From: The Willesden Herald
Willesden's own Zadie Smith has kindly agreed to judge the Willesden short story prize 2006. If their authors choose to take up the option, the winning stories will be posted here in the new year.
Ossian
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Breaking news
Stop Press... Stop... Press... Stop... Press again... Don't stop
Now calm down. The Herald is pleased to announce that Willesden's very own literary star Zadie Smith has kindly agreed to adjudicate our short story contest. In a break from an all-day meeting with his accountants, between the two-thirty and the three o'clock, Herald flounder Eddie 'Red' Woodward said, "I believe the expression I'm looking for is how cool is that."
Now calm down. The Herald is pleased to announce that Willesden's very own literary star Zadie Smith has kindly agreed to adjudicate our short story contest. In a break from an all-day meeting with his accountants, between the two-thirty and the three o'clock, Herald flounder Eddie 'Red' Woodward said, "I believe the expression I'm looking for is how cool is that."
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Sloe Wine sponsors...
Willesden Herald short story prize 2006
The deadline for entries is December 24th, 2005. Follow link above for full details.
Ossian
The deadline for entries is December 24th, 2005. Follow link above for full details.
Ossian
The Willesden Short Story Prize 2006
In association with Sloe Wine
First prize: Ed's Big Ugly Mug* (special edition, inscribed Short Story Prize 2006)
Runner-up prize: Mug for Munchkins** (special edition, inscribed Short Story Prize 2006)
There is no theme, and no word limit other than our editorial team's variable attention span. If you can hold their attention you deserve a prize. They have read a lot of great short stories and want to read as many more as possible. If your entry is not a short story they will know, so don't send a novel. If it's a chapter from a novel, don't tell us - it should stand alone. If it stands alone, we don't care whether it's part of a bigger work, but we don't want to know beforehand.
Entries must be sent by email to stories at-sign willesdenherald dot com. No pictures please, only very limited mailbox space is available. Maximum two entries per author. Even if the two best stories are by one author, only one will be selected, and only one prize per author.
All entries will be acknowledged by return email. If you do not receive your acknowledgement, either we have not received your entry due to our spam traps, or you have not received our acknowledgement due to your spam traps. This is equivalent to the Cone of Silence (cf. Get Smart). Please re-submit if you get no acknowledgement, and avoid anything that sounds like spam in your subject line.
Please state author name for by-line. Pen names are acceptable. Anonymity will be maintained (if required), with the help of St. Jude and the good judgement of the bartenders of Willesden. However, if you wish to receive your prize you will have to provide a delivery address. You don't need to send a delivery address unless you win. If you prefer you can collect your prize from Gigi's in Willesden by arrangement. We cannot conceive of anybody not wanting the prize, however if this enormous improbability were to befall, we would be pleased to donate the cost price to an online charity of your choice. N.B: The cost price.
Closing date for entries: December 24th, 2005. The winner and runner-up will be notified by email on New Year's Day and the results will be announced as soon as possible afterwards.
Winners are kindly asked to grant non-exclusive rights to Sloe Wine to publish their winning stories, online only, until the end of 2006, when they will be deleted. Alternatively, almost unique among literary competitions, we can leave your winning story unpublished if preferred. Copyright remains with the author at all times, of course. If you agree to publish, links will be posted here in the Willesden Herald to the winning entries. The results will be published online on several websites, and the title winner / runner-up Willesden short story prize 2006 will be yours.
Entries must be your own original work and previously unpublished.
This is a genuine competition. No purchase necessary, as they say. We reserve the right to withold either prize or both if entries of a sufficient standard are not received.
* Rare. Only two in existence. The first is in the possession of Red Woodward (here seen drinking Irish Tea).
** The only one in existence is believed to be in the possession of The Rt. Hon. Sarah Teather, MP
First prize: Ed's Big Ugly Mug* (special edition, inscribed Short Story Prize 2006)
Runner-up prize: Mug for Munchkins** (special edition, inscribed Short Story Prize 2006)
There is no theme, and no word limit other than our editorial team's variable attention span. If you can hold their attention you deserve a prize. They have read a lot of great short stories and want to read as many more as possible. If your entry is not a short story they will know, so don't send a novel. If it's a chapter from a novel, don't tell us - it should stand alone. If it stands alone, we don't care whether it's part of a bigger work, but we don't want to know beforehand.
Entries must be sent by email to stories at-sign willesdenherald dot com. No pictures please, only very limited mailbox space is available. Maximum two entries per author. Even if the two best stories are by one author, only one will be selected, and only one prize per author.
All entries will be acknowledged by return email. If you do not receive your acknowledgement, either we have not received your entry due to our spam traps, or you have not received our acknowledgement due to your spam traps. This is equivalent to the Cone of Silence (cf. Get Smart). Please re-submit if you get no acknowledgement, and avoid anything that sounds like spam in your subject line.
Please state author name for by-line. Pen names are acceptable. Anonymity will be maintained (if required), with the help of St. Jude and the good judgement of the bartenders of Willesden. However, if you wish to receive your prize you will have to provide a delivery address. You don't need to send a delivery address unless you win. If you prefer you can collect your prize from Gigi's in Willesden by arrangement. We cannot conceive of anybody not wanting the prize, however if this enormous improbability were to befall, we would be pleased to donate the cost price to an online charity of your choice. N.B: The cost price.
Closing date for entries: December 24th, 2005. The winner and runner-up will be notified by email on New Year's Day and the results will be announced as soon as possible afterwards.
Winners are kindly asked to grant non-exclusive rights to Sloe Wine to publish their winning stories, online only, until the end of 2006, when they will be deleted. Alternatively, almost unique among literary competitions, we can leave your winning story unpublished if preferred. Copyright remains with the author at all times, of course. If you agree to publish, links will be posted here in the Willesden Herald to the winning entries. The results will be published online on several websites, and the title winner / runner-up Willesden short story prize 2006 will be yours.
Entries must be your own original work and previously unpublished.
This is a genuine competition. No purchase necessary, as they say. We reserve the right to withold either prize or both if entries of a sufficient standard are not received.
* Rare. Only two in existence. The first is in the possession of Red Woodward (here seen drinking Irish Tea).
** The only one in existence is believed to be in the possession of The Rt. Hon. Sarah Teather, MP
Saturday, November 12, 2005
East of the Web
Short Stories
A pretty impressive site, with a lot of new short stories and a selection of classics. They are helping to nurture new short story writing talent.
Ossian
A pretty impressive site, with a lot of new short stories and a selection of classics. They are helping to nurture new short story writing talent.
Ossian
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Hysterical ninnies in full cry
Tonight on This Week (BBC1) Tony Parsons confirmed his imbecility. It was already clear when he was stuffed by Hari Kunzru on Newsnight Review, the other day. What a puny Goebbels wannabe.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Citizens safer tonight in Britain
291 vote for 90-day amendment; 322 against
It was the 'Sden wot done it. F---* The Sun, the Daily Blackmail, The Daily SS and the rest of the backsliding dumbasses.
It was the 'Sden wot done it. F---* The Sun, the Daily Blackmail, The Daily SS and the rest of the backsliding dumbasses.
Attention lobby fodder
Why MP's must reject 90 day detention (Guardian)
An even better reason: all your favourite blogs will be on 90-day hiatus.
An even better reason: all your favourite blogs will be on 90-day hiatus.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Windbreaking News
Skynews Science Bulletin
"A Cambridge boffin has developed fart-free varieties to the relief of baked bean fans and their families everywhere. Dr Colin Leakey - that is his real name - has just produced his first six-tonne harvest of a new strain of South American manteca beans. Dr Leakey, 71, has even developed his own 'fart-ometer' to measure the amount of flatulence produced by manteca beans compared to other varieties."
Pressure has bean building up for this for ages.
"A Cambridge boffin has developed fart-free varieties to the relief of baked bean fans and their families everywhere. Dr Colin Leakey - that is his real name - has just produced his first six-tonne harvest of a new strain of South American manteca beans. Dr Leakey, 71, has even developed his own 'fart-ometer' to measure the amount of flatulence produced by manteca beans compared to other varieties."
Pressure has bean building up for this for ages.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Imbeciles strike at the general public
Bombs in Delhi (Skynews)
'We have seen badly-burned bodies littering the market. Most of them are children who had set up food stalls.'
Bombers like these are beyond stupid, their brains are dead. Have they not had enough with earthquakes and tsunamis that they have to massacre people in marketplaces? There's never been any justification for any violent attacks on the general public, but in the middle of a crisis with thousands of people injured, freezing and starving, here they are with their pathetic, small-minded attacks. They will live and die in shame and contempt, the rotten swine.
'We have seen badly-burned bodies littering the market. Most of them are children who had set up food stalls.'
Bombers like these are beyond stupid, their brains are dead. Have they not had enough with earthquakes and tsunamis that they have to massacre people in marketplaces? There's never been any justification for any violent attacks on the general public, but in the middle of a crisis with thousands of people injured, freezing and starving, here they are with their pathetic, small-minded attacks. They will live and die in shame and contempt, the rotten swine.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Great new series - Pictures that didn't really work
Starting Today!
No 1. Les Miserables*
No 2. Swimmer in the sea at Eastbourne*
No 3. A lady squirrel not doing anything cute*
No 4. More noble than bombers*
*Is that you? Claim your prize**
**3 weeks plenary indulgences, courtesy of Mrs Haverty Enterprises.
No 1. Les Miserables*
No 2. Swimmer in the sea at Eastbourne*
No 3. A lady squirrel not doing anything cute*
No 4. More noble than bombers*
*Is that you? Claim your prize**
**3 weeks plenary indulgences, courtesy of Mrs Haverty Enterprises.
License to ill
US Govt. adverts alongside hate lyrics
Nick Grimes
US government Small Step health campaign advert spotted alongside this song lyric inciting people to shoot and burn gays:
Artist: Sean Paul
Song: Chi Chi Man
'This is another single from T.O.K. This song is called "Chi Chi Man." Thier names are Craigy-T, Bassie-C, Alex, and Flex. Hope you like this. Big up Jamaica.' [sic]
Intro
Bassie:
My crew (my crew)
My dogs (my dogs)
Set rules (set rules)
Set laws (set laws)
We represent for the lords of yards
A gyal alone a feel up my balls
Chorus:
From them a par inna chi chi man car
Blaze the fire make me bun them (Bun them!!!!)
From them a drink inna chi chi man bar
Blaze the fire make we dun them (Dun them!!!!)
It continues in the same vein. A later visit to the same page revealed a Red Cross advertisement instead of the Small Step one. Presumably the Red Cross needs to raise money to tend Sean Paul's victims. There are Google Ads on the same page, but they need to improve their algorithm, because they didn't offer any gun or flamethrower links*.
*And Google Ads turned down the Willesden Herald as unsuitable! What's their motto again, "Don't be evil"? Ed
Nick Grimes
US government Small Step health campaign advert spotted alongside this song lyric inciting people to shoot and burn gays:
Artist: Sean Paul
Song: Chi Chi Man
'This is another single from T.O.K. This song is called "Chi Chi Man." Thier names are Craigy-T, Bassie-C, Alex, and Flex. Hope you like this. Big up Jamaica.' [sic]
Intro
Bassie:
My crew (my crew)
My dogs (my dogs)
Set rules (set rules)
Set laws (set laws)
We represent for the lords of yards
A gyal alone a feel up my balls
Chorus:
From them a par inna chi chi man car
Blaze the fire make me bun them (Bun them!!!!)
From them a drink inna chi chi man bar
Blaze the fire make we dun them (Dun them!!!!)
It continues in the same vein. A later visit to the same page revealed a Red Cross advertisement instead of the Small Step one. Presumably the Red Cross needs to raise money to tend Sean Paul's victims. There are Google Ads on the same page, but they need to improve their algorithm, because they didn't offer any gun or flamethrower links*.
*And Google Ads turned down the Willesden Herald as unsuitable! What's their motto again, "Don't be evil"? Ed
Forget global warming, forget bird flu
Theory blames lava fields for mass extinctions
'"It has deep ramifications for life on Earth. There's no reason it couldn't happen again," said Dr Elkins-Tanton.'
You won't be running a high temperature, you'll be roasted alive. It will be bye-bye homo sapiens, and canus fidelis and all. Remember, you read about it first in your super soaraway 'Sden.
'"It has deep ramifications for life on Earth. There's no reason it couldn't happen again," said Dr Elkins-Tanton.'
You won't be running a high temperature, you'll be roasted alive. It will be bye-bye homo sapiens, and canus fidelis and all. Remember, you read about it first in your super soaraway 'Sden.
Sloe Wine authors reviewed
Magazine - loaded with arts
The website of Magazine (New Zealand) includes interesting new reviews of books by two of Sloe Wine's contributing editors. (-What?) Here and there.
Ossian
The website of Magazine (New Zealand) includes interesting new reviews of books by two of Sloe Wine's contributing editors. (-What?) Here and there.
Ossian
Friday, October 21, 2005
Emophilia
Emo Philips
"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way. So just I stole one and asked for him to forgive me."
Emo's CD: listen to "12.73% of it". (Very funny.)
"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way. So just I stole one and asked for him to forgive me."
Emo's CD: listen to "12.73% of it". (Very funny.)
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Complex Messiah
nothing will save you by dean strom*
reviewed by Feargal Mooney
Arab singers start a song with a mawal, a prolonged melodic wail without words, and this book also eases into its song with a preliminary mawal lasting many pages, before settling into an almost conventional narrative. I say almost conventional, because there is very little that is conventional about "nothing will save you" and just when you think you are on solid ground, back comes the mawal and you are floating away again. I am reminded also of the ethereal chants that highlight some songs by The Beatles, namely Lovely Rita and A Day In The Life.
"nothing will save you" is a novella and collection of poems, prose poems and short stories. The eponymous novella, which occupies most of the book, is a road movie, love story, breakdown story, redemption and more, but with every element undermined at all times by its author. The story is full of surprises and jazzy variations on unexpected themes and events. We're never allowed to get too comfortable with characters, some of whom materialise and dissolve and might or might not be emanations of the narrator himself, from the screaming torture chamber of a mind in crisis.
There are evocative and unique scenes from strange sub-cultures, of native American knife-throwing while full of firewater, followed by a native American game of beating the stranger unconscious, robbing and leaving for dead, to some extreme sport that entails running over mountains and frequent injury, rickshaw drivers in New Orleans, police brutality there, gay cruising haunts in Hawaii, and what I suppose we now have to call "the queer eye for the straight guy."
Chi Chi, the narrator of this tale (who shares his name with a Waikiki beach cocktail) stays, on arrival in Honolulu, on a boat with his friend Dean (who shares his name with the author). Chi Chi through the eyes of the cruising gays is a beautiful boy - nobody believes he's straight. In some ways it's like Death in Venice from Tadzio's point of view, but it's Tadzio who's dying. The love story that started on the road, with Jenny, is strung through a sequence of exciting and bizarre events leading to Chi Chi's Honolulu sojourn, heartbreak, series of encounters around the beaches and bars, some sleazy and demoralising, some transcendant.
In the climax of the story, fuelled by alcohol, dope and firearms, the mawal of Chi Chi's inner torment returns as disintegrating prose, increasing entropy of typography, to the point of jumbled letters, and conflicting voices, wanting to speak without saying, through intwining, self-consuming thoughts turning on the impossibility of the genuine, or possibility, whether the art of speaking and writing is in the words, in the fingertips, in the initial, lost thought, until we reach a real and very frightening event.
Chi Chi subsequently wakes to a world of satire, in which redemption takes the form of publication and money, and back on the road, or rather in the air to the promised land, the shining city, and for a page or two you think, he's letting us off, we are heading for resolution, satisfaction, comfort. As if.
*nothing will save you by dean strom
Published by Pretend Genius Press. ISBN: 0974726117
reviewed by Feargal Mooney
Arab singers start a song with a mawal, a prolonged melodic wail without words, and this book also eases into its song with a preliminary mawal lasting many pages, before settling into an almost conventional narrative. I say almost conventional, because there is very little that is conventional about "nothing will save you" and just when you think you are on solid ground, back comes the mawal and you are floating away again. I am reminded also of the ethereal chants that highlight some songs by The Beatles, namely Lovely Rita and A Day In The Life.
"nothing will save you" is a novella and collection of poems, prose poems and short stories. The eponymous novella, which occupies most of the book, is a road movie, love story, breakdown story, redemption and more, but with every element undermined at all times by its author. The story is full of surprises and jazzy variations on unexpected themes and events. We're never allowed to get too comfortable with characters, some of whom materialise and dissolve and might or might not be emanations of the narrator himself, from the screaming torture chamber of a mind in crisis.
There are evocative and unique scenes from strange sub-cultures, of native American knife-throwing while full of firewater, followed by a native American game of beating the stranger unconscious, robbing and leaving for dead, to some extreme sport that entails running over mountains and frequent injury, rickshaw drivers in New Orleans, police brutality there, gay cruising haunts in Hawaii, and what I suppose we now have to call "the queer eye for the straight guy."
Chi Chi, the narrator of this tale (who shares his name with a Waikiki beach cocktail) stays, on arrival in Honolulu, on a boat with his friend Dean (who shares his name with the author). Chi Chi through the eyes of the cruising gays is a beautiful boy - nobody believes he's straight. In some ways it's like Death in Venice from Tadzio's point of view, but it's Tadzio who's dying. The love story that started on the road, with Jenny, is strung through a sequence of exciting and bizarre events leading to Chi Chi's Honolulu sojourn, heartbreak, series of encounters around the beaches and bars, some sleazy and demoralising, some transcendant.
In the climax of the story, fuelled by alcohol, dope and firearms, the mawal of Chi Chi's inner torment returns as disintegrating prose, increasing entropy of typography, to the point of jumbled letters, and conflicting voices, wanting to speak without saying, through intwining, self-consuming thoughts turning on the impossibility of the genuine, or possibility, whether the art of speaking and writing is in the words, in the fingertips, in the initial, lost thought, until we reach a real and very frightening event.
Chi Chi subsequently wakes to a world of satire, in which redemption takes the form of publication and money, and back on the road, or rather in the air to the promised land, the shining city, and for a page or two you think, he's letting us off, we are heading for resolution, satisfaction, comfort. As if.
*nothing will save you by dean strom
Published by Pretend Genius Press. ISBN: 0974726117
Ossian
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Found by clicking Next Blog*
Is this the world we created???
"By the cold and religious we were taken in hand - shown how to feel good; and told to feel bad."
*Maybe we should turn that on here. Ed
"By the cold and religious we were taken in hand - shown how to feel good; and told to feel bad."
*Maybe we should turn that on here. Ed
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Raymond Williams Prize for Community Publishing 2005
"The Raymond Williams Prize is an award dedicated to commending two published works of outstanding creative and imaginative quality that reflect the life and experiences of the people of particular communities. Open to non-profit-making publishers, and awarded annually, the prize is becoming increasingly popular. It was set up by the Arts Council England in 1989, and is now in its sixteenth year."
The first prize of £3,000: "The Monkey's Typewriter was written to celebrate ten years of Willesden Green Writers' Workshops. It contains eighteen stories and poems that are in turn funny, disturbing, captivating and downright strange."
The runners-up prize of £2,000 was awarded to Equal Arts for The Kitchen Suitcase. "This book is a result of an Equal Arts project which involved women from Zayis Raanon, a Jewish organisation in Gateshead. The women met weekly to make a tapestry on the theme of Journeys to Gateshead with the artist Fiona Rutherford and tell their stories to the poet Gillian Allnutt. Seven very different women give us a glimpse of their lives and community that binds them together."
The judges this year were Debjani Chatterjee, an award-winning South Asian author with over 40 books to her name, Tim Diggles, director of the Federation for Worker Writers and Community Presses, and Courttia Newland, author of three acclaimed novels and co-editor of IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain.
The standard of entries was high, both in content and production, with books of all shapes and sizes, many amply illustrated, representing a wide variety of community groups from all over Britain.
The first prize of £3,000: "The Monkey's Typewriter was written to celebrate ten years of Willesden Green Writers' Workshops. It contains eighteen stories and poems that are in turn funny, disturbing, captivating and downright strange."
The runners-up prize of £2,000 was awarded to Equal Arts for The Kitchen Suitcase. "This book is a result of an Equal Arts project which involved women from Zayis Raanon, a Jewish organisation in Gateshead. The women met weekly to make a tapestry on the theme of Journeys to Gateshead with the artist Fiona Rutherford and tell their stories to the poet Gillian Allnutt. Seven very different women give us a glimpse of their lives and community that binds them together."
The judges this year were Debjani Chatterjee, an award-winning South Asian author with over 40 books to her name, Tim Diggles, director of the Federation for Worker Writers and Community Presses, and Courttia Newland, author of three acclaimed novels and co-editor of IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain.
The standard of entries was high, both in content and production, with books of all shapes and sizes, many amply illustrated, representing a wide variety of community groups from all over Britain.
Ossian
Local primates whoop it up
The Raymond Williams prize for community publishing, 2005, has been awarded to Willesden Green Writers Workshop for their anthology The Monkey's Typewriter, as featured in your super soaraway Willy.
*The Monkey's Typewriter is available from local bookshops and libraries. ISBN 0953019551
*The Monkey's Typewriter is available from local bookshops and libraries. ISBN 0953019551
Raymond Williams prize 2005
This year's Raymond Williams prize for community publishing has gone to Willesden Green Writers Workshop for their anthology The Monkey's Typewriter, which includes one of my own abominations.
Ossian
Ossian
Raymond Williams award 2005
Announced within the last hour, this year's £3,000 Raymond Williams Prize for Community Publishing has gone to Willesden Green Writers Workshop for the The Monkey's Typewriter (isbn 0-9530195-5-1) an anthology of short stories and poetry edited by Anne Mullane, Andrew Mayne and Dale Arndell. The closing story in the book is Gerry Boysey's Human Circus by yours truly. If the judges had read that far we probably wouldn't have won.
Ossian
Ossian
Now you don't see it, now you do
10m to study how to regrow damaged limbs
"Gus McGrouther, a plastic surgeon at Manchester University, said that while the research was in its early stages, the goal of regrowing limbs was not beyond human grasp. 'It's an achievable future, it will eventually happen.'"
The article doesn't mention that we can regrow the tips of our fingers. I (P Kronk, from the village W in the territory of L) have a guitarist friend who had the tip of one of his index fingers severed below the nail, and it has now grown back.*
Kronk
*Unfortunately, it has forgotten how to play its parts in my friend's guitar music.
"Gus McGrouther, a plastic surgeon at Manchester University, said that while the research was in its early stages, the goal of regrowing limbs was not beyond human grasp. 'It's an achievable future, it will eventually happen.'"
The article doesn't mention that we can regrow the tips of our fingers. I (P Kronk, from the village W in the territory of L) have a guitarist friend who had the tip of one of his index fingers severed below the nail, and it has now grown back.*
Kronk
*Unfortunately, it has forgotten how to play its parts in my friend's guitar music.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
South Asia Earthquake Children's Appeal
UNICEF
Who needs wars between people when nature is against us all? Dig some moola out of the ruins of your bank account, and put it to work. Willesden is entangled in this wreckage.
Who needs wars between people when nature is against us all? Dig some moola out of the ruins of your bank account, and put it to work. Willesden is entangled in this wreckage.
Pumping Ieuan
Swansea Is Britain's Healthiest City
"Swansea is not the only city in Wales well-known for its quality of life. Cardiff was recently branded the best place to live for its perfect balance of work, rest and play by Men's Health magazine - and nearly 90% of male residents said they were happy with their sex lives." (Sky News)
"Swansea is not the only city in Wales well-known for its quality of life. Cardiff was recently branded the best place to live for its perfect balance of work, rest and play by Men's Health magazine - and nearly 90% of male residents said they were happy with their sex lives." (Sky News)
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