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Archive for the ‘Writing News’ Category

The Short Review, a website devoted to the short story form, is currently celebrating its 3rd birthday. It’s a wonderful place to discover new stories and to read interviews with writers, including a recent one with the American author Lydia Davis. At the moment its Twitter feed focuses on ‘Story Sunday’, so it’s a rich source of recommendations for great  stories to read online.  Happy Birthday Short Review!

November is National Write a Novel in a Month or NANOWRIMO. Last year 167,150 individuals attempted to write their own 175 page novel in 30 days, and 32,178 of them managed it.

Why, you might ask, would anyone attempt such a foolish thing? Well, says the NanoWriMo site: “The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality.” There is something attractive about bashing out a whole draft of an idea before your inner critic gets a chance to strangle it  at birth. Speed the plough! You can sign up via the website and the goal is to complete 50,000 words by midnight on November 30th.

More info at: NANOWRIMO

A new online forum dedicated exclusively to the writing, criticism and study of the short story launches this month. Thresholds currently features an exclusive interview with Hanif Kureishi about his recently published Collected Stories, and in October there will be a live Question & Answer session with Adam Marek, author of the weirdly wonderful collection Instruction Manual for Swallowing.

Run by Loree Westron, a PhD student at the University of Chichester, and Alison McLoed, author of  the sparkling collection Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction, the site is primarily aimed at academics and postgraduate students, but it’s packed full of interesting material that will appeal to a much wider range of readers and writers. Members of the public can access the blog, articles and resource lists. Click here to visit the site: Thresholds

Founded by the film director Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, Zoetrope  All-Story is a quarterly magazine that aims to explore ‘the  intersection of story and art, fiction and film’. The current issue carries work by Helen Oyeyemi and Tea Obreht; contributors to previous issues include Ethan Coen, Miranda July, Helen Simpson, Woody Allen, Hanif Kureishi and other luminaries.

The magazine also runs an annual short fiction contest, which closes on Oct 1. The winning story will be published in their Spring issue and all short-listed writers will be considered for representation by the William Morris Agency, ICM and other agencies. More details here: Zoetrope All Story Contest

A weekend of lively literary events is on offer at Foyles Charing Cross on the 11th and 12th of September with talks from debut novelists, non-fiction writers and historians, as well debates on digital publishing, and advice on marketing and pitching ideas for publication.

The Independent Alliance includes Faber, Quercus (publishers of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Granta Books, Profile (Eats Shoots and Leaves) and Icon. Writers taking part include P.D. James, Geoff Dyer, Max Schaefer, Alex Preston, Rupert Thomson, Jenny Diski and many others

For tickets, email events@foyles.co.uk (Day tickets are £15 / Weekend tickets £25 / Concession prices available too).

More information about the weekend is available at  www.foyles.co.uk/events.asp

Jane Rusbridge’s haunting debut novel The Devil’s Music was published by Bloomsbury in 2009, and was picked to be this year’s Bridport Literary Festival’s Big Read. She will be talking about the road to publication on Tuesday 21^st September at the HIGHGATE AND HAMPSTEAD LITERARY FESTIVAL together with literary agent Barbara Levy and Pam White, an experienced book publicist.

Jane took part in this year’s the London Writing Workshop’s Novelists’ Club, and also attended the workshop on Dialogue in 2009.

To book for this event click here. For more about the Hampstead & Highgate Literary Festival click here.

Flash Fiction is being broadcast for the first time this week on BBC R4’s Afternoon Reading programme. Sixteen stories by Short Review website founder Tania Hershman will be featured at 3.30pm on Tues June 29th, Wed June 30th and Thursday July 1st – read by the brilliant Nicola Walker (“Ruth” from Spooks”) and Tom Goodman-Hill.

Some of the stories are from Tania’s book  The White Road and Other Stories, but most are new. In her capacity as writer-in-residence at Bristol University’s Science Faculty, Tania has also been invited to take part in a discussion entitled “Blinded by Science” for Radio 4’s Off the Page, to be broadcast at a future date.

If you’re otherwise engaged at 3.30pm on a weekday, BBC programmes can be heard for seven days after the broadcast date by clicking on the BBC Radio 4 website.

I’m pleased to say that this lively and informative website is currently running a news item about the 2-year anniversary of London Writing Workshops.

Essential Writers offers heaps of practical information for those who write – whether for love or money – as well as a free author blog for subscribers, but what I like best are the reviews of writers’ websites (under the menu heading Resources/Websites). From glossy, highly commercial sites like David Almond’s to the more home-made efforts of sci-fi writer Ian Watson, it’s fascinating to see the different ways that writers choose to present themselves, and reviewer Judy Darley gives a clear-headed analysis. A site well worth book-marking. Here’s the link: Essential Writers

The People’s Book Prize looks like a worthwhile project. It aims to cut out the middlemen (and women) by offering readers a chance to promote the books they love. Each month there’s a vote, and the overall winning book will be declared in July 2010. Beryl Bainbridge is a patron.

Interesting to see their list of participating publishers – small  independent presses like Tindal Street and Legend rubbing shoulders with the likes of HarperCollins and Orion:

http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/publisher.php

Thanks to the British Council one of my stories has just been published in a dual language English/Chinese anthology called A Little Nest of Pedagogues. My story is a short piece called ‘Stranger’, which originally appeared in New Writing 13 (Picador, 2005); it was subsequently reprinted in a German magazine and now it’s travelling even further afield.

I’m one of ten writers, including Emily Perkins, Kamila Shamsie, Romesh Gunesekera and Fay Weldon, whose work has been translated here. The back cover describes the collection as ‘new writing from established writers and names to watch’. I’m amazed and delighted.