Formed over forty years ago, our Writers Circle is based in Felixstowe, Suffolk. Meetings are held in The Room at the Top in Felixstowe Library, normally on the first and third Tuesday of each month commencing at 7.30pm and finishing by 10.00pm. Check this weblog for details of meetings.

There is an annual November to November fee of £30, April to November is £20 and June to November £15. For members preferring to pay at each meeting the charge is £5 per meeting. To contact Felixstowe Scribblers simply email scribblers.1@btinternet.com or the Secretary, catherine.stafford1@ntlworld.com

Sunday 27 February 2011

Felixstowe Radio

Lots happening:

Euranet: Felixstowe Radio have been chosen to represent Great Britain & NI.
This is quite an achievement, competing against 235 other radio stations, we shall be producing regular radio programmes that will be broadcast across the 27 member states of the European Union.

It's a great chance for our presenters, editors and production team to show what we can do. It will bring more listeners to add to our growing worldwide audience, currently running at 200,000 a month on the Internet, and who knows how many on FM.

26 March - a busy weekend in Felixstowe and our volunteers will be helping, and covering every event.

There's the Landguard Volunteering Festival a great chance to find out what is happening locally, and at Landguard. Lots of stalls and the chance to meet lots of people and find out how you can get involved with Felixstowe Radio.

Yummy Mummy Fun Day at Trimley Sports club.

Masquerade Ball at the British Legion, where we will be providing DJ's and disco. Wear what you like, but do wear a mask.

Second Leg of Felixstowe's Got Talent at Felixstowe Beach Caravan Park.

Our reporters and volunteers will be helping at all these events. You'll have a great time.

29th April There's a Royal Wedding Day Special at the Solar Concourse, just outside the studio. A big party that goes on all day and in the evening we all go to the Trades & Labour Club for a Bob Meadows Disco. Bob is a masterful entertainer - and will give you a show that's not to be missed.

30th April Barry Paul and the Team are at the Trades and Labour Club for a great Soul Nite.

For more visit the website www.felixstoweradio.co.uk

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Message from the secretary

What can I say?

One dozen of Felixstowe's finest. (Scribblers, that is)

We enjoyed a fabulous evening with good company, good conversation and to finish it off, really good food.

Thanks to Les for organising the evening and thanks to the Brook Hotel for the food and service.All in all a really good evening.

Don't forget the subject of 'Spring' for the next meeting, 1000 words or less.

Barry

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Good night...

A group of the Scribblers met up on a social evening out at the Brook Hotel Felixstowe tonight. Great time, good food, very reasonably priced but the best thing of all, the company!

2011 Unbound Press Short Story Award





2011 Unbound Press Short Story Award

Closing Date: March 1, 2011
Winning and short-listed entries notified no later thanMarch 31, 2011+++

1st Prize – £250, publication, 1 free copy of annual print anthology
2nd Prize – £125, publication, 1 free copy of annual print anthology
3rd Prize – £50, publication, 1 free copy of annual print anthology
Shortlisted Entries* – publication, 1 free copy of annual print anthology


Entry fee £5


* Number of entries shortlisted will be determined by the quality of submissions
Guest Judge: Zoë Strachan






Photograph Taken by Ray Deng

Zoë Strachan is the author of Negative Space and Spin Cycle (both published by Picador). The former won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award. Zoë also writes short stories, essays, journalism and drama. Her work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3. She has received two writer’s bursaries from the Scottish Arts Council, a Hawthornden Fellowship and was UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence at the National Museum of Scotland. In 2008 she was awarded a Hermann Kesten Stipendium and spent time in Nuremberg, and in 2009 she received a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship which took her to France to write.

Zoë lives in Glasgow where she teaches part time on the prestigious Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow. She has just completed her third novel, Ever Fallen in Love?.

For more information and competition guidelines:

Visit the competition main page for links to other UP competitions.

Monday 21 February 2011

The Brook Hotel

Our social night out for a meal in the Brook Hotel is with us! Tonight! Tuesday 22nd at 7.30. If you've booked, don't be late! Be there!

Remembering Jack


To enlarge - click on the image

February 21 issue of WritingRaw.com is now online

NEW Material Every Monday – to start your week off right.

Writing Raw is a FREE weekly literary magazine dedicated to new and emerging writers. Our goal at Writing Raw is simple - to serve the literary community with the opportunity to have their work online and out in the world. In this world of disappearing literary magazines, Writing Raw is providing the blank pages for writers to fill. New in this issue:

FICTION:
Bedtime for Max by Sheryl Douglas
Clone 5-81 by Andrew Vastag
Maligula and Hornwald's Third Day by Ed Coonce
Seattle 1979 by Dion OReilly
The Art of Star Traveling by Ed Coonce
The Gherkin by Rick Wilmot
The Malignant Moor by Tony Culver
The Next Reich: A Novella by Mel Zimmerman
What the F--K Does It Take? by Eric L. Marsh

SERIALS:
SEASON FINALE - really BAD Shakespeare: 12 - That Way Madness Lies by Weeb
Toy Soldiers: Chapter 22 by Peter Neville

POETRY:
Bev Says "Write a New Poem" by Nancy Scott
Dive by Brian Fanelli
Duerma Bien by Nancy Scott
Exultation by Sandy Nutter
Fiery But We Know by David Clarke
Geode Shadorma by Kristine Y. Snow
Grief by Gina Hickman
Gypsy by Brian Fanelli
Just Like Rory Gallagher's Guitar by David Clarke
Old Friend by Brian Fanelli
Primavera by Emilia Filocamo
Tears That Fell by Tyler W. Stinson
The First Time by Sandy Nutter

ASSORTED:
A Bear, an Umbrella, and a Sticky Ex-Girlfriend by Amita Murray
Tea and Tulips by Kristine Y. Snow
Road Trip Report: Part One by Keith Murphy
Some Interesting Stats by A.A. Bell

INTERVIEWS:
Rick Mofina
Anders Roslund and Börge Hellström

ART:
Tony Blocker

REVIEWS:
NEW: Allbooks Review
Between the Sheets: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
FLASH REVIEW by Weeb: Shadowheart by Tad Williams
Rib Reads

Now, some announcements:

· really BAD Shakespeare starts repeats next week - starting with Season 1. Two episodes will appear in each issue for 12 weeks... building to the start of Season 3.

· Between the Sheets - Super Sad Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, is online now. Our next book will be, actually, three books: The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. If you would like to send in your own review of this book, please send it to Weeb@writingraw.com.

WritingRaw also supports other sites that help writers: www.WritingRaw.com believes in reaching out to other sites, writing groups, forums, and organizations. Contact us on how you can place a FREE banner, announcement or link on our site! Or, perhaps you would like to partner in some way with WritingRaw (column, monthly essay, writing tips, etc.). We are open to ideas…

Or, use the Writing Raw Book Store to promote your novel or poetry collection: If you have a novel or collection that you would like to place in our store, we would be more than happy to do so – for FREE. Just send us a copy of the cover of the book (jpeg, bmp, etc. – please don’t send pdf), a brief synopsis, and a link as to where the material can be purchased.

We are also looking for people to write weekly columns, such as – book and publishing news, exercise and tips, or… well, we are always open to suggestions to help make the site one of the most informative and innovative out there. Let us know if you would like to help in this aspect. All columns will have your byline, your bio information (with hot links to your site), and you will retain all copyright.

The archive has been somewhat purged (after 2 years of material, we needed to clean up some) but, if your material was on WritingRaw.com before the purge and is no longer listed in the archive, we will be more than happy to place it back. Just contact me at weeb@writingraw.com and let me know.

So, what are you waiting for? Stop in and discover a new and emerging voice today.

Thank you.

Weeb
www.WritingRaw.com





So, we've been sending you our favorite stories every week. Before we go on though, here's a quick re-cap of what PenTales is about and how YOU can play a part:

PenTales collects stories, from all over the world. PenTales contributors share their stories through live events in 20 different cities, through our online platform and through our Facebook page

What's amazing is that even when we're telling stories about the same thing - about revolt, for example - we all have our very own unique interpretations and experiences of it.

Our message this week?


If you've never shared a story with PenTales (or even if you have), do it today.
We currently have five open topics, and we're ready for YOUR take on one or all of them.
Send us a cell phone pic or a drawing that tells your story, a quick poem or a 500 word narrative...your story, your format, with just a few guidelines.

So what happens once you've contributed to a topic? We share your story with thousands of people all over the world.

Pretty cool, huh?

Yours,
Saskia, Stephanie and the entire PenTales Crew hailing from 20 cities around the world.

At PenTales, we believe that there is no better way for people to get to know one another than through the exchange of stories. Stories inspire our curiosity, our imagination, and our awareness of shared values that reach beyond languages and borders. Indeed, stories – in all forms – have the power to connect people from different backgrounds and create meaningful global dialogues. Our aim is to foster this dialogue by providing creative and inspiring ways for people to contribute and discover original stories on universal themes.

©2011 PenTales New York NY

Friday 18 February 2011

The 5th Annual Ted Walters International Short Story, Poetry and Playwriting Competition 2011




















To ENLARGE - simply click on the image(s)

Wigtown Poetry Competition

The Wigtown Poetry Competition is the largest poetry prize in Scotland and has three sections:
· Main Prize of £2,500 with a runner-up prize of £500 and eight additional commended prizes of £25. The 2011 judge is Brian Johnstone.

· Gaelic Prize of £300. The 2011 judge is Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul - Angus Peter Campbell.

· Scots Prize (new this year) of £300. The 2011 judge is Rab Wilson.

In addition to this, winning poets will be invited to appear at the Wigtown Book Festival in 2011. The winners, the runner-up and eight commended poems will be published in Southlight, the Dumfries and Galloway Literary magazine. The winning poem and runner up entries will appear in the Scotsman or its sister paper Scotland on Sunday and winners will be listed on the Wigtown Book Festival website from Saturday 24th September 2011.

Full details are also available from the website, where entries can be submitted electronically. Please visit www.wigtownbookfestival.com/poetrycomp

If you have any queries or would like paper copies of the competition entry form or flyer, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Anne Barclay
Festival Manager
Wigtown Book Festival
Wigtown Festival Company
County Buildings
Wigtown
DG8 9JH

Wigtown Book Festival 23rd September - 2nd October 2011

Spilling Ink Review Newsletter





Welcome to the Spilling Ink Review Newsletter where you'll find the latest competition information (including who won the Creative Nonfiction Competition), submission opportunities, publication updates and some good, old-fashioned gossip about what Spilling Ink's friends are busy doing behind closed (and not so closed) doors. Please feel free to share this newsletter with your friends (your enemies too). We appreciate all the encouraging emails from our readers and contributors so keep those cards & letters coming and, in the meantime, we'll continue to search for excellent fiction and nonfiction. Sporting thus with words, as we say!Thanks for your continued interest and support - Amy Burns,

EditorINFO at a GLANCE:

Unbound Press competition closing date March 1st. Our friends at Unbound Press are hosting the 2011 Unbound Press Short Story Award with special Guest Judge: Zoë Strachan. £425 in prizes plus publication and a free copy of the print anthology. 1500 word max / £5 entry fee. There's still time to enter this one!

Although we read year-round, if you wish to be considered for publication in Spilling Ink Review online Issue 4 (due out March 1st) submissions must be received by 20 February. For more information see our Submission Guidelines.

Congratulations to the Creative Nonfiction Winners!!!January 2011 Creative Nonfiction Competition details are on the website along with much more information.

Spilling Ink ReviewP.O. Box 16864Glasgow G11 9DJUnited Kingdom

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Report of our meeting 15th February 2010

Those present were: Dave, Les, Angela, Liliane, Beryl, Gemma, Ally, Wilf, Dick, Trish, Martin and myself.

Apologies from Jane and Tony.

As for the meeting;What can I say?Another very successful meeting. This one was a new format for the Scribblers.

By request we had our first two members giving the meeting a chapter or two of novels in progress or finished but not edited.

Ally had the honour of the first critique contribution with an excerpt from her novel 'Drift'.Her chapter was entitled 'Beginnings'.This was an introduction of a few of her characters, the main one being a fourteen year old girl who had grown up with the boy next door. A blow to her secret adoration of this young man came when his mother decides to move away, to the other side of town, thus beginning a time when they had to walk to school separately; and on the first day of high school, after meeting her beau for the first time in a while, they chat excitedly in line, while waiting to hear their form numbers and lesson assignments.

Hopes of being together, at least at school, were dashed when they discover that nothing in their schedules match. She tells her mother how she feels and although her mother is a witch, there seems to be nothing they can do.

If the remainder of the book matches the descriptive delights Ally treats us to, with her situations and characters then the reception given by the members last night will be repeated by all who read the book.

Well done Ally!!!

Angela treated us to the journey of her heroine, a young Italian girl who, during the final months of the war, met a young British soldier, fell in love and eventually marries.

In a beautifully read piece Angela describes how the girl travels to England after the war, to meet her new in laws. She realises, after seeing the damage to houses adjacent to the railway, that German bombers had really reached the shores of her new home. She gets to know her husbands parents and discovers, when venturing out into her adoptive country, a prejudice she had not imagined, simply because she was Italian. Her bitter sweet comments, written in diary form, provides the reader with her thoughts on the country, the food and the people, where she will be living .

Having travelled to the railway station to meet her husband after his de-mob from the Army, she finds that even the amorous and forthright man she had fallen for in Italy, has changed when he meets her on the platform. We await with anticipation a continuation and completion of this intriguing tale of young love.

As with Ally, well done to Angela!!!

The two readings were separated by a welcome tea break where the discussion of Ally's piece continued.

We had more lively comments after Angela's offering which went down well with all the members present.

The few doubters, concerning this new format, were among the rest of us when it came to commenting on a new and productive addition to our meetings. The next one in this form will be on the 19th July.

The homework subject for the next meeting on the 1st of March will be 'SPRING'.

Thanks to all who attended.

Barry

Tuesday 15 February 2011

2011 Cardiff International Poetry Competition

Is your poetry worth £5,000?

The 2011 Cardiff International Poetry Competition is open and waiting for your entry. The first prize-winner will walk way with a cheque for £5,000 for just one poem. Further prizes available are £500 for second place, £250 for third plus five runners up will receive £50 each. The competition is accessible to all; it doesn’t matter if you are an established poet or just dabble with verse now and then. All entries to the competition will be judged anonymously, so this is a great opportunity to have your poetry judged on its own merits.

The hard tasking of judging the 2011 competition is down to mutli award-winning poets Don Paterson and Philip Gross and filter judge Tiffany Atkinson. Don Paterson teaches poetry at the University of St Andrews and since 1996 has been poetry editor at Picador. He has won a number of awards for his poetry, including the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Whitbread Poetry Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award, and the T S Eliot Prize on two occasions. Most recently his collection Rain (Faber and Faber, 2009; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010) won the 2009 Forward Prize.

Philip Gross has published numerous collections of poetry, the latest of which, The Water Table (Bloodaxe, 2009), won the T S Eliot Prize. His collection I Spy Pinhole Eye (Cinnamon, 2009), with photographs by Simon Denison, was the English-language winner of Wales Book of the Year 2010.

If you think you have what it takes to delight the judges and get your hands on the top prize of £5,000, then send Academi your poems now. Just make sure your poem is no longer than 50 lines long, is unpublished, in English and is not a translation of another author’s work then send it, along with your entry form and payment, to Academi.

Please note the new closing date of Friday 25 March 2011.

Visit www.academi.org/cipc/ to download an entry form. To receive an entry form through the post send a stamped, self addressed envelope to: Academi, CIPC11 Entry Form, Mount Stuart House, Mount Stuart Square, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 5FQ.

For further details contact Academi:029 2047 2266 / post@academi.org

The Cardiff International Poetry Competition is administered by Academi with the financial support of Cardiff Council.

Monday 14 February 2011

February 14 issue of WritingRaw.com is now online

The Evolution Continues with WritingRaw.com!

Writing Raw is a FREE weekly literary magazine dedicated to new and emerging writers. Our goal at Writing Raw is simple - to serve the literary community with the opportunity to have their work online and out in the world. In this world of disappearing literary magazines, Writing Raw is providing the blank pages for writers to fill. New in this issue:

FICTION:
Black Death by Andrew Vastag
Remembering Rita! by Dan Boylan
Salt by Sonja Condit
Toy Soldiers (editor note: not the series) by Chuy Ramirez
The Man Lying In Bed by Sam Mills
The Pomegranate by Elaine Rosenberg Miller
The World Outside by Chris Castle

SERIALS:
really BAD Shakespeare: 11 - Villain, Villain, Smiling, Damned Villain by Weeb
Toy Soldiers: Chapter 22 by Peter Neville

POETRY:
A Lost Art by L.J. Stark
Age; Wisdom and the Ever Evolving Valentine by Lorraine Voss
Awake by L.J. Stark
Butterscotch by Mandy Brzenk
Idiosyncrasy, Love by Mandy Brzenk
I'm Tired by Tyler W. Stinson
Red by Marrilynn Ready
The Axis of Why by Steve Brightman
The Hour by Emilia Filocamo
Three Short Words by Lorraine Voss
What I See In the Dark by Mandy Brzenk
When the Moon Flashes Signals by Sam Mills

ASSORTED:
Ceviche by J A Williams
The Faded Brown Leather Change Purse by Debra Ann Elliott
Rachmaninoff Makes Me Cry by Theresa Cocolin
Some Interesting Stats by A.A. Bell

INTERVIEWS:
Oliver Pötzsch
John Smelcer

ART:
Duncan Long

REVIEWS:
NEW: Allbooks Review
Between the Sheets: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
FLASH REVIEW by Ditch: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Rib Reads

LIFE UNACCUSTOMED:
And, our exclusive columnist, Alex Wardwell, moves out of his comfort zone in this issue. You have to read it to believe it!


Now, some announcements:

· New Art Director: WritingRaw has a new member to the family. NewB is now our Art Director. His goal is to take our Art page to new and greater heights be showcasing all different styles of art. If you would like to submit artwork to be highlighted on the Art page, please contact NewB at NewB@writingraw.com.

· really BAD Shakespeare is back with only one episode left before the second season finale! Armageddon has begun, an unidentified woman is pregnant with the new Christ, and Shakespeare has apparently opted for the comforts of the Garden of Eden over the horrors of Hell. With all of this happening, in under 1,500 words per episode, one has to wonder what the HELL could possible go wrong now. The End of Days is in full swing… grab your party favors before it’s too late!

· Between the Sheets - Super Sad Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, is online now. Our next book will be, actually, three books: The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. If you would like to send in your own review of this book, please send it to Weeb@writingraw.com.

WritingRaw also supports other sites that help writers: www.WritingRaw.com believes in reaching out to other sites, writing groups, forums, and organizations. Contact us on how you can place a FREE banner, announcement or link on our site! Or, perhaps you would like to partner in some way with WritingRaw (column, monthly essay, writing tips, etc.). We are open to ideas…

Or, use the Writing Raw Book Store to promote your novel or poetry collection: If you have a novel or collection that you would like to place in our store, we would be more than happy to do so – for FREE. Just send us a copy of the cover of the book (jpeg, bmp, etc. – please don’t send pdf), a brief synopsis, and a link as to where the material can be purchased.

We are also looking for people to write weekly columns, such as – book and publishing news, exercise and tips, or… well, we are always open to suggestions to help make the site one of the most informative and innovative out there. Let us know if you would like to help in this aspect. All columns will have your byline, your bio information (with hot links to your site), and you will retain all copyright.

The Wall now contains one Shout-Out box so you can self-promote your material or whatever you would like others to know about, cartoons, and various fun applications ranging from daily horoscopes to playing with a Magic 8 Ball!

The archive has been somewhat purged (after 2 years of material, we needed to clean up some) but, if your material was on WritingRaw.com before the purge and is no longer listed in the archive, we will be more than happy to place it back. Just contact me at weeb@writingraw.com and let me know.

So, what are you waiting for? Stop in and discover a new and emerging voice today.

Thank you.

Weeb
www.WritingRaw.com

Sunday 13 February 2011

Our next meeting - a reminder

Barry has probably said this once already but there's NO HOMEWORK for Tuesday.

Instead Angela and Ally will be reading for us to critique their work.

Sounds very interesting...

See you Tuesday!

Keep scribbling!

Thursday 10 February 2011

The Social...

Our social meal evening at The Brook Hotel is on Tuesday 22nd February, just under two weeks away.

Will everyone who wishes to go please confirm with Barry so our provisional requirements can be made with the Hotel.

It will be a carvery and will cost about 12 pounds for two so it won't break the bank.

No speakers or anything this time, just a good old social evening.

Les and Barry have sampled the food and can highly recommend it.

Pen Tales



















Love's Appetite Unsated by Zach Kanin

This week, three takes inspired by ... (yes, we're not quite over it): Love and Heartbreak. On the visual end, New Yorker cartoonist Zach Kanin and director/photographer Douglas Jessup give us something to feast on. Yum! Yum?

Screenwriter Thomas Moffett on the other hand sticks with an old-school thank-you note to an Icelandic girl called Inga. He's thanking her for walking him home - and, we suspect - giving him a little bit of hope.

One more week of matters of the heart. We're then moving on to...(drumroll please)...

In the meantime, what's your take on REVOLT - in Egypt and otherwise? Submit your story (500 words or less) to our Open Call. Winners get a written review by Dan Rasmussen, New York Times Bestsellling author of "American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt." And no, you dont need to be a writer. What we're looking for are original stories/perspectives that just need to be shared with the world.

Love, Saskia, Stephanie and the PenTales crew.

















Lazy Sunday by Douglas Jessup

THANK YOU by Thomas Moffett

Dear Inga,

This is a very belated note to say thank you for walking me home when I was a little bit drunk and very sad. I like to think of myself as a gentleman–the kind of person who would walk a girl home, and not the other way around, but you insisted. Also, I don’t want to point fingers, but it’s partly your fault that I was drunk, since you gave me those shots of Icelandic schnapps or whatever it was, that tasted like licorice. Anyway, I don’t know if you remember, but it was snowing, and you were telling me about Iceland and a boy you liked back home who had broken your heart. I was telling you how things were falling apart with me and my girlfriend at the time, that my therapist had described the relationship as like being on the Titanic, and asking if it was possible to swim with seals in Iceland.

READ ON




Upcoming Live Salon Nights
San Francisco – Love and Heartbreak – Feb. 12th – RSVP Reykjavik – The End – Feb. 17th – RSVP
Interested in hosting a PenTales salon night with friends? Just let us know, and we'll help you set it up.
At PenTales, we believe that there is no better way for people to get to know one another than through the exchange of stories. Stories inspire our curiosity, our imagination, and our awareness of shared values that reach beyond languages and borders. Indeed, stories – in all forms – have the power to connect people from different backgrounds and create meaningful global dialogues. Our aim is to foster this dialogue by providing creative and inspiring ways for people to contribute and discover original stories on universal themes.








©2011 PenTales New York NY

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Meeting Amy Burns of Unbound Press

Unbound Press has changed hands! Former owner Nicola Taylor has stepped down so that she can devote more time to her own creative projects and mentoring services. I’ve worked behind the scenes with Nicola and Unbound Press since the company’s inception and, although I’m sad that our business paths are diverging, I wish Nicola much success.

Who am I? My name is Amy Burns, Editorial and Managing Director of Arts Unbound Limited (website coming soon), parent company of Unbound Press and Spilling Ink Review. I have set myself ambitious tasks: to promote literacy and freedom of speech by donating to International PEN, to support individual writers by hosting a series of literary competitions with prestigious guest judges and generous cash prizes and to publish excellent fiction – the literature of tomorrow! I hope you come along for the journey. It has the potential to be very, very interesting. -- Amy Burns

2011 Unbound Press Literary Competitions
Unbound Press Short Story Award (1,500 word max)
Closing Date: 1 March 2011
Winning/Short-listed entrants notified no later than 31 March
Guest Judge: Zoë Strachan
1st Place £250, 2nd Place £125, 3rd Place £50
Winning and Short-listed entries published and receive 1 free copy

Unbound Press Short Fiction Award (3,000 word max)
Closing Date: 1 May 2011
Winning/Short-listed entrants notified no later than 31 May
Guest Judge: Elizabeth Reeder
1st Place £250, 2nd Place £125, 3rd Place £50
Winning and Short-listed entries published and receive 1 free copy

Unbound Press Flash Fiction Award (500 word max)
Closing Date: 1 August 2011
Winning/Short-listed entrants notified no later than 31 August
Guest Judge: Laura Marney
1st Place £250, 2nd Place £125, 3rd Place £50
Winning and Short-listed entries published and receive 1 free copy

Unbound Press Best Novel Award (10,000 word max)
Closing Date: 1 September 2011
Short-listed entrants notified no later than 1 November
Winning & Honorable Mentions notified no later than 31 December
1st Place £500 & publication, 2nd Place £250 & publication
Honorable Mentions receive free, detailed critique

Featured Publications

Year of the Ginkgo by Sharon Dilworth
How well do you know your neighbours? How well do you know yourself? Caroline, a middle-aged Pittsburgh woman married to a doctor, finding herself thrown back on her own resources when she loses her job, focuses her attention on the street where she lives and becomes involved in the goings-on of the neighbourhood. Before long she falls in love with her neighbour’s Scottish husband and builds a fantasy life around him, believing her feelings are returned.
Sharon Dilworth is the author of two collections of short stories, The Long White and Women Drinking Benedictine. She is the winner of the Iowa Award in Short Fiction and has won a Pushcart Prize in fiction. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she teaches at Carnegie Mellon University and is the fiction editor of Autumn House Press.

That's What Ya Get! Kowalski's AssertionsBy Brindley Hallam Dennis
In these 40 tales, all told by Kowalski himself in his inimitable fashion, plus an exclusive peek into his correspondence, this curmudgeonly old New Yorker living in England with his long-suffering wife Mildred, ‘that’s my old lady,’ takes us on a hilarious outsider’s tour of contemporary life, from the frustrations of petty regulations, to the maddening irrelevancies of public information; from the complexities of race relations and green politics, to the incomprehensibilities of personal relationships, geo-physical temporalities, and fishing! Most of all he struggles, without the trace of an accent, to negotiate the minefields of ambiguity and the whirlpools of double-meanings, that constitute the English language.

Brindley Hallam Dennis has won awards and prizes for his writing. His stories have been published, broadcast and performed – Kowalski began as a series of monologues for performance. He lives in Cumbria within sight of Criffel, Skiddaw, and Cross Fell and a sliver of Solway Firth.

Circe's Island by Isabel Gillard
In 1950, when she was a student at Edinburgh University, the author was found to be suffering from TB and hospitalised in the sanatorium known as the Royal Victoria Hospital for Tuberculosis. She was in serious danger as at that time TB was incurable and relatively few people survived the disease, despite undergoing radical, often brutal, treatments.Isabel Gillard’s memories of a prolonged period out of student life were sometimes painful to recall, as was the bizarre quality of sanatorium life. But she found she was part of an enormous success story. This lethal disease, that had held sway over humankind since prehistory, was on the verge of being conquered, thanks in part to the work of two eminent Edinburgh medical men, Sir Robert Philip and Sir John Crofton. This memoir relives the privations and heartaches, as well as the laughs along the way, as she and her fellow patients underwent treatment. It includes an Introduction and Personal History by Professor Sir John Crofton himself.

• • • • • Coming Soon!Spilling Ink: A Collection of Fiction, Nonfiction and Prose Poetry
The very best of the best from Spilling Ink: competition winners and short-listed entrants as well as our favourites from the quarterly ejournal. Available for pre-order soon!

• • • • • For more information about the current Unbound Press catalogue of publications visit: Catalogue

• • • • • We'd love to be friends onFacebook & Twitter. Just for fun: follow us on Facebook & Twitter between now and February 15th and your name will be put in the hat for a free copy of By Invitation Only, a wonderful collection of short stories.
• • • • •
For more information about our sister company's literary competitions:2011 Spilling Ink ReviewLiterary Competitions• • • • •

If you're interesting in finding out how Nicola Taylor can help you with her personally tailored mentoring programmes and writer's services contact her at this address:NICOLA TAYLOR

• • • • • Special offer for Newsletter Subscribers:

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Monday 7 February 2011

February 7 issue of WritingRaw.com is now online

Writing Raw is a FREE weekly literary magazine dedicated to new and emerging writers. Our goal at Writing Raw is simple - to serve the literary community with the opportunity to have their work online and out in the world. In this world of disappearing literary magazines, Writing Raw is providing the blank pages for writers to fill. New in this issue:

FICTION:
After the Rains by Kerry Ashwin
Evie's Story by Lo-Arna Collins
Gaunt Worlds by Ron Koppelberger
He Healed her; "Broken Heart" by Gina Iafrate
Lying With Men by Thomas Kearnes
Meeting Helen by J A Williams
The Coming of Walpurgis Night by Andrew Vastag
The Tilted Axis by Sem Megson

SERIALS:
really BAD Shakespeare: 10 - By That Sin Fell the Angels
Toy Soldiers: Chapter 21 by Peter Neville

POETRY:
Dedicated to O. by Diana Ferguson
Farewell by Sue Carroll
His Washed Up Piece of A** by Diana Ferguson
I Can See the Light by Alexei Edwards
My Darkest Hour by Tyler W. Stinson
Of Copper and Sunlight by Steve Brightman
They Took My Sky by Andy Biddulph
Tintagel Revisited Pantoum by Kristine Y. Snow
Vision by Daniel Audet
Wild Woman Prayer by Kristine Y. Snow

ASSORTED:
Ceviche by J A Williams
Contemplations of Our Nation by Jack Bowser
Four Short Stories in a Morning by Eric L. Marsh
Rome is Burning by Adam Schirling

INTERVIEWS:
Alan Dean Foster
Matt Haig
Jonathan L. Howard

ART:
Duncan Long

REVIEWS:
NEW: Allbooks Review
Between the Sheets: Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
FLASH REVIEW by Weeb: The Emerald Burrito of Oz by John Skipp and Marc Levinthal
Rib Reads

LIFE UNACCUSTOMED:
And, our exclusive columnist, Alex Wardwell, moves out of his comfort zone in this issue. You have to read it to believe it!

Now, some announcements:

· New Art Director: WritingRaw has a new member to the family. NewB is now our Art Director. His goal is to take our Art page to new and greater heights be showcasing all different styles of art. If you would like to submit artwork to be highlighted on the Art page, please contact NewB at NewB@writingraw.com.

· really BAD Shakespeare is back! After a mid-season hiatus, our exclusive penny dreadful is back in full swing. After Shakespeare's decision to forsake his birthright, what could the outcome possibly be? If you thought unicorns dancing in a field of wild flowers, well… you don't know anything about really BAD Shakespeare! The season is winding down, with only two more episodes to go, to an unimaginable cliff-hanger that will have readers begging for the next season. The End of Days is in full swing… grab your party favors now before it’s too late!

· Between the Sheets - The next book for review will be Super Sad Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, and will appear in the February 14th issue. If you would like to send in your own review of this book, please send it to Weeb@writingraw.com. Our next book will be, actually, three books: The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies.

WritingRaw also supports other sites that help writers: www.WritingRaw.com believes in reaching out to other sites, writing groups, forums, and organizations. Contact us on how you can place a FREE banner, announcement or link on our site! Or, perhaps you would like to partner in some way with WritingRaw (column, monthly essay, writing tips, etc.). We are open to ideas…

Or, use the Writing Raw Book Store to promote your novel or poetry collection: If you have a novel or collection that you would like to place in our store, we would be more than happy to do so – for FREE. Just send us a copy of the cover of the book (jpeg, bmp, etc. – please don’t send pdf), a brief synopsis, and a link as to where the material can be purchased.

We are also looking for people to write weekly columns, such as – book and publishing news, exercise and tips, or… well, we are always open to suggestions to help make the site one of the most informative and innovative out there. Let us know if you would like to help in this aspect. All columns will have your byline, your bio information (with hot links to your site), and you will retain all copyright.

The Wall now contains one Shout-Out box so you can self-promote your material or whatever you would like others to know about, cartoons, and various fun applications ranging from daily horoscopes to playing with a Magic 8 Ball!

The archive has been somewhat purged (after 2 years of material, we needed to clean up some) but, if your material was on WritingRaw.com before the purge and is no longer listed in the archive, we will be more than happy to place it back. Just contact me at weeb@writingraw.com and let me know.

Weeb
www.WritingRaw.com

Saturday 5 February 2011

Lucky escape in Queensland

Our Cairns based colleague and wife are thankfully safe from the ravages of Cyclone Yasi. Chris writes:

"Many thanks for your concern about our welfare regarding the monster Category 5 cyclone,with promised central pressure of 922 milli-bars, 320kph wind gusts, 38 foot waves and 5 metre storm surge at the centre!

"Not exactly you're average evening by the fireside!

"We fared far better than we should have, and in three days have cleaned up the garden debris, got the electricity back on, the computers up and running, and the fridges re-stocked. Rebecca will be back to work on Monday, we think, and our little local world will get back to trading, sporting and bringing up families.

"Will write about our experiences later and try to send you some pictures. In the meantime, we are dry, safe, and are slowly getting our sense of humour back!

Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!

Chris and Rebecca"

Great to hear your good news from Queensland, mate!

Friday 4 February 2011

A new short story competition

We are a local bookshop in Sudbury and have just launched a short story competition open to all ages in Suffolk.


To enlarge - simply click on image.
Julia Prior
Bookends of sudbury
1a Gaol Lane
Sudbury
Suffolk CO10 1JL

Thursday 3 February 2011

To all Scribes.

A report on the meeting of Felixstowe Scribblers on the 1st February 2010.

Those present: Dave, Tony, Dick, Liliane, Beryl, Les, Martin, Gemma, Angela, Ally, Simon, Barry and a visitor/new recruit Wilf.

This was a homework evening on the subject of 'Dream'.I have been writing short stories and longer for over ten years now and have been involved with The Scribblers for at least five or six. I am constantly amazed at the width and breadth of talent that abides in our membership. We have a few that have risen above the rest through hard work and resolve to get their work 'out there'. I'm thinking of Ruth and Morag to cite but two, but among the rest of us who write principally for our own gratification and amusement there is a wealth of talent that is evident at every meeting of our humble group.

If writing groups throughout the country are endowed with the same talent and dedication then all is not lost for the English Language. It lives and breathes within us.The meeting last night was a perfect example of how one word or theme can evince such a variety of short pieces, of a quality that is seldom presented to bookshelves.

At the last meeting we had Dave, our last and long serving Secretary, whose stories of trains, motorcycles and near the knuckle journeys into our sexual psyche have entertained us for years.

Then there is Dick, an ex school teacher and Landguard Fort volunteer, with a brilliant reading voice, whose interest in history shows in the research and general knowledge he brings to his stories.

I come now to Tony, whose agile mind takes us on journeys around his own planet, with his novel reaching its final stages, each stage made up cleverly of a homework contribution. His tales take us into his world of strange creatures with strange names and even stranger occupations. We await the conclusion of his book with eager anticipation. I am convinced it will be a hit as a children's fantasy, and an equal hit with parents who read it.

Now I come to Les. As one of the elder statesmen of the group, our master stonemason and general comedian writes poetry that is clever and entertainingly funny. Each meeting benefits from his presence.

Liliane is one of our longer serving members and her Belgian accent always provides a different aspect to her stories of family life on the continent. She has written enough about her multitude of relations and relationships that it could be combined to make an amusing and thought provoking novel.

Beryl has become a staunch supporter of the group and as a recent recruit has flung herself headlong into the post of Treasurer. We have only had a few meetings to get to know her work but it has proved to be a delight of wartime and beyond, reminiscences.

Martin is another of our more recent and loyal recruits. His talent for incorporating the media world from TV to films and record production has given us many laughs in the reasonably short time he has been with us.

Gemma; well Gemma is our youngest member at the moment having been originally introduced to Scribblers by her friend, Rosie, who is at present at University. Gemma shows she has a great talent for writing involved stories but she needs only a trifle more confidence to feel less embarrassed when reading.

Angela is a member whose lifestyle dictates that she spend a certain amount of time living abroad in the family's converted watermill, set in the Tuscan hills. She is at present trying to promote this as a retreat for artists and writers alike. We wish her well in this endeavour. Her writing is of the highest quality and generally has the flavour of Italy tempting our palates.

Ally has been a staunch member of the team for years now and her gentle writings are sometimes substituted by a darkness that comes out in all our writers at sometime.

Simon has been busy of late and as another young member of the group has the ability to surprise us with writings that range from the trite to the technical.

The last member at the meeting was your secretary. My humble self, I can say nothing but the few words, I just love writing. As you can tell from this mail, and as my other half says, I can talk for England.This mail started as a simple report on the first meeting of February but I was so impressed by the quality of the writing on Tuesday ( not unusual, I hasten to add) I thought I must bring my thoughts and congratulations to the fore and say I am proud and pleased to be a member of the Felixstowe Scribblers.

The stories were:

Dave: Vision in Black
Tony: Chapter 19 of the Sword of the Rings.
Dick: The secret of the draughty room
Les: Dreams to treasure and Caesar's dreams
Liliane: Dream diary
Beryl: The railway track
Martin: No day but today
Gemma: Haunted crystal
Angela: Chapter 29, 1948.
Ally: Dreams
Simon: Drementia
Barry: The cemetery

At the next meeting Angela and Ally will each read a few chapters of their work in progress and we will spend each period giving what help and support we feel is necessary.

Thank you for your indulgence in what has been an excessively long mail but thank you all again for a pleasurable evening and know there are many more to come.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday the 15th February and the week following will be our evening meal date at The Brook Hotel.

All we need now is confirmation from all members interested in attending the dinner evening, partners included of course. This is simply a get together for all interested parties but I'm afraid the costs of the meal will have to be borne by the individuals attending.

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Dreams are made of this

An increased attendance at Scribblers produced another fantastic evening of creativity all helped along by the subject matter, DREAMS.

As usual there was a vast diversity in the high quality work that produced much laughter, horror and intrigue.

If you weren't there, then we are sorry you missed a fabulous evening of entertainment.

Cyclone Yasi

01 Feb 2011
Source: reuters // Reuters

SYDNEY, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Cyclone Yasi, which is approaching the coast of northeast Australia, is forecast to be the most powerful cyclone to hit the country ever, Sky TV cited the country's weather bureau as saying.

Yasi, which has been upgraded to a maximum-strength category five storm, is about 650 km (404 miles) off the coast of northeastern Australia and is expected to make landfall at 10 pm local time (1200 GMT) on the Queensland coast between Cairns and Innisfail. (Reporting by Ed Davies; Editing by Gyles Beckford)

Tuesday 1 February 2011

More concerns in Queensland

All Queensland based friends seem to have come through the terrible flooding okay but now - there's a cyclone on it's way and it's heading straight for Cairns where our good friends Chris and Rebecca live.

Chris emailed and sounded very upbeat but, truth be known, they are directly in the path of the cyclone and so let's hope they come through it safely.

Chris is pictured here on his first visit to Felixstowe Scribblers.





TONIGHT

1,000 words on dreaming!

7.30, Room at the Top.

See you there!

Remember,

Keep dreaming.....

YOUR POETRY CAN HELP HEROES

If you feel passionate about the Help for Heroes campaign here’s your chance to wax poetic - and give our soldiers a boost.

Publishers United Press are running a competition to find the best Help for Heroes poem and Primark are giving £250 in vouchers to the winner. The competition is open to all UK residents and your poem can be any length. Entrants are asked to donate at least a pound a poem and everything will go to Help for Heroes.

“Cheques must be made out to Help for Heroes and you can donate as much as you like and enter as many poems as you like,” said Managing Director of United Press, Peter Quinn, who will judge the competition. “We’re looking for poems related to Help for Heroes. It could be a poem about an individual or it could be a poem with a message. The minimum donation we’re asking for is a pound, but I think people feel so passionate about this subject that many donations will be much more and many people will send several poems.”

Entries are only accepted by post, accompanied by a cheque made out to Help for Heroes. A representative from Help for Heroes will be at the presentation to give the winner their prize, and the winner will have the honour of handing over the donations to Help for Heroes.

The winner will also have their poem published in a general collection of modern poetry and will receive a free copy of the book.

Post your entries to United Press, Admail 3735, London , EC1B 1JB , (telephone 0844 800 9178) by the closing date of November 11th 2011. You do not need an entry form but make sure you put Help For Heroes at the top of your entry.

See http://www.unitedpress.co.uk/ for more details.