has some prestige attached… plus Neil Gunn was a particular love of mine when I had just graduated from University with a degree in Literature.

I put in a story to this year's competition that had faltered in another competition. I gave it a tweak or two and threw it in. I hoped to maybe get on the commended list and had no expectation of standing on the podium. So, a bit of a surprise to find myself winning the competition. I am so thrilled with this. It is something very shiny and bright to put on my writing cv.

That’s two competition wins in Scotland in the past twelve months, having won the William Soutar Prize 2014. Feels good.

Congratulations to all the other writers who gained recognition this year through this competition. And many thanks to all involved with the running of the competition.

One small fly in the ointment: I was prevented by work commitments from attending the award ceremony today and I do try to make it to these events believing that as a winner or a placed writer there is a duty to support the competition by being present. I know it will have been a wonderful day.

KINDNESS (AGAIN)

It is hard to be always kind. 

Even if it is a natural predisposition, there will be times when kindness lags behind, cowering in the shadows or under tables or behind curtains. When one is slighted, and one’s face publicly slapped, or one’s character openly shamed, or worse, then it is easy for kindness to not show itself. I regret those moments in my life, just as George Saunders regrets those moments when he might have shown kindness and simply did not. *

If I could go back, I would change those moments, not turning the other cheek perhaps, but being kinder at least and thereby being less unkind. You see, I believe kindness to be important – not simply good manners, like holding the door open for someone to go through, or thanking someone who passes you the salt, but something human and essential.

Where I can, I teach kindness – not for any reward other than it makes the world a better place and I think we should be working to do that. I don’t just teach it, I try to exemplify it in what I do and who I am.

Today I found a boy who did not have any lunch. I had no money in my pockets to give him so he could go and buy some lunch. Instead I shared the lunch I had - it was just a cheese sandwich and a small satsuma orange and a fun-size bag of chocolate buttons, but it was something. And it was a kindness.

Today I reached out to someone else, in a gesture of kindness. A small thing again – a word of encouragement is all, a word to support something that she had said. This person did not accept my proffered kindness.

It is not always easy to be kind, but I believe we should always try to be so. It is a human act and an essential act. It should define us – to ourselves and to others. It should be on show but not for show. 

And our lapses of kindness should be regrets we seek to right before it is ever too late.

* see earlier post on George Saunders and kindness

BRITTLE STAR MAGAZINE 36

Cover of Brittle Star Magazine 36, which launches tomorrow night at The Barbican Library, London. Produced with love and care and consideration, as all the best magazines should be.

Pleased to have a story stuffed between its covers and can't wait to see who else is in there. 

Lovely magazine, lovely people behind it, and it is sure to be a lovely launch. Good luck to everyone!

SOME THOUGHTS ON KINDNESS, BY THE WAY

As a teacher in a high school, I know how complicated is the job of education and what a responsibility it is. I try to uphold the virtues of honesty and fairness in everything that I do – modeling by example. Sometime the pupils get it and that’s a real lift. And I also try to exhibit kindness and thoughtfulness. 

So, when I read of other ‘teachers’ doing the same and trying to inspire the next generation to be better than the last and to be better in character as much as in achievement, it is bound to make me sit up and pay attention. A few weeks back I stumbled upon a commencement speech made by George Saunders – I confess that I did not know what a commencement speech was and although I knew the name of George Saunders he was not someone I had read.

A commencement speech is a speech delivered at a ceremony to graduating students of a university. It is meant to be all inspirational and to send the students out into the world with an understanding and appreciation of their achievements and perhaps a shared wisdom from some established academic luminary. There’s a great speech by David Foster Wallace and you should check it out – witty and clever and life-affirming, just what the Dean/Principal ordered.

But it was the speech by George Saunders that caught my attention three weeks or so back because it is published in bookform as  ‘Congratulations By The Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness.’ It was the ‘kindness’ bit that I was interested in.

In his speech he talks about the big regrets of his life looking back – try and stop him. There’s a funny story about swimming in a river of monkey ‘poop’ and there’s a small wisdom in what he has to say about that. But he has a bigger and more important message to impart.

Saunders says his big regrets are his ‘failures of kindness’. Essentially he is talking about those times in his life when he could have been kind or kinder and for whatever reason he was not. That's what he regrets most of all. And he urges the young graduates before him to go out into the world and to be all they should be: ambitious and to achieve and to aim higher still, though to what end he is not so sure; but above all, he says to his assembled academic bright successes, be kinder and less selfish because in the final analysis nothing else matters as much as this.

It’s a good speech – witty and clever and life-affirming in just the expected measure, everything a good commencement speech should be. I urge you to look it up. I urge you to take it to heart. I urge you to pay attention to the lesson. Here's the link:

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?_r=0

PUSHING OUT THE BOAT 13 - launched

I love reading. I love reading out loud and to an audience. It’s a thrill. And to be reading something of one’s own is an especial thrill. I do it any chance I get. So, on Sunday 26^th April, I attended the launch event for ‘Pushing Out The Boat 13’, a literary magazine from the North East, and I got to read from a story in the new edition of the magazine, a story that was mine.

I have been to ‘Pushing Out The Boat’ launches before. They are very civilized events with wine and nibbles and very good company. The venue this time was The Phoenix Hall at Newton Dee on the edge of Aberdeen – and it was splendid and splendidly situated. It was a bit of a drive up and back for me, but I think a writer has an obligation to support such ventures if they can.

I have said before what a fabulous production this magazine is. It is a magazine of poetry and short fiction and art. The art is always beautiful and gives the magazine a very ‘lush’ feel. What I also like is the respect given to individual pieces of writing, the space and the presentation adds to the beauty of the production. No cramming pieces in just to maximise sales.

Artworks were displayed in the entrance area on arrival at the venue. 

Each reader was given a timeslot and strict instructions to stay within a certain limit – a little more time for prose readers than for the poets. There was an excellent turnout and a lot of writers had agreed to read – hence the strict time limit. Some of the readings were lively and the audience laughed; some were intense and thought-provoking, and the audience were thoughtful and quiet; and some were just beautiful – and the audience seemed to appreciate that.

Congratulations to all the writers at the event and all the writers who made it into the print magazine. 

I got to read the opening of my short story ‘Sixteen Years an Asylum Nurse’ and I loved reading it. When reading my own work, it always feels new and like it is not me. And I see the flaws as well as the bits that sing. I sometimes think I should do public readings of all my writing in order to tighten the writing. The story seemed to go down well.

Anyway, a big thank you to the whole team at ‘Pushing Out the Boat’, and thanks for a great launch day and for some wonderful readings, and for including once again a piece of my writing in the magazine. 

One piece stays with me, and that is the quirky piece where a seagull is taken for the soul of a person recently deceased and the seagull becomes a presence in a friend-of-the-deceased's home. Nicely read by Keava McMillan.