sampad are running Journeys

You can write in any style – short story, poetry, reportage – using the theme of Journeys as a starting point. Use your imagination to evoke memories, sensations, your feelings about a journey you have made – in your dreams or in real life – voyage of self discovery, back to your roots.

There are two categories; the best writer aged 8 to 15 will receive £200 and there’s £300 for the best writer in the 16 and over category. Both will be published in a book.

More info and the entry form on sampad’s website.

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They’ve just had a couple of books nominated for The People’s Book Prize too:

• Among Thieves by Mez Packer
• Box of Tricks by Jeff Phelps

You can vote for them if you want or, perhaps even better, buy copies of either book – it’s not long til Christmas, after all…

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I was invited by the curator of the latest issue, Kate Pennington-Wilson to the launch party held at The Victoria on Thursday. This latest issue is spawned from  a piece of micro-fiction from Birmingham-based artist, Edward Wakefield.  Titled ‘Midnight Silverfish Around The Hot Freezer’, the narrative continues thru text and illustrations from the following: Simon Baker, Ana Benlloch, Lavep Blucher, Nadia Chalabi, Rhys Coren, Olly Forrester, Caitlin Griffiths, Lewes Herriot, Bethan Hodges, Anthony Johns, Michael Kirkham, Amy Lee, Rosa Middleton, David Miller, and Stuart Tait.

There were 4 live readings, the first, apologies -  I missed the title, consisted of two people reading passages simultaneously, which worked well as it encouraged you to think about how we listen (the performance style was loosely based around hypnosis tapes and subliminal messaging). The second, a piece by Olly Forrester really reminded me of old spam emails, with a loose narrative which weaves in and out with no real grounding, which worked well and was reminiscent of The Brother Mcleod’s animation, Spamland. The other readings were let own a little by the writers need to perform in character, notably Tom Waits.

Being loosely linked with Ikon Gallery has ensured the venue was packed to the rafters and teeming with artistic spirit. This sort of publication is going to become more popular over the next few years as there seems to be a ever-growing popular fetish for physical handmade reading matter.

They are currently looking for submissions of work, be it a drawing, a photograph, a pattern, a piece of writing, a text, etc, etc.

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There’s a Birmingham group who are meeting up next month:

The Birmingham BookCrossers are hosting an author event with Mary Rochford, winner of A Book For Birmingham 2008 with “Gilded Shadows”, on Feb 11 at 6pm at Hudsons Coffee House on Colmore Row.

Mary will do a reading followed by a question and answer session.  Books will be available to buy and get signed

If you fancy going along or want more info then email liz_broomfield@yahoo.co.uk.

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The organiser is Jodie Baker and she’s based in Birmingham. Here’s her explanation:

It’s an easy concept (which is probably why I thought of it). You pick a literary charity that you want to support in 2009. You sign up to be part of The Year of Readers, get people to sponsor you and just start reading whatever you like. If you’re going to read next year why not join and help a bookish charity at the same time?

Not to be confused with 2008’s National Year of Reading.

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As part of the National Year of Reading and to tie in with the Birmingham Library Service’s Write the Future events, Birmingham Writers’ Group is launching a short story competition which is open to everyone.

We’re looking for well-written and original stories of less than 2 500 words set in Birmingham’s past, present or future. We want stories that move us, surprise us, engage us and make us smile

There’s a cash prize and the poster features a dinosaur and a spaceship. Excellent. The closing date is 10 Jan 2009.

Found via Brummies on LiveJournal

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The University of Birmingham has arranged for the 1951 original typescript manuscript of On the Road – the world-famous scroll of 1951 – to come to the Barber Institute at the University during December 2008 and January 2009

They’re having a two-day conference (11-12 Dec) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of book’s publication in the UK, along with a series of events including a film night on 11 Dec, probably featuring One Fast Move and I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur.

More info on the website.

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The Birmingham Book Festival starts 1 October with a programme of events that will cover fiction, non-fiction and poetry, as well as a series of workshops and seminars.  The festival ends on 24 October.

There’s a few big names listed in the festival diary – the ones that stand out for me are Mark Thomas, Will Self and Kate Adie.

For local interest, there’s the first public performance by Birmingham’s 13th Poet Laureate and 4th Young Poet Laureate and a talk from Catherine O’Flynn.  There’s quite possibly a lot more local involvement but, semi-literate philistine that I am, I’m not sure who to give a shout to.

Something I like very much about the festival’s website is the way they’ve split up the listings in the left-hand sidebar into different categories, throwing in a wild-card ‘Something Different‘ category too – that’s useful for someone like myself who might want to try something out but might not know what to go for.

Speaking of bookishness, the Lichfield Literature Weekend, a spin-off from the Lichfield Festival, will be held mainly at The George Hotel, Lichfield starting with a literary dinner on 26 September with two guest authors – Gaynor Arnold (whose ‘Girl in a Bue Dress’ from Tindal Street Press is Booker Prize longlisted) and Stephen Robinson.

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This sort of thing’s getting to be old hat for Tindal Street Press, who had Catherine O’Flynn’s ‘What Was Lost’ longlisted last year.  Gaynor Arnold, on the other hand, has spent the past 40 years or so working as a social worker in Birmingham and took five years to write the novel.

Of course you may already be aware of all this – the Birmingham Post picked up on it first and the Custard Factory blog and BiNS both mentioned it.  Also, The Times have a short interview with Gaynor and the Guardian have also run a rather flattering piece entitled ‘Why Birmingham rules the literary roost‘.

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• 28 May – Martin Bell will speak about his new book ‘The Truth That Sticks’
• 12 June – Prof Robert Knecht, esteemed historian, will introduce his book ‘The French Renaissance Court’
• 2 July – Catherine O’Flynn award-winning local author of ‘What Was Lost’ (due to be turned into a film, reports The Stirrer) will read from the book and sign copies.

They’ve got a reading group too, and the staff in there have always been lovely and helpful. I can’t help thinking that a little blog to promote and record these events, recommend new books and generally help tie themselves into their community might be a good idea.

If you know of any independent book shops doing interesting events (preferably with some sort of interweb link) then give them a mention in the comments.

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The Muslim Writer of the Year 2008 awards ceremony took place on Saturday at the ICC, presented by none other than Jermaine Jackson. West Midlands winners were former Guantanamo detainee Moazzem Beg (Published Writer) and Kashif Choudry (Short Story)

Annoyingly the press release I was sent isn’t on the awards site or the council’s page so I’ve popped it online here.

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I don’t feel so much that I have been given the keys to a brand new sports car, as much as that I’ve been given the keys to an 18 wheeler lorry and its my job not to plough that bugger into a bus queue full of nuns and orphans. So without further adoing

• “Australian lawyer, novelist and human rights campaigner Randa Abdel- Fattah will be at a special event on the eve of Birmingham’s second annual Writers Awards evening”.

• A nice interview with Catherine O’Flynn, winner of the Costa First Novel Award here.

• Audiances Central normally have some good opportunities, these caught my eye, or rather caught my girlfriends eye, she’s giving me a hand and lovely hands they are too.

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The company’s work encompasses a professional theatre group, organising a regular live music event ‘The Live Box’, literature in the shape of ‘Wired Up’ magazine and a broad range of education work, from jazz workshops, to youth theatre and group trips as far a field as South Africa and the United States.

Given Birmingham’s location within the United Kingdom and the breadth of talent within the city, Nu Century Arts has maintained that its artists should not be marginal, but play a central role in the cultural direction of the country; have access to the fullest possible range of skills; and produce the highest quality work. Moreover, it seeks to provide a consistent base and a framework promoting new African Caribbean work, irrespective of political/ cultural trends and fashions.

The do work in a variety of venues including The Drum and The Rep and the artists listed on their site include Soweto Kinch, Julie Dexter, Eska Mtungwazi and Shabaka Hutchins.

Awareness came to me from Osahon Orchard who is running a free 10 week acting course for over 19 year olds as a “way to regain confidence as well as get back into performing” at 16 Grosevenor Road B20 3NP. Contact him on osahon.orchard [at] ntlworld.com for details.

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The Midlands has other influences as well. As you know, it can be difficult being an artist round here sometimes because it can be quite an isolated place, if you are of a certain creative mindset. The place can be very depressing, and at times stifling. But then again, in some ways I’d say that that can help a person’s art – you can use those things in work.

And, being me, I’m particularly interested in his thoughts about why he blogs.

The blog is the thing that helped kickstart me back into writing. I love my blog. I see it as an ongoing, constantly expanding body of work. I feel really pleased with the work ethic that I’ve managed to get together with it. I wouldn’t say that it’s hard, because I enjoy it so much. I love sitting down and putting stuff together for it. Keeping it going is a challenge that I relish.

Like anything in life, there are always distractions – socialising, work etc. But when I stopped writing a couple of years back, the idea of starting again was a really intimidating thing. It felt daunting, because I hadn’t written anything in so long – I didn’t know where to start. By being firm with myself and keeping a set writing routine, it means I’ll never have to worry about starting again, because I don’t give myself chance to stop.

Obviously, with a daily thing, I can’t guarantee that every single day will be amazing entry, and when I look back there are definitely some days that I think are better than others, but I think in order to get good work you do have to work through some not so good stuff. In that respect, the blog acts as a big notebook for me. It’s a good place to experiment with ideas.

But there’s much more interesting stuff in there too.

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Set in the West of Ireland, Birmingham, Dublin and Nice, five of these stories explore our need to come to terms with the past.

Three sisters: Aefe, Fionuala and Sorcha, struggle towards a recollection and resolution of the event which almost destroyed their family.

Tom and Breda flee Derry for the safety of England and discover that history casts a long shadow.

Bridget, haunted by the past, takes the first plane out of Birmingham and spends a life-changing week in Nice.

The remaining seven stories which are located in Birmingham are laced with humour and deal with the universal desire to be loved and to belong.

She’s released the first piece, Aefe’s story, as a free PDF download. You can buy the book from Bonds Books in Harborne from December 12th and at the Custard Factory’s Sunday Flea on the 16th.

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Running Birmingham Words over these five years or so has been a huge amount of fun. But now that we are reaching the end of this particular funding period, it seems time to take stock. As editor, webmaster and general power-behind-the-kitchen-chair at Birmingham words, I am feeling like a change of scene, both for the good of site and also because I myself am planning to move on to other (although not necessarily greater) things.

As a result, I have been in discussion with the National Academy of Writing at Birmingham City University, and they have expressed a strong interest in stepping into the breach and adopting Birmingham Words as an on-going project for students at the Academy. This would, I hope, give a new impetus to the site, and would not only secure a longer-term future for it, but would also give allow it to continue to grow and develop.

More details on the change.

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Lest we forget Catherine is also up for Brummie of the Year.

news via Audiences Central

Later: Post article.

Later again: Tindal St press release.

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Catherine O’Flynn was born in Birmingham in 1970, where she grew up in and around her parents’ sweet shop before embarking on a career of curious jobs. Her first novel, What Was Lost, has bounded into the literary scene getting a nod from the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and, at the time of writing is 8/1 odds on to scoop The Man Booker Prize. Celebrating Catherine’s insight into the absurdity of consumerism and urban dissatisfaction, the Literary Review observes, ‘O’Flynn is just the colleague you’d want to be stuck with in a dead-end job.’)

Nicola Monaghan has worked as a teacher, a financial analyst and a software guru. She now works part-time as Fellow of the National Academy of Writing, based at the University of Central England. Boyd Tonkin included Nicola in the Independent’s New Years Eve list of rising talent for 2006. Her first novel, The Killing Jar, was published in March 2006 to critical acclaim. It won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and a Betty Trask Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Goss First Novel Prize and the Waverton Good Read.

Tickets are £5 and it starts at 7.30. Details.

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A bit of local web buzz for Careless Talk, the new novel by Michael Richardson published by Tindal Street. Birmingham Words gave notice of the launch (which I missed telling you about – sorry), BiNS has a review and The Stirrer has a video interview:

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Jan Bowman writes:

I’m writing a children’s picture book about Birmingham and the Enlightenment, which will be ready to send to publishers by December. Inspired by the work of Czech illustrator Sasek it will also show undiscovered treasures lurking in the city, such as the attached. I’m looking for other good visual suggestions and suspect you/your readership can help. There are some more images of Birmingham on my website.

And I would of course like people to commission me!

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The idea of the project is to assist and nurture emerging writers and get them published. We are looking at the writers creative talent – not their religious beliefs. The Awards were televised and went out to 150+ countries and we hope to reach as many new writers (and readers!) as possible.

The categories for the 2008 Awards are:

* Non Fiction
* Short Story
* Novel Award
* Poetry Award
* Under 16s
* Best Children’s Story
* Best New Writer of the Year
* Best Published Writer (to be nominated by publishers)

The 2008 Judges include Randa Abdel Fattah (author of Does My Head Look Big in This?), Emma Hargrave (Managing Editor of Tindal St Press), Bloomsbury publishers and Sunny Hundal (Editor of Asians in the Media).

Alongside the awards there’s also a support program including, editing support, creative writing courses and master classes, networking opportunities, support in finding publishers and more.

The deadline for submissions is December 28th and all the details are here.

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The Birmingham Book Festival runs from October 11th – 21st and has a quite impressive line-up of events and workshops with a quite international flavour. BBC Birmingham has some highlights.

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