Communications and a poetry competition

What a great meeting again despite the 'Phone' theme! Just waiting for Cathy's notes but in the meantime I thought you'd like to know the link for Jeanette's post on the Crime Readers Association website. It can be found at http://www.thecra.co.uk/a-day-in-the-life-working-on-a-deadline-by-jeanette-hewitt/

Also we had an email from Chris way down yonder in Cairns Qld. He says:

Read the FS weblog about the ‘Ghost’ meeting and how good it was. Some extraordinarily good stuff goes through during some of those evenings, and I’m not sure an Anthology does it justice. I don’t know any other way, unless you appoint a ‘Collator’ to collect copies from all the contributors and store them somewhere safe. Random thought! Seem to be having more of those these days, just 'getting on a bit' methinks.

We received the splendid gift of a fourth grandchild of the female persuasion about a month ago - Ella Nordling Shaw. (Nordling is the Danish daughter-in-law’s surname!) My son invited me to go fishing to celebrate, so what do you do? You go fishing, and I enclose the little article I wrote to celebrate Ella and the fish I caught. (A bloke just has to have some bragging rights. He hasn’t much else these days that isn’t by proxy!)

I’ve just sent through an article to a magazine called; Annals of Improbable Research, the medium for the awarding of the IgNobel Prizes, which you may or may not have heard of. It’s run by Harvard Uni, and awards prizes for daft stuff that, ‘First makes you laugh, then makes you think’. Mine is entitled; ‘Australian Drinkers Produce Green Solution’. It’s a small article 4000 words, describing the means of changing from oil-based fuels to Ethanol produced by fermenting heroic quantities of grapes. I will send it to you if you would like to see it, but I know you are busy and that I do send you probably more than you need. My justification is that the first meeting of Felixstowe Scribblers I attended and read out my small story, gave me the feedback that I could actually write stuff that people enjoyed, and it wasn’t a case of, ‘Why did you bother?’ So, thanks to that encouragement. I’ve been writing ‘stuff’ ever since.

Last April, three years of planning came down to one single evening, the 150th Anniversary of the opening of Framlingham College, and the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. I organised a dinner for nearly sixty people: 5 from UK, 2 from Oman, 3 from New Zealand including the Arch-wizard of New Zealand (about as sane as a bottle of pickled sausages), and the rest from Oz. The guest of honour was Trish Evans, the widow of Len Evans, doyen of wine drinking, judging, making and marketing wine. Len was an Old Framlinghamian and was born and grew up in Felixstowe. Apart from anything else, there had to be a book, but white hair has its advantages, so I got other people to write most of it, and a graphic designer who has a cottage in Iken to weave his magic, and it turned out to be a thing of beauty and a joy forever. (There are some short stories at the end and you may like to see how they stand up to the quality of the Scribblers - not at all would be my guess!) Thus, you see I still have a soft spot for Felixstowe and the Scribblers.

We are now coming up to the heat of Christmas, which for us means; lots of platters of cold meats and seafood, washed down with copious quantities of cold wine, air-conditioning turned up and preparing for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race and the Boxing Day Test Match, which is against the West Indies this year. Close the doors and prepare to repel borders. Rebecca and I are very happy with our own company - blessed is the word.

Have a great Christmas time, and we wish all of you of the Scribbling persuasion a safe, healthy and happy 2016.

Cheers, Chris and Rebecca

Here's a competition for the poets amongst us and also the Book Advent: 

Dear Writers,

Ware Poets is running its competition for the 18th year, and we are delighted that Philip Gross - poet, a playwright, librettist and writer for young people - has agreed to judge the competition. Philip leads the MPhil/PhD in Writing programme at the University of South Wales. He won the T S Eliot Prize 2009 with The Water Table, and Wales Book of The Year 2010 with I Spy Pinhole Eye. This year he published A Fold In The River with artist Valerie Coffin Price (Seren), and a new collection called Love Songs of Carbon (Bloodaxe).

The Ware Poets competition offers cash prizes for the winning poems, including one for the best sonnet, and we publish a competition anthology of prizewinning and shortlisted poems.

If you entered last year, or passed on our flyers, many thanks. I hope that you will consider entering again this year, and that you will download and share the flyer attached to this email with other poets. Details of the competition are also included below this message.

I look forward to receiving lots of poems. 

Stuart Handysides 

Secretary, Ware Poetry Competition

Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2016

Prizes: £600, £300, £150, and the Ware Sonnet Prize (£150).

Anthology for winners and commended poets
(£3.50, post free: pre-ordered).

Informal prizegiving at Ware Arts Centre, Friday 8 July 2016.

Fee: £4;  4 poems for £12, then £3 per poem (in the same submission).

Length:  up to 50 lines.

Deadline: 30 April 2016

Sole judge: Philip Gross 

Entry form available at

http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/comps/ware16.pdf

or send SAE to : The Competition Secretary, Ware Poets Competition, 

21 Trinity Road, Ware, Hertfordshire SG12 7DB

or email: warepoets_competition@hotmail.co.uk