2013 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award

That year has flown by! This time last year, Kevin Barry’s “Beer trip to LLandudno” was shortlisted for the EFG Sunday Times Short Story award and we all know that he won!

2013 brings some more brilliant writers; Sarah Hall, Ali Smith, Cynan Jones, Junot Diaz, Mark Haddon and Toby Litt are the ones to watch.

You can download the 6 stories to your kindle for the bargain price of €2.26  here.

Then, you will need to go and vote for your favourite one here. If you have been meaning to read something different or find out what the hype about the short story form is all about, then this is your chance!

I am going to spend the evening, set aside some time under my lovely, red, furry blanket my husband bought me and read. I’ll let you know which one I voted for but only if you do!

 

Ruth Padel: moulding of art and the product that itches to be scratched,

I was adding something that Ruth Padel had spoken about in the papers last week regarding writing and redrafting.

It got me thinking abut drafts, art and redrafting. When I am teaching visual arts with my little ones(students) we take a piece of clay, mould it, mess with it, make an object and then at the end of the lesson, we scrunch it up and put the clay back into the clay bag for another day of experimentation and lesson outcomes…

Some of my students don’t like this but I am trying to help them realise that it is about the process not the product, dearie. So, they lose their snake or coil pot or whatever type of creature they have made. I think this is right and proper as the next time they take out a blob of clay, they will experiment again, improve and eventually will make a product that they think is the best thing they have ever made!

But, what would happen if that first piece they made was the best? What is the second time they tried it, they lost that creativity and inhibition and made a second best? What if the children craved and yearned for that piece. Sure, we can take a photo of the first piece or first draft in writing but when do writers or artists know when they are finished? Can they ever know? How does a writer know that their story or poem is 100% brilliant and perfectly formed and they can release it into the universe of the reader.

I am sure that the writer or artist will tell yu they are never entirely happy with their work. If this is the case, shouldn’t the final product be the ONE? The ideal of all of their work. Something they can stand over forever and forever. But, they couldn’t, could they? An artist or writer is only human and will inevitably look back into the future and want to change, improve and shape. So, should authors and artists do a second coming of their novel or story? A sort of “I thought this was good but now, I’ve changed and I want to bring it to present day”

Any writers or artists have an opinon because I cannot answer this argument. There is no correct answer or is there?

P.S.

If you look for images of Ruth Padel, you will find that she has really good photos. She has thought about this. She has decided she will smile and look real and all “Ruth Padel” like. Makes sense. No black and white, stylised, serious looking into the distance photos for her. No way. Thanks for the chance to think about this. Just wish I could come to a produced conclusion, all wrapped up neatly!

 

Best European Fiction 2012

Wow, I finished a book dated 2012. My excuse is that I only got it at the end of September so give me a break, please!

This collection was like anything i have read before. It is made up of 35 different stories, 35 different authors and all from 28 different countries in Europe like Ireland, Wales, Ukraine, Spain and Slovakia, to name a few. The stories are centered around themes like love, desire, elsewhere, war, music, evil or family, which is really nice in a short collection as it gives the reader a string to hang their thoughts on.

Most of the stories were enjoyed but some, a minority were challenging for me. Some of these were a hybrid of myths and reality, a story genre I am not the keenest on but am in awe of, at the same time! Because, this collection aims to cover so much in terms of themes, voices and countries, it can be hard to not take it all in. It took me a couple of months to get through it, with some stories being easy reading and other requiring silence!

These were all translated into English from the native language and each one is translated so well that the reader would not be able to tell. I had not heard of most, nearly all of the writers, (only our Gabriel Rosenstock) which awoke me as the usual writers can take up space where new voices and freshness needs time to be aired and dried.

Some of my most enjoyable stories were Zlatka, an erotic piece that starts with he narrator enjoying having her hair washed and ending in a scary red lipstick message being graffitied across said hairdresser’s window. This strange lucidity  is narrated by a dog and does things perfectly, right down to the tragic ending where the dog repeats a poem that his master liked. It sounds cliched and as if this story has been done before but it hasn’t, honest. Really liked Gabriel Rosenstock’s Everthing emptying int white and am thinking that this may be a memoir from the man himself of a powerful attraction the author feels an attraction to a student from Lipica(where?) and uses the myth as a narrative device. It works here. Down there they don’t mourn, a Norwegian tale where the young narrator is drawn into dossing from a class at school. The student that tempts him is weird, the narrator knows that but the ending rises up violently. You’ll love it.

There are many more that I loved, the new Best European Fiction 2013 is only out so I am hoping it won’t make me wait until September for this one.

 

 

Why this may be the best writer you’ve never heard of

I need more time to read! I need more money to buy books! I need more shelving  in the house!
Opened the Culture section in the Times today and the headline above informed me of a short story writer I really should know..
Edith Pearlman has released Binocular Vision-new and selected stories. Not many of us have heard of her though her career spans 35 years. This collection is ‘Cosmo and Jewish’ which makes me want to buy it!
One for the list!

image

John Mac Kenna is booked for Bantry and a lot of reading to do

I have booked my workshop for Bantry and the excitement is building already! Simon booked in for the Ruth Padell workshop so I felt under pressure to book too!

I am going to the John Mac Kenna “Short story” workshop. It sounds active, which is important for me and John is very, very well respected as not only a writer but as a teacher.

I always try to read the teacher’s or the speaker’s work before I see them, it makes sense, doesn’t it? I was delighted that Carlow town Library had all 3 of John’s short story collections-namely, the River Field, A year of our lives and The Fallen. Couldn’t believe my luck!

I have started on A year of our lives and John certainly likes the raw love scenes. I always feel embarrassed writing about sex scenes so maybe, John will have some tips for me!

I also spotted Nuala Ni Chonchuir’s Flash Fiction workshop with the Big Smoke Writing Factory. It’s on in May and it looks brilliant. The only problem is my above policy states that I should read all of the teacher/author’s work and Nuala just has billions of books! And I don’t really read poetry! Hmmm, maybe. I will just read a very old one of hers and I’ve read Mother America so surely that is acceptable?

How bad anyway.

 

The Written Word:Supplement with the Independent this week

This week, the Irish Independent paper is including a supplement for Leaving Cert students and generally interested writers, I would think!

Today, it focuses on spelling, grammar, word power, paper 1 of leaving cert and the short story. We have a lovely, little article by the late Maeve Binchy about being a writer but we also get to see exactly how much the English curriculum has changed snce I was at school. I am a primary school teacher so post-primary teachers, feel free to interject if I have any details incorrect!

Students have a choice of discussion and narrative essays. Short stories are included under the narrative essay section of the paper.

Short story

Let’s look at exactly what an average 17-18 year old is asked to do as part of a pressurised exam.

Option:Short story:Short story writers( the 17/18 year old) is asked to write a short story in which the central character is faced with an important decision or where the character is eager to leave home or how about a short story where two unusual characters meet for the first time.

Student are expected to study and practice the short story form as a flexible and sophisticated genre, and no candidate can memorise prepared material( how they will measure this, I don’t know?), and be confident of using their material effectively. LEt me carry on. There is also an article written by Dermot Bolger, who advises the would be students on the art of writing a short story. It is an excellent article. He gives plenty good advice and urges the students to create a believable story where an “examiner might forget about the bundle of exam scripts waiting for scrutiny.”

I have a couple of issues with this. If I want to attempt to write a story, it can take me months of researching, brainstorming with the writing group and writing draft after painstaking draft and I am a beginning writer! Imagine an established writer being asked to write a short story in the pressures of the exam environment of 3 hours and make it magical, brilliant and special just like one of the examples given, namely Cecelia Ahern. Hmmm, I think Cecelia herself would struggle with this task. She writes her novels on a 9-5 working day basis.

As a 17 year old student, I may have tried a patchy first draft of a story but I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable submitting this to an examiner who may “get” my story or who may just be judging it by fixed criteria.

Can a short story be evaluated this way and should it? Would a better option not be to help the student look at established short story writers and establish how the craft is developed. It is strange seeing as this student will be heading off to university and will be expected to do this very thing. I certainly don’t remember being asked to write a magical, special short story for an examiner in less than three hours along with a personal essay and a discussion essay. That is pressure and pointless.

Am I looking at this the wrong way? I feel anxious for any student attempting this as we would never ask adults to create a brand new short story under this type of pressure.

What do you think?

National Emerging Writer Programme from writing.ie

I have been reading about this everywhere. A great idea and it seems all free!! At writing.ie they have launched The National Emerging Writer Programme. This will include advice from experienced authors to help to develop writing.

You can watch the videos online or borrow the full DVD from your local library – later this week it will be available on Amazon to purchase for anyone who wants to watch it again. 

The National Emerging Writer Programme consists of three 40 minute videos featuring Carlo Gebler, Sinead Moriarty and Declan Hughes, three of Ireland’s best known writers,The National Emerging Writer Programme is aimed at new and experienced writers to help cultivate and develop new writing talent.
 
Starting to Write:
Telling the Story
 
Revising, Rewriting and Overcoming Obstacles
This article was adapted from an article on writing.ie
 

The very beautiful city of Bath:Where books were bought and read

As my Christmas present from Simon this year, I received a trip to the city of Bath!

The location was a surprise but I had hinted vaguely at the notion of going on the car ferry, driving to a country house hotel outside of some pretty city in England so was delighted with it!

We stayed for three nights in the very lovely Homewood Park Hotel, just 6 KM outside of Bath and in the deepest, darkest countryside of Bath. The hotel was delicious, small with a fab spa, restaurant and great big fire to have hot chocolate in front of!

The hotel
The hotel

We spent our days sauntering around the city and took a trip out to Stonehenge. It was a let down and it sounds silly but it really is a load of rocks standing up in a field while millions of people walk around it taking snaps. Like us. I think they are building a centre there next year, which is really needed as we just rocked up, stuck on some incredibly boring audios and got out quickly.

However, the Roman Baths in Bath are a different thing. We loved them. They have managed to do a brilliant job of preserving as much as they could of the baths and a Bill Bryson audio commentary really helped us alongside the visual screens around the site. We spent over an hour here and could have spent more.

The baths were super hot!

 

Bath is full of lovely and quirky shops, lots of alleyways dying to be investigated. They have three main bookshops-WH Smith, Waterstone and their own independent Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. The staff in here were excellent and the guy shared his love of short stories with me. We spoke about how Ireland are really whipping bottom in the area of short stories. He gave me a new short story writer to look at, Pietro Grossi. I bought Fists, a book made up of 3 novella type short stories. Will be reviewing this soon. I also bought Write, a reference book packed full of insights into how and why authors write. Short and snappy. Liked and read it in one helping!

We took a visit to the Jane Austen Centre. Jane Austen set two of her six published novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, in Bath and made the city her home from 1801 to 1806. So, the people of Bath rightly love her. They also love Mr. Darcy aka Colin Firth a lot as well. The shop there is made up of Jane Austen quotes, books and anything you can think of with Mr. Darcy on the front! I picked up a ravishing bookmark of Mr. Darcy.

Even though we only stayed for three nights, I got loads done. I read lots and wrote a bit too! A lovely Christmas present and would highly recommend Bath as a literary destination!