Short Story of the Month, August 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

August 2019: Dark Song by Roberta Dewa

“I slip into the water. I didn’t plan to swim, but there’s still static fizzing in my veins from last night’s concert and as the river laps me up I’m cooling down, the static disappearing into a string of bubbles streaming out all around me and rising up from the deep channel, like there’s a diver down there somewhere."

Photo: Roberta Dewa
(c) Ursula Kelly Photography

Roberta Dewa has always written fiction, and in her twenties published three historical novels with Robert Hale. While studying for various degrees she published poetry and short fiction, including a first short story collection, Holding Stones (Pewter Rose Press, 2009). In 2013 she published a memoir, The Memory of Bridges, and a contemporary novel followed: The Esplanade (Weathervane Press, 2014). Since retiring from university teaching, she has been writing poetry and short stories again, and in November 2017 won the Willesden Herald prize with her story Dark Song. She is currently coming to the end of the first draft of a new novel.

Continuing our retrospective series, “Dark Song” is included in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 10 having won first prize in the WH short story competition 2017. Visit Robert Dewa – Author and Lecturer.

Partly to blame for Boris Johnson PM?

Boris Johnson is about to become prime minister of the UK. In the back pages of the Willesden Herald you will find several links to articles by him in his Wodehouse-like humorous style. As a columnist, he was a hoot but as prime minister he is more likely to be a scream. In fact he is now closely associated with screams, because of the sounds that emanated from his flat on the first night of his Tory leadership campaign. There is only one thing he could do now to return to the status of affable comedian: resign!

Here is a Guardian journalist confessing to helping, accidentally, Johnson to arrive at this catastrophe of becoming prime minister: "Boris Johnson, the prime minister? I’m sorry to say that I’m partly to blame" by Matthew d’Ancona

Wellington Estate: Canal Club under threat

AT THE CANAL CLUB- a report on the threat to community spaces at the Wellington Estate in Bethnal Green: https://t.co/kWt3TFylak Photos by @rachelferriman pic.twitter.com/qlQGlniNhe

— Spitalfields Life (@thegentleauthor) July 21, 2019

"Novelist Sarah Winman visited the Canal Club in Bethnal Green recently with Photographer Rachel Ferriman to report on the threat to the community spaces at the Wellington Estate.
...
"The proposal for the Wellington Estate is to demolish the Canal Club and remove the open space and community asset it provides. This is to construct a further twenty-two flats on an already densely populated estate which was built in the thirties as an answer to slum clearance – basically, it is taking space from those who have little to start with.
...
"...the Canal Club land was given by the GLC  to the people of the Wellington Estate in the late seventies and early eighties to offset the overcrowding and the lack of balconies and gardens."

Tower Hamlets Council wants to cram a few more flats into the space occupied at present by a communal garden beside the canal. Follow this link for the full report and photo gallery:
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/07/21/at-the-canal-club/.

Did you know? We're on Duotrope.com

For many years, the Willesden Herald has been listed by Duotrope, for which we are very grateful as it has greatly helped in bringing writers from around the world to our submissions page. Why not take a look at their features for writers? You won’t see a more impressive resource for writers seeking opportunities to place their work. And while you’re there, you might like to take a look at their listing for New Short Stories 11. You can see the basic listing, which is excellent, and if you sign up you can get even more info.

"Raft of the Twats" masterpiece by Cold War Steve

Raft of the Twats pic.twitter.com/Opws4hnUPP

— Cold War Steve (@Coldwar_Steve) May 13, 2019

A parody of Théodore Géricault's painting "The Raft of the Medusa" is one of Cold War Steve's masterpieces.

Now reading for New Short Stories 11

We are open till September 30 for submissions to the latest in our series of short story anthologies, featuring the best new writing from around the world.

You can find plentiful examples of what we like in our back issues and also in our Story of the Month features, as well as in the periodicals listed under Links. We’re generally looking for literary fiction not genre stories.

The only payment we can offer at this time is two copies of the book when it is published.  Full details are set out in the submission form area.

“Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 11” will be published simultaneously in the US and UK in early 2020 and will be available from the main online booksellers by print on demand. We can also do print runs on favourable terms when bulk orders are requested.

See our New Short Stories blog and The Willesden Herald for updates and features that may be of interest. (Link: Submit)

New Short Stories 11 on the horizon

London, July 2: In that too rare spirit of international cooperation, the team behind the New Short Stories book series is getting together again to create another issue with the best short stories we can find. There won't be a competition this time, it will be a good old submit/accept/reject process with arbitrary editorial decisions completely unaccountable to the world. Yes, traditional, if you like. Details to follow. (Ed.)

Spiritual Wellbeing

Holloway Road

Short Story of the Month, July 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

June 2019: "Curtains" by Charles Lambert

"When Helen gets back from the hospital the house is empty. She leaves her weekend bag by the door and wanders from room to room, the kitchen, the hall, the living room, and then upstairs, pausing for breath on the halfway landing, her hands folded over her stomach. She rests her hand on the door to David’s study..."

Charles Lambert was born in the United Kingdom but has lived in Italy for most of his adult life. His most recent novel is Prodigal, recently longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019. His previous novel, The Children's Home, was praised by Kirkus Reviews as ‘a one-of-a-kind literary horror story’, while Two Dark Tales, published in October 2017, was described by Owen King as the work of a ‘terrific devious story teller’. Earlier books include three novels, a collection of prize-winning short stories and a memoir, With a Zero at its Heart, selected by the Guardian as one of its top ten books from 2014.

Continuing our retrospective series, "Curtains" is included in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 6 together with stories by Eliza Robertson, Virginia Gilbert, Nick Holdstock, Geraldine Mills and others.

Visit Charles Lambert's blog on WordPress.

On reading "The Empty Promise of Boris Johnson"

The Empty Promise of Boris Johnson (Sam Knight, The New Yorker)

This is a very interesting and educational article, containing a potted biography of Boris Johnson, charting and explaining his political aims, which can be summed up nicely in his own words as "I have nothing." In short, he has no fixed beliefs and doesn't believe in the perfectibility of people or systems and treats life, journalism and elections as a rambunctious game of King of the Castle, which he is determined to win.

His main virtue, if you can isolate any, is that he cheers people up. I think that is very fair, the life and soul of the party but in more ways than one, "not the man you want driving you home afterwards," as Amber Rudd famously quipped. It is hard to be cheered up in the face of an oncoming juggernaut or cliff edge and a driver full of Pimms.

Johnson is portrayed as a real-life version of PG Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster. If the final two in the Tory leadership ballot turn out to be Gove v Johnson, it will be like a contest between Jeeves and Wooster, which does indeed happen from time to time in the books. Hunt, Javid or Stewart as the opponent would merely be one of Wodehouse's frequent unsatisfactory stand-in butlers. When it comes to Wooster v Jeeves, it's always Jeeves who wins but he lets Wooster think he's won. Johnson would be a figurehead and Gove the man with the plan:- and that's where the analogy breaks down.

Pressure-washing the pavements

Greenford Road

Harrow Council workers were out last night cleaning the pavements near Sudbury Hill station. This paving is relatively new, having just been redesigned and renewed over the last two years. 

Impressive happy birthday sign

Spotted on the corner of Greenford Road and South Vale, Harrow

Whoever Pat is, here's hoping he had a happy birthday.

Short Story of the Month, June 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

June 2019: Set Dance by Angela Sherlock

“Suddenly, very precisely placing the oddity of individual lives in the perspective of a bigger, slower rural pattern where everything can be accepted…Angela Sherlock’s Set Dance, a very unusual story, a very interesting story.” (Maggie Gee)

Angela Sherlock has worked in engineering and in education, but now lives in Devon where she writes full time. She has published reviews and articles but now concentrates on fiction. ‘Set Dance’ comes from her collection, To know they dreamed, which explores the Irish diaspora. She is currently working on a collection that takes its themes from elements of the periodic table. Her stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, the most recent online in Virtual Zine.

“Set Dance” is also available in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 5 together with stories by eleven other outstanding writers.

Visit AngelaSherlock.com

Advice for Rylan!

It's feels like a long time since we had a music video.



"Rylan you should try to get some sun" (The National)
Must be a different Rylan.

Short Story of the Month, May 2019

The Willesden Herald New Short Stories Story of the Month

May 2019: Rash by Megan Taylor

“The ancient hinged mirror reflected back three Frans, each one streaked. Beyond her, the walls of her bedroom were a faded peach, her teenage posters removed long ago, but in the lamp’s glow, the walls appeared duskier than usual and Fran also looked muted, almost satiny, despite the rash.”

Megan Taylor is the author of three novels, ‘How We Were Lost’ (Flame Books, 2007), ‘The Dawning’ (Weathervane Press, 2010) and ‘The Lives of Ghosts’ (Weathervane Press, 2012), as well as a collection, ‘The Woman Under the Ground and Other Stories’ (Weathervane Press, 2014), which includes her Willesden Herald’s shortlisted ‘Rash’.

Recent short stories have been placed in several competitions, and appeared in a variety of publications, including Dark Lane’s 6th and 7th anthologies and Neon.  A fourth novel, ‘We Wait’, is due out from Eyrie Press in 2019. (www.megantaylor.info)

"Rash" is also available in Willesden Herald: New Short Stories 8 together with stories by nine other outstanding writers.

Be clear. Vote LibDem to say "Remain!" on May 23rd 2019

Theresa, Boris, Trump, Farage, Corbyn.... they want Brexit.

Liberal Democrats are fighting for Remainers across Britain who want to #StopBrexit.
Vote Liberal Democrat on 23 May > https://t.co/IppSIisDi9 pic.twitter.com/0NizfOYs3m

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) May 12, 2019

Register to vote by post by Tuesday 7th, impossible?

The registration service offered by RegisterToVote.eu, as reported earlier this week, which offered to submit details for people who filled in a form online, has been closed down by the Electoral Commission.

The Electoral Commission said: “We urge EU citizens that [sic] want to vote in the European parliamentary elections in the UK to only apply to register to vote through their local council or official websites. We welcome efforts by campaigners to encourage eligible electors to register to vote. However, our advice to anyone not yet registered is to only apply directly at www.gov.uk/registertovote.” (From: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/04/site-claiming-to-help-eu-citizens-register-to-vote-is-shut-down)

Postal applications must be received by Tuesday 7th, which is difficult at the time of writing, as it's now Saturday May 4th, and Monday is a bank holiday. It is believed that very few of the over 3 million EU citizens in the UK who need to register to vote in the European Parliament elections have done so.

There is still a possibility that the elections scheduled for May 23rd might be cancelled but that becomes ever more unlikely as days go by.

The thoughts of Red Woodward

1. Never trust anybody honest.

2. This everybody dying malarkey has got beyond a joke.

3. What a person says a lot about says a lot about a person.

4. Minimalism is the biggest load of crap ever.

5. There's no such thing as waiting. You are either doing something useful or you are doing something useless.

6. Meditation? It's a racket.

7. You can put me in a box when I pop my clogs but not before.

8. Evidently I'm past my sell by-date but not my use-by date.

9. In life, you either do something and feel guilty about it, or do nothing and feel guilty about it. There is no in-between.

10. You can't put everything right in the fourth act of a three-act play.

11. The only review worth a damn is written on a cheque.

12. We're not about to go bang.

--

Feargal Mooney

South Vale, Harrow this morning

Chestnut tree in bloom at the corner of South Vale and Wood End Road

EU elections: 96% of over 65s can vote, only 60% young

Register to vote: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote. Deadline 7 May 2019.

If the elections to the European Parliament go ahead next month, it will very likely be the last chance to vote to say "Stop Brexit."

The neo-fascist sympathiser Farage and his fellow-travellers in parliament are out to seal Britain's fate of isolation from our European hinterland, at the mercy of ruthless grabbers in the Kremlin and the White House and at the cost of disruption and misery in Ireland.

Grove Farm, Local Nature Reserve, Ealing today

First view of Grove Farm beside David Lloyd sports centre

What has the ECHR ever done for us?

Re-publishing this as a little reminder about the craziness the UK is subject to under the government of Theresa May. It owes something to Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sketch in The Life of Brian.

* ECHR = European Convention on Human Rights

Need a laugh these days, by any chance?

The best bit about this is the last cat who does the Scooby Doo 'run on the spot for a split second before actually moving' pic.twitter.com/ltQhF2HDCl

— Olaf Falafel (@OFalafel) April 11, 2019

Bee fly hovering on forget-me-nots

Spotted in the jungle behind Herald House today

Indicative votes: Results in sequence and plan for Monday

Analysis of Wednesday's "indicative votes" on the way forward for Brexit.

Results in the order voted on and announced, For-Against:
160-400 No Deal
188-283 Common Market 2.0 (aka Norway+)
65-377 EFTA & EEA (single market without customs union)
264-272 Customs Union (basic permanent customs union for starters)
237-307 Labour's Plan ("a" customs union and strong single market links, rights etc.)
184-293 Revoke Article 50 (if necessary to avoid No Deal)
268-295 Public Vote
139-422 WTO Terms

Arguably, Speaker Bercow made a mistake in declaring after each verdict "The Noes have it" because no one option "has it" yet. Instead, if you take account of the difference between Yes and No, you get this sequence:

Results in order by "goal difference" (all negative):
1. Customs Union: -8
2. Public Vote: -27
3. Labour's Plan: -70
4. Common Market 2.0: -95
5. Revoke to avoid No Deal: -109
6. No Deal: -240
7. WTO Terms: -283
8. EFTA & EEA: -312

However, it's simpler to forego "goal difference", and you get almost the same sequence by taking number of Yeses for each option, though the top two options swap places, which clearly could be significant*.

By focussing on the number of Yeses, it's easy to see how many votes are to be redistributed, each time the option with the least votes is eliminated. More importantly, the Noes are irrelevant for these purposes, since what we want to discover is the option of which most MPs are in favour. If someone doesn't put a Yes beside an option, that's effectively a No anyway. Therefore let's just count the Yeses from now on.

Results in order by number of Yeses:
1. Public Vote: 268
2. Customs Union: 264
3. Labour's Plan: 237
4. Common Market 2.0: 188
5. Revoke to avoid No Deal: 184
6. No Deal: 160
7. WTO Terms: 139
8. EFTA & EEA: 65

So on Monday, eliminate number 8 (EFTA &EEA) and ask its 65 supporters to vote again for one of the remaining seven options (eight if Mrs May's Deal is added). The next option to be eliminated would be whichever one ended up last out of the remaining options, probably either WTO Terms or No Deal - but we will only know when the votes are recast.

The process of elimination should be repeated, preferably discounting the Noes as irrelevant, till only two options remain. At that point the top one is the most favoured compromise option and should be adopted by the government.

Rearrangement of the ballot paper to separate two procedural options

1. In Wednesday's selected options, the Public Vote option was an anomaly, as it doesn't describe a future relationship. This can be resolved by moving it to a separate section of the ballot paper, to apply irrespective of which option is selected.

2. The same can be said for the Revoke to Avoid No Deal option, as that is not a way forward, simply an emergency brake in the event of no other plan being agreed. That too could have its own separate section on the ballot.


Suggested ballot paper layout & possible wording for Monday's vote

The option "EFTA and EEA" has been eliminated, having received the fewest votes. Additionally, the options "Public Vote" and "Revoke to Avoid No Deal" have been separated from the rest as they are procedural matters, which apply regardless of the other results."

Vote for one only of the following options. The option with the fewest votes will be eliminated and the voting procedure repeated with the remaining options:

1. The government's recommended withdrawal agreement and future arrangement
2. Customs Union basic foundation for a new deal as proposed by Kenneth Clarke
3. Labour's Plan for a form of Customs Union, close single market arrangement, rights etc.
4. Common Market 2.0 aka Norway+ which joins EFTA but not necessarily indefinitely
5. Leave with No Deal
6. Leave on WTO Terms

Answer Yes or No to the following questions:
a) In the event of no deal agreed with two days to go, revoke Article 50?: Yes or No
b) Should the eventual deal agreed be put back to the people with an option to Remain?: Yes or No

* 29/3/2019: Correction: Changed text to show that you don't get the same sequence by taking only the Yeses, rather the top two options swap places. Also added a mock-up of the possible ballot paper as a basis for Monday's votes.