Open for entries from 12th September – 31st October, the judges will be accepting for short stories between 500 and 2,000 words in length. A selection of winning entrants will see their stories published in an anthology. The book launch for this collection will take place at The Book Barge, a bookshop uniquely located aboard a narrowboat on the Birmingham canal.

The panel of judges will include novelists Jean Ure, who was first published at the age of sixteen, and David Belbin, famous for his edgy stories dealing with crime and the lives of young adults.

Kindle Camp – A Kindle Publishing Workshop

Digital Birmingham, The New Optimists and Birmingham City Council Web Services Team have joined together to put on a workshop to go through the process of publishing your text to the Kindle.

This looks useful and pretty thorough. It’s free and it’s on 1 June. Only four tickets left.

Comics Launch Pad

Comics Launch Pad is a new and exciting event brought to you by International Comic Shows, the organisation behind the long-running British International Comics Show.

A one-day conference aimed at professionals, aspiring professionals and those with a serious interest in the business of making comics, Launch Pad promises to be an enlightening and fascinating experience.

D’log spotted this one. It’s on 18 June and here’s their website.

I’m just going to copy and paste the information:

The scheme intends to encourage writing practice within the West Midlands, giving a platform for new writers to gain public exposure, experience and professional development, whilst simultaneously promoting arts activity in the region to a wider audience.

The writer will receive 3 half-day mentoring sessions from the This is Tomorrow team:

• James Smith (focus on research, planning and editorial).
• Lorena Munoz-Alonso (focus on artists interviews / features).
• Josephine Breese (focus on reviews and writing style).

In addition the writer will have two half-day mentoring sessions with Sally O’Reilly which will focus on writing practice.

The writer will be expected to produce three pieces of critical writing (as detailed below), which will be published on www.thisistomorrow.info and www.weareeastside.com

• A review of Flatpack or Fierce Festival (500words), March 2011
• An interview/feature on a West Midlands based practitioner or artist-led organisation (1000 words), June 2011
• A review of all, or a part of The Event 2011 (1000 words),  October 2011

Application process

Applicants should send:

• A short letter of application stating why you have applied for this opportunity and what you hope to gain from it.
• Two examples of critical writing (around 500 words each).
• An up to date CV

To: jamessmith.lon@googlemail.com

Deadline: Friday 14th January 2011

For those interested in Birmingham’s heritage pre-Pallasades, Mark Norton’s book ‘Birmingham Then & Now‘, features a collection of previously unpublished archive images of Birmingham alongside full-colour modern photographs.

Take a nostalgic visual journey back to 1960s Birmingham to witness the much-loved Bull Ring, the grand city-centre buildings that were demolished to make way for the ‘modern’ city and the streets and courts that were swept away during the last fifty years of development.

Featuring photographs from the collections of Geoff Thompson and Bill Stace, the book compares ‘the fashionable man about town to his modern counterparts, and workers of yesteryear with today’s trades-people’.

The book, published by The History Press, retails at £12.99 currently with 10% discount online.

The New Art Gallery Walsall will be hosting their second Artists’ Book and Independent Publishing Fair from 11am – 4pm on 27 November.

On sale will be books, zines, and multiples by artists and independent publishers across the UK and Europe, including: Books Works, Marbled Reams, Dent-De-Leone, EAK Publishing, Four Corners Books, Stephen Fowler, Simon Goode, Jatinder Kaur Bains, Variant, Wild Pansy Press, Carson & Miller, Alex Pritchard, Karoline Rerrie, Books About Nothing, Antepress, Basement Art Projects, Gandt, Trigger Editions, and colleges from around the UK.

They’ll also have a few other activities going on throughout the day, including a drop-in book making and binding adult workshop from 11am to 3pm with Guy Begbie and a talk on an exhibition of artists’ books, The Cover of a Book is the Beginning of a Journey at 2pm.

Artists-in-residence a.a.s. will also be contributing by constructing new ‘performance scores’ from the exhibition material which they will perform with the help of visitors on the day. To get involved, drop into the artist studio or contact mailto:aas@aasgroup.net

The fair is free entry and will be held in the art library.

A book written and published independently by local writer Matt Wilding.

Tristan Marley is a drunk. He is dishonest, work-shy, selfish and a murderer of kittens. He has no self respect, failed dreams, and feels as though the world, which is crueler to he than any other man, owes him one.

Forced to take up menial employment, and instantly despising it, Tristan concocts a devilish scheme to secure the big pay day that he undeniably deserves. Chewed up, and spat out, Tristan is left at the brink of his own sanity, maimed and drowning in a constant supply of whiskey, when a chance encounter with a magpie changes everything.

If you like the sound of that, you can read the opening chapter in full and buy the book over at Magpie Press.

The lovely cover art has been designed by local illustrator, Charlotte Audrey Owen-Meehan, who also curated the Not My Type exhibition which you’ll probably remember from the CiB Shop.

Formats for Books: Hyphen Press and design publishing is an exhibition at International Project Space, which is at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design. Here’s what it’s all about:

This exhibition focuses on a fundamental factor in making and publishing books: format. What size should the pages of a book be given? The question raises all the considerations of publishing. Who will read this work? And where? How will it be made? With what paper? By which printer? On which press? How does it connect to the other books we publish? What is the happiest size for these pictures and this text?

To see it for yourself, head to International Project Space before 8th May, and to catch a talk with typographer, publisher, critic, and author of numerous articles in the field of visual communication and typography, Robin Kinross, get to the exhibition on Wednesday 5 May between 5.30 and 7pm.

Inside you’ll find a load of good stuff including a four page overview of Birmingham’s music scene.

“Birmingham: Shaping the City” is an authoritative and objective assessment of the redevelopment and regeneration of Birmingham. It tells the story of how Joseph Chamberlain’s grand Victorian city was almost obliterated due to an infatuation with the car and how a belated but vital reassessment took place at his home, Highbury in 1988, leading to arguably the most dramatic transformation of any city in the country. It is also the story of hugely ambitious projects, often implemented in the face of great opposition, driven by a rediscovery of Chamberlain’s unique brand of city entrepreneurialism.The book seeks to identify the drivers for change in the renaissance of contemporary Birmingham following its evolution from Victorian times and explores the depth and complexity of the public-private partnerships involved in the delivery structures and their achievements. Using unique case studies that illustrate the processes involved in the major physical change of the city, it assesses their influence on planned future projects. The book articulates and stresses the importance of urban design for successful regeneration in this ever-changing city.

“Birmingham: Shaping the City” will make a lasting contribution to city’s collective consciousness and make available, for the first time, a coherent narrative of where the city has come from and where it may be going in both a written and visual form.

While the credentials of the contributors are impeccable I’d be interested to hear what others think of it. Available soon from Amazon and presumably in the RIBA bookshop on Margaret St.

The feature is a handy round-up of the bands to watch as well as local promoters, venues, club nights and record shops.

via Rich Batsford