Central Lancs Writing Hub

Bye Bye....

2010-01-21T16:32:00.003Z

We're no longer posting new content at this blog. If you want to keep up with us, come and join us at our new website - the Lancashire Writing Hub.

We're going to have the same information, news and reviews as always but instead of focusing just on Preston, we're blogging about events and opportunities that are taking place all over the county.

Our blog posts and reviews are still written by a dedicated volunteer team - but we're looking to expand that team with new writing opportunities for West and East Lancs bloggers.

Our links list has been expanded to an all singing, all dancing Lancashire Writing Directory - with a special section for bloggers across the county so you can network with other bloggers to your hearts' content. Email us, as always, if you want listing or spot a dodgy link.

Our new big projects for the site is the 'Your Writing' area - sign up and in exchange for not one of your English pounds, you can join a community who will read your work and give feedback on it - and be able to practice giving your own feedback and suggestions. This community is moderated by a panel of peer experts drawn from creative writing groups in Central and West Lancashire so you can post safe in the knowledge that feedback will be constructive, relevant and useful.

Otherwise, you can still contact me at jenn@theyeatculture.org

Cheerio!

2010 in 2010!

2010-01-14T15:15:00.002Z

Just two months ago, we launched our own youtube channel, Lancashire Writing Hub, featuring a broad and broadening cross-section of North-West performing talent, with novelists, short-story writers, poets and musicians captured in all their stage-strutting glory. The channel is intended as a definitive archive of live-writing performance for the region and will continue to swell with material, including a fresh slice of clips from tomorrow night's Spotlight club up at Lancaster.

In those two months, the response has been extremely heartening - I've just looked at the visit-o-meter and it has just passed 2,010.

Norman Hadley

Word Soup: Jan 30th

2010-01-11T13:45:00.001Z

Word Soup: Sophie Hannah and Martin Edwards - a discussion and panel event hosted by Jenn Ashworth

Ormskirk Library - FREE

There will be dark literary deeds occurring at Ormskirk Library on Saturday 30th January from 1pm as two leading crime fiction writers visit to read from and discuss their work. The names Sophie Hannah and Martin Edwards should be familiar to many a crime fiction aficionado and this is a rare chance to meet them in person and find out just what makes them tick.

Organised by Lancashire Writing Hub, the literary arm of emergent arts organisation They Eat Culture, the monthly ‘Live Lit’ event, ‘Word Soup’, has been a fixture at Preston venue The Continental since last April. These evenings have gone from strength to strength in this time and Word Soup has quickly established itself as one of the North West’s friendliest and most relaxed Live Literature Nights. Past events have featured spots from such luminaries as top crime authors Nicholas Royle and A.J Duggan, Doctor Who scribe Rob Shearman, and Steven Hall, cult author of The Raw Shark Texts.

After a successful Word Soup library event in Blackpool last October, Ormskirk Library is the latest site set for a visit with two first rate crime fiction authors in tow; Sophie Hannah and Martin Edwards.

Sophie is a best-selling crime fiction writer and poet whose books, Little Face, Hurting Distance and The Point of Rescue, have sold over 300,000 copies in the UK and have also been published in a number of different languages around the world. Sophie’s fifth collection of poetry, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 T.S. Eliot Award, and in 2004 she won first prize in the Daphne Du Maurier Festival Short Story Competition for her suspense story, The Octopus Nest. Sophie’s poetry is studied at GCSE, A-Level and degree level across the UK.

Martin Edwards’ latest novel is Dancing for the Hangman, a fictional take on the Dr. Crippen case. His first novel, All the Lonely People, introduced the character of ‘Harry Devlin’ to the world and was nominated for a Crime Writers Association John Creasey Memorial Dagger for best first crime novel of the year. Since then, Martin has published six further Devlin novels, the highly popular Lake District Mystery series, featuring DCI Hannah Scarlet and historian Daniel Kind, and a stand-alone psychological suspense novel set in London called Take My Breath Away.

On top of all this, Martin has somehow also found the time to edit sixteen collections of crime fiction, publish seven legal books, as well as over 800 articles for newspapers and magazines as diverse as The Times, Good Housekeeping, International Management and Amateur Gardening.

Martin and Sophie will be reading and talking about their work and answering questions from the audience at the event, which, as with the Preston and Blackpool editions, will be hosted by the Preston author and blogger Jenn Ashworth, who was herself shortlisted for The Guardian’s ‘Not the Booker’ Prize last year for her own acclaimed novel, A Kind of Intimacy. A bookseller will also be in attendance, to provide those all-important copies for signing!

Word Soup: Sophie Hannah & Martin Edwards takes place at Ormskirk Library from 1pm-3pm on Saturday 30th January. Entry is free.

Ormskirk Library

Burscough Street Ormskirk

L39 2EN
Tel: 01695 573448

2010-01-05T15:53:00.000Z

Free Creative Writing Workshop

2010-01-05T15:48:00.002Z

Are you interested in creative writing?
Here is a great opportunity to work with internationally published, prize winning, professional writer Kevin McCann and get your work published in a professionally produced publication.It is a creative writing project in which original historic documents and archives about Blackpool will be used as the inspiration for new pieces of writing. There will be an introduction led by archive professionals from the Lancashire Record Office exploring the history of Blackpool through archives. The project will also be supported by professional writer, Kevin McCann, who will be on hand to help, guide and advise on the creative writing process. At the end a professionally designed and produced publication of the finished pieces will be produced.When is it?

The project will run from Tuesday 26^th January 2010 to Saturday 27^th February 2010 with a special launch event on Tuesday 30^th March. Please note participants will be expected to attend all the sessions.

Where is it?

6pm-8pm 26^th January	Blackpool Central Library	Introductory Session
6pm-8pm 2^nd February	Lancashire Record Office, Preston (help with transport if required)	A chance to see behind the scenes of the Record Office
6pm-8pm 16^th February	Blackpool Central Library	Advice Session
11am-4pm 27^th February	Blackpool Central Library	Half hour bookable 1 to 1 session with Kevin to discuss final editing
6pm-8pm 30^th March	Blackpool Central Library	Celebration and book launch

How much is it?

The project is FREE OF CHARGE to all participants.

How do I get involved?

Places are strictly limited to 12. Places can be booked on a first come first served basis by emailing heather.morrow@blackpool.gov.uk.

Please ensure you are available for all the session before booking your place.

University programme offers path to literary success

2010-01-05T15:46:00.000Z

An initiative to support emerging literary talent is being launched by
the University of Bolton in collaboration with the Chinese Arts Centre
in Manchester.

The Writers' Pathway starts in February 2010 and is aimed at new
writers, of Chinese descent. It will provide a 14-week programme to
develop the writers' craft through professional supervision and distance
learning with the help of a professional mentor.

The programme opens with a five-day residential workshop at the
prestigious Arvon Foundation Lumb Bank Centre in Hebden Bridge,
Yorkshire, and culminates in a showcase of practitioners' work at the
Octagon Theatre, Bolton.

Poets, novelists and playwrights can submit samples of their work and a
panel, comprising professional writers and University tutors, will make
the final selection for the 12 places available on the programme.

Rebecca Albrow, Project Manager, said: 'For someone still in the early
stages of their literary career, this programme could be the catalyst
that enables their talent to flourish and grow. Those taking part will
have the opportunity of working with renowned writers including experts
from BBC Writersroom.

'We're delighted to be working with the Chinese Arts Centre on this
project and looking forward to nurturing the careers of new North West
literary talents.'

For further information about the Writers' Pathway initiative please
visit
www.bolton.ac.uk/AME/writerspathway/
or email
writerspathway@bolton.ac.uk.

For further information please contact: 

Rebecca Albrow
Creative Industries Project Manager
School of Arts, Media & Education
University of Bolton
Deane Campus
Room T4-076
Deane Road
Bolton BL3 5AB
 
(T) 01204 903332

Review of In Memory of Real Trees - by Mark Charlesworth

2010-01-05T10:56:00.004Z

In Memory of Real Trees is the follow up to Mark Charlesworth’s debut poetry collection and, once again, there is much to recommend. Landscapes familiar to Sunrise and Shorelines are revisited but with a much keener eye. A gothic gauze is once again laid over the world in Dark Forest, Cemetery Song, Bitterest Sin and Anatomising the Killer, but there is progression from the first collection; Charlesworth has moved on from the musings of a younger poet and speaks with conviction about love, desire, hope and fear.

In many of the poems, love often fails to thrive, or if it does it is inextricably bound up with despair and death: “Love is a parasite deep in the grave”, says the narrator of Victims of Love. Love brings no happiness, only horror, as the macabre conclusion shows:

“There are times in life when we will always feel
Just like little dead girls lying on the beach.”

Even in the more hopeful love poems – Ghosts #2 and How to Stop Time, for example – Charlesworth brilliantly communicates the paradoxically insubstantial and yet permanent feelings of love:

“One second’s intensity can burn an imprint on time
-fleetingly seen from the corner of an eye-
Forge two ghosts together in inseparable binds.”

In Attic Room and Heart-Shaped Hole, however, the tone is less embittered, and a yearning honesty seeps out in the end of the latter. Behind all the nightmarish images, lies a simple human desire for companionship, the narrator saying that the simplest, throwaway pleasures

“would feel a little more extraordinary
With someone else there by my side.”

Interspersed with these seemingly personal concerns are sketches of other lives, damaged and loveless. Second Hand Model and Love Song focus on the mutability and superficiality of youthful beauty, while Collateral for the Company tells the story of a lonely man who is literally worked to death.

One of the strengths of In Memory of Real Trees is the way in which personal and global hopes and fears are interwoven, as demonstrated in the two poems which bookend the collection. The individual anxieties in Damaged Goods in Transit are writ large for all humanity in the aptly named Decision Time. Individual crises parallel the predicament we face as a species.

“Do you feel vulnerable dark and cold?
Too tired to sleep,
Too empty to weep...”

evolves into

“And if we settle for a doomsday scenario
On whose shoulders will rest the blame?”

Like love, a utopian society is possible, says Charlesworth, but not without effort and pain. We first have to walk a road “marked by repentance, recant and repair / or broken bones, regrets and mistakes”. Urban landscapes are as blighted as inner worlds. The city is a dark, bewildering, dangerous place and produces fractured, alienated people, with the opening stanza of Ghosts #1 echoic of both Blake’s London and Eliot’s Wasteland:

“A multitude of drifting shadows
Moving through the city street abyss
Forever haunt the same street corners
Where unseen ropes bound lifeless wrists”

Similarly in Early Morning Commuter, the narrator’s mindscape is mirrored in the world beyond his train window – the “tide of pollution”, the “rain-swept” tower blocks and the “dampness of a disconnected world” all driving him to find escape, both physically and mentally, in “a field of daffodils” where he “begs to be devoured”.

Like those in Sunrise and Shorelines, these are complex poems and demand to be read and re-read. Many of the pieces are dreamlike in their structure, making the world of the collection disorientating and obscured. As readers, as in life, we long for the world to make sense and inevitably it doesn’t; something which is captured well in these poems. Indeed, many of the poems are about the almost impossible task of finding a calm, meaningful space amidst the maelstrom. That aside, Charlesworth’s linguistic inventiveness sometimes gets a little lost in the whirling disorder and so, for me at least, the longer poems are not always as engaging as the shorter, crystallised observations.

There is evidence, though, of a poet finding his voice. Shipwreck, Bees and Bernese Winter are amongst the best in the collection because there is a more judiciously structured progression of ideas, the reader is drawn into the narrative, and there is a more accomplished control of images:

“The frozen green river was picturesque for a while
before absent festive ice-skaters left it still.”

“...the shop-keeper traipses to a cellar store,
cutting spectrums of fabric, lace strands and silk,
in burgundy, violet, thunder-sky-scarlet,
stoking incense, candles and spices enticing...”

Remarkably, Charlesworth has suggested that this will be his last collection of poetry. Personally, I think this would be a great shame as there is obviously so much potential here for him to become an excellent poet. He is clearly prolific and watches the world carefully. If more work emerges from Charlesworth, it would be nice to see a shorter, more thematically-focused collection which will allow the reader to savour the richness of his language and the poet to cut the skin of a particular aspect of human experience sharply. In the meantime, it is well worth reading In Memory of Real Trees. These poems deserve your time.

You can keep up to date with Mark Charlesworth’s writing at http://www.markcharlesworth.blogspot.com/

Word Soup #8 'Old'

2009-12-14T13:53:00.008Z

Lancashire Writing Hub is pleased to bring you Word Soup #8 - our last of the year, on the 22nd of December. Come and join us on a chilly winter's evening for an evening of writing, words and music. We start at eight, but if you fancy something warm for tea before hand, come early!

Special guests include Zoe Lambert

Zoe is a short story writer based in Manchester. She is published by Comma Press and her debut collection is forthcoming in 2010. She lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Bolton.

and Andrew Michael Hurley.

Born in 1975, Andrew was brought up in Preston. After living in Manchester and London he returned to Lancashire where he graduated from MMU with an MA in Creative Writing. He is the author of two short story collections - Cages and The Unusual Death of Julie Christie - and has had stories published in various on-line and print magazines. At the moment he is trying to write a novel about mistletoe, the Cold War and a boy with super-powers, and is a regular contributor to the Central Lancs Writing Hub.

We'll also be joined by sCribble, who'll be treating us to a showcase selection of writing from their members - some of whom will be making their very first forray onto the spoken word stage just for us.

Finally, you'll be hearing from poets Peter Crompton and Rachel McGladery. Rachael wowed us at the Word Soup #6 open mike, and we snapped her up for a turn as a booked performer.

Rachel has written ever since she can remember. She only began writing poetry early this year, although since she discovered open mike at Word Soup she has become tiresomely prolific and has had three piece published at Pygmy Giant. She also writes a family life column in her local paper and has just completed at 50,000 word novel written in 30 days with NaNoWriMo.

Peter Crompton has performed at Word Soup before - both on the open mike and as a booked performer. Peter has a profile and a blog on the Write out Loud site and a photography showcase here.

Musical interludes for the evening will come courtesty of the talented Karima Francis: myspace here.

As always, the doors open at 8pm and we'll be starting shortly afterwards, so come early if you want a seat because (as you regulars will know) we've been getting busier and busier.

If you want to sign up for open mike, come and find me when you get here, or speak to Robyn on the door who will be happy to sign you up for your three minutes of spoken word glory. The night will be filmed by You Tube Channel curator and digital archivist extraordinaire Norman Hadley, and hosted by me, Jenn Ashworth. You can listen along at home by following the #wordsoup hashtag on twitter.

(Boom!)

Video Channel Expands North

2009-12-11T08:40:00.003Z

You lucky, lucky people. Not only do we provide you with video clips of the finest writers and singers from the Prestonlands, but we will even venture north on your behalf, to gently lower our butterfly net over Lancaster's literary luminaries. That's right, the video channel that we set up last month (and has already had nearly 700 views) is expanding to include performances from Lancaster Spotlight. The content has nearly doubled and will double again over the weekend - a bit like the National Debt but in a good way.

If you're an event organiser, you can use this resource as a growing library of performers to fill your stage.

If you're a performer, feel free to embed clips in your site and blogs (only please drop in some kind words and some even kinder links about Lancashire Writing Hub).

Or if you went to one of these nights and just want to relive your favourite acts, you can do that too. And don't forget to keep supporting both Word Soup and Spotlight because performers need people to perform to.

Intermediate Creative Writing Course

2009-12-10T16:52:00.000Z

Lancashire Writing Hub presents the Intermediate Creative Writing Course
- hosted by novelist and short story writer Jenn Ashworth. This short,
intensive course is aimed at writers who are working on short stories,
flash fiction collections or novels. Learn to structure and edit longer
pieces of work, receive feedback and develop your writing process from
initial idea to finished product. Three separate 3 hour sessions -
Saturday 9th January, Saturday 23rd January and Saturday 6th February -
all sessions 2 - 5pm in the Snug, Contintental, South Meadow Lane
Preston.

Jenn Ashworth is an experienced workshop tutor and has had short stories
published variously in magazines both on and off line. Her first novel,
A Kind of Intimacy, was named as a Waterstones New Voice and shortlisted
for the Guardian's Not The Booker Award. She writes an award winning
blog, has just completed work on her second novel and currently hosts
the monthly live lit night Word Soup here at the Continental.

Cost: £70 for all three sessions (attendance at all three sessions is
required - fees are non-refundable)

Initial expressions of interest to jenn@theyeatculture.org

Free Event from Chorley Writers' Circle

2009-12-01T13:40:00.000Z

Writing Group Members! - Join us for the launch of Chorley Writers’ new book +

Entertainment from Poet Ann Wilson &

A great opportunity to meet other local writers

Tuesday 8^th December 2009 @ 8pm

New Continental, Preston

Free entry (but you need to book your place)

Chorley & District Writers’ Circle would like to invite members of local writing groups to the launch of our annual publication Aware.

The event takes place on Tuesday 8^th December at the New Continental in Preston and promises to be a great evening.

There will be entertainment from humorous poet Ann Wilson and her ukulele.
We will also be announcing the winners of our Poetry competition as well reading work from Aware.
Finally, we are launching a new online resource for local writers funded by the National Lottery.

The event is free and open to all writers – it’s a fantastic opportunity for local writing groups to get together.

Places are limited so if you would like to attend please email heather@font57.com to make a booking by 2^nd December AT THE LATEST.
We look forward to seeing you!

Regards

Chorley & District Writers’ Circle

Interview with Mark Charlesworth on the publication of his second book of poetry, In Memory of Real Trees

2009-11-28T15:11:00.004Z

It's 3pm and I'm standing outside Caffe Nero, waiting to meet Mark Charlesworth, the poet. Mark is also standing outside Caffe Nero, waiting to meet me. The only problem - as we eventually realise – is I am in Lytham and he is in St Anne's.

One quick bus journey later we are ready to start the interview, no real harm done. It's an occupational hazard when there's a ubiquitous Coffee House on every high-street. We chose Nero because Mark is a vegan and here in Suburbia the major chains are the only place you can get soya milk. I say this because it seems typical of the myriad contradictory challenges of Modern Life which so fascinate Charlesworth: where we are forced into making bizarre choices between Veganism and Globalisation, or Fair Trade V Organic, Locally Available V Superfoods. Mark's poetry finds modernity confusing, worrying and often painfully self-aware.

I have armed myself with a Vegan-friendly green tea and a serious expression, but within five minutes of meeting, Mark has used the words 'warm and fuzzy' to describe one of his favourite poems, and concludes the interview with a persuasively positive slant on the recession. While grappling with dark and socially aware themes, there is ultimately an irrepressible love of beauty throughout Mark's writing which makes both reading and listening to him a pleasure.

***

Daisy: The Central Lancs Writing Hub (formerly Preston Writers Network) focuses on the Lancashire literary community. Do you believe specific places can shape and inspire its inhabitants in unique ways and have any places particularly inspired you?

To an extent, yes. This latest book really began to take shape after I attended a wedding in Blackpool. After a while the music began to grate a little and my friend and I decided to go for a walk. It's weird because I've always slagged off Blackpool because of its seediness, its tackiness, and the commercial aspect of it, but we took a walk through all that, quite a way out onto the beach, and then we turned back to Blackpool... All the illuminations were sparkling, like Christmas lights, and it looked almost picturesque. We were seeing Blackpool from this whole new perspective. It started to rain then and the lights through the rain looked... fuzzy. [Laughs] - You don't get words like that in the book, 'warm and fuzzy', honest. 'Carnation' was the poem that eventually emerged from the contrast between the tackiness of the golden mile and the original seafront which attracted the Victorian tourists in the first place. It wasn't the first poem I wrote for the book, but it was the one which gave it structure.

I've also always enjoyed going to Leeds on the train, through the hills and the bleak industrial towns. Despite all the crumbling buildings, there's a beauty about them, set into the jagged hills, which Southerners might not get. The poem turns round the clichés and throws them back at the detractors. The picture on the cover of the book is of Fairhaven Lake, another inspiring spot.

Daisy: Could you tell us a little about your background?

I'm twenty-three, and a Northerner born and bred; I went to college at Cardinal Newman in Preston, before studying English at UCLAN. The course there had some optional creative writing modules, and while at college my English teacher always encouraged us to submit writing to him. I self-published my first book, Sunrise and Shorelines in 2008 and am launching my second book of poetry, In Memory of Real Trees, at The New Continental on the 28^th of November. I feel the first book gave me the confidence to start down the road of self-publishing, and with the second I've introduced more of a theme and concept to the work.

Daisy: In terms of poets, who would you cite as influences?

That's hard, I suppose I haven't followed poetry in a linear fashion; Simon Armitage certainly, and Ted Hughes. I'm a big admirer of Baudelaire, especially his poem 'A Carcass' which is about this disgusting cadaver but somehow Baudelaire manages to make it almost beautiful... I think the first book displayed these influences more prominently, it was straight up Nu-Gothic – one reviewer called it that and spelt it that awful 'N-U' way! (Ed. Whoops so did I). Who else? I admire Roger McGough's stark, concise stanzas which somehow manage to contain so much emotion. Then there's our new poet laureate, Carol Anne Duffy.

[The interview here deteriorates into a discussion on the merits of Duffy who still brings back bitter memories of school and forced readings of 'Valentine' for me. Mark suggests I should revisit her as he didn't appreciate her work until he was older, and thinks teaching her in school is a mistake.]

Daisy: I'm interested in the distinction between music and poetry, are there any musicians who have inspired your poetry and to what extent do you think the two forms are interrelated?

I think certainly the line between poetry and music is blurred at best. I'm a big fan of The Smiths. I remember someone read some of the lyrics out in a presentation while I was at University and it was strange how un-lyrical they sounded read aloud. The magic takes place in the way he sings them, and so I suppose there is a distinction there. I also love Nick Cave - the way he constructs lyrics is so totally idiosyncratic, they almost shouldn't work but they do. I also like The Waterboys, especially their song 'Bring 'Em All In', which is extremely poetic.

In first book two of the poems are actually adapted from song lyrics we'd written, and in the new one the poem 'Bitterest Sin' also. It works both ways too, a friend recently read 'Second Hand Model' from the latest book and called me to say he thought it would work really well as a song. So that's a case of poetry inspiring music.

To diverge from the question slightly, I went to an exhibition earlier this year at the Tate Modern which looked at the connection between poetry and painting: Poetry is a snapshot of the world much like a painting is; it takes one concise idea and inspires a train of thought and emotion, and I thought that was a nice idea. In the book the poem '11 Self Portraits' was inspired by this.

Daisy: Are you PC literate? What forms of so-called 'social networking' do you favour and what have you found most effective in creating publicity and maintaining interest?

Yes I'm certainly part of the PC literate generation. But you have to pick and choose, because there are so many different ways to communicate out there that you can spread yourselves too thinly. I looked into various different options to publicise my first book and at the time the buzz about Twitter was just getting started. But Twitter really didn't appeal to me; I don't like the way it reduces everyone to soundbites, whereas with blogging you can actually construct varying arguments, and people can state their case and back it with evidence. I think this reduction of everything to mere soundbites is dangerous to society actually. To elaborate is in a writer's nature. So yes, I avoid Twitter but I do have a blog (http://markcharlesworth.blogspot.com/) and I try to promote it on forums, link to MySpace, Facebook etc. I've found though that sometimes the old-fashioned ways work best. Last year while I was publishing the first book I asked anyone interested in hearing more to scribble their email addresses down – I ended up with a mailing list of over a hundred people. So I use that to update people and I've had a surprising level of responses – sometimes I think there's so much out there that things can sink and get buried. Communicating with people directly can be more successful. Obviously this wouldn't be possible for bigger writers, but I feel privileged to be able to respond to people individually.

Daisy: You've self-published your first two books, why did you make the decision to go down this road to publication?

Originally it was partly because it's much harder to pitch poetry to mainstream publishers. There's a lot of cliché surrounding poetry; people see it as dark and arty and they don't want to go near it. I think there's less of a commercial aspect. At the same time I think there's becoming more of a market for it. I also wanted to some extent to create and control my own reputation by self publishing poetry as a way to progress towards publishing a novel. One step at a time, you know, but I am trying to increase exposure and I have quite a fixed plan. The next book is going to be a concept book dealing with issues very close to my heart and so naturally I would like a wider audience for it. That will be my last book of poems. I don't want to be in danger of repeating myself...

Daisy: That's a very intriguing idea; the attempt to avoid repetition as a writer. Many of our best writers seem to return time and again to the same preoccupations. Some writers (and readers) embrace that and some try consciously to avoid it – do you think it's even possible to do so?

To go back to the previous question, Nine Inch Nails are a big influence, and I read an interview with them recently after their final tour –which was amazing- and they said they had bowed out because they wanted to end it while they were at the peak of their game. I'm hoping I have the willpower after this next book to say that's it for poetry and I'm moving onto prose. I'm not saying I won't return to it at some point in the future but I would want to put a lid on it for the time being. But I'm getting ahead of myself! I would like to get an agent at that stage anyway. I would want to ease up a bit if I were publishing a novel as I'm a bit of a control freak when self-publishing.

Daisy: You talked about the fact that poetry isn't very commercial – and I think the same thing is true of short stories, novellas – do you think the 'credit-crunch' has affected the publishing prospects for writers of these genres and would you advise writers who aren't currently getting offers from mainstream publishers to self-publish or wait it out until the economy has improved?

The society we live in now can be a bleak place sometimes, but there are hopeful things which come out of there: Although yes, this recession can mean mainstream publishers are clinging to their cash cows, it's possible to see it as a good thing because it leads people to take things into their own hands - not just in publishing, but big business and retail as well.

In recent times we've seen a very corporate world in which people have had to ally themselves with a brand, or publisher, and ultimately they compromise their integrity to an extent, just to get their work out there. Now I think people are starting to realise they have to take personal responsibility for themselves and their lives. In a way I think we are witnessing the rebirth of the Age of Independence – not just in terms of writing but in the way people approach their lives; like renewable power, growing their own vegetables, self-sufficiency in lifestyles and business occupations. I think that's a very positive thing.

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, but it seems to me we're actually making poetry more commercially viable for the future. I'm certainly seeing more grassroots arts events out there recently [like our own Word Soup!] and then there's the web of course – there's a whole network of tools and resources out there for writers. I think in a way the recession or 'credit-crunch' has led to a widespread feeling of empowerment, and it's this sense of being empowered which will carry us into the next era.

***

In Memory of Real Trees can be purchased through Mark's blog and at the book launch this evening (Saturday the 28th) at The New Continental here in Preston.

2009-11-26T14:44:00.001Z

The 4th edition of ‘Pinhole Camera’

the magazine from the University of Cumbria,

invites submissions for

‘EXPOSURE’

Max word length: 2000 words or 40 lines of poetry

Writing can be of any genré or style but there must be a Cumbrian link with either writer or work.

closing date for submissions:

14TH JANUARY 2010

publication in April, 2010.

and, as an added bonus why not enter our ‘Flash Fiction’ competition too?

Tell us a story in no more than 100 words. All Flash-fiction entries will be posted on the up-coming website and the stories voted the best by our readers will get copies of the magazine and the opportunity to read out winning entries at our spectacular launch event in April 2010, date & Venue tba

go on, you know you want to!

Exposure welcomes entries by post or email:

to submit, or for more information contact:

pinholecamera4@gmail.com

EXPOSURE MAGAZINE

C/O 9 CHURCH TERRACE

STANWIX

CARLISLE

CA3 9DH

Tel/Text : 07930 236 122

Central Lancs Hub

2009-11-23T15:32:00.004Z

Those of you who are eager in your wishes to be kept updated with the best and most up to date literature news and events in Preston and beyond will already be subscribing to this blog in a reader... you sensible lot.

However, you might want to consider clicking through and visiting us at home just this once - as well as our well-furnished sidebar, offering you the very best in Preston Blog Directories, poetry, performance and literature links for our region and elsewhere in the UK, you'll also want to come in and see our brand new title.

Look.

Up there. ^^

There you go.

We are no longer the Preston Writing Network. Exciting things are afoot. We are expanding and extending in our endeavours to bring you high quality news, reviews, events and information. For the time being, we're going to be called the Central Lancs Writing Hub - reflecting our tendency to take in events and information that extends beyond the boundaries of the city of Preston.

Shortly before Christmas we'll be changing again, and moving house to a brand-new website comissioned by They Eat Culture. The new website, swish, sophisticated and still-in-the-making, will be called The Lancashire Writing Hub and will include The Central Lancs Hub and our new, currently in development, West Lancs Hub.

Don't get scared. It sounds complicated, but really it isn't. Stand by to change your feed, subscription or bookmarks, and come with us to our new address - launching just before Christmas. We're excited. You should be too.

If you have any questions or comments or want to join our merry band of volunteer bloggers (especially if you're West Lancs based) email me at jenn@theyeatculture.org

Word Soup #7 'Home'

2009-11-23T14:18:00.008Z

Our regular Word Soup reviewer, the lovely and talented Mel Webster, had the cheek to go away on her holidays so it's only me this time. Apologies for inaccuracy, misspelling, dearth of good jokes and lack of insightful yet witty comments about shoes in advance...

Our seventh Word Soup took place, as did the previous eight, in the Continental Events Space. A slight change to our usual format meant we missed out on our popular open mike section (sorry guys) and instead hosted Bewilderbliss - a Manchester based creative writing magazine. But more about that later.

Our first performer was Mark Charlesworth - a Preston based blogger and poet who's been featured fairly regularly on the PrestonWN blog by our in-house reviewer Andrew Hurley, as well as at previous Word Soups. We were pleased to welcome him back for a selection of Home themed poems that acted as a preview to his new poetry collection, In Memory of Real Trees. Mark will be launching the collection here at the Continental on the 28th November - the event is free and all are welcome. We'll also be reviewing the collection here very shortly.

Paul Sockett made a much welcome return to our stage all the way from his home in Great Harwood with a collection of poems that examined just what 'home' actually means - emphasising that home is not always a safe sanctuary with a chilling and disturbing poem titled 'One Thousand'. Paul's a confident, charismatic performer and certainly one of Word Soup's best discoveries - an actor by profession, he prefers to be called 'an actor who writes' rather than a writer...

Rounding off the first half, we were especially pleased to welcome West Lancashire novelist Carol Fenlon - who read from her award winning debut novel, Consider the Lilies. Structured as a series of diary entries from an unusual and isolated woman living in rural West Lancs in the 1960s, her writing had the whole room enthralled - one audience member visiting from south Manchester commented that he really got a sense of a Lancashire voice from Carol's work.

After a short break and a wee bit of music from Kevin Wilkinson, we returned to the main stage with a set from Bewilderbliss. Curated by the magazine's editor Jon Davies, we heard from magazine contributors and Manchester students Holly Ringland, Mathew Hull, Valerie O'Riordan and Jonathan Davies himself. The guests went down a storm, with a varied collection of pieces that showcased the best of Manchester writing. You can read Valeries' account of her first ever live performance at her blog - here (clicky clicky).

Bewilderbliss have their own website - do pop over (but please come back) to read interviews and reviews and find out more about their magazine - now open for submissions. They accept poetry and prose and aim to showcase the very best in new writing - it would be great to have a Prestonian featured there... all issues are themed and all submitted pieces should be on the theme 'untruthful' - a theme set by yours truly. So get submitting, and tell them we sent you..

Our final two performers were certainly worth waiting for. Mollie Baxter travelled to us from Morecambe. A very experienced musician, writer and performer with pieces published by Lancaster based publisher, Flax - she treated the audience to a short story first published in Before the Rain with an alternative ending written especially for the evening - and followed up with an account of a flat that had many members of the audience nodding in recognition.

Last up we had Thomas Fletcher - Thomas is an accomplished writer and poet based in Manchester, also published by Flax and with his first novel, The Leaping, forthcoming in 2010 by Quercus Books. His editor Nick Johnston has said Tom's work

'speaks for a generation that's got the highest level of university education in history, but has largely found themselves trapped in mind-numbing temp work. He's perfectly captured the fear and violence that lurk beneath the surface of our society.'

Fear and violence were certainly in the offing for the last story of the night - an uncanny, almost supernatural tale of a woman pursued by a mysterious entity called 'home' - observed by her husband who can watch, but do nothing to help her. This was an unsettling tale - playing with our assumptions about 'hearth and home' and undermining our expectations at every turn. Tom's deadpan, highly controlled delivery perfectly suited the subject matter, and left the audience wanting more. Watch it for yourself here:

And that's all for Word Soup in November. With, as always, our thanks going to Daisy Baldwin who researched and created our performer profiles, and Norman Hadley who filmed the clips you see here, and the addition clips of the night which you can view at your leisure on the Lancashire Writing Hub YouTube Channel.

We'll be back in December with Word Soup #8 - 'Old' with appearances from Zoe Lambert, Rachel McGladdery, Peter Crompton and a showcase spot from sCribble - as well as a return to our much missed open mike section of the night. See you there!

Review of Trades of the Flesh by Faye L. Booth

2009-11-18T22:24:00.003Z

Following the success of Cover the Mirrors (2007), Trades of the Flesh is the second offering from North West novelist Faye L. Booth and concerns the fall and rise of pauper Lydia Ketch who turns to prostitution and begins to use the lucrative and exploitative trade to her own advantage, effecting her escape from a self-destructive underclass. Her way out comes initially in the form of Henry Shadwell, a young surgeon, who Lydia happens across whilst plying her trade in The Old Bull. Little by little Lydia is drawn into Henry’s world of amateur pornography and, more alarmingly, grave robbery.

Writing historical fiction is always a difficult task and it is a skilful author that can make the reader believe they are seeing into a much older world without having to shoehorn in the clichés of the time (to create the 1970s, for example, all you need are Space Hoppers, kipper ties, Smash, Clangers, tank-tops, flares and three day weeks). The problem is that we want to have our cake and eat it with historical fiction. We want characters to have similar concerns to ours, but also be different enough to seem as though they belong to a bygone age. In the same way there are always complaints that the characters in BBC costume dramas seem ‘too modern’, we are hyper-sensitive to anachronisms of behaviour and speech mannerisms in prose that can burst the bubble of plausibility. There is also the problem that as readers we have so many preconceptions about particular historical periods that the writer, in creating an authentic past world, has to walk a fine line between tapping into those ideas we already hold and challenging them.

For the most part Booth deals with these issues deftly. Despite the dark and often tragic events, the story is told with gallows humour, the characters are engaging and familiar without being stereotypes, and there are some weird and wonderful originals – like the beggar who tries to trick Lydia and Mary into thinking he is diseased by making weeping scabs out of soap and pigs’ blood and the strange bunch of trainee surgeons Henry instructs using his purloined corpses.

But although the novel is clearly well researched (Booth admits to walking the streets of Preston - so to speak - and scrutinising old maps to understand how the city might have looked and felt in the nineteenth century), I found myself wanting this dark Preston to be rendered a little more tangibly. Though this may have been because I am a native Prestonian and I wanted from the novel the same pleasurably disorientating sense of familiarity and otherness I feel when I look at old photographs of a city I know well. Booth has simply chosen subtlety when it comes to describing place, making the characters and their lives the focus. Lydia’s world is, in fact, fairly small – her employment restricting her to the main thoroughfares of Friargate and Fishergate.

Lydia and Henry’s lusty exploits would not look out of place in Onan and The Gentlemen’s Review, but there is more to this novel than just trashy erotica. It is about female empowerment as much as it is about sexual liberation. While many of the men come across as either violent, arrogant or with sexual tastes way beyond weird (see the man who is aroused by girls pretending they are consumptive) women, on the other hand, are nearly all strong willed and intelligent. Kathleen Tanner who owns the brothel where Lydia works and Mrs Bell, her landlady later in the novel, though worlds apart, both run successful businesses. Lydia teaches herself to read and write well enough to publish a ‘gentlemen’s’ paper of her own – The White Flowers Reader - and as a result of her business acumen is eventually able to move out of the ‘introductions house’. She outgrows the need for Henry’s financial assistance and becomes truly independent.

The corset on the book cover will probably mean that Trades of the Flesh is stacked on the shelves in Waterstones with the Black Lace Quickies and bondage anthologies, but don’t be shy, go over, take it away from all that and put it with the literature.

Faye L. Booth was interviewed by PWN last month and has already completed her third novel, which is set at the turn of the century. You can follow her progress on book number four by reading her blog.

LancashireWritingHub - New Youtube Channel

2009-11-18T08:25:00.004Z

This week sees the launch of Preston Writing Network's shiny-new adventure in multimedia webtertainment. We've set up our very own youtube channel called Lancashire Writing Hub, where the writerly folk of Ribbleland can have their performances captured for the grateful benefit of posterity.

We've already uploaded some archive clips from Word Soup on Tour and Word Soup 6 so it's far from an empty jam-jar. As today progresses, new clips should waft in from the floatier recesses of cyberspace, depicting the brave souls who read, sang, strummed and hummed for us at last night's cracking Word Soup 7.

Blog Roundup

2009-11-15T00:06:00.007Z

It's time for us to take a stroll once again in the land of local blogs. With winter drawing in, bringing with it its cold and its rain, this is an apt time of year to remind ourselves of the more positive aspect of nature, wildlife and the great outdoors in general.

First up, is Save The Ribble, a blog whose aim, in the words of the blog itself, is to preserve 'the beauty of the River Ribble, and opposing the Riverworks 'vision' to build a barrage on our River and develop on our riverbanks, floodplains and green spaces, causing damage to wildlife and the environment and increasing the risk of flooding to our homes.' Active locals and regular visitors to the blog will know it has already been successful in preventing the Ribble's riverbanks and South Ribble's Green Belt from being 'developed', and also in forcing the council to abandon plans to build a barrage across the Ribble.

Save The Ribble is part of a wider campaign to protect local nature, the Ribble and the surrounding area in particular. A campaign which includes Along with Ribble Cycle Diaries, a sort of companion blog, which, after contributing to the victories against local council plans, continues to promote local cycling, currently recommending the Ribble Coast And Wetlands Walking Festival, and features some plain ol' lovely pictures of the Ribble.

Wildlife pictures abound on Brian Rafferty's blog. Brian is a photographer and uses his blog to showcase his stunning wildlife pictures. It's a truly absorbing portfolio with close-up and crystal-clear shots of all the birdlife the region has to offer, with a brief but illuminating accompanying texts. One of the joys is that, although we're currently entering into the grip of bleakest midwinter, you can still see the natural world of the summer: a spotted flycatcher here, a bittern there. Or, if you like, you can marvel some of the current climate's miracles of the nature, such as this flock of starlings.

Continuing the bird-theme, Ribble To Amazon! is another birder-blog, this time taking in the birds of Latin America alongside those found in Lancashire, as Colin Bushell documents his travels through the exotic climes of Peru and Brazil, and through the marginally less exotic climes of Cumbria. So, as well as our native Shore Larks and Egrets, you also get to gander at Brazilian Red Crested Cardinals and Peruvian Wire-Crested Thorntail Hummingbirds.

Finally, African Brew Ha Ha, another travelogue blog, this time beating a path via motorcycle from Lancashire to Cape Town, South Africa. Although Alan Whelan, the author documents customs, cuisine and an unfortunate incident in which he crashed his Triumph and ended up in hospital, the main focus of the blog is the unifying, human powers of a cup of tea. Although the adventure came to an end last year, Whelan continues to add posts about all of these topics and a book based on his experiences is forthcoming in April next year.

Mollie Baxter at Word Soup 7 November 17th 8pm

2009-11-14T21:29:00.014Z

Mollie Baxter is a lady with many feathers to her cap; a creative writing tutor at the University of Cumbria, she also manages to find time to be a musician, writer, performer and presenter! Phew! And we here at PWN sometimes have trouble eating breakfast while reading the paper!

She graduated from the MA in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in 2003 and since then has seen her work published in The Quiet Feather, Scribe, Pitch, Litfest Flax, and on www.the-phone-book.com. She recorded the album Hating Baby in 2000.

In a recent interview with PWN's own Norman Hadley, Mollie discusses what motivates her to write:

"Most people don't like to be preached at. I do think, though, a lot of writers, myself included, write to work something out – and in both senses – 'work out' as in get out of the system, but also as in to come to a new understanding. I think good writers are generally very good worriers".
As a woman who personifies what the Americans call a 'triple threat', we don't think Mollie has anything to worry about.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOxufB_Blmg

Read this: http://www.litfest.org/mollie-baxter.html

& Listen to this: http://www.myspace.com/mollbaxter

Oh, and be sure to come along to this Tuesday's Word Soup to see Mollie in action!

Word Soup 7: November 17th 8pm

2009-11-13T21:15:00.001Z

It's almost Word Soup time and this month the theme is: (there's no place like) HOME (sweet home)

Joining us will be:

Carol Fenlon

Novelist and member of Skelmersdale Writers

 Paul Sockett

A Blackburn based actor and performance poet

 Mark Charlesworth

Local poet and previous Word Soup open micer.

 Mollie Baxter

Poet, performer and musician

 Thomas Fletcher

A poet and novelist.

Tom Fletcher writes about the dark corners of our lives and environment
with unerring and unnerving authenticity, and a natural gift for evoking
feeling through language. His work is the real deal.

Nicholas Royle

Writer, critic and blogger

AND a very special appearance from Bewilderbliss. A

Manchester based magazine with four 3 minute slots from
contributors to the latest issue of their magazine. Copies will be available to purchase on the night


That date, once again, is November 17th 8pm - 10.30pm. 
£3 on the door or block booking discount for groups of 10 or more - contact robyn@theyeatculture.org for details

Libraries turned inside out!

2009-11-06T10:30:00.002Z

Workshops and Surgeries in Lancaster

2009-11-03T15:15:00.001Z

Courtesy of our friends over in Lancaster, here's news of three workshop and surgery opportunities taking place during November.

Words & Music Collaborations workshop.

10.30am - 4.30pm on Saturday 14th November 2009

at

The Storey Auditorium
Meeting House Lane, Lancaster
The aim of the workshop is to enable

six writers and six musicians to work in
collaboration experimenting with the combination of
text and sound -
stretching the boundaries of music and using words
and sound in abstract/atmospheric ways.

As places are limited to six writers and six musicians
they will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

If you would like more information or
please e-mail:
spotlightclub@btinternet.com

Please note: this is not a 'songwriting workshop'.

Facilitators: Ann Wilson and Shaun Blezzard

Ann is a writer and performing poet based in South Cumbria. Her poetry features on The Resting Bench which is free to download from Earth Monkey Productions at www.earthmp.com Thanks to fabulous sonic artist/producer Shaun (Clutter) Her poetry collection Synesthetic is available at The Tinners' Rabbit Bookshop, Ulverston, Cumbria or direct from Ann at gigs.
Check out her website: www.annthepoet.com

Shaun is a community based audio/visual artist who lives on Barrow Island in Cumbria,UK. He has worked as an artist, musician, producer, composer and workshop leader for the likes of Sonic Arts Network, Welfare State International, The Sage Gateshead, Youth Music, Whitewood & Fleming, Age Concern, Grizdale Arts, Shoreline Films, The Ashton Group, Connexions, The Word Hoard and Barrow Borough Council. He is also an experienced live sound technician and sound recordist and runs Earth Monkey Productions - a non-profit making net label specialising in experimental electronic music, sound art and spoken work.

Performance Writing Workshop

Friday November 20th 2.30 - 4.30pm

at The Storey Creative Industries Centre,
Meeting House Lane, Lancaster LA1 1TH

Facilitator: Ann Wilson -

Ann is the regular host of the Spoken Word open mic at Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal, Cumbria. She has performed her poetry in pubs, cafes, and theatres, on the radio at festivals and on the street since 1992.

Fee: £5

To Book or for further information email:

spotlightclub@btinternet.com

www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk

Writing Surgeries: Work In Progress

Whether you are just starting out
or have been writing for some time...

Whether you write for performance or the page...

Would you like to get some creative feedback on your writing?

Then come to a One-To-One 20 minute Surgery
with Spotlight Organisers Ron Baker and Sarah Fiske.
@ The Gregson Centre, Moor Lane, Lancaster.

The Next Surgery will be held on:

Sunday 22nd November 2009 - 7 - 9pm

Fee: £5

Places are limited and must be booked in advance -
To sign up for a 20 minute writing surgery
or for Further Information e-mail:

spotlightclub@btinternet.com

Feedback From Recent Surgeries

Thanks very much for the helpful feedback at my writing surgery. It definitely boosted my morale and made me feel it was worth keeping going (not that I'm in danger of stopping writing, but it gave me the hope that someone other than myself might at some point like to read what I've written!!). Thanks for making the surgeries happen and for the sensitive and encouraging way you commented on what I'd written. I'm plugging away at writing something longer and will edit, edit and edit again when I've got it all on paper.

Rob W. - Following your advice last November I sent copies of the first three chapters of my book (and a summary), to several publishers. After two rejections the editorial team of a publisher in London has now asked for the completed manuscript for consideration. Needless to say I am now working hard to complete it.

Matt T. - I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you for the constructive and supportive comments you made about my poems and about writing in general. I came way energised and inspired.

Peter B. - I would like to thank you for your encouragement and positive advice at the Writing Surgery last Sunday. It is greatly appreciated. I'm sure it will help me in the future.

Pamela P. - Let me thank you for the opportunity to have my work critiqued. I found the comments invaluable and greatly appreciated the time spent in giving me feedback.

Elisabeth D. - Just a short note to say 'thank you' for your help with my writing. Your comments were perceptive and helpful. I was impressed that you had taken time to read it so carefully. But it was just what I needed. I will take all to task in the New Year. Thank you again for your helpful suggestions, your time and your encouragement.

Bill D. - A brief note to thank you very much for your help. I've done a bit of re-drafting and feel stimulated and encouraged to progress my novel, 'Mad World'. It was nice to meet and talk with you.

FREE Adoption Week Poetry Competition

2009-11-02T15:23:00.003Z

From Adoption Matters Northwest, some last minute news about a FREE to enter poetry competition for unpublished poems...

We’re offering a creative challenge for adults and children of all ages across the North West to prepare and submit a poem of 20 lines or less in any format or style on the theme of ‘Family’, reflecting the importance of family and family life.

This competition is running across Cheshire, Merseyside, Manchester and Lancashire with the contributions to be judged in two age groups – over 18s and 17 years and younger.

Winners for each area and each age group will be chosen for creativity and content by a panel including local representatives for each area such as Cheshire’s current Poet Laureate, W Terry Fox

Each lucky winner will win £50 in high street vouchers, get their poems published on our website, and submitted to the local and national media as part of the National Adoption Week (9-15 November) media campaign.

Highly commended entrants will also be invited to a VIP invitation-only poetry evening in Chester during National Adoption Week to hear selections of the poems entered in the competition read out by performers and listen to the first public performance of a poem written specially for the event by W Terry Fox.

Closing date for the competition is Tuesday 3 November. Entries can be emailed to adoption@dewinterpr.co.uk or posted to:

Adoption Poetry competition, De Winter PR
Fidelity House
12a Stocks Lane
Chester CH3 5TF

Please make sure that all entries are clearly marked with the writer’s name and contact details and that they are happy to be involved in publicity activity. For further details, contact Emma on 01244 320677.

NB Poems can be in any style and should be under 20 lines in length. Contributions must be previously unpublished.

Group Profile: Fylde Brighter Writers

2009-11-02T14:26:00.002Z

Steve Brodie from Fylde Brighter Writers talks to the PrestonWN about his group, and their latest competition - open to all writers. Read on for details...

Fylde Brighter writers were formed in 2006 following the closure of a creative night school class we attended the previous year. We still wanted to write and to keep in touch so decided to form our own writing circle. Once we got our own website up and running, other writers contacted us and we have a healthy core of around ten and a number of occasional visitors and affiliates. After a nomadic couple of years wandering from venue to venue, we're now settled in the County Hotel pub in Lytham and meet every Thursday evening.

Three of our members, Jackie Blake, Lauren Huxley-Blythe and Christine Axon are featured in the latest Leaf anthology, 'Ada and more Nano Fiction' and Eleanor Broaders has a poem in 'Openings 26', the 2009 anthology of OU poets. Eleanor also has had poems published in many other anthologies. Karen Pailing has won poetry competitions in Writers News amongst many others. Steve Wilson set up the Lancashire Writers Blog and his 'Caught in the Act' is on the BBC Lancashire web pages. The rest of us gamely plug away.

We've just launched our latest competition, the snappily titled 'Fylde Brighter Writers Short Story and Poetry Competition 2010'. It's open to anyone anywhere apart from our members and our relatives and it also has an Open theme. The top Prizes are £200 for short stories up to 2,500 words and £100 for the poetry prize and there is no length limit to the poetry. No one has entered a saga yet. There are runners up prizes too and small but beautifully crafted trophies for the winners. It cost £5 per short story or £10 for three stories and £3 per poem or £5 for three. We have postal and on-line entry options and the closing date is 27th February 2010.

(if you're interested in entering this competition, there are more details and contact information via the Brighter Writers website, here)

We ran a successful competition in 2008. We judge it ourselves, gradually whittling down the entries to the top ten which we then read out, debate, argue and champion our favourites over a couple of evenings (with wine) until we arrive at our winners. It's a lot of work but we feel it helps create a proper identity for the writing circle, it shows us the standards we need to reach to win other competitions and it can be great fun to do.

Why join a Writing circle? I greatly admire people who can sit down and rattle off fabulous stories in isolation from the rest of the world but I find the support of a Writing Circle invaluable. For natural prevaricators (such as myself) it's a constant dig in the ribs because I need to write something every week to take with me otherwise questions are asked! Constructive critques by the members of work is also useful. We had one member who changed her writing style after being asked to try something different by another member and now writes in a beautiful languid atmospheric way that she didn't before. We all bring hints tips and competition ideas in with us to the meetings and the collective sharing of information is something that you couldn't get on your own.

We've also published a couple of books via Lulu. 'Girl on the Bridge', a story of a, well, a girl on a bridge, seen from the perspective of other people looking at her in a park. We wrote a chapter each in this and found it to be a great collective way to get a story written. We published our anthology 'Coming Around' last year. It contains our competition winners and a couple of pieces - stories or poems - from each of us. It's available, for £3.99, from Lulu.com, via our own website and from Amazon.com in the US. I'm not quite sure how it got there, I think Lulu put it forward!

We will be producing another anthology in 2010 following the competition. Lulu is a great way to get your work quickly and cheaply into print. we find, and we're impressed by the quality. A few of our people have produced their own work for family and friends on Lulu and I'd recommend it anyone.

PrestonWN is always pleased to hear from you about your groups, projects and publications. If you have news about competitions, writing or reading opportunities or you'd like us to promote your group, event, book or workshop, get in touch with us and let us know.

Review of Sunrise and Shorelines by Mark Charlesworth

2009-10-31T09:30:00.001Z

Sunrises and Shorelines is the debut poetry collection from Prestonian Mark Charlesworth, who you may have seen reading at the recent ‘Word Soup on tour’ bash in Blackpool. Arranged in chronological order, the poems span some seven years, from 2001 to 2008, and touch upon a range of personal crises, global events and dark, imaginary tales.

In his foreword, apart from confessing the collection to be sincere rather than sophisticated (a noble bit of honesty, I thought), Charlesworth also admits that he was probably too young to fully understand the enormity of 9/11, which was his prompt to start writing. Yet, the first poem, America Under Fire, written when Charlesworth was still at high school, whilst being a powerful, raw response to the events of that day is also well considered enough to see the attacks a crucial moment in American history. Amid the “fire, chaos and tears”, the poet asks “Is the enemy within or on the out?” America is “desperate and broke” after living so long in “false realities”.

Many of the poems are based in the natural world – familiar territory for the poet of course, but Charlesworth often leads us through the kinds of lonely, perverse, abandoned places of dark gothic fairy tales – woods, bloody tombs, stormy seas and so on. The Revolt of the Trees, an interesting counterpart to America Under Fire, is a fable about greed and selfishness in which a unscrupulous woodcutter is turned into a tree. The setting of The Magnolia Room wouldn’t look out of place in an H.P. Lovecraft story. And the more light-hearted Tall Tales, blends Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall – “I saw a cat’s tail / curl round the moon...I saw a tall tree / telling a tale / to a broken man / at his own wake.”

Charlesworth seems comfortable speaking with the kind of language you might expect to find in much older poetry and some poems are full of the introspective longing and desperation reminiscent of, say, Christina Rossetti. Possessed and The Wanderer are harrowing sketches of loss, whilst in Alone the narrator yearns for love but finds nothing but emptiness: “I stand in autumn stillness / and strum a sombre tone / I watch the stars, take in their beauty / inertia creeps, division grows.”

There are whispers of an earlier Romanticism also in Dead Leaves and A Weary Night. The Final Days of Summer sounds like Keats edited by Emily Dickinson with its stark, often esoteric observations – “The hallows harvest / the fields are still / the black crows circle / the silent hill”. The Forest Awakened is full of landscapes not dissimilar to Coleridge’s Kubla Khan – “The hills in the distance / ran with rivers of ice”, “Somewhere, here and there / blackness crept in / mere shards of light / as though the darkness could sing”.

Yet, Charlesworth does not confine his poems to this beautiful and terrifying natural world – there are people adrift in urban landscapes too. End of the Earth and Kendal Castle blend the archaic and modern – “Sirens scream down silent streets / and tear the night apart...figures rise, entombed from the past / the devil’s dance, a raucous laugh.”; “Now shadows fall in Kendal town, / a world weary folk tale as the castle looks down, / where red wine’s split instead of blood long ago, / the bustling streets and the cigarette smoke...”

In domestic settings, Charlesworth seems to sense the same kind of futility as Philip Larkin. The objects in Buried Things – like the sheet music in Larkin’s Love Songs in Age – become symbols of lost love and the naivety of youth. Alcoholics’ Corner is rife with gallows humour and Their Home and This House is sad and poignant without being sentimental.

It is a brave poet who is willing to publish early work alongside later, more controlled pieces, but in Charlesworth’s case it shows a writer searching for a form and for voices which will speak accurately and powerfully. I’ll admit that some of the more meandering, surrealist poems – Coming Back to Life, Home by the Sky and The Forest Awakened, for example – I found a bit shapeless and in want of a decent pruning, the rhyming a little clunky in places – but then the collection is as much about the learning process of writing as it is about end product.

For me, the strongest pieces are those in which Charlesworth writes with economy about the specific rather than the abstract, and some of the later poems such as Sail Away, A Weary Night and Their Home and This House are extremely moving and memorable – “Theirs was a home to a family, but the clocks have all stopped / this house a museum, now that her heart is lost.”

This is a collection that is much more complex than it might at first appear and well worth reading as a curious, intriguing anthology on its own and as a prelude to Charlesworth’s second collection In Memory of Real Trees, which he will be launching at The New Continental on 28th November.

You can read Mark Charlesworth’s blog here and purchase copies of Sunrise and Shorelines.

In Conversation with Norman Hadley...

2009-10-28T16:29:00.012Z

Norman Hadley is a Garstang based poet. His second full collection, Stinging the Sepia is launching at The Corner Bookshop on Saturday 7th November at 3:00.

Jenn Ashworth: Finding a reader or an audience is important to most writers. You're a published poet and author as well as an experienced performer. Which way of communicating your words to others do you prefer, and why?

Norman Hadley: Performing live is a syringeful of Sunny D - it should definitely be a banned substance. The feeling of human connection when you get an audience on your side is intoxicating and I can easily understand why musicians keep gigging four decades after they were rich enough to retire.

I like experimenting with different voices and gauging reactions, so I can do shouting-at-pigeons crazy for one poem and see the audience do the step-away-from-the-loony routine. Then I can do a whispering-Ted-Lowe delivery for the next piece and it's great when you can see people leaning forward and engaging with the ideas.

That said, I'll never be a full-blown performance poet. If I ever came on like a dumbass white rapper, the audience would likely wet itself with derision. In any case, I'd like to think there's enough fibre in my poems for a second and third chew so that's where the books come in.

JA: What's the thinking behind selecting poems for a collection? Can you give poets who might be reading this, and who have a whole shoe-box or hard drive full of poems, any insight into the process you went through in making the selection, and deciding on the order, and so on?

NH: My poems range from syllabub-light rhymers all the way through pensive haiku and sepulchral free verse. I especially like to conceal stones in tissue paper; to convey a serious message in a playful vehicle.

I've tried to make all three collections as eclectic as possible. I measure everything on the axes of length, seriousness and form and aim for a broad spread of those parameters. Even the Pendle Hill collaboration; although all six pieces are ostensibly 'about' the same subject, they're all very different in form and voice.

Selecting pieces is akin to deciding which toes to cut off. People tell you to murder your darlings but I've got a whole mausoleum of darlings in my hard disc. As regards running order, Stinging the Sepia has been broken down into chapters by theme, such as Landscapes and Portraits. That's as sophisticated as it gets.

JA: How far do personal experiences inform the poetry you write, and how far is it invented, or fictional? (I know this is a horrid question - but people are always interested)

NH: I'm quite fortunate in that a fair chunk of my material is a response to landscape and landscape never feels hurt or betrayed. Or if it does, it never says. When I do stray onto matters of the heart, I go to inordinate lengths to protect those closest to me, even if it misleads the reader. No, I'll rephrase that, especially if it misleads the reader. I actively want to indulge the belief that this Norman Hadley character has dated an F-M transsexual, had an illicit flirtation in Tangiers and eavesdropped on middle-aged women getting frisky through a party wall. Once I've set up a canopy of the fantastical, I can slip in genuine autobiographical details under cover, like the Radio Four panel game "The Unbelivable Truth"

JA: As well as an active writer and performer you also work hard to support other people's work - through making their performances available on you tube, to writing reviews on The Lunecy Review. Do you think this is important? Is there a real writing community in lancashire? What are the benefits of being part of it? Is 'joining in' essential? What about if you're a loner, or very shy?

NH: I'm a recent convert to the joining-in philosophy. By nature, I am the shy loner your question envisages - an introverted, engine-designing robo-geek. Until last year I was pretty garret-centric; just idly monitoring my own glacial progress towards an unmarked grave. Yes, I'd toddle along to Spotlight as a spectator and occasional performer, but it didn't occur to me that the local arts scene was something I could contribute to.

But I've been inspired by people like Ron Baker, Sarah Fiske & Kevin McVeigh; people who are pursuing their own writing whilst finding time to give others a platform. And look what's happening here - you're days away from finishing your second novel, getting the small fry through her first school term and preparing to get hitched yet you've found time to talk to me.

I'd encourage anyone to get involved. Sure, it's knackering, there's very little recognition and there are brickbats a-plenty if someone doesn't "get" your review. But it puts you in touch with hordes of inspiring folk and if enough people chip in, it'll spread the load.

The videos are my pet project, even though I curse the amount of work I've lumbered myself with. I want to build up a library of North West performers, whether they're big names or open miking for the first time. They can send the links to their mums, embed them in their blogs or watch them obsessively to hone their acts, like aspirant dictators. And anyone who couldn't get a babysitter can get a glimpse into what they missed. I like to think it's added a new dimension to Lunecy and Preston Writing Network.

I've done some writing for review sites, too. I'm insanely proud of my interview with the fabulous Moll Baxter and I'm hoping this becomes a series of interviews with Lancaster's literary luminaries.

JA: Tell us about your experience with creative writing groups. Is it something you'd recommend? How should a poet or writer go about choosing a creative writing group?

NH: My experience is perhaps atypical in that I've only been involved with one group and it chose me. Monkeyrack is by invitation; it sounds deperately cliquey, I know, but it wouldn't work if it grew any larger. Now it may not bear comparison with marrying my wife or raising my daughter, but those events aside, joining Monkeyrack was one of the best things I've ever done. It's invaluable to bounce ideas off people who understand the vital distinction between 'complacent' and 'complaisant'.

If anyone's looking out for a group, I'd advise them to find people with writing styles very different from their own; if you specialise in floaty poetry, it's worthwhile to get the reaction of someone ploughing a different furrow. In Monkeyrack, I get interesting angles from crime specialist Jo Powell and resident horror dude, Simon Kurt Unsworth. As regards uber-poets, there's the exceptionally talented Ron Scowcroft.

I think the secret behind these groups is to be as honest as you can. If I've written something crap, I want to know that it stinks and why. I'm a patchy writer at best and often overreach myself. Feeling your ego's been masticated by a water-buffalo is worth it to improve your work.

JA: What does 'being successful' as a poet and a writer mean to you? What's your ambition for your creative work?

NH: Right now, success would mean the cheerful toot of the cavalry coming over the hill. Everything thus far has been an exercise in exhausted auteur-ship. This is against the backdrop of a day job that accounts for fifty-five hours of the week. I would weep salt tears of gratitude if someone, somewhere, would take some of that burden away so I could just write. After that, the laureateship, obviously. Only another nine and a half years to wait.

JA: What's next for you? More performances? Another collection?

NH: All of the above and more. I'm fumbling around for a new voice at the moment, because I want the next collection to be qualitatively different from its predecessors. I'd like to do more collaborative work with people using different media, like the Pendle Hill book.

I'm also building up an armoury of short stories. Whenever I have an idea I can't think of a rhyme for, I knock it out as prose. Some time next year there might be enough to cobble together a collection.

Anyway, I've seen those chat show thingies with Ricky and Judith so now's the bit where I recline expansively on the sofa and hold up a book to camera, right? The launch (did I mention I'm having a launch?) is at the Corner Bookshop, Garstang at 3 pm on Saturday the 7th. All PWN readers, their partners, children, aunts, friends and hamsters are welcome. You can browse in the shop, I'll read a bit, talk a bit and flog some books. Nothing complicated.

Word Soup 6 - Spooky Soup

2009-10-27T20:06:00.001Z

Word Soup for those STILL not in the know is Preston's very exciting and newly spooky live lit night at the Continental.

It was also last Tuesday. So for those who weren't there and for anyone who wants to relive the magic, here's my (admittedly not very) spooky round up of the best Soup yet.

This month's music came from Annie Tiley who performed her own historical songs, often with a murderous element, and covered Johnny Cash. She said that she doesn't particularly want to be known as a spooky singer but her performances of her slightly sinister songs made her a perfect Halloween choice.

The first reader was poet, Ron Sowcroft, who has won acclaim from the Guardian Books Website for his poetry and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. He entertained with poems about bats, Halloween and nuclear holocaust.

Following him was Peter Crompton, one of the open mic performers from Word Soup 3, now with his own performance slot. The reading started on familiar territory with an impassioned reading of his work: 'I'm a Skeleton,' followed by a very on-theme and very funny poem about witches who use brooms for pleasure (yes, that kind of pleasure) and 'My Really Bad Rocky Horror Themed Party' based on, well, you can guess.

Unfortunately Ramsey Campbell was unable to attend due to the dreaded flu that seems to be doing the rounds but our super red tighted compere spectacular, Jenn Ashworth stepped in to the breach. She managed to more than fill Ramsey's big shoes with the first ever performance of a chapter from her not-even-published-yet-it's-so-new novel, Cold Light.

It featured a spooky flasher in a Halloween mask and the true horror of mid 90s teenagers frosted make up. It seems that Cold Light is going to be just as good as, 'A Kind of Intimacy.'

After the break and just a little gin, it was the turn of the open micers.

This month they were...

Norman Hadley - who read poetry set in a judgemental second hand bookshop

Max Henry - who read a seafaring tale told from two perspectives

Rachel McGladdery - who read the true and (I feel so wrong for typing this but trust me) funny story of how her Dad broke the news he had AIDS to her.

Next up was Rob Shearman, Doctor WHO scriptwriter and winner of the World Fantasy Award for his first short story collection, Tiny Deaths. He read a story from the collection about a woman who gives birth to antique furniture whenever she gets pregnant. As well as being funny and a bit sinister, it was surprisingly moving. Have a look at the video and let me know what you think.

And finally, Word Soup and Manchester Blog Award finalist, Richard Hirst , presented his multimedia spectacular, The History of Zombies which charted zombies from their origins in 1963 through a period in slavery to acceptance in modern society through the medium of many many hand drawn pictures of zombies.

Next Word Soup is on the 17th November and is on the theme of Old, so get your open mic thinking caps on! If you can't make it to the event, make sure to follow it on Twitter.

This post was written by Melanie Webster who likes pineapples, black tights and people commenting on blogs.

All video is credited to Norman Hadley.

Word Soup-beside the Sea

2009-10-19T15:35:00.005+01:00

Better late than never, but here we are (finally) with the write-up, review and film clips of our special Word Soup - commissioned by Blackpool Library Service and delivered by The Preston Writing Network for Word Pool - Blackpool's Literary Festival.

Many thanks go to our star performer - Ann Wilson, who travelled all the way from Barrow and fresh from an appearance on BBC Radio Cumbria - to help us celebrate National Poetry Day. With an engaging, lively performance featuring poems-a-plenty from her collection Synesthetic that stole the show and impressed the library staff as well as the audience, Ann certainly made an excellent impression again.

We're really looking forward to having Ann back in Preston again for a Word Soup Presents... on the 30th October with her colleague Keith Armstrong (more about this soon!). If you can't wait that long (and who could blame you?) you can listen to Ann perform some of her poetry from the comfort of your own front room, by clicking here.

Our other performers were Norman Hadley - poet, writer, They Eat Culture volunteer and the man behind the camera. Knowing that poetry is sometimes risky, Norman opted to impress us all with a reading from his book Perspectives that focused on risky activities...

Norman will be performing at Word Soup #6 on the 20th and launching his next poetry collection Stinging the Sepia in Garstang on the 7th November - for more details on that, please click here.

Ron Scowcroft, former Blackpool Sixth form literature teacher and now poet arrived and read to us, along side Blackburn based poet Paul Sockett (you'll remember him from the open mike slot at Word Soup #5 - he'll be returning to the stage as a booked performer at Word Soup #7 - 17th November).

As always - the real stars of the show were our open mikers - Blackpool natives who came to the library to share their words and work with us to celebrate the day. We were impressed by the variation in style, subject matter and form - and rather than review it, we thought we'd film it... (all film clips courtesy of Norman)

This National Poetry Day the theme was 'Heroes and Heroines' and while we didn't ask our poets to stick to the theme, the nervous poets and experienced performers who got up with us and made some noise in Blackpool Library were the real heroes of the day.

Hooray!

Chorley Writing Competition

2009-10-17T13:03:00.001+01:00

Following the success of last year's short story competition, Chorley & District Writers' Circle has launched its first ever poetry competition with cash prizes.

The competition, which is open to anyone living or working in Lancashire, is for an original poem of 16 lines or less on the theme of 'heat'. Closing date Friday 23 October.

Entry to the competition costs just £3 per poem, maximum three poems per entrant. Poems, which must be typed, must not carry the author's name. A separate paper with your name, address, email, telephone and - crucially - the title and first line of your poem(s) should be sent to Aware Competition, 27 Thirlmere Road, Blackrod, Bolton BL6 5EB together with a cheque made out to Chorley & District Writers' Circle.

Alternatively, we would be glad to receive the poem and entry form by email. Please send to mail@chorleywriters.co.uk, with Aware comp entry as the subject. The cheque must still be posted, together with a copy of the entry form.

Ramsey Campbell: Guest of Honour at 'Spooky Soup'

2009-10-14T14:09:00.013+01:00

It isn’t for nothing that Ramsey Campbell has been dubbed ‘Britain’s most respected living horror writer’ by the Oxford Companion to English Literature. His career spans over forty years and he’s won every major award in his field several times over.

Ramsey’s ‘epiphany moment’ came when, already an avid reader, he came across the work of legendary weird fiction author H.P. Lovecraft in his early teens. He went on to sell his first story, ‘The Church on the High Street’, set within the world of Lovecraft’s famous ‘Cthulu Mythos’, in 1962, at the tender age of fifteen. The head of Arkham House, August Derleth, nurtured Ramsey’s talent, encouraging him to change the setting of his tales from the New England milieu of Lovecraft’s work to one he was more familiar with – namely Ramsey’s native Liverpool and Merseyside.

Ramsey’s first collection, The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants, was published by Arkham House in 1964. These tales were still very much couched in Lovecraft’s idiom, but as he gained more confidence in his own voice he began to move away from this, most notably with his 1973 collection Demons By Daylight. However, Ramsey can be said to have really ‘arrived’ with the publication of his first novel, The Doll Who Ate His Mother (1976), which was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and later praised by no less than Stephen King in his classic survey of the genre, Danse Macabre (1981).

After a near miss with The Doll... the awards started coming Ramsey’s way thick and fast; 1978 saw him win both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award for two different short stories, and 1979 brought another British Fantasy Award for his novel The Nameless. To date, Ramsey has won four World Fantasy Awards, eleven British Fantasy Awards, the coveted Bram Stoker Award twice, a Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award from The Horror Writers Association and a ‘Grand Master’ Award from the World Horror Convention. Quite a list; and this isn’t even an exhaustive one!

The Nameless was filmed in 1999 as Los Sin Nombre – a Spanish language feature from director Jaume Balagueró, which has no small cult following of its own and a follow- up, El Segundo Nombre, based on his 2001 novel Pact of the Fathers, due to hit cinema screens this year. This must be rather edifying for Ramsey, whose career as a film critic is almost as long and successful as his career as an author, from his work in seminal late sixties horror fanzines such as Shadow and Twylight to his present work for BBC Merseyside and cult US movie ‘bible’ Video Watchdog.

Rarely one to resort to out-and-out gore and nastiness, the power of Ramsey’s work lies in his unparalleled ability to create a sense of unease and dread in the mind of the imaginative reader - with just a few words he can conjure up a world where things just aren’t quite right. Proud to describe himself as ‘a horror writer’, he remains the one of the genre’s most erudite and articulate champions and deserves the respect and admiration of anyone who so much as dabbles within the field.

Don't miss the chance to meet Ramsey and hear him read from his work at Word Soup 6 on Tuesday 20th October!

Faye L Booth - Interview

2009-10-12T14:29:00.001+01:00

Right back at the begining of the year, when the PrestonWN was but a baby and we'd just started this blog, we interviewed Faye L Booth about her Preston-based historical novel, Cover The Mirrors, and her experience of being published by the then-controversial Macmillan New Writing Imprint.

A few short months later and we've got her back to tell us about her next novel, Trades of the Flesh - second novels, and the writing life.

PrestonWN: First of all, congratulations on the publication of your second novel. Tell me a bit about your new book - what is it about and who will it appeal to?

Faye: Trades of the Flesh, like my first book Cover the Mirrors, is a Victorian-set historical novel, although Trades is set at the end of the century rather than the middle. It's even darker than Mirrors, so I imagine it might appeal to those with an interest in the seedy underbelly of history.

PrestonWN: How did the experience of writing Cover the Mirrors differ from
writing Trades of the Flesh?

Faye: I wrote a guest blog about this on Nik Perring's blog, but to summarise, it's actually been very similar. I don't think I've managed to really comprehend the fact that my first novel is out there in the world, never mind my second. So having my second novel published feels much like having my first one published - humbling, awe-inspiring and more than a little surreal.

PrestonWN: What do you think lies behind your facination with the darker side of
life?

Faye: This is a tricky one, because I was born weird, so I can't trace any particular roots or catalysts. I was a toddler when I saw a cartoon adaptation of The Hobbit, and I zeroed in on the character you'd probably expect to be frightening for a small child - Gollum. I promptly named skeletons "Smeagols", and I was fascinated with them too. (The skeletons in Funnybones were Smeagols to me thereafter.)

I read a lot of children's books with witches in them, and despite being a child myself, I was just as enthralled with Roald Dahl's monstrous, child-hating Grand High Witch as I was with friendly witchy protagonists like Meg (of Meg and Mog) and Heggerty Haggerty. As I grew into adolescence, I made my mark in my English coursework by 'sympathising with the devil'; looking at the story from the point of view of the characters that were presented to us as villains or antagonists.

The dark side is interesting to me, I suppose, because it's so prevalent - everything and everyone casts a shadow, literally and metaphorically - and yet we're supposed to pretend that it isn't there, or that we don't have our own darkness. Or perhaps, as the astrologically inclined among my friends and acquaintances like to suggest, I should blame the fact that I made my entrance into this world in late October...

PrestonWN: Trades of the Flesh, like Cover the Mirrors, is set in Preston. What kind of research do you do?

Faye: First and foremost, I look at the old buildings themselves; get a feel for how, say, Fishergate must have looked 130 years ago, before chrome and glass skyscrapers (shudder), bus lanes or Ann Summers. Then I back that up by looking at old photographs - you can find books and frameable prints (like the Frith Collection's stuff) in most bookshops, that depict the area at various points in history.

For facts relating to the area, I use a combination of internet research and local history books (you can often find them in discount bookshops), and I've discovered some delightful snippets of information through these means - examples of historical fact tying in with my planned stories in the most poetic ways. I usually end up making symbolic references to these little facts in my work in one way or another.

Finally, I have a map of Preston that covers four time periods - 1842-52, 1903, 1924 and the present day - so that's very helpful when visualising the area 'then and now', and how it's changed.

PrestonWN: Are you writing anything now? Will your third novel be set in Preston?

Faye: My third novel is already completed, and yes, it is set in Preston (at least partly), at the dawn of the 20th Century. I'm also working on another 19th C novel, and that one's set in Preston too.

I'm superstitious when it comes to revealing information about forthcoming projects, but when the time comes for me to reveal more I will of course do so in my blog.

PrestonWN: Do you write full time?

Faye: I wouldn't say that I write "full time" in the 9-5 sense, but writing is the only thing I do now.

PrestonWN: What advice do you give to our readers who may be struggling to fit in their writing with a full time job or family responsibilities?

Faye: I'm probably not the best person to advise anyone with kids how to juggle parenting and writing (I tip my cap to anyone who does this; I'd never manage!), but the best general tip I can offer for someone who wants to find the time to write is to consider, say, writing in the half hour an evening (or week) when you would normally watch a certain soap, especially if you just watch it because it's the only thing on.

See if you can tell yourself a more entertaining story than the TV does!

PrestonWN: And finally, what are your plans for Halloween?

Faye: I haven't made any yet! Time will tell...

Cover the Mirrors and Trades of the Flesh by Faye L Booth are both available now in all good bookshops - published by Macmillan.

Portrait of Faye credited to Cartmel Photography

Coming Soon...

2009-10-08T22:04:00.003+01:00

Spooky Soup
A Word Soup Halloween Special
The Continental, Preston
October 20th - 8:00pm

Preston Bloggers shorlisted for MLF Award

2009-10-06T18:21:00.001+01:00

PrestonWN is pleased to announce that this year, two Preston Bloggers have made it onto the shortlists for the Manchester Literary Festival's Annual Blogging Awards.

Two!! What makes it even better is that the Manchester Blog Awards broke their own record for nominations this year - with over 130 blogs nominated across all categories, these two have beat off some pretty stiff competion to get so far.

In the running for Best Personal Blog is Just Testing. The author - Kim McGowan - writes about her travels, family and ruminations on the ups and downs of a Creative Writing Masters Degree.

Shortlisted for the Best Writing on a Blog award is Richard Hirst - PrestonWN volunteer, regular performer at Word Soup and the man himself behind online-satire blog I Thought I Told You To Wait in the Car.

The rules of the Manchester Blogging Awards mean that anyone who works or lives within commuting distance of Manchester is eligible for nomination - that includes all us Prestonians.

With two previous category winners A Free Man In Preston and Every Day I Lie a Little written by Preston-based bloggers, here's hoping that 2009 sees us make it a hat-trick.

The blog awards ceremony is held at the on the 21st October at Band on the Wall. Tickets are £4 and the night starts at 7pm. You'll probably want to book in advance - last year's night was packed. Preston author Jenn Ashworth will be reading at the event, and the winners in each category will be announced and awarded their prizes.

Good Luck to Just Testing and I Thought I Told You To Wait in The Car!

scRibble - first meeting update

2009-10-06T16:34:00.003+01:00

A quick word from Catherine Cable - one of the founders of Preston's newest creative writing circle. Their first meeting was held at the New Continental on the 28th September...

I am sure my fellow "founder" Cat, would agree that we heaved a huge sigh of relief as 18 other budding writers arrived to take part (I had been wondering all day if we would be left sitting all alone with only the excellent wine and possibly a portion of bread and butter pudding with which to console ourselves!).

The evening got off to a good start with introductions from all the members (and hopefully I didn't witter on too much). Who would have thought that one creative writing group could boast not one, but two stars of Eastern European Television?

The short writing exercise based on "A new take on a traditional tale" produced some fine examples of creativity; from Rumplestiltskin in the guise of Sam Spade to a moving account of the re-homing of a young miner in a specially converted cottage with 6 others of similar small stature via a chilling account of a blood thirsty wolf. Pleasingly Jeremy Kyle also made an appearance featuring in an interview with Cinderella and her sisters "init".

If this is what we can produce during our first meeting, I can't wait to see what else these talented folk can come up with. I am looking forward to learning from the more experienced and sharing my angst with other beginners.

The "Challenge" for our October meeting is to produce a piece of writing starting with one of the following lines:

1 - Shadows quivered on the wall as the candle flickered, then fizzled to nothing.

2 - The dream last night had seemed so real, but it was just a dream, right?

3 - The storm whipped the trees outside and she huddled into her quilt.

4 - The prickles on his neck told him he was being watched.

Here's looking forward to sharing some chilling (or otherwise) tales for our late October meet.

The next meeting of scRibble will be at 7.30pm on Monday 26 October in the snug at the Conti. All welcome.

PrestonWN volunteer unmasked!

2009-10-05T16:14:00.001+01:00

Even though Halloween is still weeks away, we're getting a bit excited about it here at PrestonWN towers...

Congratulations to our most secretive PrestonWN volunteer, The Great Tyrant - who's been outed as our very own Robyn Talbot with this article on the Meet the Horror Bloggers section of the Zombos blog...

<- that's not Robyn by the way. Go to the article for what he really looks like....

Typecast

2009-10-01T14:36:00.000+01:00

Lancashire Police Authority are launching a great new project with publishing and award opportunties for young writers.

Typecast is a social media hub aimed at 11 - 19 year olds and designed by young people based at the Urban Exchange in Preston and the Connexions centre in Blackpool. Concerned about the negative stereotyping of young people, the participants worked alongside Lancashire Police Authority to create an online showcase for young talent across a range of media (writing, art, video and music) that engages in some way with the stereotyping across a range of issues, from gangs and bullying to knife crime and alcohol.

To upload work, young people need to register with the site before the 30th November 2009. Awards will be presented at a glittering ceremony in the Guild Hall, January 2010 where the best entries will be displayed and the whole event broadcast on Rock FM.

To view current Typecast entries, click here. For information about entering your work or getting in touch with the organisers, click here.

Blog Roundup

2009-09-30T21:50:00.000+01:00

It's that time once again: where we delve into the technicolour world of Preston's blogs. This month we'll be turning our attention to the 'new and views' patch of Preston's blogosphere.

First up is Punk Psychologist. Just as the title suggests, this is a blog, maintained by psychology lecturer Mike Eslea, whose twin subjects - psychological musings on themes as varied as mental arithmetic and knife crime, and old-school British punk rock - occupy the majority of the posts. The overall raison d'etre of the blog, however, is to aid science in its defence from the evils of 'pseudoscience'. Eslea variously tackles homeopathic medicine, chiropractors and the great MMR autism hoax in his posts. All of which are, of course, backed up with the sort of linked references you'd expect from a rigorous-minded academic. He even goes so far as to test his theories about acupuncture's efficacy by submitting himself to various needle 'treatments' and filming the results for his followers' edification. Amid all this holding up of quack science to swashbuckling scrutiny, he also finds time to go watch Killing Joke and get his hair dyed.

Missives From Doktor B is also a journalism blog, although with its roots more firmly anchored in the world of Westminster and party politics. Liam Pennington - Doktor B's Clark Kent, if you will - wears his Liberal Democrat allegiances on his sleeve being, as he is, a card-carrying member of the party. This, however, has given readers a more detailed insight into the recent Lib Dem conference than one ordinarily tends to expect from a blog. Elsewhere, 'B' analyses the ongoing campaigns again Barack Obama's plans for healthcare reform orchestrated by Republican rivals, the apparent success in the far-right BNP's campaign for self-legitimisation, and that hottest of topics: Derren Brown's recent lottery 'prediction' stunt.

Andy Dickinson another local lecturer, is similarly rigorous when it comes to including links to other blogs and websites, to the point where some of his posts are composed solely of links to recent articles which he's found interesting. Current areas of interest have been what the future of print journalism (if there is one) would look like, the growing importance of Twitter and, naturally, the influence of bloggers. Handily, there's also tips on how to get the most out of various software and online resources for the would-be blogging journo.

And finally we come to the wonder that is iFranky - a blog by self-confessed 'web nerd', also has plenty of advice for aspiring bloggers looking to establish a greater online presence for their writing: how to reference a blog as part of a CV, a list of indispensable 'Holy Shit' online resource discoveries, and plenty geek-heavy posts about things such as 'visualization graphs'. This blog also takes on a veritable trove of further subjects: current posts have focused on the on the ever-ongoing debate about what the legal status of downloading music should be.

And that's all for now, folks. Join us next time when we explore yet more of the flaura and faunae in Preston's blog-forest!

Word Soup Five

2009-09-29T16:22:00.007+01:00

Hello Word Soup Fans!

It has been too long, (which is entirely my own fault), since the last Word Soup review, so thank the Preston weather that it's here. Excitingly, courtesy of our newest PWN friend, Norman Hadley, it's also got some new fangled video content which means if you missed out on the night, you can catch up right here.

The night got underway with music from Harvey Lord, who, after a brief fight with the mic stand which I promised not to mention here, impressed by sounding like a mix of Nirvana and the Beatles.

The theme for the night was revolve which was observed as loosely as ever. First by poet Michael Molyneaux, who I'm not sure mentioned the theme at all but did read several poems from his new collection "Selected Poems." These ranged from haiku to the epic "Ode to Lorca"

Peter Wild, writer, editor and reviewer had written something especially for us at Word Soup. Only he didn't like it. So instead he read "The Summerplace," a moving story about a man who experiences the best moment of his life with his wife by a tree in the summertime and the slow decline of everything that comes afterwards.

After a break and some more music which I shall post right here

It was time for the open mic slots, this month's readers were:

Mark Charlesworth: who read poetry from his collection which is coming out soon

The ever lovely Simon Baker: who wore a tie (effort with attire is always rewarded in this column) and performed stand up comedy (very loosely) around the revolve theme

Chris Billington: member of Preston Poets who read poetry based around the blues rhythm about death and jam

Paul Sockett: Actor and poet who read "I Love You" and "Happy Anniversary." My personal favourite of the night and one to watch for at future events.

After some 12 bar blues from Harvey Lord, it was the turn of Sian Cummins, Manchester creative writing graduate and author of Fluids. She read a tense extract between the main protagonist and another character Mavis over a dead cat. Have a look below

And finally, genuine Prestonian Andy Duggan read two extracts from his novel Scars Beneath the Skin which has been reviewed by PWN right here. He read part set immediately after 9/11 but came into his own when capturing the narrator's childhood in East Berlin.

Word Soup 6 is on the 20th October and will be, I am assured, a spooky special. Keep checking the blog and twitter for more details.

PS. I love to get comments like a small child likes to get post so keep in touch! Leave me your thoughts on Word Soup 5 or just say hi

Word Soup on Tour

2009-09-28T15:07:00.008+01:00

We always get excited to announce our latest Word Soup offering - but this Word Soup is special because it's our very first touring event. And where better to present an 'away' fixture of Preston's biggest and friendliest live lit night than at the sea-side!

Blackpool Library Service deliver an annual literature festival: Word Pool. This year the opening day of the festival falls on National Poetry Day and we've been asked to kick off the celebrations by presenting a poetry Word Soup at Blackpool Central Library.

The event will be held in the library's main space between 3.30 and 5pm on Thursday the 8th October.

It's FREE to get in and there'll be our usual open mike spots for all budding poets and spoken word performers.

We're excited to meet the local readers and writers in Blackpool, hear their words and tell them all about what we do. For our Preston poets, this is a great chance to come with us, take advantage of an open mike slot and showcase your work to a wider audience.

The line-up of poets we've got booked for the afternoon is a treat.

Our start performer is Ann Wilson - most of you will remember Ann from the splash she made presenting our very first Word Soup poetry special. We had such excellent feedback about her performance that we couldn't wait to get her back - and when better than a Word Soup special to celebrate National Poetry Day?

Annie Clarkson, another previous Word Soup performer, will be comming up from Manchester to share her words and work with us. Her collection Winter Hands will be available for sale - and if you can't wait until the 8th, you can always read her blog. She's a really great performer and we can't wait to see what Blackpool makes of her.

Norman Hadley - our newest PrestonWN volunteer, will be joining us again from Garstang after a fantastic first performance at Word Soup #4. Norman is a poet, author, writer and photographer and his website is well worth exploring - he's also a regular performer at Lancaster Spotlight and a contributor to the Lunecy Review.

Ron Scowcroft used to teach literature to Blackpool Sixth formers and is pleased as punch to return to the town to share his own poetry. A poet, blogger and regular performer at gigs across Lancashire, Ron will also be joining us at Spooky Word Soup #6 on the 20th October with a very special poem.

For more information about Word Soup and how to get involved, email jenn@theyeatculture.org
For more about Word Pool - Blackpool Library's very own literary festival, click here.

Creative Writing at the Continental

2009-09-28T14:14:00.004+01:00

They Eat Culture and the Preston Writing Network present the latest round of creative writing classes with local writer Jenn Ashworth.

Taster Course

Saturday 11th October 2.45pm - 5.15pm

Jenn will be teaching a 'creative writing taster session' - this course is aimed at beginners or those who have some experience of writing but would like to increase their confidence at working in a group. The two hour session in our relaxed riverside venue will involve writing prompts and sharing your work, but there's no obligation to read aloud.

The cost of the course is £5 - and this taster session is run as part of Preston Arts Association's annual Arts Festival - more details of this and other Arts Festival events can be found via their website, here.

Six Week Workshop Course

4th of November - 9th December 7.30 - 9pm (all sessions)

Over the course of six one and a half hour workshops Jenn will take you through the basics of creating character, plot and setting. She'll work with you on description and dialogue and set writing prompts and excersises to get your creative juices flowing. This course will help you turn your ideas into fully fledged pieces of writing, teach you how to present your work for publication and deal with issues like procrastination and writer's block. There will be some homework, and the opportunity to read your work out during the workshop - although this isn't compulsory.

Cost: £50 per person.

Workshop dates (the price is for all six workshops)

Wednesday November 4th
Wednesday November 11th
Wednesday November 18th
Wednesday November 25th
Wednesday December 2nd
Wednesday December 9th

The taster and the six week workshop are all held at the New Continental Pub, South Meadow Lane, Preston. You can book a place by telephoning the They Eat Culture office on 01772 499207 or emailing robyn@theyeatculture.net - payment must be made in advance in order to secure a place.

As an added bonus, everyone who attends a Preston Writing Network creative writing workshop - whether this is the taster session or the six week course, will be invited to perform at Word Soup with your very own 3 minute slot to showcase your work to a friendly and growing audience.

Regional Writers' Group Networking Day

2009-09-28T13:47:00.003+01:00

Skelmersdale Writers Group

invite you to
The 2nd Northwest Regional Writers’ Groups Networking Day.
to be held on SATURDAY 14TH NOVEMBER. 10.00am - 4.00pm
at The Engine Rooms, Westgate, Skelmersdale. WN8 8AZ.

Cost just £15 per person, includes lunch and refreshments.
Book sales table provided.

Programme

10.00 am: Coffee and registration.
10.30 am: Morning speaker: Andrew Darby (Lancaster Litfest/Flax Books.)
12.15 pm: Lunch and book sales.
1.15pm: News from the groups around the region and readings from members.
2.30pm Refreshment break.
3.00p.m More regional reports and members’ readings.
3.50: Final feedback and farewells.

Following on from the hugely successful regional writers’ group networking day hosted by Ormskirk Writers’ and Literary Society in 2009, Skelmersdale Writers’ Group is delighted to host the regional networking day for 2009. A great opportunity for writers in the region to share their experiences and publicise their work and their forthcoming events.

We are also pleased to offer the region’s writers the opportunity to get an in depth view of Lancaster Litfest and its publishing imprint Flax Books.

Information about Lancaster Litfest:

Andy Darby the Artistic Director of litfest (www.litfest.org) will talk and take questions about the range of litfest's work as a literature development agency, publisher and festival based in Lancaster in the North West of England.

Litfest has been Lancaster's annual literature festival since 1978, and now runs literary events through the year as well as occasional writing projects on an ad hoc basis. We support and publish upcoming writers in the North West of England through our Flax imprint and are about to open a poetry bookshop as part of our new space at The Storey Creative Industries Centre.

This year's festival runs from the 16th to 25th October 2009 and features a fantastic range of novelists, short story writers and poets, find out more at www.litfest.org or call 01524 62166 for a brochure.

To receieve a booking form for this writers' group networking day, please email Carol@fenlonh.freeserve.co.uk or telephone Carol at 01695 728320. The day is open to individuals as well as members of Lancashire and regional writing groups.

Guest Post: Claire Laurraine Sharples

2009-09-26T17:47:00.000+01:00

September's Guest Post is from Claire Laurraine Sharples. She is a creative writing student at UCLAN, and recently worked as part of the team that edited and published Michael Molyneux's collection of poetry. Here she tells us a bit about the behind-the-scenes work that went into the collection, and why, as a writer, the experience was so valuable to her. Claire blogs about the ups and down of the writing-student's life here.

As a writer, I have always been curious about the publishing industry. How do I submit my work to one? What happens to my manuscript? How are books published? I was able to answer these questions by taking part in a publishing project through UCLan’s very own publishing house, clan – u press.

Being chosen to be one of the five students involved in this publication was an exciting moment for me. We worked alone or as a team, taking on different roles performed in a publishing house: editing, design, promotion, accounting etc. Like the staff of a small publishing house, we were involved with the project from start to finish.

Publishing a book involves different stages so we set deadlines for the tasks to be completed, allowing space in between each one in case anything went wrong. As a team, we sat down with Michael and discussed our ideas and opinions in respect of the design and layout. We read through Michael’s poems, deciding which ones should go into the book. Sitting down together, we sifted through the images that some photography students had taken for us, and chose one for the cover, taking into account Michael’s choice too. The selection process was straight forward but the editing and design was more difficult.

Although Michael’s work had been published before, the manuscript we had contained various errors which had to be corrected. Taking into account that poets can break the rules when using punctuation, it was important we checked any amendments with Michael. We did not want to alter the structure of his poems. The corrected manuscript was dropped into a special software programme that we had been trained to use. A number of drafts were produced before the final one could go to print. All the drafts had to be carefully read through and edited where necessary. We had to come into the publishing house during our spare time. Staff expect to work long hours in this industry and we had to be willing to do the same in order to meet our deadlines.

Michael and the team enjoyed this project and gained valuable experience. For me personally, I developed new skills and an urge to pursue publishing as a career; as a writer I have learnt how to submit my work to publishers, how the process will work and what is expected of both publishers and authors. Good communication and developing a good relationship with your editor are the two main important issues I have learnt. My editing skills come in useful when I read through my work. Finally, I will be able to mention this valuable experience when I apply for internships next year.

Other recent publications from clan-u press include a local history book; “Memories of Frenchwood”, Beaumont College artwork; “Response” and poetry anthologies; “Taste” and “Therefore I am...” For further information of the press and their publications, please send your enquiry to ceth@uclan.ac.uk

Word Soup #5: The Line Up

2009-09-21T13:50:00.006+01:00

Word Soup fans are in for a treat this month - we've a hand-picked line up of poets and writers as well as a special appearance from Lancaster's favourite son, alt-folk musician Harvey Lord who will be providing our usual musical interludes between acts.

Michael Molyneux, who we interviewed on the PrestonWN blog this month will be reading from his new poetry collection - Selected Poems. Coming up on the blog, we've a guest post from Claire Sharples, who worked on the UCLAN based team of budding editors and publishers who put together this collection so keep your eyes peeled for more.

From Manchester, we have Sian Cummins - a graduate of the University of Manchester Creative Writing Masters - she's recently completed her first novel: Fluids and is now busy working on her second: The Elastica Principle.

Also from Manchester, we have Peter Wild. Peter is an editor, reviewer and short-story writer. He'd edited collections for Serpent's Tail - most recently, Paint a Vulgar Picture - fiction inspired by the Smiths and edits the online book review and comment magazine BookMunch. He'll be reading his own work, and be available to sign anthologies available from our bookstall on the night.

All the way from Chester, we have native Prestonian Andy Duggan - we reviewed his first novel Scars Beneath the Skin (Flambard Press, 2009) here, and you can read an interview we did with him here. He's been working on somerthing special for us, based on our 'revolve' theme and will be available to sign copies of Scars Beneath the Skin from the Word Soup book stall available on the night.

Finally - and as always, we'll be opening up the stage for you.

We've an open mike section, and you're invited to get up on stage and wow us with three minutes of poetry, prose or performance. If you're interested, come early and sign up on the door - our spots go very quickly and we dish them out on a first come, first served basis.

Word Soup # 5 - The New Continental, 22nd September (that's tomorrow night!)

8pm - 10.30pm £3 on the door.

And yes, that is our shiny new logo, thank you very much.

sCribble: New Creative Writing Group

2009-09-21T13:29:00.004+01:00

News from the organisers of sCribble - Catherine Cable and Cat Dunlop. Those of you who've been attending Word Soup from the begining might remember Cath and Cat who took our very first open mike slots performing pieces they wrote and worked on during our eight-week creative writing course last winter.

Now they've set up a creative writing circle, and have dropped by to answer a few questions.

PrestonWN: What is scRibble?

Catherine: scRibble is a new creative writing group who will be meeting on a monthly basis in the New Continental, South Meadow Lane, Preston. We are a group of like minded writers who feel that a chance to get together, share ideas, give and receive feedback on our work and take part in writing exercises would help to motivate us to produce more writing.

PrestonWN: Why the name?

Catherine: The name was chosen because as writers we spend a lot of time scribbling words onto a page in the hope that some of them may make sense. Our home is to be the New Continental which is situated by the river Ribble (with wonderful views of the river from the beer garden!). It seemed like a suitable name to encompass both what we do and where we do it.

PrestonWN: Who is welcome?

Catherine: Anyone and everyone who wants to write. From experienced writers to the first timer. We intend the group to be organic and dynamic and to shape itself to the needs and wants of its members. Whilst there is a small annual subscription fee, members who join throughout the year can pay a proportion of this fee, so we are open to new members throughout.

PrestonWN: When's your first meeting?

Catherine: Our first meeting will take place on Monday 28th September from 7.30 to 9.30. We will then meet on the last Monday of each month - same time, same venue.

PrestonWN: How did you come up with the idea of starting a creative writing group?

Catherine: Cat Dunlop and I are graduates of the first Creative Writing course run by Jenn Ashworth. We took the course as a much more enjoyable activity that going to the gym and whilst we learned that we could occasionally come up with a good story or poem, it also allowed us to legitimately drink wine on a Monday night!

Following this course, we both found that in order to motivate us to actually put pen to paper, it helped enormously to have the support and feedback from the other students on the course.

PrestonWN: What is the benefit for new writers of joining a creative writing group?

Catherine: For new writers, such as myself, I found the confidence being part of a group gave me was invaluable in motivating me to write more. Being a member of a group allows a new writer to feel they are not alone in, what can be a lonely pastime.

It also allows them to pick the brains of more experienced writers, learn tips and techniques, have access to information about performing their work and entering competitions.

Being part of a group for both new and experienced writers helps to motivate and receiving feedback from other members of the group in a relaxed safe environment helps us to hone our craft. Oh and there is the added bonus of the drinking wine legitimately on a Monday night!

To be added to our mailing list to receive information about further meetings or just for a chat about what to expect, please contact Catherine.cable@talktalk.net.

So there you have it. sCribble - Preston's newest creative writing group. Open to all, with their first meeting at The New Continental, South Meadow Lane, Preston on the 28th September from 7.30pm. Off you go, and tell them we sent you!

Interview: Andy Duggan

2009-09-17T18:03:00.004+01:00

Next up in our series of interviews is Andy Duggan. Andy will be reading from and signing his debut novel Scars Beneath the Skin at Word Soup #5 on the 22nd September.

Tell me a bit about how you got started with writing. Did you try short stories or poetry first before settling on the novel form?

I was caught up in an IRA bomb explosion in Manchester in 1996 and I began writing as some sort of a reaction. Not that I can explain it precisely, all I know for certain is that I had no interest at all in writing before that event. I can't remember any poetry, but there were lots of short stories and fragments of stories. Anything that came into my head, really - it did feel like an opening of the floodgates.

I also wrote a script for a Channel 4 competition. Around 1998ish, I think. There was a movie pitch website I sent a lot of ideas to as well, complete stories reduced to a synopsis of 3 sentences. I went on writing purely for the sake of writing, with no real direction, until I began to try and join up this jigsaw of fragments into a bigger story. I suspect I'd got to a point where I needed to feel a proper sense of purpose, but I had no confidence at all in my ability to write a novel.

Two things I was sure of. Firstly, the bare bones: a man who finds love at the point of suicide. Secondly, the opening line: There is only so much loneliness a human being can bear.
Scars Beneath The Skin took you ten years to write - what changes did the novel go through during that time? How did you keep yourself motivated during the long haul?
Many, many changes! There were 3 completely different versions of the story. Version 1 petered out and was never completed. The basics of the main character, Karl Dresner, were there, the sense of an alienated outsider was there, but the main female character was so ill-defined she was more like a ghost. Version 2 was an espionage thriller, but it was a real dog's dinner; more like 3 novels squeezed into one. Both Karl Dresner and Lucia Cavallieri were better defined, but they were lost in a plot that went out of control. Version 3 was a simplification of Version 2 and the final title appeared at this stage. Ditching the thriller baggage allowed me to concentrate on Karl Dresner's battle to overcome the effects of trauma.

Motivation did flag at times. There were periods where I didn't want to write at all, but the story kept nagging at me. I always felt I had a great story idea, but there was a dire confidence problem; I didn't believe I'd ever be good enough to do the story justice.I joined a writing group in 2004 and that was a huge help in picking me up from another low motivation point. Joining the WriteWords online community was another big help, mainly for making the process of approaching agents and publishers seem more do-able. I used The Literary Consultancy critique service once the final version was largely complete. Their report gave me enough confidence to submit the work.

Tell me a bit about your usual writing routine. Are you an early bird or a night owl? Computer or note-book?

If Carlsberg made writing days, they'd be like this. Get up at 6AM, write for a couple of hours, have breakfast and go for a walk. Read the day's work, probably in the evening, then let the unconscious turn over the ideas while asleep. I did have a pattern like that when I really got into my stride with 'Scars Beneath The Skin' and I'd like to get back to a similar pattern.
Computer, definitely computer. I sometimes make handwritten notes and I'm now trying to use handwritten index cards as well. I have got A4 notebooks I've been using for writing groups, but if there's something I particularly like in there I will try to make sure I get it onto the computer. It's the thought of losing handwritten work that makes me prefer the computer: I make sure I keep regular backups.

I'd love to make it sound as though I'm ruthlessly efficient and disciplined in my approach, but I'm not very good at lying.

Are you working on anything now? Can you tell us anything about your current projects?

Graham Greene is the writer who makes me want to write, and I'm aiming at a thriller with some of the depth and complexity (and seediness) Greene put into his work. There's a tentative working title of 'Supply & Demand,' I'm pretty certain the location will be Amsterdam and I'm pretty certain about who the main characters are: a drug dealer and a victim of human trafficking.

There's a gritty, visceral Danish crime movie called 'Pusher' which has given me a lot of inspiration. Films like 'Mona Lisa' and 'The Long Good Friday' as well; and 'Get Carter,' but I want to aim at something more than a gangster story. I want to add a layer of political/military conspiracy. Possibly a plot to smuggle nuclear weapons technology, but I'll have to be careful the story doesn't collapse in on its own complexity like my last attempt at a thriller.
I'm aiming for a larger cast of characters in this one; that was a piece of advice from The Literary Consultancy.

Confidence again is the issue now. Is the story good enough, or will I realise 60,000 words in that I'm on a hiding to nothing? I'll be a lot happier once the story's firmed up enough for me to be able to get up at 6 every morning to work on it.

Aside from that, I do short pieces for review at a monthly writing group and I keep meaning to do some more work on one of those and submit it to Radio 4 for the Short Story slot.

How are you finding the promotional readings and signings you are doing are affecting your work? Is it helpful to meet your readers?

I haven't done enough events so far to greatly affect my work, but I've had some useful feedback via email and Amazon reviews to give me some food for thought. One thing I've learned. Make sure there are some passages suitable for reading out aloud. There's a lot of dialogue on 'Scars Beneath The Skin' and it's very difficult to use dialogue-heavy sections for readings. Daunting, really, the promotional thing, overall. To say I don't exactly relish being the centre of attention is an understatement that belongs in the Guinness Book Of Records (is there a world record for understatement?). Having said that, I'll be sitting in the Cheshire Oaks Borders on September 19th hoping that some people notice me. I'm hoping, over time, to find reading groups who want to try my book out. Then I could go and talk to them, if they want me to. That sort of set-up, sitting round a table with a smallish group hearing what they have to say, appeals to me far more than standing in front of an audience while desperately hoping they don't slip into a catatonic state.(You can listen to an audio click of Andy doing an interview with BBC Manchester here)

How far is this book autobiographical?

Only in the sense that I've got personal experience as an innocent bystander in two events from the story; a terrorist bombing and a riot. I didn't get so much as a scratch form the bomb explosion, though, and I'm not aware of suffering any psychological after-effects. I suspect, unconsciously, I made Karl a foreigner as a way of avoiding slipping into an autobiographical dead-end.

I have used some UK locations I know well, but some of those were moved to Germany. Karl's Munich office, for example, is based on where I used to work in Manchester. There's a scene on a tram based on snatches of an overheard Manchester Metro conversation. Some of the stroppy shop assistants are based on real people; one of my pet hates, that sort of 'service with a snarl' attitude. Parts of the Berlin riot are very close to reality and I couldn't resist allowing myself a Hitchock-style fleeting appearance (it's in an Irish bar scene).

As well as a writer, you're a blogger. What do you think are the benefits of a writer having a blog? What are the pitfalls?

An occasional blogger, really. There's no way I'd blog at all if it wasn't for having a novel to promote. Which leads on to the main pitfall in my eyes; I'm a very private person and it's too easy to give too much away on the Internet. Ideally, I'd prefer to remain completely anonymous while the book sells by the truckload, but that isn't the way it all works. Blogs are one big potential quagmire of self-indulgence as well.

So, I try to keep blog posts directly related to book promotion. I have posted one piece of flash fiction and I keep meaning to post some very brief book/film/TV reviews. Too often, blogging sinks down to the bottom of my 'things to do list.' Since it's free, though, it'd be daft to ignore it as a marketing tool. I've noticed some writers using Twitter to post quotable sections of their work. That'll be worth a try at some point.

Do you have any hints or tips for our readers who may be working on novels?

Top tip - join one or more creative writing classes or groups. Writing a novel is a very lonely activity and so it's important to get some social interaction with like-minded people. It also creates some peer pressure. I wish I'd joined a class/group much earlier.

A novel can take over your life. I had no idea when I began just how much time and energy writing would soak up. It's a difficult balancing act. You have to put your heart and soul into it, but don't let real life pass you by.

When you've spent 10 years slogging away with no sign of success, it's a great feeling to hear that a publisher wants to produce your work. It feels like winning an Olympic gold.

Don't imagine there's much money in it. There are statistics out there to show that only a tiny percentage of published writers can make a full-time living out of it.

Join an on-line writing community and you'll find a mountain of useful information. I've been a member of the WriteWords community for a number of years and that's how I first heard of Flambard Press.

Be prepared for lots of rejections. I've got a pile of 40 or 50 'Thanks but no thanks' letters. Every time you get a rejection letter, don't mope about. Do something positive and send your work out to another agent or publisher.

Don't let the lack of a literary background put you off. I failed my English Lit O-level, my career has been in engineering/computing and I feel at a definite disadvantage due to a lack of literary knowledge. I guess those feelings aren't going to disappear in a hurry. Who knows though - maybe that lack of a literary background helps me to write with a different voice.

The usual path is to find a literary agent first and then the agent seeks a publisher for the work. In my case, though, I've been taken on directly by a small independent publisher and I'm still agent-less (or should that be unagented?).

Make sure you have finished a novel and it's the best you can possibly do before you send the work off to literary agents and publishers. Even then, bear in mind that they are snowed under with work from aspiring novelists.

Consider a critique service. I used the The Literary Consultancy when I felt I'd done enough work on 'Scars Beneath The Skin' and the report gave me enough confidence to start sending it out. I bit the bullet, sent the whole manuscript and so had to pay a fair old whack. However, you could always send the first the first few chapters instead.

Be patient. I began submitting the work in mid-2006 and it was 2 years (and about 50 rejections) later before Flambard Press showed an interest.

Review of Scars Beneath the Skin - by A.J. Duggan

2009-09-17T09:39:00.004+01:00

Scars Beneath the Skin, the debut novel from Cheshire-based writer A.J. Duggan, captures the uncertainty and moral emptiness of a post 9/11 world prone to random violence through the eyes of East Berliner, Karl Dresner. Caught up in a bomb blast in London in 1996, he struggles to cope with the traumatic psychological injuries, which are intensified by the September 11th attacks some years later.

Gradually detaching himself from society, Dresner descends into an emotionally barren life of lap dancers, drink and disturbingly vivid flashbacks, until by chance he saves the life of Lucia Cavallieri, who tries, in turn, to save his. Billed as a ‘dark modern love story’, the novel charts Dresner’s road to deliverance and his desire to know himself once again.

Duggan cites Graham Greene as one of his influences and certainly the prologue – with its striking opening line: “There is only so much loneliness a human being can stand” - is reminiscent of the kind of dark, desperate underworld Greene often portrays. It also draws heavily on noir, with Dresner on the point of suicide - the pills, the drink, the pistol all on the same table, a coin turning ominously through his fingers. The first few chapters are full of tension as we draw nearer to the moment of explosion – and Duggan writes from first hand experience here, having been in Manchester the day much of the city centre was ripped apart by an act of terrorism.

Coming in at over forty chapters, the narrative ploughs along at a blistering pace and there is an urgency and immediacy which is infectious, but I felt at times I wanted just a little more - some unpredictable twist or unforeseen difficulty, some larger truth under the surface tantalisingly withheld. The episodic structure and disturbance of linear time works very well in places, mirroring Dresner’s (literally) fractured world, but there were parts when events and conversations didn’t seem to feed into or suggest a bigger plot when I really wanted them to. But perhaps I was looking for something that intentionally wasn't there. Perhaps the point is that Dresner’s world is made of nothing more than these inconsequential meetings.

Traumatised and lonely as he is, some readers might find it hard to sympathise with Dresner, given the fact that women from all social strata seem to like him instantly and a perfectly formed, successful Italian woman with an Alfa Romeo gives him everything he could ever wish for. But there is more to their love affair than this. There is comedy, for sure, in pitching her Latin exuberance and brutal honesty against his morbid self destruction - but perhaps the most important thing is what Lucia's willingness to mend Dresner's mind says about the capacity for human goodness. On the surface they bicker flirtatiously, but there is a mutual need beyond all the wisecracking which is much more complex and fragile.

For my money, Duggan is at his best during the action sequences – namely the explosion itself in London and where Dresner and Lucia find themselves trapped in a riot sparked by George Bush’s visit to Berlin. The strength here is in the subtlety; Duggan resists the urge to overdo the violence and mayhem, enabling the horrific events to speak for themselves. 9/11, Afghanistan, the build up to the Iraq invasion and paranoia reminiscent of The Cold War, rather than taking centre stage, linger ominously in the background. Dresner’s world is one which can change in an instant, but not always for the worse. Amongst all this terror, there is still hope.

Scars Beneath the Skin is available now from Flambard Press and A.J. Duggan will be reading from the novel at Word Soup #5 on 22nd September.

Word Soup # 5: The Theme

2009-09-15T09:55:00.002+01:00

At each of our Word Soups we’ve had a theme to pull the night together and to inspire our writers.

Word Soup # 5 falls on the 22^nd September along with the autumn equinox, when the days and nights are exactly equal. The night inspired our theme: revolve. Spinning. Turning. Changing. Or staying the same?

What do you think about when we say ‘revolve’? Are we talking about a revolution, a washing machine, spring into summer into winter, or something else?

Those revolving doors that used to be in the front of St Georges – you know, the ones you’d get your coat stuck in, or be trapped inside with someone who hasn’t washed for a week?.

Wheels. Clocks. Birthdays, anniversaries, the start of the school year. Wheels. Tyres. Engines. Records and RPM. What’s on your Ipod?

Roundabouts. Your childhood memories at the play park that isn’t there any more. The first day of school. The last day of school.

Revolve. Revolver. Someone got a gun? Stay still, no-one gets hurt? Hmmm.

There are open mike spots available – you’ve got a three minute ‘turn’ on the stage along side the best of new, North West writing. We can’t wait to see what you come up with. What will you be doing when the seasons turn at 21.18?

We’ll be at Word Soup. September 22nd, 8pm at the New Continental. £3 on the door.

Interview With Michael Molyneux

2009-09-12T10:51:00.003+01:00

Next in our series of interviews, Richard Hirst talks to Michael Molyneux about his collection of poetry: Selected Poems. Michael lives in Preston and will be performing at Word Soup on the 22nd September - so if this whets your appetite, you know where to come. Michael blogs here.

First of all: congratulations - I imagine you must be very proud to have a book of your selected poems published. How did you get into writing? How long have you been writing poems?

I have been writing poems since my formative years, when, on a train, I wrote a very self-indulgent rhyming poem about feeling responsible for society's improvement and the contrasting pull of the personal freedom I was experiencing at the time. I think this was quite a naive way of looking at the world but, at the same time, I think it's a relevant principle at some level for every person, (and one that Andre Gide writes about in his book The Immoralist).

That was my first memory of poetry and, although the dilemma remains, was that of a different person. I now rarely write poems, being more concerned with experiencing 'poetry' in the everyday than reading or writing 'poetry' as an art form.

I think it is important to discover the poetic in its many forms. Often, trying to render or capture 'the poetic' in a 'poem' can actually do more harm than good. I find that many poets, and I certainly don't exclude myself here, write as an excuse for living or to try and pass off emotions, ones they can't fully understand or accept, for art.

Poetry is commonly both a cathartic process, or a kind of mental masturbation, and a kind of collector's search. But in the words of Thoreau 'how vain is it to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live'.

Between this more stoical approach today and the early musings, there have been innumerable postcards, beers mats and napkins filled with mystic ramblings, love letters and descriptions of trees in the night-wind (etc!).

The poems themselves seem to follow more of a European tradition than a British/English one. Would that be a fair assumption? Who are the writers who you admire and feel have influenced your work the most?

I think the British tradition is generally one that lacks passion, insight and mysticism. This is clearly a general statement and I could cite many exceptions. But, as a rule, I favour Japanese poetry (short, mystical and allusive - and therefore a better reflection of what life is really like), Spanish poetry for the deep passion and congruence, and also some American poetry.

The two greatest poets on the last century were, in my eyes, Wallace Stevens and Pablo Neruda. Pablo Neruda writes about love and the sea better than anyone I have ever known and Wallace Stevens fuses the imagination and reality in a subtle and profound way - 'the poem of the mind in the act of finding what will suffice'. I find it amazing and disheartening that so many people are yet to look outside the bounds of one or two familiar poetic traditions.

I believe you were born and raised in Preston. Do you feel the city itself has had any influence on your writing? Has your background as a philosophy student at UCLAN had any bearing on your poetry?

The only influence Preston has had on my poetry is thanks to the poetry society at the university - I don't know if this still exists. Preston has only featured in my poems as 'an urban area' and in a negative light.

As for philosophy, I think that poetry and philosophy are intrinsically linked, as they both are rooted in a primordial sense of wonder at the world and address many of the same questions, albeit in different ways. I again refer to Stevens. Merleau-Ponty is one philosopher who writes so eloquently as to warrant the title of poet and who writes about the link between language and being.

Selected Poems is published by the Clan-U Press which, as the name would suggest, is a UCLAN publisher, and is run by Ceth, a national Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Can you tell us anything about this and how it came to publish your work?

Ceth is the University of Central Lancashire's publishing house. The university runs a module in which students must publish a book from beginning to end (editing, marketing, printing, proof reading - the lot). My selected poems were published by a group of several students who were studying such a module.

Do you have kind of 'routine' for your writing? Have you got any advice for any would-be poets who may be reading?

I personally don't have a routine for writing but I think there are many commonalities in other writers' routines that might serve as advice for other would-be writers. Regular walks, reading constantly, getting drunk occasionally, sleeping well, travelling, exercising, falling in love, looking had at everyday objects until they shed their veneer. I suppose there are too many to list.

The important thing, though, is developing self awareness and then forming a routine (or otherwise) around what you discover about how you operate. The best advice, though, is rather than succumb to ordinary weakness, don't write at all!

Don't forget to put PrestonWN into your feed reader, or follow us by clicking the link in the sidebar. Our next post is a guest piece by Claire Sharples, who was part of the team who worked to publish Michael's collection.

Spring Clean

2009-09-06T14:58:00.001+01:00

Those wise souls among you who read PrestonWN through a reader might want to click through this time, because the PrestonWN team have done a bit of spring cleaning in the side-bar.

We've been up and running since March and a big part of what we've done since then is to find all you writers, bloggers and readers and try and get you talking to each other. At last count (and it will be more, I'm sure, by the time this blog post has been slotted into September's Schedule) we'd found over 120 Preston based bloggers... 120. One hundred and twenty. If we were all in a room at the same time, that would have to be quite a big room. I'm having ideas about a Blogging Word Soup special as we speak...

To make it easier to navigate through all those lovely links we've gone and broken them down into categories for you. At least one of us is a librarian, and found the task strangely soothing.

We've got Creativity - blogs about art, design, crafting, cooking, books, television, music, theatre, bands and photography. Fictional blogs, blogs for web and graphic designers, blogs for fashionistas and lifestyle gurus.

We've got The Great Outdoors - a fairly wide-ranging category (as big as outside is, in fact) that encompasses travel, gardening, environmentalism, conservation, sport, animals and games. We never knew how many of you felt as strongly as you do about our Ribble, and now we do.

We've got Community Blogs, for those of you commenting on the world, politics and society, creating your own digital newsrooms, blogging about your street, neighbourhood or suburb, for activists and commentators of all ilks, and for those of you blogging collectively about your group, church or society.

And finally, we have the Personal Blogs - mums and dads, relationships, your jobs, daily lives, darkest secrets, pets, houses, the world of work and anything else weird and wonderful you see fit to put hand to keyboard about and share with the world.

Now we want to ask you a little favour...

Go off and spread the word. Tell us about blogs we've missed so we can link to them from here. Go and tell other Preston bloggers about us. Have a click through the links, find a new blog to read and tell them where you found them. And, if you must, tell us when we've put you in the wrong category or spelled your name wrong (we are only human...)

That's all. Once you've done that, you can get back to your lurking.

Word Soup - pictures

2009-09-05T18:15:00.001+01:00

Just a little link to photographer James Brunton, who's put up the pictures of our very first Word Soup on his new sparkly website.

We've come a long way since then, haven't we? Keep checking back, because James tells me the site will be updated with fresh pictures, links and commentary soon.

Linky Linky

2009-09-02T17:02:00.000+01:00

If you must go and read elsewhere, here's where to go...

The View From Here - an on-line and print based literature review magazine, interviews Stephen Clayton. Originally from Rochdale, Lancashire, Stephen now lives in Hebden Bridge and has just published his first novel: The Art of Being Dead.

One small click here will take to you the Poetry Archive, where not only can you read, but you can also listen to the poet George Szirtes read his own work, a poem about Preston North End. Szirtes came to the UK from Hungary when he was a child. Of this poem, he says: 'it's a poem about belonging, about belonging in a crowd, about belonging to a nation'.

If poetry is your thing, click here for The Poetry Kit - a detailed and growing listing of broadcast and podcast poetry and poetry themed audio files, including the arts programming schedule of our very own Preston FM.

Script writing opportunity

2009-09-02T10:31:00.007+01:00

Here's a great opportunity for all of you scriptwriters out there. The Organised Chaos Theatre Company are inviting writers living and/or working in the North West of England (that is, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria) to submit new scripts for entry into a new initiative they are running.

Writers are asked to submit an original script with a performance running time of up to two hours; any running time below this will be accepted. Obviously, the script must be all your own work and not previously published or professionally performed.

The company say that they will commit to produce the selected play in Manchester in the early part of next year with the potential for future productions in the North West (and beyond) and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Send your entries by email in word format including a cover sheet with the title and writer's name. The deadline for submissions is 27th September 2009.

Writers should email their script to Kirsty or Gayle at organisedchaostheatre@gmail.com.

'The Importance of Narrative in Games' seminar.

2009-08-28T11:33:00.005+01:00

As part of their "Visionary Sessions" series, Northwest Vision and Media present ‘The Importance of Narrative in Games’, a discussion led by Matt Costello.

Matt's best-selling and award-winning work across all media has meshed game play, technology and story. He is the writer and creator of groundbreaking TV, novels, non-fiction books and games in both the U.S. and U.K. and has scripted dozens of best-selling games such as The 7th Guest, Shellshock-Nam ‘67, Bad Boys 2 and Doom 3 (winner of five awards at E3 including the Game Critics Award: Best of E3).

Matt has also been an interactive and creative consultant for clients, including James Cameron’s Titanic, the BBC, PBS and The Disney Channel.

The evening will also launch a course on structuring scriptwriting for videogames run by scriptwriting agency International Hobo. For more information on this course please contact Amalie Roberts.

The session and the course are aimed at bringing scriptwriters interested in writing for videogames together with games developers exploring episodic games.

Date: Wednesday 28th October

Registration: 5.30pm

Where: The BBC Club, BBC Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester

Places are very limited so to avoid disappointment register for your place.

http://narrative-in-games.eventbrite.com

Chocolate and Short Stories

2009-08-27T19:42:00.001+01:00

Chocolate and Short Stories is the first in a series of one-day workshops which will show you exactly how to write a short story for Bridge House.

Bridge House is a fully fledged new publishing company based in Manchester and specialising in anthologies showcasing both new and established writing talent. For their current submissions opportunities and policies, click here.

Here's what Bridge House had to say about their latest workshop:

Whether a beginner or an experienced writer, you will leave with a good proportion of a story finished. It is also likely to be a story which will fit the Bridge House ethos. There'll also be a chance as well to meet other members of the Bridge House team.

We've gone a bit upmarket this time and are running the workshop at Slatterly's, Whitefield, Manchester. Slatterly's produce wonderful cakes and chocolates, and there will be a chance during the day to browse their tempting display. Your day also includes a good sample of their other food.

The workshop Leader is Gill James, experienced writer and editor, university lecturer in creative writing with over 30 books in print.

The workshop runs from 10am to 4pm on the 19th September.

For more information on the workshop, to book a place, or to find out more about Manchester based Bridge House publishing and Chocolate Stories, click here.

Literary Events Roundup

2009-08-25T14:09:00.008+01:00

The Brewery Arts Centre

Spoken Word comes to Solfest this year. There'll be spoken performances on Saturday and Sunday afternoon from Sarah Miller, James Knight, Emma P, Geraldine Green, Annie Clarkson, Dominic Berry, Rod Tame and comperes Ann the Poet and Phill Gregg.

Ann - who we all remember fondly as the guest host at Word Soup 3 - be running a New Lines script writing workshop with Sarah Miller on the Saturday.

The next Apples and Snakes spoken word open mic is at The Brewery, Kendal on Saturday 26th September with guests Annie Moir and Julian Jordan. The workshop that afternoon (4-6pm) will be on poetic forms. Call the Brewery Box Office 01539 725133 to book a place.

SEDBERGH FESTIVAL OF BOOKS AND DRAMA 2009

Sedbergh, England’s 'Book Town', is holding its fifth Festival of Books and Drama between 18 – 27 September. The theme this year is Travel and Adventure and the wide-ranging programme will feature some great travel writers, adventurers and entrepreneurs in the travel business.

Director Carole Nelson says:

"We're really lucky to have attracted some ‘bonkers people’ - no that’s not the way to describe eminent publishers but it just might be the way to describe someone who walked across Africa!

"So we have a helping of mad but determined adventurers, Mark Ellingham who started Rough Guides, and other travellers of note. We are also very please to have Michael Gray, the authority on Bob Dylan who will be talking about Dylan and the Poetry of the Blues. After all much of the poetry that is part of everyone’s life is written in the form of lyrics and if that’s the case Dylan is a Poet Laureate!"

Local writers are well represented with Chris Wadsworth's new book, Hercules and The Farmer’s Wife, based around Castlegate House Gallery in Cockermouth, and John Rice’s The Atlantic Arc, a creative travelogue resulting from his recent trip to the North Atlantic Islands.

The Literary Trust which develops all of the Festivals and educational activity for the Book Town has just been awarded funding by the Arts Council which will enable the Trust to create more projects in 2010. The Trust will be reaching beyond Sedbergh to the whole of Cumbria with an exciting programme of workshops, events and writing courses.
Information Line and Bookings: 015396 20125
On Line Bookings and Information: www.sedbergh.org.uk

Guest Post: Carol Grant

2009-08-21T18:54:00.001+01:00

Today we're publishing a guest post from Carol, who shortly after joining one of Preston's writing groups, Writers' Inc, approached Galloway's to work on a project that involves amateur writers taking their creative work to the community. Here she tells us about her journey from interested amateur to the author of a serial drama that will shortly be recorded by volunteers and broadcast .

I'm a beginner to all this really and a late starter, being 55 years old! I've been writing poetry for a few years now. My poems are on any and every subject and I try to choose themes that reflect every day situations and experiences,using my imagination where need be. Most of them take a few minutes to write.They just pop into my head.

I joined Preston Poets' Society last September and whilst I enjoy the meetings tremendously, it has made me aware that my poems seem so simple compared to the other poets there. Mine are just poems that you can easily understand. You do not have to struggle to discover the message they convey. I am learning though, that we all have our different styles. I write, I like to think, for the 'ordinary' person, like myself.

In October last year I joined Writers' Inc. This is at present a smaller group than Preston Poets. Very friendly and very encouraging. I went along feeling a bit of a fraud at first, because I wasn't even a writer and I was afraid that it would all be above me. I hoped that my seventeen and a half years working in a bookshop down in Hertfordshire, would stand me in good stead should there be some discussion about books and authors.

The first time that I started to write short stories was in January of this year, prompted by the fact we were set homework by the chairman of Writers' Inc. Since then I have continued writing and have even dared to read out my efforts at the meetings! Last December I contacted Galloway's Blind Society and offered my services.That is twice a month I go over to their recording studio and with other team members read/record articles for them.

At present I am on the team that reads Farmers Guardian. Despite the title it is not at all boring. Every time we go in we learn something new about the farming world. Whether it's a brilliant new way to muck spread or how much a two year old rampant bull would set you back. ( quite a bit I have learnt!) One of the ladies from Writers' Inc, not knowing that I went there, suggested very kindly that it would be nice if we could go over to Galloway's with the idea to perhaps start a creative writing group with some of the people that use the facilities there. Also that we offered them some of the short stories and/or articles that we have written.

James,the producer of Lancashire Eye was very pleased to accept this offer and during a meeting with him, he asked if it would be possible to write a soap opera? (I much prefer the term, serial drama. It sounds more up market!) This was very exciting news to my ears.What a brilliant idea! What a fantastic challenge!

Any one that knows me,will know that if an idea is put into my head,then I just have to get on and do it straight away. I'm one of those people who wants things fast. Like yesterday. So I've already written three episodes and had them read by James at Galloway's and by Linda at Writers' Inc. Both of whom have given their seal of approval. Linda reads them straight after I've written each episode and always gives me sound advice and helpful comments, which are very much appreciated.

We expect to start recording the first few episodes very soon. I also am about to start going over to Galloway's to record some articles written by other members of our group. I would love one day to get a collection of my short stories or even a novel published, but that may never happen. I can only imagine and dream.

If you'd like more information about Writers' Inc, please contact Carol direct at carolelizabethgrant@hotmail.co.uk - PrestonWN wrote a little bit about their activities in this previous post.

PrestonWN is always interested in hearing from her (his? its?) readers: if you have a story, group or event you'd like us to feature, or you'd like to write something for us yourself, please get in touch.

Succour Magazine submissions

2009-08-18T11:41:00.002+01:00

From Max Dunbar, Regional Editor at Succour Magazine:

For this issue, we’re interested in work that takes the everyday or the commonplace as its subject, considers the nature of boredom, or indeed that questions what we think of as banal. You may also like to consider The Banal as a counterpart to Fantasies (the S/S 2009 issue), in that the fantastical tends to emerge from, or be contained within, the banal.

But as ever, feel free to interpret the theme in any way you like.

The deadline for submissions to The Banal is Friday 21 August.

Please send your work in Word or Rich Text format documents, with a limit of 5000 words (fiction) or 250 lines (poetry). We do not accept submissions by post. We do not offer payment for contributions that come through open submissions, but all contributors will receive two complimentary copies of the journal in which their work is printed, and an invitation to read at one of the Succour Salons which accompany the launch of each issue.

The editors will do their best to acknowledge any submissions within two weeks, and to give a final decision within five weeks of the submission deadline.

Please do not submit work that has been published elsewhere (including online) or that is under consideration by other journals.

And finally… please put the word ‘submission’ and the title of the issue to which you are submitting (ie ‘The Banal’) somewhere in the subject field of your submission email.

The editors welcome comment and questions on any subject.

Send all work to: submissions@succour.org.

Performance Wordshops

2009-08-17T17:48:00.000+01:00

Ron Baker from Lancaster Spotlight has just got in touch with an opportunity that would be ideal for all you Word Soup open-mikers to-be (and there's a mouthful...)

On September 18th at The Storey Creative Industries Centre, Ruth Quinn will be holding a Performance Skills Workshop.

Ruth is an experienced drama, theatre and acting teacher and has been assisting people to get the best out of their performances for over eighteen years. She's also a poet in her own right, and has a particular interest in helping people perform their poetry.

The workshop runs from 2.30pm - 4.30pm and costs £5. If you want to book, email spotlightclub@btinternet.com and tell them we sent you...

WANTED: Poets/Writers With Podcasts on You Tube

2009-08-14T15:16:00.005+01:00

Over the next few months IncWriters is looking for poets and writers who have recorded their poems and fiction for You Tube. The best of these will be selected for Incwriters Poem/Fiction of the week. To enter, send the links to your work to incwriters@yahoo.co.uk

the link for IncWriters blog and forum is www.incwriters.co.uk

NEWS: Groups on Facebook

If you're a Facebook user you can now join the new look BRITISH POETRY NETWORK:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=6624598788&ref=ts

and BRITISH FICTION NETWORK:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=6154924237&ref=ts

Philippa Gregory to vist Preston

2009-08-10T11:52:00.003+01:00

Philippa Gregory will be visiting Preston as part of a national book tour arranged to launch her new novel: The White Queen.

She'll be appearing at the County Hall Council Chambers Preston on the evening of 20th August to talk about her latest novel and answer questions from the audience.

Philippa’s ability to evoke a sense of period and her strong characterisation have meant her books have been adapted for the small and large screen. The White Queen marks the start of a trilogy set during the War of the Roses and so has special resonance for readers in Lancashire. The next event on Philippa's tour will be held in York... is this a modern day War of the Roses?

About The White Queen:

The first in a stunning new series, The Cousins War, is set amid the tumult and intrigue of The War of the Roses. Internationally bestselling author Philippa Gregory brings this family drama to colourful life through its women, beginning with the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen.

The White Queen tells the story of a common woman who ascends to royalty by virtue of her beauty, a woman who rises to the demands of her position and fights tenaciously for the success of her family, a woman whose two sons become the central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the Princes in the Tower whose fate remains unknown to this day.

From her uniquely qualified perspective, Philippa Gregory explores the most famous unsolved mystery, informed by impeccable research and framed by her inimitable storytelling skills

Tickets are priced at £5.00 each and are redeemable against the price of the book on the evening which Philippa will be happy to sign.The event starts at 7.30pm. For further details or to book tickets please contact SilverDell Bookshop, who is hosting the event in partnership with Lancashire Library and Information Service.

telephone: 01772 683 444
email: info@silverdellbooks.com

For more about Philippa Gregory, vist her website.

Guest Post: Norman Hadley

2009-08-08T09:49:00.002+01:00

Today's post is a guest piece from Garstang-based poet and author Norman Hadley. The PrestonWN regulars amongst you will know Norman as one of our star performers at Word Soup # 4. This post was first published on The Lunacy Review.

Were you read to as a child? Magic, wasn’t it? And on the rare occasion when you have the opportunity to recreate that sublime enchantment, you take it, don’t you? Whether it be an audio book in the car or a sneaky listen as a nephew or niece is escorted off to bed.

Dominic Kelly is a professional. Storyteller, that is. He has a business card that says “Storyteller” to prove it. On a sunny afternoon in August he gave a master class in the art in the gardens of Samlesbury Hall. Fear not if that is outside your parish as his home port is Yealand Redmayne near Carnforth.

Lavishly sideburned, waistcoated and wielding a pewter tankard, he looked fit to shoulder centuries of bardic tradition, although he confessed the tankard was charged with nothing more exotic than Adam’s ale. Reciting long tales from memory, he soon whisked his audience off into worlds where all princes were noble, all maidens had long tumbling tresses and vengeful giants marauded the midge-infested marshes. But these tales had levels of complexity, recursions and twists that could satisfy the older members of the audience. For two hour-long stints, he held tot and codger alike spellbound with his consummate pacing, phrasing and inflection.

Here was a man utterly in command of his craft. Each tale was preceded by an eccentric call-and-response routine whereby he would shout “socks” and the audience would bellow ” boots”. This was the vital contract between narrator and listener – the granting of access to monkey around in your mind. He could handle deft shifts of mood from humour to pathos to deadly drama. Agile on his feet, pacing from side to side like a weasel bewitching a rabbit, he stopped the clocks and invited us to soar on ravens’ backs over crumpled rugs of hills.

And I say “boots.”

Dominic does festivals, school readings. Check out his site

Getting Started With Your Novel

2009-08-07T18:22:00.000+01:00

The next in the series of the Preston Writing Network's summer creative writing courses is Getting Started with Your Novel - a day-long workshop held at the New Continental, Broadgate. The course starts at 10am on August 22nd and finishes at 4pm: there'll be an hour for lunch and morning refreshments will be provided.

Have an idea but not sure if it’s got legs? Written the first page, first chapter, or first half and not sure where to go next? Having trouble deciding if your idea is for a novel, a story, or something else? Writing is a lonely business. Perhaps you want to develop a plan for an extended piece of work, or talk to others about how to create your own writing discipline. A reflective day with discussion, practical exercises and tips. Some writing experience needed, but enthusiasm and an idea for a novel (however vague) is essential. £35 per person. 20 people maximum.

To book, call Robyn on 01772 499207 or email robyn@newcontinental.net. For more details on the Creative Writing Summer School, click here.

Extra! Free stuff!

2009-08-06T08:55:00.004+01:00

Here's value for money... two free appearances from recent Word Soup performers to get you through the day.

If you were daft enough to miss the very wonderful Word Soup # 4, then you must go here and read one of the performed pieces from satirist, blogger and PrestonWN volunteer Richard Hirst: a very special extract from Nick Griffin's Diary.

And to see Norman Hadley, poet, mathematician, engine builder and another of our Word Soup #4 performers read some more of his work, in person, on your very own computer screen, click here.

And don't say we never give you nothing.

Word Soup 4

2009-08-04T09:00:00.000+01:00

Word Soup is Preston’s live lit night and this month’s was bigger than ever. Not only was it part of Preston Tringe Festival and recorded for Preston FM and Diversity FM, but it had the biggest turn out so far.

If you weren’t able to make it, here’s what you missed...

The night kicked off with Sally Murray, a musician from Manchester, who wowed the crowd with her beautiful voice and chilled out songs. And when there was a sound issue, she proved to be that rarest of things- a muso with a sense of humour.

First reader of the night was Richard Hulse, a teetotal short fiction writer, who started the evening’s tenuous connections to the booze theme. His funny and original short story charted a man’s brand new relationship, jealousy and break up in the minutes it takes him, and his new girlfriend, to fall to their deaths from a plane crash.

Next was Simon Baker, a teacher and compere of Lancaster Spotlight Club, who read a gritty and angry piece about life in a small town and a night out from hell. His odious protagonist eventually met his match in an equally small town bouncer.

Tim Woodall, a fiction and non fiction writer who claims he writes self obsessed stories around exactly the same themes (his words not mine), read a piece called booze. It featured a journalist with alcoholic tendencies walking through Soho.After the break, Jenn Ashworth, compère extraordinaire in shiny shiny shoes, introduced the second half of the night and the return of the three minute open mic slots.

The brave open mic slot readers were:
* Max Henry, who read Win Them and Wear. He blogs at Tell Me Again About Typhoon Patsy.
* Chris Billington, who read her poetry based on Greek myths and cider. She is an active member of Preston Poets.
* Cynthia Kitchen, who read three poems based on booze and a recovering alcoholic.

* Peter Crompton, read poetry on the theme of booze and violence. Stood out for being a passionate and stand out performer and writes here.
* Terry Quinn, who read his piece, The Asylum seeker. He also works for Preston FM and blogs at Broadgate Is Great.

Mollie Baxter couldn’t make the event but Norman Hadley from Garstang read in her place. He read Poets Anonymous from his third collection, Perspectives. He also read a poem about diving through a sunken village which he read entirely from memory. This really impressed and marked him out as one of the evening's most engaging performers.

Richard Hirst, author of previous Word Soup success, Dear Millipede, and blog I thought I told you to wait in the car provided free postcard artwork for the event and read a piece about the leader of the BNP being captured by slug moles and having to live underground digging tunnels. It was every bit as surreal as it sounds, as funny as his last outing and I’m sure will not be his last.

The final performer of the night was star guest, Nicholas Royle, writer, critic, and blogger who read from his upcoming novel. The first section dealt with airline conspiracy stories and whether the brace position actually works. The second section twisted to become a post modern discussion of the the first in a Manchester Lit Event.

Let us know if you were at Word Soup on Tuesday in the comments box below and what you thought of it.

There is no Word Soup next month because it is the holidays, however it will be back in September. If you are interested in performing in one of the three minute open mic slots email prestonwritingnetwork@gmail.com

All photos have been supplied by James Brunton, 23rd Parallel

This blog was written by Mel who blogs at What do you do in Preston.

Helena Pielichaty to visit Preston

2009-08-01T10:09:00.001+01:00

Helena Pielichaty is the author of over twenty-five books for children, including the award-winning Simone series and the best selling Clubbing Together. On wednesday 5th August, between 2 - 3pm Helena will be at the National Football Museum to talk about her exciting new series, Girls FC.

Based around the Parrs U11s, Girls FC explores the world of girls' football in a twelve-book series that is aimed at 8-11 year olds. The series is released on the 3rd August with the first four books. Here's what Helena had to say about the series on her website:

Based around an U11s girls’ football team, the Parrs, the
series is a mix of my usual reality-bites-but-with-laughs story-lines. It kicks off with 9 year old football mad Megan Fawcett. All she wants is to get five minutes on the pitch for her school team but Mr Glasshouse, headmaster and coach, believes only the Y5s and Y6s should play in the first team. He barely notices her, even when she wears fairy wings and a tiara to training. So, after a chance meeting with Hannah Preston from the senior women’s squad, Megan starts her own team. A team just for girls; some from school, some from after school club and one from Lornton FC’s ground caught nicking stuff from the changing rooms!

As well as participating in the launch and having the chance to meet and talk
to the author, you'll be able to have a tour of the museum, watch a female
football freestyler in action and take part in the 'Goal-Striker' penalty
shoot-out. Helena will be signing books and you can find out more about her and
her writing life here.

The National Football Museum is on Sir Tom Finney Way, Preston and this looks to be a great afternoon out for younger PrestonWNers or their children! Places
are limited - to secure a place please email eve.warlow@walker.co.uk

How can we support the arts in Preston?

2009-07-27T16:08:00.002+01:00

Fresh from Ed Walker at BlogPreston:

**register by 5pm today here**

The second Preston Tweetup is set to be held on Monday 27th July 2009 at the New Continental in their ‘Snug’ area. The event is part of Preston Tringe.

A tweetup is where people come together, bring along their wi-fi enabled laptop and/or mobile phone and meet other people. People also twitter during the course of the night, so even if you can’t make it you can see what’s happening and contribute, by following #prestontweetup.

At Preston Tweetup we’re going to be discussing ‘How can we support the arts in Preston?’

With the Preston Tringe festival hopefully in full flow, the Tweetup is a chance to discuss how we build on the great work already being done in the city and help music, comedy, theatre, art and everything else that comes under 'arts' to flourish in our city.

Wi-fi access will be provided free of charge.

The plan for the night is to start around 8 PM, allow half an hour for drinking and making the wireless access work. At 8.30 PM we’ll introduce the night’s topic and then break off into smaller groups to brainstorm (you’ll be allocated a number as you arrive) and then around 9.30 PM one person will feedback to everyone what their group came up with. The rest of the night will be free for socialising, idea bouncing and networking.

The first Preston Tweetup was held on 17th March 2009 and was about how the web can be used in Preston Guild 2012. Find out what happened and see some pictures from the event.

If you’d like to get more involved in Preston Tweetup drop an email to prestonblogs@googlemail.com