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NFFD 2013 Anthology Announced

 It’s nearly National Flash Fiction Day 2013 and, like last year, there’s lots going on over on the NFFD blog. The contents of this year’s anthology was announced today and I am thrilled to report that my story, Her 12 Faces, was selected for inclusion. The as yet unnamed collection of flash fiction will include 50 stories…

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The Art of Cover Design

 It will be no surprise that, both as a reader and a writer, I am a sucker for book covers. I am a particular fan of Chip Kidd‘s brand of intelligent and beautiful book cover design. His own debut novel, The Cheese Monkeys, is a charming book that is further enhanced by his own design. Rarely has…

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Field of Reeds

 Listening to The Guardian’s stream of These New Puritan’s soon to be released Field of Reeds, I think it highly likely this will be my album of the year. Don’t believe me? Check this out. _ Still not convinced? How about this slice of mainstream swerving top-notchness? _ Suffice to say I’ve pre-ordered.

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Spring (and early Summer) Cleaning

 Back in March I decided to Spring clean my writing process. For the last five years or so I’ve been working on (mostly) short stories and the start of this year my Macbook’s files and folders were in a bit of a state, with finished drafts and works in progress tumbling over each other in…

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Happy Birthday Raymond Carver

 Had he lived, Raymond Carver would have been 75 today. Considering the brilliance of the body of work he left behind, I can’t help but be a little sad when I consider what great fictions he might have created in the years since his death in 1988. As a way of marking this day I…

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Review: Nearest Thing To Crazy – Elizabeth Forbes

 Cassandra Burton, the narrator of Elizabeth Forbes’ novel, has it all: a loving husband, a lovely home in a small, friendly village, a daughter at University, her own fledgling gardening business. Life is good. She soon finds her rural idyll shattered, however, by the newly arrived and glamorous Ellie, an author renting the house next…

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The Novelist

 Just stumbled across a new game called The Novelist: From The Novelist website: The Novelist asks one central question: can you achieve your dreams without pushing away the people you love? The game focuses on Dan Kaplan, a novelist struggling to write the most important book of his career while trying to be the best…

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Communication, baby.

 Christoph Niemann, the designer behind the Abstract City blog for The New York Times (and a plethora of New Yorker covers) discusses the necessity for anxiety in the creative process in this excellent interview with Gestalten.tv: While he is obviously talking from a designer’s perspective, the following resonates with anyone engaged in creative work: ‘A certain amount of insecurity is a very helpful trait for any kind of designer because it really gives you the openness to relate to a reader.’ As he rightly points out, the reader/audience is what it’s all about. Without them we’re just shouting into a vacuum, pissing in the wind, tickling our own parts and…

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Looking Out of Broken Windows to be published in 2014

 2008 was the year I finally decided, after years of not writing and half-writing, to get my act together and really do the thing I have most wanted to do since I was a teenager – write. To that end I signed up for an OU course starting in May of that year. The idea was simple. Sign up on the course and use it to get some feedback on my work. See if pursuing this writing lark was really worth my time. If I did well on the course then chances are I had something worth nurturing. I did well enough on the first course to sign up for more…

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I am a Writer

 This is exactly what being a writer is like: Metaphors! And is it just me or does this guy sound like he’s doing his best Neil Gaiman voice? (found via the inimitable Marcus Speh)

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Winner of 2013 Scott Prize announced

 For those of you that haven’t already heard, the winner of the Scott Prize was announced over the weekend. As one of the shortlisted authors I spent a nervous Friday and half of Saturday awaiting the result, which appeared on Twitter a little after lunch: @kirstylogan wins the 2013 Scott Prizeblog.saltpublishing.com/2013/05/04/the… — SALT (@saltpublishing) May 4, 2013 As you can see, the brilliant Kirsty Logan won and her collection The Rental Heart and other Fairytales will be published by Salt later this year. Having enjoyed each of the Scott Prize winning collections I have so far read, I am very much looking forward to it. ‘The Rental Heart’ was one of my favourites…

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This week…

 …I have mostly been made happy by the following: being runner-up in the Thresholds Feature Competition, listening to this young lady and her popular beat combo, reading the latest slice of brilliant from Caroline Smailes, and listening to Lowercase Noises while writing a piece of flash fiction to submit for this year’s National Flash Fiction Day…

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Thresholds Feature Competition Winner Announced.

 And this year’s winner of the Threshold’s Feature competition is the brilliant and lovely Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Her essay A Trio of Short Stories is a heartfelt examination of three stories that, though read as a child, have had a lasting impact upon her. Those of you who have read the My Life In Short Fiction posts on this blog will know I am always interested in discovering the stories that helped shape a writer’s unique perspective. If after reading Nuala’s excellent essay you are eager to find out more about the stories she cherishes, you can read her Life in Short Fiction post here. I am delighted to be able…

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Longlisted for the 2013 Thresholds Feature Competition

 Woke this morning to a lovely email telling me my entry for this year’s International Feature Writing Competition longlist over on Thresholds. Being longlisted alongside folks like Carys Bray, Tom Volwer and Nuala Ní Chonchúir, who as well as being friends are authors of some of my favourite short fiction collections of recent years, is really exciting. Indeed, the whole list is an intriguing mix of titles and I can’t wait to read them all. The official announcement from the Thresholds website: 2013 THRESHOLDS International Feature Writing Competition Longlist We would like to extend our hearty thanks to all those who entered this year’s competition. We also congratulate the following writers whose…

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Carve Spring 2013 Spring Edition Giveaway

 So, as you can see from the Vine below, the latest edition of Carve is out and I am a bit pleased about it. It’s here! vine.co/v/bUA5xl61ret — Dan Powell (@danpowfiction) April 18, 2013   Carve Spring Edition 2013 includes my short story Storm in a Teacup alongside the other two Esoteric Award winning stories as well as interviews with all the authors. My interview with Kristin S. Vannamen (Managing Editor of Carve) was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I was particularly taken by Kristin’s enthusiasm with not just my story but also the short form in general. She even invited my wife to give her perspective on living with a writer,…

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Sunday Review: Sweet Home by Carys Bray

 Carys Bray’s Scott Prize winning debut short fiction collection is not for the faint hearted. These tales, most of them focused on mothers and fathers stumbling their way through parenthood, take in the broad emotional landscape of that most complex of relationships; the parent and the child. Some will have you smiling at the problems,…

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Sightseers

 Been busy in recent weeks with competition entries and a fairly major assignment for the MA and took a well earned break from the keyboard to watch this: Sightseers is a pitch black comedy that manages to be both horrific and hilarious. Stars Alice Lowe and Steve Oram also wrote the script and there isn’t an ounce of fat on it. I’d be keen to get a copy of the screenplay as I am sure it would be a pretty great example of how to show and not tell. Mark Kermode’s description of the film as Nuts in May with axes is right on the money, and he’s right again…

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