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2018 in Books

 A little later than usual, here’s my reading of 2018. Might appear a little thin on the ground but in part that is due to the chunk of reading undertaken for my PhD and the fact that, due to my slackness in adding to this post through the year, I have been working from memory…

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Writing goodlyer Inglish

 For much of the last year, I have been working as a First Story writer-in-residence at Judgemeadow Community College in Leicester. This has involved delivering 16 workshops over the last eight months or so, along with a visit to the First Story Young writers’ Festival in Oxford. The staff and students have been an absolute…

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My Granddad knows

 I am thrilled to be able to share that a poem by one of the brilliant young writers from my First Story residency group at Judgemeadow Community College is featured on this week’s Friday Story here.   Raasmiya’s poem was written during one of my workshops earlier this year, in response to Malika Booker’s poem…

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Hive Young Writers Festival

 This coming Saturday, April 14, I will be delivering a short story writing workshop and takin part in a discussion panel as part of Hive Young Writers Festival in Rotherham. From the website: ‘The festival is a chance to network, hear from professional writers, meet like-minded young writers, perform & of course, write! Everyone is…

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The London Magazine Prize-giving Ceremony

 Last Tuesday saw me heading down to London for The London Magazine Short Story Prize-giving Ceremony. I had this to say as my train left Grantham station: Suited, booted and on train to big smoke for the @TheLondonMag short story prize giving. First time in ages that I’ve worn a suit. — Dan Powell (@danpowfiction)…

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Shortlisted for 2017 Pageturner Prize

 My as-yet-unpublished novel, The Everlasting Knock, has been shortlisted for this year’s Pageturner Prize. Coming so soon after my London Magazine news, this is a double thrill. I am really liking 2017 so far.  The winner was announced earlier this week, along with details of the shortlist: ‘Tibor Jones are thrilled to announce the winner of…

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Two Pair of Nightjars

 Spent some of my Christmas break catching up on my reading. I made time to read the wonderfully chilling and complex His Bloody Project (should have won the Booker IMHO), I spent New Year’s Day and the day or two after finally giving Chris Ware’s beautiful Building Stories the time and attention it deserves, and…

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2016 in Books

 Happy New Year everyone. And apologies. It’s been a while since I last posted here. The last few months have been swamped with the day job and cramming in editing of the latest novel in preparation for submission to agents. Hence the blogging had to give. I can report though, that I hit send on the latest novel recently. What does this mean? Well I am loving being able to switch gears and get back into writing some short fiction. I almost immediately stepped back into a short story. I have two characters, thrown together and currently no real idea of where they are about to take me. Getting back…

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The End begins in Norwich

 Spent a wonderful evening at the launch of The End at UEA’s Enterprise centre last night. This was a doubly special launch as it was the first showing of the wonderful Nicolas Ruston paintings that inspired the stories in The End: Fifteen Endings to Fifteen Paintings short fiction collection, as well as being the first…

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Essays galore over on Thresholds

 My Thresholds shortlisted essay examining William Gay’s ‘Where will you go when your skin cannot contain you’ is now live over on the Thresholds, The University of Chichester’s Short Story Forum. In this piece I explore the first short story of Gay’s that I stumbled across in the pages of The Best American Short Stories…

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