Established 2003. Now incorporating The Sudbury Hill Harrow and Wherever End Times

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

And finally...

Cheerio ducky: "Attempts to breed a rare species of duck to avoid extinction in the UK have backfired after the only two remaining males fell for each other." (Telegraph)

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The great "Kingdom"

75-year-old widow to be flogged (Independent)

The great Kingdom, the great ally, the Mr Moneybags, the holy hypocrites! Austerity now, boycott all rotten countries like Saudi Arabia and China! Better poverty and self-sufficiency than the dishonour of bowing to these jumped-up guttersnipes and tyrants.

Zoz

Results of the short story competition 2009

The following were shortlisted for the Willesden Herald short story prize 2009:

"Propitiation" by Jenny Barden
"The Imperfect Roundness of Things" by Claudia Boers
"The Hate Club" by Ben Cheetham
"The Travellers" by Carys Davies
"Ante-Purgatory" by Carol Farrelly
"Amy" by Nick Holdstock
"Work" by Jo Lloyd
"Ebb Tide" by Margot Taylor
"Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena" by Jill Widner
"Tokyo Chocolate" by Morowa Yejidé

And the winning short story for 2009, as chosen by Rana Dasgupta, is "Work" by Jo Lloyd.

Equal Runners Up:
"The Hate Club" by Ben Cheetham

"Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena" by Jill Widner

The results were announced by Rana Dasgupta at a special Pulp Net Short Story Café event in Costa Coffee in Piccadilly, last night. (Pictures).

The newly available copies of "New Short Stories 3" - yes, hot off the presses - were all sold. Harper Collins were on hand as well and copies of Rana's new novel "Solo" also sold out.

Jill Widner read from "Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena", which will become part of her novel in progress. Margot Taylor also read the start and end of "Ebb Tide". Thanks to shortlisted authors Jenny Barden, Claudia Boers and everyone who came to the event - a good turnout and a pleasant evening all round.

The anthology is now available. To read the first paragraph from each story and for details of how to get the book, please visit the dedicated New Short Stories website www.newshortstories.com. Some of the stories will also be featured in a forthcoming edition of Pulp Net.

_________________________________________________


Judge's Report

"Work" is a characteristically understated title for a story that concerns itself with the very ordinary, and manages to find there philosophy, politics, and great vistas of melancholy feeling. I admire it intensely: Jo Lloyd is somehow able to write everyday paragraphs that lift off into flourishes of quiet wisdom - a wisdom whose warmth and sensitivity is in poignant contrast to the cold world she describes.

Like all the best short stories, this is a capacious work of literature, and it confronts the reader with big questions. High-flown captions come to mind: it is about the degradations of capitalism, the nature of contemporary friendship, the meaning of work, of risk and of loyalty - but the story itself prohibits such ungainly representation. Jo has found for it a voice of memorable clarity and simplicity, and it speaks perfectly, beautifully, for itself.

Rana Dasgupta

_________________________________________________

About the authors

Jenny Barden trained as an artist, then a lawyer, and for several years worked for one of the leading firms of commercial solicitors in the City of London. Chance research into a painting triggered a passion for writing. Journeys in South and Central America then led to ideas for a novel set in the New World during the Age of Discovery. That novel is now close to completion, and Propitiation derives from one of the chapters in an early draft. Jenny is represented by Jonathan Pegg of the Jonathan Pegg Literary Agency. For more about her writing visit: www.jennybarden.com

Claudia Boers is originally from Johannesburg and now lives in London. She left behind a career in fashion to focus on writing in 2007. She's been published in Your Messages (a collection of flash fiction) and was commended in the Ilkley Short Story Competition 2008. Claudia's currently working on her first collection of short stories and is fascinated by the imperfect roundness of life.

Ben Cheetham lives and writes in Sheffield. His short fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The London Magazine, Dream Catcher, Staple, Transmission, Momaya Annual Review 2008, Swill, Hoi Polloi and various other magazines.

Carys Davies's short stories have won prizes in national and international competitions, including the Bridport, Asham, Orange/Harpers & Queen and Fish. They have been published in magazines and anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short stories Some New Ambush (Salt, 2007) was one of ten books longlisted for the 2008 Wales Book of the Year Prize and was also a Finalist in the 2008 Calvino Prize in the US. She lives in Lancaster with her husband and four children.

Carol Farrelly is currently a student of Glasgow University’s MLitt in Creative Writing. She has lived in Italy, London, Oxford and Brighton. Italy and London are the places she still misses. She has had several short stories published in magazines such as Litro and Random Acts of Writing.

Nick Holdstock’s work has appeared in Edinburgh Review, Stand, and The Southern Review. He recently edited the Stolen Stories anthology. http://www.nickholdstock.com/

Jo Lloyd grew up in Wales and now lives in Oxford. Her stories have been longlisted for the Bridport and Asham prizes. She is not [sic] working on a novel.

Margot Taylor is an ex lollipop lady who lives with her husband and two teenagers in Somerset, UK. Her spare time is divided between her passions for boating, running on the nearby Quantock Hills, and writing short stories.

Jill Widner was the recipient of a 2007 Artist Trust/ Washington State Arts Commission fellowship; she was a resident at Yaddo in 2007 and 2008; and she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena” is an excerpt from her novel in progress, The Smell of Sulphur, which fictionalizes her experience growing up in Indonesia in the 1960s. Other excerpts have been published or are forthcoming in North American Review, Hobart (online), and Kyoto Journal. Her fiction has also appeared recently in Memoir (and), 971 Menu, and Hitotoki (New York). She lives in Yakima, Washington.

Morowa Yejidé is a native of Washington, D.C. She was educated at Kalamazoo College, where she received her degree in International Relations, and graduated from an international exchange program at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. Her short stories have appeared in the Istanbul Literary Review, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, The Taj Mahal Review, and Underground Voices, and others. Her stories often focus on the layers of relationships and the inner landscapes of her characters’ minds. Tokyo Chocolate is a tapestry of her own experiences and impressions. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and three sons. www.morowayejide.com



Views and reviews

Competition home page


Update a year later: 2010 results

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Ground zero

Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU

"Israeli 'facts on the ground' - including new settlements, construction of the barrier, discriminatory housing policies, house demolitions, restrictive permit regime and continued closure of Palestinian institutions - increase Jewish Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, weaken the Palestinian community in the city, impede Palestinian urban development and separate East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank," the report says. (World News | The Guardian)

Facts are always on the ground, that's where they fall. Strewn there are broken walls, carcasses of the expelled, hands far away on their own, eyes that blink for thirty seconds beside new walls that have no corners, dying of invested weaponry, smashed by national contentment, burst by tribal righteousness, torn into strips by proprietorial zeal, ever-changing colourscape of blood and shit and roasted flesh:- These are some of the facts that keep changing on the ground.

Zoz

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Let's get bookfaced

If you can put up with Facebook's on again, off again privacy two-step gavotte (after all they can only promulgate whatever baloney you feed them!) please sign up for some divarsion and high jinks at one of these:
* Monday 9 March | Pulp Net | Short Story Café | 7.30pm

Rana Dasgupta will be at the Pulp Net Short Story Café, to announce the winner of the Willesden Herald Short Story Prize. And to give a reading.

Rana’s first book, Tokyo Cancelled, a thirteen-part story cycle, was published in 2005 and translated into nine languages. His novel, Solo, from which he will be reading later in the eveining, is out in March.

"A novel of exceptional, astonishing strangeness, 'Solo' confirms Rana Dasgupta as the most unexpected and original Indian writer of his generation." Salman Rushdie

Source/More: Pulp Net

Sunday, High Road



Just happened on a nice effect at Walm Lane.



Almost a year on, the Spotted Dog is boarded-up and derelict. This is the signwriting with the prices for the closing week (still up).*

Ossian

* I was accosted by a very bleary-eyed person while taking this picture, who wanted to know why I was taking pictures, was I the police? I said it was for my blog (I didn't tell her it was for the newspaper, ahem) and she said she didn't like people taking pictures of where she lived. There are some flats nearby. She kept trying to stop me, so eventually I said, "It's a free country, I can take pictures of whatever I like, mind your own business." I regretted that afterwards but only because I thought I might take a bullet or a knife to the heart for saying it. Anyway, when I got back to the newsroom (ahem) I took a look at what I'd got and lo and behold (as they say) something strange in the corner of one of them, which I hadn't noticed at the time, but as it shows a person I won't post it. I don't include people (or try not to) unless they have given permission or are indistinguishable.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Feeding the rats



Every day somebody puts bread in this flower bed outside the Library Centre, beside the playground. They probably intend it for pigeons - though there don't seem to be many birds around since that snowy week - but the place is crawling with rats. When my dogs pass by here on their walk every night, they dive in and the rats come scurrying - at least on one occasion out into the street causing shrieks from ladies passing by.

Can I just say as well that the cinema in the Library Centre is in a filthy condition and they haven't even got proper tickets. Yet they have massive promotional displays, suitable for Leicester Square - inside where nobody can see them! Café Gigi is also closed, and it was infested with mice too, a while before it closed. What the hell is going on. We're paying like £1,600 per year (for band E 2008, for example, probably more now) for this crap - Brent Council! The Library Centre should be immaculate, like the Tricycle in Kilburn, instead it's like a tip.

Ossian

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Our Lady of Willesden


Our Lady of Willesden
Originally uploaded by simon_white
"Willesden might seem an unlikely place to find a shrine to Our Lady. In fact, when we think of shrines and pilgrimages, we tend to think of long, often expensive journeys and exotic locations like Fatima, Loreto or Guadalupe. Yet for centuries Our Lady has been honoured at sanc-tuaries much closer to home. Situated in one of London’s most multi-cultural areas, right on the edge of Central London, the shrine of Our Lady of Willesden is a veritable ‘sign of contradiction’ and a powerful witness to the Christian Faith in the Third Millennium." (Link)

Fascinating history and links to St Thomas More and more recent annual pilgrims including the founder of Opus Dei, who only died in 1975 but is already a saint - clearly a mover and shaker. It's marvellous to have these shrines - there is something touching in faith (with a small f), the fearfulness and helplessness of infants who rely utterly and without any reason on whoever and whatever is to hand.

The things we're called on to believe - miracles and dictats from the Pope - are coming to seem as preposterous as the Greek myths, however. It all seems to have been built upon ignorance and superstition. We're losing sight of real miracles in a welter of the obsolete, unregenerate and hidebound. We are separated from the miraculous by the very institutions that claim to aver it. I am thinking about the miracle of life itself, for example.

I think the churches need "to give up their riches", to sweep away pomp and pontification. What happened to the two laws! Even Luther wanted 95 things. Jesus of Nazareth only decreed two, no? I don't know. It's only one opinion. At one time I would have been tortured and executed for not conforming to the prevailing church's dogma in this country. In states controlled by clerics, such as Iran, people still are.

Ossian

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Oafs and fridges

 

The gobdaws who think this is a great place to dispose of a kitchen appliance are probably the same people who think that hedges and railings are there to take their empty bottles and take-away cartons.

Newsdesk

Friday, February 13, 2009

Mystery tour



Snow train/Hey There Delilah by Plain White T's

Just looking out the train window on a snowy day. The train is a pendolino, which is why things look out of kilter as it leans off the vertical. Much as I'd like to claim credit for the music, it was picked at random by clicking "I'm feeling lucky" on YouTube "audio swap". I suppose I can claim an editing credit, having searched for ages and found nothing before resorting to the magical "I feel lucky" button. Turned out nice again.

Jacintha

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Say hello to your uncle

 

Willesden pawnbrokers. Sphagnum

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

2009 competition results to be announced

Pulp Net Short Story Café
7:30 pm, Monday, 9 March 2009

Pulp Net presents: Rana Dasgupta (author of Tokyo Cancelled and Solo) who will be announcing the winners of the Willesden Short Story Prize, and mystery readers to be confirmed.

The Pulp Net Short Story Café is at Costa, Lower Regent Street
Suggested donation: £3.

Lower Ground Floor, Costa Coffee, 15 Lower Regent Street, SW1Y
Venue map. Places are limited so come early to get a good spot

Shortlist

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Announcement: Shortlist

The following have been shortlisted for the Willesden short story competiton 2009:

"Propitiation" by Jenny Barden
"The Imperfect Roundness of Things" by Claudia Boers
"The Hate Club" by Ben Cheetham
"The Travellers" by Carys Davies
"Ante-Purgatory" by Carol Farrelly
"Amy" by Nick Holdstock
"Work" by Jo Lloyd
"Ebb Tide" by Margot Taylor
"Mina and Fina and Lotte Wattimena" by Jill Widner
"Tokyo Chocolate" by Morowa Yejidé

To find out who has won come back here or join us at the the Pulp Net Short Story Café event with Rana Dasgupta at Costa in Piccadilly on March 9th. (Link)

Willesden Herald

Update: Results announced

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Charley Ant

Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!

Listen to the description of the photo, after he discovers the "frugal horn". Q.E.D. (Quod Erat Delirium) Solid gold feathers.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Children banned from snow-covered parks

Ridley's Believe it or Not (No. 7)

Children banned from snow-covered parks by health and safety brigade - Telegraph: "Camden Council in North London decided to lock all of its gated parks because the snow has made paths slippery."

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Herbert Ridley

A snowy day









Snow in Willesden, London. 2 February 2009. Sphagnum

You wouldn't put a dog out in this weather, would you? Our other dog, Minnehaha (a Yorkshire terrier) has long hair which gets matted with frozen snow and needs emergency treatment when she comes in bedecked with snowballs. Zoltan seems much better coated for it. He has two layers, with a repellent, glossy/wiry outer one and a downy undercoat - and prances around quite carefree. The Yorkie only has one layer of long hair, rather like human hair and it gets frozen with snow around her twiggy little legs. One of our neighbours leaves a large German Shepherd out, as you can just see in one of the pictures above, though it has a sort of shed where it can shelter but it still barks and scratches to get into their house. (It got into Herald House a couple of times, but that's another story. It's somewhere in the back pages, a search for Cujo should find it.) Cujo (not his real name) howls pitiably sometimes, particularly when ice cream vans pass by playing their jingles, not that that's likely today.

Ossian

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Podcast 6: pretend genius [press]

bookface: the worst of pretend genius

1. stop pretend genius (Josh Davis & J. Tyler Blue)
2. my valentine's (J. Tyler Blue, with music by J.D.)
3. a moment trapped (Amy Muldoon)
4. caressed by crows (Dean Strom)
5. dig big baggy grotto mob mottoes (Adam Barrett)
6. the silver circle (Stephen Moran)
7. yoda coda (Josh Davis & J. Tyler Blue)

Warning: Not for those of tender years or delicate disposition. Contains a source of swearing. May contain traces of noise. Always read the label.

Noël Knowall
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