Invitation to Willesden on a spring evening

Willesden Herald "New Short Stories" Results Event 2012

8 to 10 pm, Thursday 12 April 2012 at Willesden Green Library Centre, 95 High Road, London NW10 2SF.

Before we tell you which story has won the priceless Willesden Herald mug inscribed "Willesden Short Story Prize 2012" and hand over the prizes for winner and two equal runners up, we're going to subject you to refreshments, brilliant actors, brilliant words and the opening of an envelope. A big vote of thanks to the great Roddy Doyle for judging.

We will be joined once again by actors from the mighty Liars' League, returning after a highly successful year to give you a flavour of the new stories we've discovered this time. Visit their website to find out all about them and where you can see them next.

There will be copies of "Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 6" on the night, printers willing. Thanks to our redoubtable 33 supporters on Kickstarter for enabling this publication. We are also indebted to the artist Stratos Fountoulis for creating the cover.

All this is thanks to the kind and generous sponsorship of the event by Willesden Green Writers' Group.

Last year's results event went so well that I hope we can live up to it. To see what it was like last time, follow this link. If we fail to live up to that, there is always the Rising Sun around the corner, where sorrows can be drowned or pleasures toasted. Here's to Toasted Pleasures.

Ossian

Links
Announcement: Willesden 2012 short list
Introducing the authors of the short-listed stories 2012
Willesden Green Library Centre website
Facebook event listing

Update: And the result is 

Supported by Willesden Green Writers' Group

The moon, Venus and Jupiter

Looking west on High Road, Willesden tonight

Poster for the results event 2012

by Sam Taradash

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, taken in 1940 by Russell Lee

Mural on Roundwood Park bandstand

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream" Vincent Van Gogh

The changing High Street

If they could speak

Cartoon by Craig

Time in the High Road

Willesden Green Architectural Salvage

The yard has been cleared; is this the beginning of the end?

Update Feb 2014: Refurbished and still going strong! Yay.

Venus and Jupiter over Capital City Academy

West from the sports centre, Sunday, 6:40 pm. The two planets are close together in the sky at present.

Raindance!

A superb performance by the McCarthy Kinsella Academy of Irish Dance Brent yesterday in the St Patrick's day festival at Willesden Library centre.

Note: This event will not be possible in the future with blocks of flats set to be built on the site, after Brent Labour Council gave the site to Galliford Try builders gratis. In return Galliford Try will demolish the superb existing Library Centre together with the listed Victorian old library and replace them with a cheap box with 4 giant ugly acronym letters standing on the site of the old Victorian library, conveying the message WGCC - Willesden Galliford Couldn't Care. (Ed)

Willesden St Patrick's day 2012 - video

Link: Photos

Willesden St Patrick's day parade 2012

Link: Video

First sight of New Short Stories 6

This is the design by Stratos Fountoulis for the cover of the collection of this year's best short stories.

Publication date is set for 12/3/2012. ISBN 978-0-9778526-6-6.

Links
The 2012 short list announcement
Introducing the authors of the short-listed stories 2012
Invitation to Willesden on a spring evening

Review

the short review: Willesden Herald New Short Stories 5

"Surprisingly for an anthology of stories selected from a wide variety of entrants, there does appear to be a unifying theme of interiority, meditation, threads of isolation and ways of dealing with grief running through the majority of these stories. What's remarkable too, is that many of these stories deal with tight, closed worlds, each world perfectly explored and described, and yet also, equally insular." (Arja Salafranca, The Short Review)

Amazon book link

Concern over loss of historic west London library

The Victorian Society

A proposal to demolish the old Willesden library building has been strongly criticised by the Victorian Society.



'Plans to knock down this attractive building in the heart of Willesden fly in the face of the Council's own guidance,' said James Hughes, Conservation Officer for the Victorian Society. 'Council documents stress the importance of the old library and the need to preserve the character of the Conservation Area.'

Mr Hughes added: 'we want to see the Council take a more imaginative and sustainable approach to this key site, as the loss of the Victorian library is unnecessary and wasteful. It should be possible to build a new cultural centre while retaining this important reminder of Willesden's heritage.'

A city that cannot afford libraries that have been afforded since the turn of the 19th century, cannot maintain historic buildings but squanders tens of billions of pounds, wraps itself in worthless bunting and fake shop fronts for the London Olypics. A state that is more interested in war and pompous international games than it is in libraries and neighbourhoods. #NOlympics 2012 - to hell with the games. (No? Ed)

Willesden Green garage

Business as usual

This afternoon

All lit up

Houses in Rowdon Avenue last night

Violence, feuds and fear scar the capital's heart

Dave Hill's London blog | Politics | guardian.co.uk

"...the A-Z calls it West Kilburn and its fringes - has seen a succession of shootings and other violent attacks arising from feuds between youths living in and around two estates that stand just a ten-minute walk apart. These two estates – the Mozart, which lies in Westminster and the South Kilburn in Brent - are the focus of rivalries acted out in accordance of a different street map entirely."

Postcode gang warfare