Short Story Reading: Mother of Words

Back in May I posted about winning the Bet Tuppi Near Eastern Historical Fiction Prize. I've just got a better microphone so rerecorded the reading. You can listen to the story above, or go to the beginning of the video to get some background.

Resolutions Anthology

Woke up this morning to a lovely surprise - author copies!

I entered the Bridge House Publishing competitions earlier in the year and was selected for their anthology Resolutions.

This is a collection of challenging and thought-provoking stories. All stories need a resolution and these provide ones that will astound and delight you. We looked for: story, good writing, interpretation of theme and professionalism.  All of the stories submitted had those elements. Here  we offer a variation to cater to our readers’ eclectic tastes. Sit back and surrender to the Bridge House magic.

Grab Your Copy Here

 Interview 

 

Baron Book Prize

Shout out to a book prize run by Baron Books, which my friend Matthew founded.

 

The BARON Book Prize is an annual prize, which recognises book projects from emerging artists and image-makers who have created projects investigating gender, sex, sexuality and identity politics. 

BARON was launched in 2011, stocked worldwide in 26 different markets, many of our books are in collections, including the book collections at MoMA, NYC and The LUMA Foundation.

The prize is open to artists and image-makers working in any medium, from anywhere in the world, over the age of 18, are invited to apply. The winner will receive the opportunity to work with BARON in publishing their book project. The winners will be announced in December 2021, and their book published  as part of BARON’S summer 2022 catalogue, with global distribution.

FULL INFO HERE

Bet Tuppi's New Writing Challenge

Good morning. 

Earlier this year I won the innaugeral Bet Tuppi's Ancient Near Eastern Historical Fiction competition. I've just received a message saying that they're going to be running more regular competitions. Here's the info for anyone who would like to enter:

Bet Tuppi's New Writing Challenge

Following the success of our inaugural Ancient Near Eastern Historical Fiction competition (the shortlisted and winning entries can be found here: https://bettuppi.com/) the team at Bet Tuppi Press wanted to create a more regular format.

Every fortnight we will challenge you with a theme/person/topic/artefact to base your story on and all you need to do is use your imagination to come up with some fantastic ideas.

Entry is free (just post your stories in our Reddit thread).

Two winners will be chosen: 'The Community Favourite' and 'The Judges' Favourite'. Both will receive a £5 prize!

'The Community Favourite' will be the story that receives the highest net 'upvotes'.

'The Judges' Favourite' will be decided on by the judges at Bet Tuppi Press (we especially like originality and good use of the source material)

Both stories will be published on our website.

Head on over to our Reddit page to take part. 

 

The Challenge: For this competition we want you to write a story based on cylinder seals!

Here is an image of a cylinder seal:

Cylinder seals were used as a way of authenticating receipts, as a kind of signature on clay envelopes, or as personal adornment.

Deadline is 22nd August 2021

N.B. A larger competition with big prizes will be landing toward the end of this year - watch this space!

Advice for Entering Writing Competitions

I have a story coming out later in the year with Bridge House Publishing. I started entering short story competitions again this year after a long hiatus, and I've really enjoyed it and had some success. Bridge House sent some feedback to writers after the competition closed, so I thought I'd break it down and add my own tuppence worth. Just a few tips and tricks to give yourself a better chance of success.

Reading: Mother of Words

 

I decided to do a little reading of Mother of Words.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you like it.

Mother of Words

 

I mentioned last week that I had been shortlisted for the inaugural Bet Tuppi’s Ancient Near Eastern Historical Fiction Prize.

Well - I won.

Read The Mother of Words

[update: there is now an online reading.]

The story was selected from ten amazing shortlisted stories, all of which you can read here. 

Public feedback:

We love the unique take on Enheduanna, the first named poet. The story really encapsulates the essence of Mesopotamia, which is known not only for its empires and violence, but also as the birthplace of writing and literature.

Notification feedback from judge Matthew Parkes, MPhil in Assyriology at the University of Cambridge:

We specifically loved how you drew upon the source material. For instance, considering the namelessness of many of Mesopotamia's authors whilst also exploring the power that writing brought to these early civilisations. It was truly a pleasure to read your story!

I just want to take a moment to explain why this means so much. 

As regular readers will know, I have been writing a novel about the Akkadian Empire for the past year. It's very nearly coming to a close. The story began as the telling of Enheduanna, but, in order to get there, I needed to retell The Legend of Sargon, her father. What was supposed to be a background chapter soon ballooned to over 100,000 words and became a full-blown novel of its own.

I've been working closely with Leif Inselmann, a wonderful research scholar at the University of Göttingen. Leif also happens to be a German author and you can find his books here. He has been incredible in helping to clarify things and preventing me from wandering into the absurd. Although, he didn't proof the story I submitted to the competition, which is why there was a slight metallurgical historical slip-up in there. I wrote it late at night and in a hurry to hit the deadline.

But, just pause for a moment and consider what it was like, having been completely obsessed with the Akkadian Empire and ancient Sumer for over a year, to suddenly see a writing competition specifically asking for Sumerian, Akkadian and Assyrian historical fiction? I mean - what were the chances? I almost didn't enter because I thought, how gutting would that be if I didn't even get placed? 

Well, I'm glad I did enter, and I'm absolutely blown away and very thankful to have impressed the judges. I do occasionally think that Enheduanna glances over the shoulder of every writer from time to time. We've swapped clay and stylus for paper and pen, but we're all just continuing her 4,000-year tradition of writing down our thoughts. 

I'll sign off now, but it's always an incredible boost when a story you write connects with its readers. As writers, we're used to rejection and it's easy to feel overlooked and to doubt ourselves, but one win wipes away all of that. If you're a creator, keep creating. Keep putting yourself out there. Keep spinning stories and breathing life into them. Eventually you'll catch a little luck in your web. 

Sinjye wahera hahera Enheduanna.

Ancient Near Eastern Historical Fiction Prize Shortlist

 

I received the lovely news the other day that I've been a little bit shortlisted for the first ever Near Eastern Historical Fiction Prize:

Congratulations, your entry has been shortlisted... We had a large amount of submissions for our inaugural competition (we have spent the last month reading countless stories) so this is a real achievement, well done!

I'm having a lovely time reading the other entries, which have been published on their website. Love Roxanne Gregory's futuristic evolution of Google and Wikipedia merging into Ooogle-iki. That needs to be a thing.

Now the hardest part of all, trying to put this out of my mind until the winner is announced later in the month.

[UPDATE: I won this!]

Ghostwoods: Open Call for Short Stories

Having just waxed lyrical about Ghostwoods Books yesterday, they have an open call for submission at the moment. Information here. Stories between 5-8,000 words. Deadline 7th June 2020.

Children of Lir Giveaway

First review up for The Children of Lir on What's in my Wonderland, along with details of a UK giveaway. Head on over for details.

Purchase:

Kindle UK/US

Paperback UK/US

Congratulations Jane!

Jane Lovering, far right.

Huge congratulations to the lovely Jane Lovering, who has just won The Nicola Cornick Fantasy Novel Award at this year's RNA's Romantic Novel of the Year Awards.

Romantic Novelists' Association: Congratulations to the winners of the RNA's 2019 Romantic Novel of the Year Awards; Catherine Isaac, Sapere Books Popular Romantic Fiction Award; Isabelle Broom, Goldsboro Books Contemporary Romantic Novel Award; Natalie Cox, The Books and the City Romantic Comedy Novel Award; Joe Heap - Author, The Katie Fforde Debut Romantic Novel Award; Jane Lovering, The Nicola Cornick Fantasy Novel Award; Santa Sebag-Montefiore, The Goldsboro Books Historical Novel Award; Jane Godman Author The Libertà Books Shorter Romantic Novel Award, and Liz Fielding, winner of the Outstanding Achievement Award.  

I met Jane back in 2012 when we were doing booQfest in Northampton. She was launching her fabulous novel Vampire State of Mind at the time. I also did a Q&A with her in 2014 for another blog I help out with, and she offered up a guest post on Why Vampires? She's a fabulously fun lady. You can follow along on her blog and on Twitter. Huge congratulations and may the champagne bubbles never make you sneeze x

BooQfest 2012. Jane second from right, me, second from left.
Adrian Magson, Paul Magrs and Morgen Bailey also in there.

Disruption

Ghostwoods Books are running a participatory sci-fi project called Disruption:

Welcome to the series opener for Disruption, a science fiction collaborative project featuring, well, you. We’re going to post the first story in this project. Then you — yes, you right there — will write the next chapter. At least we hope you’ll give it a try. We’ll choose the best submissions each week — maybe offer a bit of coaching to tweak the story. Then we’ll copy edit it and publish it on the site. One piece a week, we hope.

If at the end of this project we have a book, we’ll sign the chapters that make the final cut and publish it. Right now it’s just an experiment, but we hope it will become something more.

Get on over there and get writing!

The Secret Order of the Literati

Hi everyone.

I need your help.

A while ago, I finished writing The Secret Order of the Literati. It's an experimental urban fantasy. Not the type of fiction I usually create, but I had a lot of fun writing it.

Because the story itself is a little experimental, I've decided to take an experimental approach to publishing it.

I've just entered SOL for a competition on a new author site called Inkitt.

The more people who read the book on their site, the greater its chance of getting noticed.

Here's a short introduction to how it all works.

Please pop over there before 7th June (closing date) and have a read through, and tell everyone you know. There are options on the left to share via social media (please do!), and to change the reading backgrounds and font size.

READ SECRET ORDER ON INKITT

Much appreciated.

Coffee and a Book Comp

My publisher, Ghostwoods Books, is running a cool competition. Simply take a picture of your coffee and a book you're reading (or another beverage if you're not a coffee drinker), then tweet to @GhostwoodsBooks or e-mail to alice@gwdbooks.com by 31st August 2015. Though this is an ongoing thing every few months, so keep checking back. You can find full details on their website, plus a list of current entries. You stand to win - coffee and a book!

Female Characters Shunned at Awards

Hmm... interesting, not sure I'm surprised: Books about women less likely to win prizes, study finds: Study of six major awards in the last 15 years shows male subjects the predominant focus of winning novels

Her analysis came as the summer issue of Mslexia, the magazine for women writers, explores the “silent takeover by men of the top jobs” in British publishing. Industry expert Danuta Kean laid out how, since 2008, the “women at the top of the three biggest corporate publishing houses have stepped aside – in each case to be replaced by men”.

I'd like to see author Chimamanda Adichie extend her outstanding talk on feminism to tackle this one.

I remember attending an LGBT book talk once where the men's group were billed as the 'Sci-fi panel' (I'm not sure if it was intentionally all-men, but it was) and the women writers' group labelled the 'Lesbian writers panel' - until I fought to add Bisexual, which added an air of ambiguity to it. Talk about a gender split, though. 

I do wince at the term 'women writers' and 'women's literature'. As the article says: 'This is the culture that still calls male writers Writers, and female writers Women Writers. The male perspective is still the real one, the standard. Women’s voices are just details.'

I very rarely ever answer the question 'what do you do?' with 'I'm a writer,' but I'm categorically certain I've never answer it with 'I'm a female writer.' Surely that's self-bloody-evident? Either one writes, or one doesn't. What's between your legs has no bearing on how well you write, whether you understand grammar, or what you write about. 

This idea of 'women's literature' being empowering... I wonder. I wonder whether it doesn't just prop up a cultural deficiency in gender equality that keeps women writers in a 'special' category all of their own? Those special, special women writers...

Which is not to say that the gender of an author isn't important - especially as far as monitoring this kind of bias goes. Had the call been close, it would have been easy to suggest that perhaps the books that won were simply better written, but the margin is far too wide to be coincidental. Certainly some subconscious bias going on there that needs dragging into the light. And no excuse whatsoever for the inequality of employment opportunities within the upper echelons of the publishing industry.

Also check out my post Sexism Rampant in Publishing and Laine Cunningham's book Writing While Female or Black or Gay.

Writing Competitions from Almond

I've mentioned Almond Press before, but it's worth checking out their site again for a list of writing competitions. More on FirstWriter, which is a subscription service, but worth it. Check out my tips on entering competitions: effort v. return.

Why My Editor Kicks Ass

I haven't been writing anything lately. Struck down by a cold, buried beneath a pile of RealWorld (tm) work and what little time I have had to write, I've spent panicking over a competition submission. I haven't entered a writing competition in donkey's, but this one just happened to catch my eye. 

It requires a sample of the novel I'm working on - the first 15k, consecutively.

I swore off editing anything until I'd completely finished the MS, but it's at around 110k at the moment, and I reckon there's only another 10k left to go. So it'll be done by the time the results are in.

It's hard enough editing 15k when you can kick back and relax, but trying to get through such a weighty sum to a tight deadline is horrid. 

Worse, I needed to lose around 1,000 words to include a synopsis.

Proofreading and culling in one fell swoop. 

I sent it to my trusted beta readers, but they both have a lot of work themselves and I didn't want to push the issue. Honestly, I didn't want to send it to them at all until I'd had a proper shot at a first edit, but time... it's always about time.

Tentatively, I approached my editor Salomé Jones at Ghostwoods. Over the past year developing Rosy Hours together, she's become a friend as well as a colleague, but I didn't just want to assume she had time to look through my half-hashed efforts. I was delighted when she said that she would.

It's terrifying when you first show what you're working on to someone else. 50k into any story and you lose all sense of objectivity. Even my spell checker's given up on me. I know there's some stuff isn't quite right with this one, but I wasn't sure if it was 'just a bit off' or 'dear gods, my eyes are bleeding' bad.

You will hear time and time again that a good editor is worth their weight in gold. Gold, silver and rubies, my friends. The next day I got back the simple advice:

Cut the first chapter. Take the first two paragraphs and paste them to the start of the third (now the second) chapter.

Frowning like someone attempting a Rubik's Cube, I did as instructed.

It became a totally different story, and gained me that precious 1,000 words in the process.

Good editors have a special gift. It's not just about proofing and obsessive apostrophising - they have a deeply intuitive sense of story. Most writers have that too, but on a different level. Say a story is a block of marble. The writer brings that story to the table and carves out a picture, but an editor acts like the grit that polishes away until it sparkles. If you were to put that raw, unedited story in a museum next to a long line of other statues, people might look, they might remark, but they would soon move on. Put the polished version out there and people will look and see themselves reflected back. 

The wonderful thing about a good editor is that they're a critic who's on your side. No punches pulled 'Salomé, is this boring?' - 'Yes' - 'Thanks, I thought so.' But the difference is, they've usually got a solution. I spend all my time writing my stories. I read other people's, but, other than a passing sense of professional admiration, I don't technically deconstruct them. Editors do - lots of stories, lots of genres, lots of authors. They have a lot of knowledge and experience to pass on. 

Always test your editor. Not everyone who says 'I can edit' can. But when you find that good one, listen to everything they say. Don't swallow your gut instinct, don't be afraid to question, but watch, listen and learn. Accept that seeing your work lined through is going to come as a shock, then get over it. 

Honestly 'lose a chapter and put this there' - transformational. Wouldn't have got there on my own.

The story might not get anywhere in the competition, but at least I know I put my best foot forward, and either way the first 15k of the novel looks a hell of a lot smarter.

I don't think they're currently accepting new editing clients at the moment, but I know Salomé works for Flourish. Worth enquiring if you're looking for an excellent editor.

Goodreads Giveaway

Fancy winning a signed copy of my forthcoming novel? Ghostwoods Books have two copies to give away on Goodreads for the US, Canada and UK. Head on over and enter the draw.

Commonwealth Foundation

Having mentioned the Development Book Club the other day, I thought I should also give a congratulatory shout-out to Jennifer Makumbi, who won this year's Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

The winning story is about a grieving widow who arrives at Entebbe Airport from Manchester with her husband’s coffin, but events take such a dramatic turn that she must relinquish her widowhood and fight. 

“This is a dream. For Uganda, once described as a literary desert, it shows how the country’s literary landscape is changing and I am proud to be a part of it. The Commonwealth Short story Prize will help bring attention to Ugandan writing at a global level,” said Jennifer Makumbi, who lives in Manchester, UK.

You can find out lots more about the Commonwealth Foundation's writing initiatives on their website.

Almond Press

I just wanted to give a shout out to these guys.

Almond Press really are quite special, and I'm not just saying that because they're based in Sterling, which happens to have an excellent second-hand book store.

What makes Almond Press so interesting is that they really are behind new authors and promoting fresh talent. All of their profits go back into running writing competitions, and the best of the entries are published and widely distributes.

They were only started in 2012, but hopefully they're going to be huge.

As well as finding out about them on their website, you can also find them on Facebook and Twitter (@AlmondPress)