I Am Words

I AM WORDS

A room empty but for a teletype machine, sporadically producing words.
There's more in the words than there is in the room.
There's more in the words than there is in me.
There's nothing in me but words.
I am words.

Photo: Greenford Road this evening at lighting up time. Cars parked, leaving, passing by with their red tail lights, delivery bikes, shops, street furniture, lamppost lit up, litter, cloudy sky, people in the distance further down the path almost silhouettes etc.

Announcement: Results of the Willesden Short Story Prize 2022

It was a very good night. Apologies for overrunning the time. Thanks to everyone who came and to Katy Darby and Claire Lacey for bringing the stories to life. Couldn’t have done any of it without the support of Liars’ League and Brent Libraries.

New Short Stories

The Willesden Short Story Prize 2022 was revealed at Willesden Library this evening. First prize went to “Hotline” byZakia Uddin (left).

Runners-up were “Vevey” by Catherine McNamara and “Cuckquean” by Jackie Morris.

Thanks to Claire Lacey and Katy Darby for bringing the stories to life and making the event go with a zing.

Thanks to Jarred McGinnis for judging and to the writers of all ten shortlisted stories, as every one is a prize-winner in this short story competition. (Ed.)

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That’s me reading poems at the Torriano Meeting House

12 June 2022: It was a pleasant Sunday evening of poetry and friendly chat, meeting local poets and listening to the top of the bill, Judi Sutherland’s commentary and excerpts from her epic poem, Following Teisa.

For the record my “set list” (because I’m like Bob Dylan y’know) was:

• Sonnet for Dandy
• The Holy Child of Sudbury Hill
• High-Flying Birds Know
• Outpatient segue to
• The People Who Did Good Things
• Winter Thoughts
• The Possibility of Skipping (Day of the Flying Leaves)
• In the Waiting Room of the Western Eye Hospital (Day of the Flying Leaves)
• Ballad (The Hour of Waking Alone)

As well as getting two poems out of my referral to the Western Eye Hospital, as I said at the Torriano, I also got this blog post, which should be subtitled “Angels or Demons,” and several other mercifully unpublished poems.

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Photo: “Frankie Pedantic at the Apollo” cartoon by Zoz (aka yours truly.)

My Year in Writing, Editing and Publishing, 2021

Since I self-published Day of the Flying Leaves (Selected Poems) in March, I have posted the following new poems online. I will eventually move them into a new collection, working title “A Hot Sup From the Teapot”.

• May 11: Every Day I Go Out Down
• May 24: High-Flying Birds Know
• June 6: Rearranging Curios in the Museum of Religion: The Rooms (RC Wing)
• July 1: Grieving for a Bee
• July 6: Every Morning is a One-Armed Bandit
• July 12: Now We Are Trees
• July 26: If You Stop Thinking
• August 14: Outpatient
• August 19: Country Sayings
• August 24: Snowdonia from the Boat Train
• September 18: Outtakes from Knots (excerpt)
• September 21: Santo Niño of Sudbury Hill
• November 15: To the Get Hawking and Spitting in the Next Stall
• October 17: Look Both Ways
• October 22: Why the Leaves are not Leaving
• November 28: Tim Berners-Lee Cried (a parody on “Dem Bones” for Willesden Herald)
• November 29: Some Lines of Late (six poems)
• December 21: Honey, I Shrunk Myself
• December 25: Maid of Light

I updated this on December 26, 2021 and as yet Day of the Flying Leaves has had no reviews. To be fair, I only sent out one copy for review, to someone a friend recommended as a potential reviewer. Zip! Sales were two or three in the first month, and none since. My poems have only been recognised online by one or two kind friends and a few far-flung WordPress bloggers I don’t know at all.

This year as editor, I published brilliant new short stories by Jack R Johnson, Jessica Fogal and James Roderick Burns in Stories of the Month. I continue to work on some unpublished short stories and two or three projects that have the potential to blossom into novels or novellas. There are also more poems in the works. Ever onwards!

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Picture: One of the cover concepts for Day of the Flying Leaves

Moving On/Gallery

I’ve given up promoting my books as life is a bit too short and it does no good. However, I will continue to publish what I can and let my words rise like burnt prayers to the heavens. Self-promotion is tiresome and ineffectual, if not downright counter-productive. Let that be an end to it.

So, next. I’ve put a gallery of slivers from my photos as page headers, only slivers because they have to be cropped to fit the space available in this WordPress theme. They’re randomised and you can make another one appear (usually) by clicking them. Meanwhile, here’s what the book looks like on an old Kindle.

Kindle view from “Day of the Flying Leaves” by yours truly

Gone mad here counting*

Over the past sixteen years, I have been instrumental in publishing 139 short stories by 113 writers, not counting myself, from Bosnia, Canada, China, England, India, Ireland, Nepal, New Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, USA and Wales.

The last few were online and the rest were in 11 anthologies. I also co-edited two anthologies of poetry. Sales have been very poor but the writers I picked have gone on to win all the major prizes for short stories [and, more importantly, continue to be lovely people. Ed.]

Link: Index of contributors to the New Short Stories book series and Story of the Month

* With a nod to The Onion Eaters by J.P. Donleavy

The scene today (Sunday)

Wood End Road – beautiful S-bend

The entrance to Harrow Cricket Club is ahead, left

Summer trees & clouds along the Chiltern Line.

It’s perhaps banal to some but this back road near my home makes a pleasant walk and some of the views are lovely.

Giving up?

Update: since writing this, I have resumed work on the novel.

Stephen

I am not a novelist. I’ve wasted good ideas for short stories by trying to think of them as novels. However, if I revisit them, and I have about four I think I started on, maybe I can rewrite them as long short stories. I’m very down and depressed. Hardly an hour goes by that I don’t spend partially in contemplation of throwing my hat at it all. I wish this coronavirus would go away, it’s so worrying and depressing. So much anxiety, fear… We’re shielding each other here. A ticklish throat, random cough at night: is this it? Are we goners?

Then sometimes interludes of welcome respite in the garden. I wish goldfinches would slow down so I could have time to get my binoculars and have a good look at them. They flit to the bird bath and are gone in an instant. I’m going to go for a long walk today, my 3 mile walk. I’ve been taking the 1 mile route most days or staying in all day. Meanwhile here’s Donny…

Giving Up by Donny Hathaway (Spotify)

Snaps and claptrap

Weeds are good. I like them. We have to stick together. The camera can’t quite capture the delicate primrose colour exactly.

Primroses growing wild in the back garden

In other news, our lemon tree has been freed from its greenhouse prison to romp about in the sunny outdoors. It is bedecked with flowers like jasmine only more grown-up and sensual. The one lemon is still a work-in-progress, hidden by two sentry leaves and lots of tiny lemons have got started and are hoping to hang around a bit longer.

Freed lemon tree gambolling and frolicking in the open air

Flying update

As this is a blog, I feel I ought to report what’s happening with me, at least once in a while. I’m trying to make progress with a novel I started on more than a year ago. As part of this, I’m taking another workshop course at City Lit. It’s the highlight of my week and I’m getting great feedback, encouragement, and discovering that there is so much more I need to do. I know it’s often said that you shouldn’t workshop something till the entire first draft is finished but I am worried about the foundations I’m laying with the first few chapters and I don’t want to “go off half-cocked.” A friend from my local informal workshop said about my work-in-progress, “I think this one has legs.” That’s why I chose to press ahead and try to complete it and why I’m doing all I can to do so. It’s fascinating to see how others are getting on with their writing and I learn something new every day, in the process of giving and receiving feedback. The course is called “Advanced fiction writing workshop” and our tutor this time is novelist Mary Flanagan, whose comments and notes are both charming and insightful.