Bridport Prize 2017

I received some great news in September, but was sworn to silence!

However... the Bridport Prize shortlists are now out, so I'm allowed to say I managed to sneak onto the Poetry shortlist this year!

And I also managed to get not one but TWO flash fiction pieces onto the Flash fiction shortlist!

Naturally it's a bit disappointing that my work didn't get picked for one of the prizes, but it's great to be on the shortlists alongside some excellent writing talent. Fingers crossed for next year!

[The rest of this post involves maths, so you'd be advised to stop reading now!]

The Bridport Prize is one of those competitions that has a "sifting" stage... in that a first set of judges create the shortlist, and then there's a further judging process to pick the winners. When the "congrats, you're on the shortlist!" email arrives, it also tells you how many entries there were this year... and I couldn't resist playing around with the numbers!

This year there were 4,258 poetry entries and 1,343 flash fic entries. (This was possibly a quieter year for the Bridport, because I've heard the usual number of entries is closer to 7,000 for poetry and 2,500 for flash fic.) And from what I've heard (e.g. anthology comments from past judges), the poetry and flash fic shortlists are 200 and 50 respectively.

The poetry shortlist consists of 200 pieces, which means that 4.7% of the entries made it through the sifting stage (200/4258 = 0.04697 = 4.7%).

The flash fiction shortlist is 50 pieces, which means that 3.7% of the entries made it through the sifting stage (50/1343 = 0.03723 = 3.7%).

Obviously there's a quality aspect to getting picked, but I still find it interesting to see how tricky it is for a piece to sneak through that first stage of judging. I have no idea how many sifting stages there are, or if any of these numbers help us, but when I enter a competition, my twitchy little brain quite likes knowing the odds!

Best of luck to everyone for next year! The Bridport is a tough competition but definitely worth it :-)

Bridport Prize - Flash Fiction 2016

In January 2015, I enrolled on a writing class with the awesome Hilda Sheehan. She spotted I was someone who lacked confidence and so she encouraged me (okay, pretty much ordered me) to start sending off pieces for publication. She was so right. Sending stuff to publishers changes everything about being a writer. It's exposing, it's terrifying, it's exhilarating... and then you realise it's not as scary as you were expecting.

And on those rare days when someone says, "yes" to a piece, it's the biggest boost of confidence in the world.

So here's one of the "yeses"! Sorry if it's crass to toot my own trumpet but here goes anyway :-)

A flash fiction piece of mine was lucky enough to be commended in this year's Bridport Prize. Woohoo! The piece was originally called The Angel in the Bathroom but it had a redraft before submitting and is now called Cure. Big thanks to the Bridport Prize, and the flash fiction judge, Tim Stevenson!

The lovely thing about this is that they put me on the Bridport website! Hopefully this is something I can wave in front of agents when trying to get Crimble's autobiography published.

My friend Stephen was kind enough to keep me company on the day and help me feel a little less nervous around all the proper writers! He took most of the pics as well! Here's a facebook post he put up. I love how much support everyone showed. I'm all smiles :-)

And here's a big pile of pictures from the prize-giving event:

The book! I'm in it! Page 148! :-)

Arrived at the Arts Centre to find my name and pic on
the wall. Exciting! :-)

Welcome drinks upstairs in the gallery 

Stephen looks out over the writers, trying to spot the poets

The prize ceremony. I think the people on the stage are the brave
souls who deal with the enormous bags of post

Sneaky pic of some of our table-mates. I was worried we'd not
have much to talk about but of course we had plenty in
common - we're all daft enough to spend our free time
frantically scribbling!

The ceremony begins

Poetry judge, Patience Agbabi

Short story judge, Tessa Hadley 

Flash Fiction judge, Tim Stevenson

Trying to find my way through the tables!

Going up on stage. In front of people! Scary!

Getting a prize. Yay! :-)

Lots of goodies!

EDIT: And just to top everything off wonderfully, I was complimented not once but twice by the queen of Bridport flash fiction, Kit de Waal! :-) *dramatic fan-boy swoon*

Astounded at The Cure, flash fiction in The Bridport Anthology. So very very good. Congratulations @mumbletoes

— Kit de Waal (@KitdeWaal) November 13, 2016

Really, very very good. Left me speechless. Jealous, impressed, fascinated at the angle it came from. Great stuff :) https://t.co/6UUcUuwXWY

— Kit de Waal (@KitdeWaal) November 13, 2016

Five minutes until 'I do'

I'm a big fan of the 50-Word Stories site. Trying to squeeze a good tale into just 50 words is one hell of a challenge!

My latest story is Five minutes until 'I do'. I had some great news today... it's been named Story of the Month :-)

This is especially lovely because this is a prize I've been trying for all year long! The last time I managed this was "Head Case" in June last year!

Now the story will go forward (along with all the other 2016 "Story of the Month" winners) to compete for Story of the Year. And the winner of that is given a place in the Hall of Fame. Exciting! :-)

Said the doctor...

Spilling Cocoa Over Martin Amis have accepted Said the Doctor!

It's a silly/surreal poem that's vaguely in the style of Lewis Carroll's "You Are Old, Father William" :-)

The Daily Check on His Enchanted Girlfriend

Very excited today! My latest 50-word story ("The Daily Check on His Enchanted Girlfriend") was awarded "story of the week" on the 50-word stories site! And the piece has been ranked alongside the awesome Bob Thurber (read his stuff - it's brilliant!), so I'm feeling kinda good about myself right now :-)

Manu

Manu is out! It's a short film by Deepa Jacob, inspired by one of my stories! (I won't say which story because that'd spoil the ending of the film!)

The YouTube player should appear above, but if it doesn't then click here to see the film (it's about 14 minutes long).

My name on a film poster - how exciting is that?! :-) 

A second film poster - yay! :-)

Spirit of the Beanstalk

Illustration by Michael Ilkiw

Story Shack Magazine have published "Spirit of the Beanstalk". It's a fun little piece that came about from an exercise in a writing class. The idea was to pick a well-known fairy tale and write it from the point of view of a different character. I choose Jack and the Beanstalk, and decided to write it from the beanstalk's point of view.

The fun thing with Story Shack Magazine is that they put you in touch with an illustrator. This was a new experience for me and it was great fun seeing what Michael came up with for the story.

Grans & Ammo

Very excited to be Sanitarium Magazine's first chapbook publication!

The story's about Doris and Mavis -- a pair of batty old ladies who find themselves caught up in the zombie apocalypse.

Here's an excerpt:

Mavis trundled a few laps around the living room but Doris refused to take any interest and at last Mavis gave up and parked the Zimmer frame out of sight behind the sofa. Two cups of tea later, Doris stopped sulking and the two women spent a very pleasant morning together, discussing their respective crafts. Doris was an expert at cross-stitch and lace-making, and Mavis would have been world-famous had the Olympic Committee ever been sensible enough to introduce knitting as a competitive sport.

They discussed knitting patterns.

They ate biscuits.

They drank copious amounts of tea.

All in all, it was turning out to be a thoroughly enjoyable day.

And then the screaming began.

Lots of useful links:

Amazon US:   http://amzn.com/B016F3C55S

Paperback US:  http://amzn.com/1517681952

Amazon UK:   http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016F3C55S

Paperback UK:  http://www.amzn.co.uk/dp/1517681952/

Pocketmags: http://pocketmags.com/viewmagazine.aspx?titleid=1675&title=Sanitarium

Also available via the Sanitarium app (which comes with 30 free short story magazines!)

Apple Newsstand Edition: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sanitarium-magazine/id627912543?mt=8

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magazinecloner.sanitarium

The Biology Lesson

Nebula Rift accepted my second sci-fi story! It's called "The Biology Lesson" and is available to buy from their site here: Nebula Rift Volume 3, No. 8 (and it's also available on Amazon).

Etiquette on the Modern Dance Floor

Another 50-word story is out. I borrowed this one from the best man's speech at a wedding! It's called "Etiquette on the Modern Dance Floor".

"May I Have This Dance?" by SarcasticLeaves

One Last Tale

"One Last Tale" is the third piece I've had accepted on fiftywordstories.com. Please let me know if you enjoy it!

The site is full of (yep, you guessed it) stories that are exactly 50 words long. It's a real challenge to write them. And it's fun!

'Bedtime Stories' by Richard S. Johnson

Added bonus: Here's an interesting article by Bob Thurber (master of the art) about how to write a compelling piece of flash fiction.

Improvising (Twitter Fiction!)

Twitter fiction is fun! It's quite a challenge to squash a story into 140 characters. I've been creating stories on my "Very Short Story" twitter feed and one of them won a competition to be made into a video. There's even an interview too!

Thrown

The 101words.org site has published one of my flash fictions! It's called Thrown and it's my second attempt at playing with the idea of a "melting angel" theme. (The first attempt is currently sitting hopefully in the submission queue for the Bridport prize!) I'm not sure what it is about melting angels, but for some reason the image seems to have stuck with me. Maybe that's something I should mention at my next therapy session?!

Mourning After

A happy discovery this morning -- Unbroken Journal have published "Mourning After"! It's a flash fiction piece about a man regretting his one-night stand.

This was actually published a couple of weeks ago, but I only found out today via a flash fiction mailing list.

And look at this cracking review that a nice lady wrote about it! :-)

Flash Fiction chosen by Grace Black.

"Mourning After" by Mark Farley via Unbroken Journal

This is the exact form of micro flash I consume for breakfast. Screw the food pyramid, this is flash built from the ground, layer by layer. Great read.

Insomnia

Thank you to Your Daily Poem for publishing my fun little poem "Insomnia"!

Here's the text, in case the link isn't working:

Wide awake at 5 AM

And lo, the Brain is ticking

In the mind, a keyboard taps

And a mouse is clicking

Brain is doing overtime

It makes me want to weep

Brain is up and wants to work

When I just want to sleep

Go to bed, you silly Brain

Rest your weary head

You've been working through the night

While Body is in bed.

Brain trying to be helpful, by theawkwardyeti.com

First Assignment

Saturday Night Reader magazine have published my "First Assignment" story! It's about a woefully underqualified hitman who's waiting to perform his first job.

This is my second paid piece... and it's also the second acceptance I've had for something I wrote back when I was a mere teenager! That's two confidence boosters in one! :-)

"Head Case" wins a prize!

Happy news! "Head Case" was chosen as "Story of the Month" on fiftywordstories.com!

And there was a prize too! My first ever payment for a piece of writing! :-)

The Artist

Self-Portrait by Élisabeth Louise Vigée-LeBrun

"The Artist" has been published -- thank you The Vignette Review! I'm really pleased with this piece because it:

1. ... was written when I was just 15 (that's about three hundred years ago).
2. ... has taught me what the word vignette means.
3. ... appears in their DEBUT ISSUE! That's history, that is :-)

The second issue will have an autumn theme. Bring on the mists and mellow fruitfulness!

The Bionic Teeth

Exciting moment - "The Bionic Teeth" (my first sci-fi story!) has just been published. An absolute bargain at $3.99 (that's about £2.50 in UK money).

Here's the link: Nebula Rift Volume 3, No. 5 (and it's also available on Amazon).

And here's a quote from the story that will naturally make you insanely eager to buy the magazine :-)

Technological upgrades were certainly the fashion these days. I already had Automagic lungs, a bionic knee, and a shiny green hoverbot that followed me everywhere, taking selfies in both pictures and video. The hoverbot was with me now; it moved around behind the doctor to take my photograph over his shoulder. I hoped the hospital gown wasn't too revealing; the bot often uploaded snapshots to FaceSpice without waiting for approval.

[EDIT: Very exciting moment here -- this story netted me my first Amazon review!]

Knight of the Rocks

The perfect bait to catch a bigger rock

"Knight of the Rocks" has been published by Postcard Shorts! It's a short story about the start and end of a long-term relationship. If you're a soppy sod like me then it might tug at your heart-strings!

[EDIT: This story has now been recorded as audio release, here: Old Words Home]