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1. New Write This issue!
2. Reminder: the 2010-2011 International Short Story Competition,
Adjudicated by Maggie Gee |
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Write This, volume iv,
issue xi
We
present a new issue of Write This for your end of summer reading.
It's all there. Not much more to say than that: WriteThis.com
Shan Xiaoming
Gary Beck
by Terry Sanville
Kate Hanzalik
Jennifer Suzanne Givhan
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It's that time of year again when we ask you to
round up those wild stories from the mountain, throw a bucket
of rainwater over them and lead them into town for the annual gala.
The short story competition opens on 1 September
2010 and closes on 17 December 2010.
The results will be announced in the new year at a special event
sponsored by Willesden Green Writers' Group. See if you can
claim the one-off inscribed Willesden Herald mug and 300 British
smackers (approx. $500 US) or get one of the two equal runner-up
prizes of �150. Up to ten shortlisted and up to four commended*
will be published in New Short Stories 5.
We are very lucky and honoured to have the
great writer Maggie Gee, a literary superstar, to judge the
winning stories this year. You could do worse than read Maggie's
short story collection The Blue to find out what kind
of short stories might appeal.
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People
sometimes ask what sort of stories we look for in the Willesden
competition and one very simple way to find out would be to get
hold of some of the previous winning entries, which are all
collected in the four previous New Short Stories anthologies. You
can find excerpts and full details at the New Short Stories
website.
To encourage you to read the short stories,
this year we are offering free entry to the competition with
each New Short Stories anthology bought from the Pretend Genius online
bookstore. There are four anthologies from which to choose.
This offer applies from 1 August 2010 to 17 December 2010. Please
keep a note of your unique purchase reference number because you
will need it to claim your free entry.
To find out more about what we look for please visit the Willesden Herald website
and blog, follow the links, browse, "stroll around
the grounds until you feel at home!" Some of our winning
stories have been included in Guardian Online original
fiction, so there is another place to find the sort of stories
we like. Although we have introduced a word limit of 7,500 the main
challenge is still to overcome our reader's "very limited attention
span".
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For whatever reason, the writers who find success
in the Willesden Herald international short story competition
continue to go from success to success, making our competition an
excellent form guide to interesting new writing. Here are just some
of the achievements of previous
finalists.
Wena Poon
August 2010. The BBC announces
Wena Poon's new novel Alex y Robert is to
be serialised on its long-running popular national radio show "A
Book at Bedtime". Wena Poon's story "The Architects" was awarded
first prize in the Willesden competition earlier this year at
Charles Dicken's House museum in London. You can read "The
Architects" in New Short Stories 4. The British TV and radio critic
Bidisha has proclaimed Wena Poon "one of the most exciting new
writers to come out of America recently".
Carys Davies
London, 15 June 2010. Society of Authors' 2010
Awards.
Twice Willesden Herald short story
competition finalist Carys Davies has been awarded the Olive Cook
Short Story Award for her story 'The Quiet'. The award, worth
�1,000 and judged by Jane Gardam and Jacob Ross, was set up in 2004
and is awarded every two years. Carys Davies joins previous
recipients, Claire Keegan, Bethan Roberts and Alison Macleod.
Jo Lloyd
Last year's winning story was "Work" by Jo Lloyd. We are
thrilled to report and repeat and repeat again and again (sorry)
that this superb and enthralling writer went on to win the
prestigious and lucrative (�1,000) Asham Award for another of
her short stories. The Willesden was Jo's first win and the first
time she ever got a cheque for her writing and you can bet your
last penny we are proud, oh yes mightily, to have been the first to
recognise this most outstanding new writer.
Vanessa Gebbie
Vanessa was joint winner in the first year of this
competition, which was adjudicated for the first three years by
Zadie Smith. Other wins have included Telegraph novel of the year,
winning out of thousands of entries. Vanessa has since published
two collections of short stories, Words From a Glass Bubble and
Storm Warning with a novel on the way. Her stories have been
anthologised alongside such other famous writers as Jhumpa Lahiri
and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Link: www.vanessagebbie.com
Mikey Delgado
Mikey's short story "Secure" was joint winner in the first
Willesden Herald short story competition. You can read Secure in
the first anthology we produced which was entitled "Fish Drink Like
Us". It is also available to read in Guardian Online original
fiction. With great pleasure, joy would not be too strong a
word, it can now be announced that Mikey's much anticipated novel
Life and War with Mikey Fatboy Delgado is about to be
published by laughing mushroom press.
Nuala N�
Chonch�ir,
Steve Finbow, Tao Lin, Nicholas Hog - we could go on (and on (and
on (and on (...))))
The list of books published by various publishers, competition
successes etc. is too long to fit in this newsletter. See the
right-hand column at www.willesdenherald.com for a list of the
latest books by finalists. "Alumni" of the Willesden Herald
international short story competition are among the most successful
up and coming authors. Perhaps we are a little biased but we have
only been running for five years and the track record of our
finalists is - don't you agree? - amazing.
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Last
word
I
am looking forward to reading the new short stories as they come in
day by day, saving some for re-reading, making a longlist and
finding out which ones leave something in the memory when days have
passed. There is no advantage to be gained by sending entries
earlier or later. It would help if they came in at a steady rate
from the opening to the closing date but on past evidence that is
unlikely. In all honesty there might even be a slight advantage to
getting entries in earlier, though I must try to efface that
effectively. If you send your entry in the last week it will be one
of a large number of entries that week, so you might want to think
about that. In other words, the earlier the better. There, I said
it. The closing date is December 17th and as usual I will use the
Christmas holiday to work on the longlist. Good luck and thanks for
supporting the competition.
Cheers,
here's to the short story, sl�inte!
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| Save
100% |
Buy
any of the four New Short Stories anthologies from the Pretend Genius online bookstore from 1
August 2010 and receive 100% off the entry fee to enter a short
story in the Willesden Herald international short story competition
2010-2011, i.e. free entry with each New Short Stories
anthology. Just save your unique purchase reference number
and provide it where indicated in the online form when submitting
your short story to the competition. We encourage anyone entering
the competition to read the winning stories from previous years,
which are all collected in the New Short Stories anthologies, to
get a good sense of the kind of stories we like.
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| Offer
Expires: 17 December 2010 |
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