Unthology 10 launch

Train cancellations and the weather shortened my stay, but I managed to see the Brick Lane area again before attending the Unthology 10 launch in London on July 26th. The story anthology is available as a paper book or on Kindle - see the web page.

The readings made me realise how many good writers there are fighting for just a few places. I don't feel quite so bad now about the run of rejections I've been having.

A UK submission schedule for the rest of 2018

The second half of the year seems to have fewer competition and magazine-window opportunities for me. Here they are -

• July -
  • V press flash collection
• August -
  • 1st-31st - Magma ("Changeling" issue) window (poetry)
  • 31st - Flash Frontier deadline for max 250 words (theme: Africa)
• September -
  • 1-30th - Ambit fiction window
  • TinHouse opens
  • 1st - Cortland Review (US) opens
  • 30th - Flash and Cinder (flash (750 max) or poetry. Theme - Light)
  • 30th - Bedford Writing Competition for Stories (max 3000) and for poems. 1st prize 500. Fee 6 (4 for students). Deadline 30th Sep. See rules
• October -
  • 1st October - Banshee window opens (flash max 1000, stories and poems)
  • 5-18th TSS The Short Story Flash competition entry window
  • 1st-31st - Interpreter's House window (poetry and prose)
  • 1st-31st - Envoi window (poetry)
  • 31st - National Poetry Competition deadline
  • 31st - Bare Fiction competition deadline (poetry, flash, stories)
  • 26th - The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction. 1st prize £500. Theme - Scent (2,000-6000 words). Free entry.
• November -
  • 1st - Ambit (poetry) window closes (opens 1st Aug)
  • 1st-30th - Under the Radar window (poetry)
  • 30th - The South poetry deadline.
  • 30th - Inktears story competition. 1st prize 1000. 1000-3500 words. Fee 7.50.
• December
  • 1st-31st - Under the Radar window (prose)
  • 3rd - Stinging Fly window opens. Closes 9th Jan.

More publications

I've a metrical piece in The Orchards, p.7 - At 50

I've a story, "Woman Trouble", in Freedom: Cambridge Writers Short Story Competition 2018 anthology (Kindle and paperback versions)

Jellyfish Review

How can magazines prosper in the Age of the Web? Jellyfish Review, which has been going for less than 3 years, offers one model. Originally it printed only Flash Fiction (max 1000 words). Now it prints Flash Essays too. It prints 2 illustrated pieces a week, advertised on social media. Cunningly, it retrospectively bundles them into issues - well actually, jellyfissues. If these issues could easily be printed out, readers would have the best of both worlds.

Wigleaf's Top 50 very short fictions of 2018 lists 5 Jellyfish stories!

Cycling in Holland

We went to Hook of Holland, Rotterdam, Gouda, Ultrecht, Amsterdam, the Hague, then back to the ferry. Ulrecht in the rush hour was scary, especially since some of the bike-lanes were used by mopeds too. We did up to 100 km/day, using many bridges and ferries. The most interesting was this one, which we propelled ourselves.

Zanvoort had a British Festival - Highland games, Sherlock Holmes, a mini Eye, and afternoon teas.

This was in the museum park. I bet many people photograph it.

The landscape and lifestyle between the cities had a Hobbity feel to it. There were many moated houses, and more horses than I expected. In Amsterdam we passed a dressage training place.

We travelled cheaply, but stayed in comfortable places like the SS Amsterdam, living off buffet breakfasts. I watched England beat Columbia in Ultrecht, in a hotel where Messi has stayed.

The language puzzled us at times. My German wasn't as useful as I'd hoped. This sign was warning us about a cattle grid.

I read "The Pier Fall" (Mark Haddon), "Nothing to worry about" (Vanessa Gebbie) and "Subjunctive Moods" (CG Menon). No poetry. I am rethinking my prose styles.

Leicester Writes Short Story Festival

On 30th July I attended a day of sessions about getting a short story collection published, with talks by Divya Ghelani (who was tutored for a year by Venessa Gebbie - small world), Rupert Dastur (TSS), Farhana Shaikh, Rebecca Burns, CG Menon, Alison Moore, Mahsuda Snaith and Megan Taylor - all of them good. A good audience too - lots of us are trying to do what so few of us will succeed in. The points I noted were

• Think about using long, striking titles. It's the second time this summer that I've heard this advice. Such titles still feel gimmicky to me, but I'd better try.
• Publishers like to take on people with many Facebook friends and Twitter followers because each friend/follower is a potential buyer. I'm going to have trouble there too.
• People who read lots of submissions have a good idea of what topics to avoid - e.g. "weeping", dead babies, kitchen dramas with couples discussing their failing relationship.
• Enter competitions. Even long-listing is worth adding to one's record (I don't bother mentioning anything unless I won a prize).

A Birmingham visit

I hadn't realised how much Birmingham figures in Lord of the Rings. Tolkein used to play by Sarehole Mill (close to where he used to live), where now there are two metal models of Birmingham towers (Perrott's Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks Tower) that he may have had in mind when writing his book. We went to see the actual towers - part of the Tolkein Trail. It's a good bet that aspects of the mill and the surroundings - Moseley Bog - feature too.

I popped into Waterstones and by chance found my story book there, next to Christopher Logue's poetry book. By some strange reasoning that I now can't recall, I thought it best to leave the book where it was.