Some miscellaneous literary links

• Issue one of (b)OINK magazine has appeared - fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, art. Looks good.
• While reading Flash Frontier I stumbled across Ingrid Jendrzejewski's bio - "... studied creative writing at the University of Evansville, then physics at the University of Cambridge. She has soft spots for Go, cryptic crosswords and the python programming language". Her 2016 list of pubs (36 items) is impressive - Aesthetica, 50-Word Stories, Flash: the International Short-Short Story Magazine, Flash Frontier, Litro, and various competition mentions (first place, Bath Flash Fiction Award, etc). One to watch.
• If you like diagrams constructed from texts (Hamlet for example), you may be interested in Network Theory, Plot Analysis by Franco Moretti
• Matthew Stewart's The Best U.K. Poetry Blogs of 2016 begins with "There's no point beating about the bush or glossing things over: 2016 hasn’t been a vintage year for U.K. poetry blogs" but he puts a brave face on it

Maria Taylor and Gregory Leadbetter

2 poets, 2 pamphlets, 2 books, 2 publishers. Both of these poets had publications last year which were successors to earlier publications.

• Maria Taylor's pamphlet, Instructions for making me (HappenStance, 2016), succeeded her book Melanchrini (Nine Arches Press, 2012).
• Gregory Leadbetter's book, The Fetch (Nine Arches Press, 2016), succeeded his pamphlet Body in the well (HappenStance, 2007).

At a recent poetry meeting that I went to there was discussion about the changing role of pamphlets. They needn't be a stepping stone towards first-book publication. If you produce only 2 or 3 decent poems a year and you don't want to compromise on quality, a pamphlet's the only alternative to waiting a decade or so between publications. These two poets have interchanged publishers (Nine Arches Press doesn't do pamphlets, HappenStance doesn't do many books). Maria's taken 4 years to produce a pamphlet, and Gregory's taken 9 to produce a book, so neither has rushed. And it shows - both the second publications feel the right length; they're free of padding and have long acknowledgements sections. Both of the later publications have a prevailing but not monopolising theme that provides cohesion.

Both the poets have families and have written or edited other books in the interim, and they both write reviews, so they haven't been twiddling their thumbs while waiting for poems to arrive. All it needs is patience. What perhaps helps is that they inhabit creative writing environments that enable them to keep in touch with poetry-writing even when they're not feverishly writing poetry themselves.

Poachers and Gamekeepers

Gerry Cambridge edits "The Dark Horse" magazine and Nell Nelson runs HappenStance press. They both review, write articles, and still manage to write poetry. Both have written books of (and about) poetry, and both judge competitions - Gerry Cambridge is currently judging the National Poetry Competition.

• Down with Poetry! by Helena Nelson (Happenstance, 2016) includes poems from "Ambit", "PN Review", and "The Rialto" - a heavier list of magazines than many unlight poetry books can boast. Several of the poems are about poetry. You shouldn't assume that the views expressed in these poems represent the publisher's opinions, but prospective submitters could do worse than read this collection.
• How (not) to get your poetry published by Helena Nelson (Happenstance, 2016) has exercises and tables of information.
• Notes for lighting a fire by Gerry Cambridge (Happenstance, 2011) is a book of poems that's been reviewed in "The TLS", "New Walk Magazine", "Critical Survey", "Poetry London", etc.
• The Dark Horse by Gerry Cambridge (Happenstance, 2016) is the history of the magazine and much else besides. Well worth a read even if you're not thinking of submitting to the magazine.

2016 - my literary stats

In 2016 I wrote more prose than ever before (27,000 words) and fewer poems (7). In my case these 2 stats are related - most of my initial ideas could go either way. In the olden days I'd have presented texts like Death and deception as poetry because of its juxtapositions, density of interconnections and lack of plot. In the current, more permissive climate I can let it be prose (though not Flash).

I'd love to say that as the quantity of my poetry goes down, the quality goes up. Alas, the opposite is true. Not for the first time, my "selected poems" file (aka the draft of my first full book) has shrunk rather than grown in the course of the year - partly because of recalibrated Quality Control, partly because of re-categorisation.

The year began with some promising acceptances of stuff I'd sent off in 2015. Then successes fizzled out. I sent off about 30 things during the year of which 4 have so far been accepted. I gave some competitions a try and got nowhere.

The year ended with a poem in Antiphon (p.46) and Flash in Toasted Cheese. Next year I can look forward to publication in Unthology and Flash (Univ of Chester).

A UK prose submission schedule for early 2017

As more magazines introduce submission windows, and competitions increase their significance, it's worth planning ahead. I shall try to submit to these (mostly UK) competitions and submission windows -

• January
  • Cease Cows opens for Flash (max 1500 words) on 15th Jan
  • Granta - for fiction, their window opens on 16th Jan and closes on 16th Feb
  • Litro - theme: Change. Deadline 19th Jan. See https://litro.submittable.com/submit/68840/change-march-2017-print-magazine
  • Severine - theme: wild, deadline 31st Jan
  • Flash Frontier - theme: Remnants. Deadline 31st Jan. Word limit 250. See http://www.flash-frontier.com/submissions/
  • Wigleaf - stories under a 1000 words. Submit during the last week in January - see http://wigleaf.com/about.htm
• February
  • into the void (max 1000 or 5000 words). Window opens on 1st Feb
  • Litro - theme: Wants and Needs. Deadline 19th Feb - see https://litro.submittable.com/submit/68843/wants-needs-april-2017-print-magazine
  • Under the Radar - Submission window opens
  • Interpreter's House - Submission window opens
  • Stinging Fly - Submission window opens
  • Ambit - Submission window opens
  • Spelk (window opens mid to late February. 500 words)
  • Exeter - Competition deadline 28th Feb. Max 3000 words. Fee £6, 1st prize £500. See http://www.exeterwriters.org.uk/p/competition.html
  • Reflex - Competition deadline 28th Feb. Free entry. 180-360 words. See http://www.reflexfiction.com/
• March
  • Thresholds short fiction feature writing - Deadline 5th Mar. Max 2000 words. Free entry. 1st prize £500. See http://thresholds.chi.ac.uk/feature-writing-competition-2017/
  • Brilliant Flash Fiction competition - Deadline 15th March. Max 300 words. Prompt: Overseas Travel. Free entry. 1st prize 50 euro. See https://brilliantflashfictionmag.wordpress.com/
  • short fiction - Deadline 31st Mar. Max 5000 words. Fee £7, 1st prize £500. See http://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk/?page_id=33
  • National Flash-Fiction Day 100 word flash-fiction competition. Deadline 31st March
  • Banshee (Dublin). Flash (1000 max) and stories. Deadline 31st March
• April
  • National Flash-Fiction Day anthology. Max 500 words. Deadline 14th April
• May
  • Bath short story award - http://bathshortstoryaward.co.uk/. Deadline 1st May. Max 2,200 words. Fee £8, 1st prize £1000.
  • Bristol Competition- deadline 3rd May. Max 4000 words. Fee £8, 1st prize £1000. There's an anthology too. See http://www.bristolprize.co.uk/
  • Bridport - Competition deadline 31st May. Max 5000 words (Fee £9, 1st prize £5000) or 250 words (Fee £7, 1st prize £1000). See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/
  • Yeovil - Competition deadline 31st May. Max 2000 words (Fee £6, 1st prize £500). See http://www.yeovilprize.co.uk
  • Flash Frontier deadline 31st May for max 250 words on "Journeys"
• June
  • VS Pritchett - (Fee £5, 1st prize £1000). See http://rsliterature.org/award/v-s-pritchett-memorial-prize/ Deadline 31st June.

A UK poetry submission schedule for early 2017

I shall try to submit to several of these (mostly UK) competitions and submission windows -

• January
  • Rattle chapbook competition (deadline 15th Jan)
  • The Fenland Reed - theme: borders and bridges. Deadline 31st Jan.
  • Envoi - Submission window opens
  • Kent and Sussex poetry competition - 1st Prize £1000, entry fee £5, deadline 31st Jan.
  • The Interpreter's House Poetry Competition - 1st Prize £500, entry fee £4, closing date 31st Jan.
  • The Plough Prize - 1st Prize £1000 , entry fee £5, closing date 31st Jan.
  • Severine - theme: wild, deadline 31st Jan
• February
  • Under the Radar - Submission window opens
  • Interpreter's House - Submission window opens
  • Stinging Fly - Submission window opens
  • Ambit - Submission window opens
• March
  • Poetry Business pamphlet/book competition (deadline 1st March)
  • Straid collection award (deadline 21st March)
  • Cinnamon pamphlet competition (deadline 31st March)
  • Flarestack book submissions (deadline 31st March)
• April
  • The North - Submission window opens 1st April
  • Ware Poets Competition - Fee £4. 1st prize £600. Deadline 30th April
  • Ver Poets Competition - Fee £4. 1st prize £600. Deadline 30th April
• May
  • Bridport - Competition deadline 31st May. See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/
  • Envoi - Submission window opens
• June
  • Prole pamphlet competition

workshop on dialogue

Updated notes about the workshop on dialogue that I did yesterday are online.

The summary and suggestions are

• Go back to basics. Think about what dialogue reveals about people - not just in the words they say, but the pauses, hesitations and interruptions.
• Read about the recent developments in discourse/conversation analysis. They help make explicit the mechanisms of dialogue we all use.
• Mainstream literary dialogue has become rather formulaic and artificial. The standard notation hinders the rendering of some revealing aspects of dialogue.
• Non-standard notations are increasingly common in novels. You might for example consider using screenplay notation.