Winter Thoughts

They put me in school. They do it to us all
and they teach us the alphabet and how to read,
how to add up and take away and memorise
the dates of battles, the names of kings,

while round outside the classroom the sun
illuminates the unread leaves and stirs
the untaught robin to sing his rhapsody
for which there is no do-re-mi, no metronome.

And we learn like Pavlov's dogs; how to please,
to supply the formula, to recite the text
we copied from the board and in return we get
rosettes, prizes, kisses, presents, Easter eggs.

But when the teacher has retired and our mams
and dads have forgotten everything or died,
we're left to wander abroad with nothing
but ciphers, tokens, money from a vanished state.

And late, now very late, the sun breaks through
a bare giant tree to solitary benches
where, as this afternoon, I wonder who to ask
to teach me how to read the day, the light

on public footpath signposts and leafmeal,
to diagram the last of the afternoon sun
warming a railway bridge in a country lane,
to derive the angles in a fine terrace below.

And I think of Yeats, Spender, Goldsmith,
walking through a classroom and being moved
to mystic reverie, fierce compassion, wonder.
But beyond the class there was a secret school

that taught us how to hear the ocean in a seashell,
to observe a crab blowing bubbles, the local names
for honeybees, how to draw houses, smoke & flowers.
Take me back to the school of streets and fields.

--
Stephen Moran

Shoes - a YouTube music playlist

With most tracks suggested by friends on Facebook

Merry Xmas

Jacintha Pucka & Bartell Darcy

Closing date this Friday - 20 December 2013

Thanks to everyone who has supported the competition, re-tweeted, sponsored and generally been what we can only call angels.

The last email-shot went out this morning and you can read it online here. The numbers are going up rapidly now. I'd rather have more but I know the quality is always high before the end. Always has been to date and expecting no less this time. That's the end of the spam.

Merry mid-winter everyone (where it is even possible). Already had some South African hot cider made by someone who knows what he's doing. It's like a mulled wine. Cheers to Mr Mandela, wherever he is now. Good luck to all. (Steve)

Update, January 2014: 381 entries were received. The judging is still in progress.

Save Kensal Rise Library at Christmas

Christmas Carols
At Kensal Rise Library
Wednesday 18th December - 6pm start

*Mulled wine
*Cakes
*You don't have to be a good singer - just in possession of Christmas cheer and goodwill towards all!

*Bring candles in jam jars (or borrow one of ours) and come along for a sing song.

No need to be able to sing well, just come and join in outside the lovely library.

Christmas hasn't really started until you've hung around on the library street corner singing with the community. Everyone welcome!

Cards for Christmas (and beyond)

The campaign has a new hand-painted card (no message inside so it can be used all year) based on an early photo of the library's original reading room. Inside is the report of the opening in 1900.

The cards come in packs of ten, costing £5 per pack.

They are available at Mr Patel's corner shop, Mohammad's shop and café, all College Rd, and
Daniels estate agents in Chamberlayne Road.

Visit the campaign website for the latest news and ways to get involved - http://www.savekensalriselibrary.org

More about that writing retreat prize

Latest

More info has come our way about the mysterious Writing Retreats in the Welsh Borders which form part of this year's short story competition prize. LitCamp, who some of you may remember, is putting on a spate of retreats in the New Year. "If you plan to get real with writing a book in the new year, check it out. You can even drop Xmas hints about this to your nearest and dearest as EarlyBird tickets rates run until 24 December - you heard it here first. Or, Plan B, win the short story comp!"

Tips for writers: He draws to the left so lean to the right

When Bob Hope goes out to a gunfight in Paleface, the townsfolk cowering in doorways all give him different advice about how to play it.
"He draws to the left so lean to the right."
"There's a wind from the east - better aim to the west."
"He crouches when he shoots so stand on your toes."
It's hilarious to watch him try and implement the various contortions as he walks down the street to face his doom.
Sometimes we get stories that sound as if they have been written by committee. Over-edited, they're herky-jerky and riddled with non sequiturs. The story has been shredded and stuck back together with sticky tape.

A long way from Willesden

Trailer

Virginia Gilbert's debut feature film as writer/director, A Long Way from Home starring James Fox, Natalie Dormer and Brenda Fricker opens at cinemas throughout the UK this December.

Virginia is a previous winner of the Willesden Herald short story competition. We reported recently on the launch of her novel Travelling Companion.

Link

Tips for writers: Hey Jude, don't make it bad

ENTRY AND EXIT

Hey Jude, don't make it bad,
Take a sad song and make it better...

The author was depressed. His brilliant short story called "Entry and Exit" had been summarily binned by the reader for the writing competition he had entered. Apparently they couldn't afford to pay for the right to use his epigraph from a song by The Beatles in their anthology of short-listed stories, and therefore there had been no point considering it. He paid the extra few pound to get the critique and they said it might have been okay if he hadn't interspersed every other paragraph with lines from Eleanor Rigby.

Tips for writers: "Oh and another thing," he stirred his tea

Wrong: "Oh and another thing," he stirred his tea. "Blah blah."
Better: "Oh and another thing." He stirred his tea. "Blah blah."

"He stirred his tea" is not a way of speaking.

Tips for writers: Had you not better had?

As somebody had already said that the word "had" had better not be overused as it had only proved necessary on infrequent occasions, I had thought of not bothering with this tip till I had started this text and had gone this far already. The pluperfect is less than perfect when it infests most of the first page of many texts submitted. I had already come to this conclusion but had never moaned about it till now. In short, it drives me mad. Or it had, had I not always had the ability to escape by closing the page.

Tips for writers: What's not there

Sometimes you have to tell us that something is missing. The ice cream van is not outside the park gates. That's fine. Where it can go wrong is when the writer has an irresistible itch to turn it into a litany. There are no squirming children, no exasperated parents ... Stop! They're not there, remember? What you're doing is an example of unwanted authorial intrusion; you are revealing your prejudices and your specialist knowledge. I don't want to know, not right now. You had me at "the ice cream van is not outside the park gates". Most likely your narrator would not think that way. He or she would notice the absence and possibly think of something much more obscure, which might be related but probably not a social commentary. No?
(I might have exaggerated this one, but sometimes there are egregious examples. Ed)

Tips for writers: Disperse

If you're entering more than one story in a literary competition: don't enter them all at the same time. You are putting each successive story at a disadvantage because it's quite easy to recognise the same style when reading two stories in a row. If the reader didn't like the first one, it may start him or her on the wrong foot with the next one. On the other hand if the first one found favour, another might not be as strong and might reflect back on the previous one. So leave a few days or preferably weeks between them, so the reader has no idea they're related.

Voila

2014 prize mug

The priceless trophy has arrived from our secret, latter day Fabergé cup maker. The true, the one and only one-off 2014 prize.

Less than a month left to enter

I sent out a mailshot. Okay, it's not as "cool" as some of the mailshots in the past. It really only says "don't miss the deadline" and lists the prizes. Here's a copy of the it. I'm looking forward to being transported by some great stories. I tried, somewhat impossibly, to describe what I look for in this: The Sense of a Short Story. You can read all about the previous years, judges, latest updates etc. here. If you want to see what the previous years' books look like, this is probably the best link. Thanks.

Steve

The one-off mug awaits a great story

It's the same every year. You keep me waiting for the great stories. I used to have nerves of steel, or anyway of tinfoil. Lately, however, I have nerves of cobweb. Don't tell me there are no more untold stories out there? As long as there's life, there must be stories and vice-versa. There's only about a month left and we need more short stories. As well as the Willesden Herald mug inscribed "Willesden Short Story Prize 2014" there is a prize fund of £600 and a week long writing retreat in rural Wales for the winner. Plus, all ten short-listed stories will be published and receive two copies of the book (New Short Stories 8). Link

Irish Film Festival London 2013

Irish Film Festival Trailer 2013 from Irish Film Festival London on Vimeo.

Irish Film Festival London website
Tricycle Irish Film Festival 2013

Zadie Smith on NW

Zadie Smith: On bad girls and the complicated midlife from Louisiana Channel on Vimeo.

Richard Thompson live

Richard Thompson: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Set list: The Money Shuffle, Stumble On, Demons in her Dancing Shoes

More NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts: Playlist

Stoke Newington since the 1970s

Alan Denney Has Been Photographing Stoke Newington Since The 1970s | VICE United Kingdom:

'via Blog this'

Music for a stormy autumn

Windsongs playlist (new)


Rainsongs (reprise)

New Short Stories website down

The domain was hijacked. We are working on getting it back up and running. Meanwhile here are some tracks by Earl Klugh. YouTube playlist.

Update 4 November 2013: We're back. :)

Public bridleway, Sudbury Hill

From the corner of South Hill Avenue & Sudbury Hill

Passing by John Lyon school playing fields on the left

The path narrows.

Hold your horses.

The path is blocked after St Jude's storm. You can get around the blockage by going around the tree on the left. Still it should be cleared.

Branch fall

Cavendish Avenue after the storm

Flowerland

Greenford Road (opposite Sudbury Hill station)

Spotted: Friends of Barham Library shop

Wembley

Link: Friends of Barham Library. In addition to demolishing the Willesden Library centre as part of an asset stripping scheme, Brent Council closed six other libraries in the same year, in further deals with property developers. They are under the impression that these deals "cost nothing". Children's study time in libraries is lost, but that is nothing. The borough loses the assets of civilisation put in place by previous generations. But that is nothing. Neighbourhoods are turned into industrial dormitories, but that is nothing. Flats are built and advertised as investments for wealthy clients in Singapore and other far flung places, guaranteeing in the adverts "no affordable housing". But that is nothing. The libraries and historic buildings the community owned have been burning holes in councillors' pockets. The parks may be next. Brent Labour are selling off your local birthright in supine compliance with their wealthy Tory/LibDem masters. "Now I ask you, members of the jury: is that nothing?"