Arts Council Bursaries

The Arts Council of Ireland have announced the first round of the 2007 bursaries.

For Literature

Multi Annual awards to Peter Sirr (poetry) Sean O'Reilly (literature) Conor O'Callaghan (poetry) and Claire Keegan (short stories mainly)

and annual awards to
Dermot Bolgers (lots of stuff) Alice Lyons (Poems and visual art) Anthony Glavin (poetry) Leanne O'Sullivan (poetry) Mike McCormack (novels mainly)

That's it. Total 105K
another 30K for irish language. (It has to be said, it's hard to make a living writing in Irish without grants.)
They are all well known names. No snifters for emerging writers such as myself. I didn't apply, thank goodness. It would have been a complete waste of time and effort.

Music gets 86K
Performing arts gets 80K
Visual Arts gets 265K

Very uneven if you ask me, which they didn't. Wonder how themomney for New Projects and One Offs will be spread out.

Books for Writers

A really good, classic book for writers is From Pitch to Publication, written by Carole Blake, a well known UK agent. She also writes a great column in Mslexia magazine. http://www.mslexia.co.uk




I also own The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner. An Editor's Advice to Writers.



and every writer should read the very readable On Writing by Stephen King.




and the annual bible The Writers and Artists Yearbook



which I find more comprehensive than The Writers Handbook, although there's not a lot to choose between them.

Nanotales

Eventually I thought to check up on the nanotales in association with the Guardian. Most of the links are dead (strange) but here is what I found. (Not me anyway)

The Winners
Manners by manners-nanotale
Sweet Mother
Tree People
Cataract
Walk a Pavement Once
Export Only
Regrets by
Your grandads horse by
The Freedom Zone by
No Milk by
The Human Species by
alone by
BlacKnack by
A Pencil With Ideas Above It's Station by
Me by
Forget-me-nots by
The Lonely Death of Gloria Alvarez by
Charade by
The half empty glass by
The Orchard by
Ed by
Everybody Wants More by
The Roller Coaster Ride by
Time by
A Year by

And a link to the Guardian as it was going on
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/03/short_stuff.html with some favourites. There seems to have been some mix up with the Guardian entered entries. No idea what the standard was like but they are said to have had more than 2,000 entries. Some multiple I guess.

Contracts

I have a contract with an agent. Yay!
But it's six or seven pages long and I don't really understand it. Is it a good contract, fair, unusual? I don't know.
There is a lot of advice on the web but mainly of the sort saying do not sign with an agent who asks for up front 'fees.' OK. Fair enough but after that?

Here is a great blog about the business of writing with a US slant. It has lots of advice and stories of what to do and what not to do. http://www.annemini.com/

NewWriting NewWorlds

New Writing New Worlds is an initiative in Glasgow to promote writing from new playwrights from Scotland and elsewhere. it's into its 3rd year now so it must be doing something right. Guess my play didn't picked. No notification or email to say so.

Women's Voices by Alexina Dalgetty (Canada)
Of The Border by Kalin Ilev (Bulgaria)
The Madness of the Woodcutter by David Kilby.
Letters by Heather Taylor
Still by Cormac Quinn.
Staying Awake For You by Skye Loneragan
Stranger From Sea by Keiran Lynn.
An American Monologue by Philip Spencer
Lifesaving by Rob Drummond.

Acknowledgements

Some books have enigmatic acknowledgements pages

For M

Some have great big long ones which are useful for finding the name of writers' agents, editors, first English teacher etc.

Which is preferable? I think I prefer the long winded personal ones myself. They give you more of an insight into the writer.

There was an article in the Irish Times last Saturday noticing that a new, young writer had a full page of acknowledgements

thanking everyone from her seventh grade teacher to the cat's mother - worse than a speech after a GAA fund-raiser in Mullingar

P.S. No contact from movieExtras.ie yet!

Movie Extras

I have just signed up with movieextras.ie. They say they are looking for over 35s especially. I understand there is a lot of hanging around and I am really good at hanging around, having two kids that need ferrying about the county! I thought I could use the hanging around time to write too. And they pay and I have no money. And I would hope to get an insight into how films work in case my book ever makes it into film. Watch this space.