The Word RunS Through It

You're in for a special treat.  We're very excited to present here Rebecca Burns' story collection called "Far Beyond the Brilliant Sky".  This is the first installment of the story with a new installment coming every month.   Get comfortable in your favourite spot and take it in along with the rest of the items in this edition. FEATURED POST  Far Beyond the Brilliant Sky: 1 A few lines from the first installment, be sure to read the rest. Stokeland.  It sits at fork between two roads: one a thick, commercial highway bedevilled by ice for ninety percent of the year; the other a stripped, frozen weave of a road, impassable for ten months out of twelve and huddled beneath wedges of brilliant white snow.   It is a wonder that Stokeland has any inhabitants at all; but it does, over a hundred souls.  Read the Full Post & Leave a Comment LITERARY ROUNDUP  SASH "Homeless" Writing Competition SASH is a youth homelessness charity based in York.  They are running a competition open to anyone aged 16+ resident in the UK on the theme 'Homeless'.  The first prize is a 5-day residential writing course courtesy of Arvon. The closing date for all entries is 5pm, Friday 10 October 2014.  Graffiti Magazine Short Story Competition  The subject of this 1000 word story competition is Conspiracy with all submissions to be made by 1st December 2014. First prize is £40 and the entry fee is £3 per story.  FAVOURITE READS  Metroland by Julian Barnes Julian Barnes' first novel published in 1980 captures a teenager's sense of waiting for life to begin, in this case in suburban London in the late 1960s. It depicts how teenage friendships stress and strain as life happens and we grow up.  Read the Book Also visit our selection of favourite books and tell us your top choices.  INTERESTING TIDBITS  Admirers of Tolstoy: Find Out What Influenced the Great Man and How Readers Picture Anna Karenina  Found on a sidewalk in a box of cast-off books, a clipping from 1978 New York Times Book Review, lists over 50 books that influenced Tolstoy.  Tolstoy drew up the original list in 1891 of the books that were most important to him in response to a Russian publisher's request made to over 2,000 scholars, artists and men of letters.  If you want to start thinking how he thought or better understand his writing, you can see which ones influenced him "enormously". Since we're on the subject of Tolstoy, here's an article that explores how we envision literary characters in our heads, using Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" as the example.  Does Tolstoy force an image in our heads with his descriptions or is there room for our imagination to take over?  Extra, Extra Read All About It - Literary Tattoos All The Rage  Literary tats you say?  Who would have thought they'd be so popular.  Litographshad a huge response when they began their Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for their first line of temporary literary tattoos.   Their initial goal was to raise $7,500 but to their surprise they received nearly $50,000.  To attract backers, they split the text of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" into 2,500 phrases and sent them out as tattoos to the first round of backers.  Being hugely popular, they then sent out a second set of tattoos from "Through the Looking Glass" which sold out by the end of the second day.  American Ex-Pats Revive British Poetry  A fascinating documentary on the evolution of poetry from 1908 - 1955. Seemingly the British poetry scene was going a bit staid until Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliotcame on the UK scene.  Don't wait too long to watch it as it won't be available much longer on BBC's iPlayer.  Are Movie Adaptations of Books a Good Idea?  Many authors dream of a film being made from their book.  Others wouldn't even consider it.  Here, 30 writers comment on what they thought about the adaptations of their books.  Quotes range from praise  ("Mystic River" - done beautifully), cryptic response ("Cop" - no comment) to utter disappointment ("Mary Poppins" - I cried when I saw it).  Do you agree with the authors' views?  And it doesn't stop with past adaptations.  Here's a lineup of 10 new movie adaptations due to be out this autumn with recommendations on whether to skip the movie version or not.  To finish, we often picture what a character looks like, should be like, but what happens when the movie is cast with the wrong type of actors?  Was Keira Knightley right for Elizabeth Bennett in "Pride and Prejudice" or Kristen Stewart for Marylou in "On the Road?  Casting director mistakes are explored in this article.  NEWS PICKS  Stephen King Uses Facebook Game to Market New Book To increase anticipation of his new book "Revival" coming out in November, Stephen King has created a Facebook game called #RevealREVIVAL.  When you like his Facebook page and share the app, squares of the new cover will be gradually revealed until the new cover is entirely unveiled in an interactive format that gives clues about the book.  Is "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" Finally Coming?  Ok, we've been hearing about this for awhile now, even highlighting the book trailer in one of our first posts, but it seems that it may finally be happening.  The movie adaptation is supposed to start in the autumn.  David O. Russell, writer and director of "American Hustle" is writing the screenplay, Lily James of "Downton Abbey" is playing Elizabeth Bennet and Sam Riley of "On the Road" is playing Mr. Darcy.   Kickstarter Popular With Authors that Need Funding  Although Julian Gough has status in the writing world and won many prizes, he claims not to make a lot of money from writing.  He therefore launched his new writing research project "The Las Vegas Postcards" on Kickstarter with the goal of receiving £1,500 in funds for his Las Vegas trip where his next book "Infinite Ammo" takes place.   Describing it as "a literary experiment", he's giving each funder a PDF version of "Harvest" and will send more extreme postcards, the higher the pledges get.  He's earned more than double of his original goal so far.  Should You Write About What You've Read?  Here's a new word for you "bibliomemoirs", or people writing about their reading habits.  Apparently, this is the latest trend in the publishing world.  The article itself was prompted by a lady in New York, Phyllis Rose, who decided to read every book on one shelf in her local library in search of fresh reading experiences.  I'm not entirely convinced, however she does have some interesting things to say about the loss of libraries and books that slip out of print.  INTERACTION  Writing Challenges  We'd like to thank those who have s_ubmitted their work for feedback and if you'd like to continue reading and reviewing what has been written in the past, you can do so here. In the meantime, we'd like to encourage you to read and comment on the stories written by Jens Kunze  and Andrew Williams for the topic "Black". Black: Entry #2 by Jens Kunze People still startle when they see us.  The reaction usually follows the same pattern.  They notice him and cannot help but stare.  Some are outright scared from the looks on their faces.  They look at him, then at me and quickly walk away. Others are rather curious and linger for a while.  But as soon as they realise they've been staring at him, they blush and walk away.  A rare few only show disgust.  An old lady spat on the ground right in front of us once.  Didn't say a single word; just uttered a retching sound to match her facial e_xpression and spat.  A big bubbly pool of saliva mixed with yellow and green bits of snot.  She wiped off the remnants from the corner of her distorted mouth, gave us another hateful look and walked away. Please give Jens your support by leaving feedback. Black: Entry #1 by Andrew Williams The world is black. Alone in the dark, the dogs bark.  Lying in bed, my head full of the things that she said - wishing me dead - no sleep, I keep counting sheep, until the alarm bleeps and I throw off the sheets. The night is the worst time.  When it's light is the first time I find relief from the pain; it's always the same.  But the light is a lie.  I'm waiting to die, curtains drawn against the dawn.  Work called again; I told them the pain remains.  I think they know but I still won't go to the office.  She'll be there, blonde hair, without a care.  So I hide indoors, safe and secure, sure she won't find me.  Please give Andrew your support by leaving feedback. s_ubmitted Writing  We are accepting writing submissions for short stories, novels, poems, plays and scripts and would like to bring to your attention the poem "The Light of Day"written by Jens Kunze.  Please leave your feedback.  The Light of Day by Jens Kunze Morning: It starts slowly, gradually. The sky turns a dark blue that fades into ever lighter shades till         finally, finally the first ray of sunlight appears. The air is still cold, as is the morning                 breeze that creates shivers down the spine. But there is light. It's instantly warm where         it touches the skin and chases away the demons of the night. All is possible in that one          instant. No action taken, no consequences inflicted. Nothings determined. It's luck; it's         hope; it's prosperity and mystery. It's the beginning.  Please give Jens your support by leaving feedback.  If you'd like to s_ubmit your own writing, you can always do so here.  YOUR WORDS  Special thanks to Rebecca Burns for her first installment of: "Far Beyond the Brilliant Sky"    If you'd like to contribute an article or write a book review, please visit "Add Your Words".  SIGNING OFF WITH: Pablo Picasso  "Everything you can imagine is real."