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Reverting to type

 It appears a couple of weeks ago I bought another typewriter. My third in a month. I assure you (and my better half) that this is where my typewriter purchasing ends, at least until I can afford one of these. My new acquisition is this Smith Corona Zephyr: It’s a proper portable in that it has an easy to remove and replace case and weighs surprisingly little for a metal machine for hammering out type. It is, as of today, my take-out-of-the-house-and-write typewriter. I used it off-site today, taking it with me when I went off to do some writing while waiting for my eldest’s summer club activities to end…

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A space of my own

 Been busy with tidying the house since the holidays started. A pleasant side effect of this tedious work has been the reorganising of my writing space. After giving my kids my old laptop, keyboard and monitor I am left with this; if not a room then at least a space of my own:     And here’s how it looks with the toys packed away:   All I need now is school to restart so I have some time to use it.

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The Pre-War House by Alison Moore.

 In Alison Moore’s prize winning novella, a woman returns to the pre-war house in which she grew up to empty and close up the place following the death of her father. The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks sparked by objects and spaces she encounters as she works alone to clear the place, each memory building on the revelations of the last, drawing the reader into the emotionally turbulent and eventually tragic events of the narrator’s childhood. The Pre-War House is full of deft and revealing descriptions of the house and the items being packed, the simplicity of the language creating a real sense of the house and the…

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A Pack of Rats @ The Molotov Cocktail

 Volume 3 Issue 10 of the projectile for incendiary flash fiction, The Molotov Cocktail is published today and features my latest short short story, A Pack of Rats. This issue also features Dream Girl by Joseph Lewis V and Contraband by Paul Beckham. Use the links to enjoy the latest from the most explosive literary journal on the web.

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Story for Sunday: Cottage by Danielle Reeve

   Danielle Reeve was amongst the great group of writers I met at The Hurst last April. This week Metazen published her short short, Cottage, and it is (as far as I know) the first story written while we were at The Hurst to see publication (please correct me in the comments if I am wrong). Great to see the story over on one of my favourite fiction sites, Metazen. Read Cottage @ Metazen  

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Literary Man in Pictures

 Found the following via The (excellent) Literary Man blog. At last count I have ‘collected’ at least six or seven out of the nine above, so I might yet at least make it as a novelist, if not a great one. I’ll leave it to you to work out which ones I’ve earned. How many do you have? I often suffer from this kind of hangover. Richard Beard’s Lazurus is Dead has been hanging around in my noggin for a good few weeks now. What’s the last book to give you a hangover? And some spot on advice from the recently departed Ray Bradbury, and no, the irony of posting…

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The Library That Delivered @ What She Might Think

 Erin Pringle is the author The Floating Order, one of my favourite short fiction collections of 2010 (it was published in 2009 but I read it the following year). She also has one of the more interesting writers’ blogs out there on the interweb. This summer she is hosting a special reading series of original short essays about libraries and childhood, written by authors from the United States and elsewhere. The last few weeks of posts from Owen Egerton, Matthew C. Brennan and Jack Kaulfus are smart reflections on what libraries mean to us when we are young. I was excited to be asked to contribute as the library of my childhood was particularly…

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Salt Prizes, BBSS2012 Launch and Kindle Edition

 Salt Publishing have just announced a series of international prizes for new writing, with three categories Short Fiction, Flash Fiction and Poetry. In addition to the cash prizes up for grabs, winning entries will be collected in a New Writing anthology. Head over to the Salt website for the info and rules of entry. Salt already supports new authors of short fiction and poetry with their Crawshaw and Scott Prizes and these new awards for individual pieces of work will give even more new voices a chance to be heard, which can only be a good thing. In other Salt related news, last month saw the launch of The Best…

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Inaugural Typecast

 In between working, taking care of poorly children and (trying to find time for) writing, I’ve somehow managed to buy two typewriters. Since buying them I’ve been tinkering and having a crack at drafting with both. I’ve also been dipping into some of the great typewriter blogs out there (more on those in a future post). Along the way I stumbled across the typecasting flavour of blogging and decided to give it a go myself. My apologies for the typos, still finding my feet fingers again after too many years without a typewriter.The following was typed on this little beauty, a Bluebird from the 1950s: Since typing that this afternoon, my…

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July already and still not bought a book.

 This year seems to be flying by. Which is a good thing as this year I am not allowed to buy any new books, except for those necessary for my course. Luckily both Valentine’s Day and Father’s Day saw my loved one’s bestow upon me the gift of literature. I was particularly pleased with these two beauties from my kids back in June: I’m reading the Jackie Kay right now and saving the Karl Ove Knausgaard for the holidays. It’s been difficult at times to hold back on buying books, particularly when reading reviews of new titles, but I have to say I am enjoying taking the time to make…

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A shop with books in

 A little something special for Sunday afternoon: “A shop with books in” – a song inspired by bookshops, written for Independent Booksellers’ Week 2012 by The Bookshop Band (found via Bookshelf)

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The Book That Can’t Wait

 As someone who has far too many books sitting unread on my bookshelves, I love the idea of this: While not being able to read the book a second time might be irritating to some, the book would make a really cool notebook after the text vanishes. If they can get the next iteration of this to have text that reappears once a year for re-reading, vanishing again two weeks after opening, that would be even better.

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Nuala Ní Chonchúir reads Mother America

 I recently interviewed Nuala Ní Chonchúir about the title story of her latest collection Mother America. The following is a video of Nuala reading the excellent short in Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway. If you have five minutes you owe it to yourself to have a listen. Done that? Did you enjoy it? You did? Then go buy the book already. It’s rather splendid.

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Images that caught my eye

 Saw these reading/writing related images sometime over the last week or two and felt like sharing. Click the images to see them in their natural habitat (ie. where I found them): And finally, two Murakami centred images:

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The winner is……

 A great big thank you to everyone who commented on my International Short Story Day giveaway post. Lots of the stories and/or authors are new to me so, over the next few weeks, I’ll be dipping into the reading list suggested by you wonderful people. My eldest just pulled the winner from a wooly hat stuffed with names, and I am pleased to announce (a little later than advertised, due to a busy, busy, busy weekend) that the winner of a shiny new copy of the The Best British Short Stories 2012 is…… Sara Crowley I’ve emailed requesting an address to send the book to and will post as soon as I…

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Best British Short Stories/Short Story Day Giveaway

 Today is International Short Story Day and there is a fair bit going on. This evening, the shortest night, sees the London launch of The Best British Short Stories 2012. Stuck as I am in the wilds of Germany, I am sadly unable to attend, but if you are in the area you really should pop down to The Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon Rd, London for around 7pm and enjoy some great authors reading from the collection. For my part, to celebrate the launch (and International Short Story Day) I am giving away a copy of The Best British Short Stories 2012. To enter, write a comment below telling me about…

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Beyond Microsoft Word

 As someone who despises Word and uses both Scrivener (it is a transcendent tool) and Pages (because Versions are just a beautifully simple way of saving multiple copies of a redrafted document) I can relate to Yuvi Zalkow’s Beyond Microsoft Word…Or Not; not least because I can get a bit obsessed with things like how bad Word can be and yet still be forced to use it because everyone else insists on it. Come the revolution, no one will use Word. Read Yuvi Zalkov’s post explaining a little about the video over at Writer Unboxed, where amongst other things, he suggests expanding the video to full screen as some of the text…

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EPILOGUE: the future of print

 Epilogue is a student documentary by Hanah Ryu Chung about the future of printed books in a digital age and it features some very cool people talking a lot of sense about the future of print. I particularly responded to Stan Bevington, of Coach House Books (chbooks.com/), and his short shrifting of the nonsensical view that print vs ebook has to be an either/or deal. As he says in the film, it’s not either/or, it’s and/also. found via Bookshelf

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