Dan Powell

February 29, 2012

Reading, Writing and Critiquing

As you can probably tell from the lack of regular posts lately, the MA has been keeping me busy, along with a half-term jaunt to the north coast of Germany for swimming (indoor, mercifully) and sight-seeing. Had the first 4,000 words of my novel critiqued by my tutorial group last week which was great. One of my many reasons for taking the MA was the feedback my work would receive from my fellow students, along with the chance to support others through critiquing their work. Getting eight people commenting on your work certainly keeps you honest. Got loads of great ideas and pointers from the group and the tutor for…

February 20, 2012

‘Half-mown Lawn’ in Best British Short Stories 2012

A little while ago I promised some big news. Happy to say I can now spill the beans. One of my short stories has been selected for inclusion in Best British Short Stories 2012 from Salt Publishing, due out in April. From Salt Publishing’s Best British Short Stories webpage: This series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor’s brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume. Neither genre nor Granta shall be overlooked in the…

February 11, 2012

The Composites

The Composites is a brilliant new tumblr that features ‘images created using law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters.’ My favourite of those posted so far has to be this image of Pinkie from Brighton Rock: This composite was created by Brian Joseph Davis, creator of The Composite tumblr project, from this description from Greene’s classic: He had a fair smooth skin, the faintest down, and his grey eyes had an effect of heartlessness like an old man’s in which human feeling has died…Grey inhuman seventeen-year-old eyes…From behind he looked younger than he was in his dark thin ready-made suit a little too big for him at the hips,…

February 7, 2012

The Man Who Lived Like A Tree published @ Referential

My story, The Man Who Lived Like A Tree, is the first fiction publication of 2012 over at Referential. I like Referential because they do things a little differently over there: Main Entry: ref·er·en·tial Pronunciation: \ˌre-fə-ˈren(t)-shəl\ : of, containing, or constituting a reference; especially : pointing to or involving a referent <referential language> <referential meaning> At Referential Magazine we will be nesting a site that builds from one piece of writing (be it prose or poetry). From that piece we want other artists to submit “referential“ material. This material could be visual, auditory, written etc. We expect this project to evolve the longer it exists. We look forward to hearing from you. So everything on the site references another work, be it a poem, a…

February 6, 2012

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

In every sense of the word, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is fantastic: From Moonbot Studios Vimeo page: Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/ illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a new narrative experience that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals. “Morris Lessmore” is old fashioned…

February 3, 2012

Soiled published @ FRICTION

Issue 4 of Friction, Newcastle University’s online journal for creative writing, theory and practice, is now available online. This latest edition includes my short story Soiled. From the introduction for Friction Issue 4: As writers, and readers. We have been changed this month by some wonderful words. We’ve been chased down in the outback by Nikesh Murali; alongside David Houston, tracked an Arctic Fox in Crystal Palace; we’ve felt Soiled with Dan Powell; gone home with Elaine Ewart; faced up to space with Eleanor Stewart; and got closer to Junior with Dolan Morgan. Soiled is a story that I wrote during my OU diploma in Creative Writing and continued to…

January 31, 2012

It begins

Those of you who have read my about page will know I am studying for an MA in Creative Writing. The main part of my assessed work will be a completed novel. I write one or I fail. Well, started yesterday. 553 words typed into Scrivener after a week of sorting out my first lot of research notes. I’ve been documenting the process in the rather brilliant Day One journal app. Decided on a digital journal as it mean one less notebook to carry around (already have my pocket notes, my Moleskine week-to-a-page/notebook combo and a Conceptum notebook dedicated to research notes and scraps and jottings for the novel) plus…

January 26, 2012

Wilco Spinach

Been a little quiet here, due in part to my being busy working on a short story for this, research for this and coming down with a nasty cold of the bone-chilling, head-squeezing variety. Started feeling a little better today, which is in no small part due to this rather brilliant video of Wilco’s Dawned on Me: Apparently it’s ‘the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in more than 30 years.‘ You can find out more about it at wilcospinach.com (how cool is that url?) Normal service will resume shortly with, amongst other things, the skinny on my actually making a start on my MA novel, the first of 2012’s My Life…

January 23, 2012

Living Room Stories – Review

Living Room Songs is a collection of pieces recorded by Ólafur Arnalds which, some of you may recall, made the number two slot of my Top 5 Writing Music Albums of 2011. While I was busy last November, drafting short fiction while listening to the album on repeat, Andy Harrod was going one step further and writing flash fiction directly inspired by the moods and tones of each of the seven tracks. The result is the excellent Living Room Songs. Andy presented each piece on his blog to read for free, perhaps inspired by the tracks of Living Room Songs being available for free download on the album’s website. Following this,…

January 17, 2012

Mrs Dalloway is on the Landing

Christmas 2010 I bought this for Mrs P because she loves Susan Hill’s books: It’s a memoir of Hill’s year spent reading only books she already had sitting on the shelves of her home. Fast forward through the next twelve months, during which at least one of the following statements was made by Mrs P every time new books arrived via the post (which she collects) or over the ether to my Kindle (many repeated more than once over the period): ‘Not more books.’ ‘You must have more books than you can read before you die.’ ‘Someone’s been on Amazon again.’ ‘Do you actually need anymore books?’ ‘It’s Christmas everyday…

January 13, 2012

The results are in…..

The list of authors with stories accepted in Caroline Smaile’s charity anthology in aid of One in Four has been published. It’s full of some great writers, many of whom I know in passing or fairly well via the social power of the interweb. It also features my name. I’m super-pleased to have two 100-word stories work accepted for inclusion in the collection. Here’s to it raising lots of cash for a very worthwhile cause. The stories included in the collection had to be inspired by songs. For those interested, the songs that provided inspiration for my stories were this: Neko Case – This Tornado Loves You and this: Los…

January 13, 2012

Moonrise Kingdom

This looks wonderful:

January 9, 2012

Subs call for charity anthology

The brilliant Caroline Smailes has made a submissions call for an ebook charity anthology she is putting together, proceeds to go to One in Four. The idea is this: Write a story or a flash of a moment based on, linked to or inspired by a song on YouTube. It MUST be 100 words or fewer. No song (for copyright reasons) lyrics should be included in the story. Deadline is Wednesday 11 January (GMT). Writers MUST hold the copyright to their stories and the stories MUST NOT have been published elsewhere. You can read the full details over on Caroline’s blog. She is also asking for ideas for the title…

January 8, 2012

Book of Life

Check out this beautiful book: David Kracov was commissioned to create an award to be given in honor of, and named for, Rabbi Yossi Raichik, the beloved director of Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl. The award, “Book Of Life”, was created by David and inspired by the extraordinary life of Rabbi Yossi Raichik. The sculpture depicts the “Book Of Life”, each page filled with words from those he touched, with those pages and thoughts transforming into butterflies, each representing the 2.547 children he helped save and give new lives. See photos of the creative process. Learn more about David Kracov’s work. Learn more about Rabbi Yossi Raickik and Chabad’s Children of…

January 7, 2012

What’s your weapon of choice?

Apparently I shall be laying zombie smackdown with my Macbook, which sits to the left of my desktop display. How abut you? (via flavorpill)

January 6, 2012

100 Word Review – The Sense of an Ending

I recently posted about the evolution of the cover design of Julian Barnes’ 2011 Booker winner. Little did I know that the cover and the video montage of the process that led to it would be more enjoyable than the book itself. Though the book has a handful of interesting moments in it, it largely left me feeling decidedly ‘meh.’ So much so that now, two weeks after finishing it I struggle to care enough to write about it. On the whole it felt too dull to get worked up about, though I did become a little irritated when Barnes finally introduced a key conflict between two characters then failed to deal…

January 2, 2012

2011 Site Stats: beards, short stories and writing courses

I was trawling through the site stats for 2011 and thought I would share some info. A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,000 times in 2011, not bad considering the stats only cover 11 months, Feb-Dec 2011, as I moved over to WordPress at the end of January. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people. In 2011, there were 132 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 419 posts. There were 131 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 50mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week. The busiest day of the year was April 8th with 149 views. The…

December 31, 2011

Happy New Year

Just a quick post wishing everyone who’s read, contributed to, blogged about, or tweeted a link to this blog a very Happy New Year. Here’s hoping 2012 is everything you hope it will be. I leave you and 2011 with this acoustic version of my favourite Iron and Wine track from the sessions/albums released this year. It’s a song that manages to express both the despair and the wonder of being alive. 2011 has been that kind of year, one minute kicking your teeth in, the next bringing you flowers. It’s also a song that is full to brimming with wonderfully inventive metaphors. Which makes it a perfectly fitting song for me…

December 30, 2011

2011: My Writing Year

2011 has been a busy year. I applied for and secured a place on a Creative writing MA and am now at the end of the first term of the first of three years. Since March I’ve been a regular contributor to Write Anything, a wonderful writing site staffed by a host of talented people. Unfortunately my MA commitments, amongst other things, have meant I am no longer able to be a regular voice on the site, though I hope to return for a guest slot or two. In January, Ether books published five of my short stories on the Ether app; including my prize-winning story Half-mown Lawn. Over the…