Stinging Fly

Stinging Fly is a literary mag edited by Declan Meade. It offers mostly fiction but also some poetry. In my personal opinion they usually choose urban, often depressive, sometimes look at me I've used drugs at some point in my life, now let's slit our wrists, type stories. And I'm not just saying this because my diverse offerings have been universally rejected by them (!) But the collection of short stories published last year 'These are our Lives' is worth reading.

Anyway they are running an open competition to get in on a free workshop with Sean O'Reilly on Saturday October 27th. Submit a work in progress, short story or extract by September 14th. Submissions should be clearly marked Fiction Workshop and sent to The Stinging Fly, PO Box 6016, Dublin 8.

8-10 participants so you will get a personal assessment but it says 'the selected participants will discuss and review the submitted pieces.' Sounds like a normal writers group to me except you won't know the participants beforehand so don't know how to approach the work and critique.

Two more rejections on the book front since - Harper Collins and Headline, no with positive comments.

No work from movieextras.ie yet either.

My statistics for this blog show 2 readers a day averaging a 2 second stay. What can you read in 2 seconds? Most seem to be automated spiders, I think.

Another Rejection

Well the next round of responses from the list of publishers has started. Little Brown said no though they liked my book.
Fed up.
It only needs one publisher to say yes though. That's what I keep telling myself.
Just finished Harry Potter. I do think this last book was better written than the last few. I have been avoiding reviews until now in case there were any spoilers but now I'll go trawling and see what else people think.

National Poetry Competition 2007

The Annual National Poetry Competition in the UK is now open for entries. This is a prestigious and rich competition.

Judge: E.A Markham, Michael Schmidt
Prizes: £5,000, £1,000, £500 and 10x £50. Published in the Independent On Saunday and Poetry Review. Winners will be invited to read at the Ledbury Poetry Festival.
Line count: Max 40 lines (not including title)
Fee: £5 for the first, £3 thereafter payable to Poetry Society
Closing Date: 31st October 2007
Notification: 28 February 2008

Enter using an application form or online. http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/shop/product/18/

The winners list is heavyweight as would be expected from the large cash prize. Carol Ann Duffy, Tony Harrison, Jo Shapcott, Ian Duhig, Ruth Padel. You can read some past winners on the website, which gives an insight into the high standard.

Jane Austen rejected

Well, if Jane Austen can't get published these days, is there much hope for the rest of us? David Lassman the director of the Jane Austen festival in Bath thought up a great way to get publicity for his event. He sent of barely disguised opening chapters and synopses to 18 British publishers of some of her best known and loved works. Without exception, they were all rejected and only one, Jonathan Cape, who recognised Pride and Prejudice. This was sent out as First Impressions, an early name Jane used herself (Which was also rejected at first 'by return of post')

Similarly in the US, a book called Steps by Jerzy Kosinski (I must admit I haven't heard of it) was sent out and similarly rejected. This book won the National Book Prize, the equivalent of the Booker, and sold over 400,00 copies. All the publishers and agents rejected it, including publishers of Kosinski's work. The publishing house Houghton Mifflin commented that it was reminiscent of Kosinski "but not in his league."

Here's an interesting post on the subject.

Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition

The 5th Annual Sean O' Faolain short story competition closes for entries soon.
Judge: Jon Boilard of San Francisco (previous winner)
Prizes: €1,500, €500 and 4x €100. All will be published in Southword.
Wordcount: Max 3,000
Fee: €10 or £10 or $15 payable to Munster Literarture Centre
Closing Date: postmarked 31st July 2007

The winners will be announced at the International Frank O'Connor Festival of the short story in Cork September 2007

address: The Munster Literature Centre, 84 Douglas Street, Cork
or
email: seanofaolainshortstory@gmail.com and pay with paypal on www.munsterlit.ie/competitions

In my opinion, this competition has a penchant for chooing gloomy, depressing but well written, literary short stories, often with a Cork or Munster bias. Caveat Emptor!

Shy

I saw Claire (Clare?) Keegan having a cup of coffee in Easons in Dublin the other day and instead of doing the good thing and going up to her and telling her...what exactly...I love her writing. Actually I find her writing good and her stories awful, doom and gloom and 50 years out of date. But I ran the other way. I'm such a wuz.

Then I went to see Dermot Bolger's new play "Walking Home", about Francis Ledwidge the first World War, Meath poet. He asked me to go. I know him vaguely. He taught a series of masterclasses for 'emerging writers' (see heading!) And instead of chatting away and reminding him who I was, I shook his hand, told him how much I liked the play and ran away again.

Networking - shmetworking!

Hope he doesn't mind I use his name for a reference.

More Rejections

Yes, the ongoing saga of how to get published. Maybe this will be read in posterity as how the fabulously successful middle list author got her book published and we will all look back and laugh at the set backs and false hopes. Maybe.

Anyway, Penguin rejected me too. I would have loved to be published by Penguin. I feel like I was brought up on Penguin books. Ah well.

Have done a little more polishing and tried to warm up my main character so wh'e more sympathetic for the reader, more compassionate and out it's gone again to another list of publishers.

Ever hopeful. Ever typing with my fingers crossed!