Welcome to Felixstowe Scribblers

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Library first Saturday: report on event on Felixstowe TV

Library first Saturday: "Refurbished Felixstowe Library first Saturday.
With a story teller, and some storytellers!
Felixstowe TV News, May 27th, 2006"

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Life Expectancy of Bestselling Books - Lulu.com

Life Expectancy of Bestselling Books - Lulu.com

Print-on-demand publisher Lulu.com (mentioned here previously) has done a study on the lifespan of best-sellers and concluded that the number of weeks a book stays on the bestseller list has fallen to one-seventh of the average 40 years ago. This means that more books are becoming best-sellers, but that best-sellerdom means less in terms of revenue expectations. It's a pretty long-tail-ish conclusion: success is a lot more niche and small-s than it was back in the heyday of blockbusters. On the plus side, the physical costs associated with book-publishing are also way down, making smaller print runs viable, and Internet-era retailers like Amazon can sell millions of different titles.
The findings of the 50-year study are announced as America's book trade gathers in Washington for Book Expo (May 18-21), its largest annual get-together, while the movie of "The Da Vinci Code," the mother of all recent bestsellers, goes on worldwide release (May 19). The study was conducted by Lulu.com (www.lulu.com), the world's fastest-growing source of print-on-demand books.
The average number of weeks that a new No. 1 bestseller stayed top of the hardback fiction section of the New York Times Bestseller List has fallen from 5.5 in the 1990s, 14 in the 1970s and 22 in the 1960s to barely a fortnight last year -- according to the study of the half-century from 1956-2005.

In the 1960s, fewer than three novels reached No. 1 in an average year; last year, 23 did.

"The blockbuster novel is heading the way of the mayfly," says Bob Young, CEO of Lulu.com, referring to the famously short-lived insect.

Link

New page at felixstowescribblers.com: In Memoriam

Dave has written some really touching eulogies of some of our former members.

You can read them over at....Felixstowe Scribblers | In Memoriam

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Center for Book Culture: Interviews With Authors


I'd like to flag this up as one for the real, real Felixstowe Scribblers Weblog ultra hardcore only: lightweights step aside, there is nothing to see here, move along, you wont like it here....

This page links to 'the centre for book culture' (and can I be honest in my partial ignorance here who I presume are a US based literary organisation) who have a page on their site with a collection of interviews of authors talking about their work - some of the material is dazling - and there are dozens of them.

Its a huge site but the rest of their material seems well worth a dip too.

Oh well - thats my excuse for not writing anything for another couple of days covered then....

Link:
Center for Book Culture: Interviews With Authors

Related links:
http://www.centerforbookculture.org/index.html

'Bloglet' free email update service to end.

Ive recieved an email from Bloglet who power the free e-mail update service that they are phasing their service out.

Shame as it was rather good - so lets say a big thanks to 'bloglet' and farewell. 'Bloglet' was a pioneering service launched back when words like "blog" and "rss" had yet to enter most people's vocabulary.

However as an alternative there is our XML feed which you can use in your RSS reader - if that is gobbledegook to you check out the RSS page at wikipedia for an explanation.

To quote....

'In the meantime, I will leave Bloglet up and working as is, without any support. I'd like to phase it out slowly over the next few weeks.'

....there is an alternative service called 'Feedblitz' that we may convert over too - Im not promising the timescale - but in the meantime any problems give me a mail at the usual place fswebsite@hotmail.co.uk and all the other services will be still available.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Author wins Short Story competition with world's richest short story prize taking home £15,000.

Ive included a picture as it makes it easier to hate him...:-)Oh well you can but dream....

"James Lasdun has won the first National Short Story competition with An Anxious Man, it was announced last night, beating short-story veterans William Trevor and Rose Tremain, bestselling author Michel Faber and Delhi-based Rana Dasgupta to the £15,000 prize"

Link:
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Anxious Man wins world's richest short story prize:

Related Links:
Guardian Books

Monday, May 15, 2006

The Lost Sock: Episode 10 is now up.

John Betjeman Young People’s Poetry Competition.

Thanks to Jan for spotting this very interesting poetry competion....

The John Betjeman Young People’s Poetry Competition sponsored by the Esmée Fairbairn foundation Closing date: June 30th

The poetry competition will be for 11-14 year olds and will centre around poetry of place. It will be open to young people living anywhere in the British Isles and the Republic of Ireland.

Entrants will be limited to one poem each about their local surroundings or any aspect thereof, whether it be a house, a street, a garden, a park, a city or a wider landscape.

The spirit behind the competition will be to encourage young people to understand and appreciate the importance of ‘place’. Winners to announced in September.

Link:
http://www.johnbetjeman.com/majorevents.htm#poetry

Related Links:
http://www.johnbetjeman.com/index.htm for general information and news about John Betjeman and his centenary. Well worth a few minutes reading through.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Prose and Poetry Prizes 2006 sponsored by The New Writer magazine.

the new writerOne of the major annual competitions for short stories, novellas, single poems, poetry collections, essays and articles; offers cash prizes as well as publication for the prize-winning writers in The Collection - special edition of The New Writer magazine each July.

Closing date 30 November 2006 .

Essays, Articles, Interviews - covering any writing-related or literary theme in its widest sense up to 2,000 words. 1st prize £150, 2nd £100, 3rd £50. Single entry £4 (TNW subscribers two entries at same fee).

Short Stories, Serials/Novellas - stories up to 4,000 words,
serials/novellas up to 20,000 words on any subject or theme, in any genre (not children's). Previously published work is not eligible. Short Stories: 1st prize £300, 2nd £200, 3rd £100. Novella: 1st prize £300. Entry fees £4 per short story (TNW subscribers two entries at same fee) or £10 per serial/novella.

Single Poems and Collections - single poems up to 40 lines and collections of between 6 - 10 poems. Single poem entries must be previously unpublished; previously published poems can be included as part of a collection. Collection: 1st prize £300, 2nd £200, 3rd £100. Single: 1st
prize £100, 2nd £75, 3rd £50. Entry fee £4 per single poem (TNW subscribers two entries at same fee, £10 per collection.

All work should be clearly typed, double-spaced (except poetry), on one
side of white A4 paper and paperclipped. Entrants may make as many
submissions as they wish but please include your name, address, title of
entry, word count and category on a separate cover sheet with every entry.
Preliminary judging will be carried out by The New Writer editorial board
with guest judges making the final selection so there should be no
identifying marks on the entries. Judges in recent years include Mimi
Thebo, Jane Draycott, Ros Barber, Margaret Graham, Phil Whitaker. Entries
are non-returnable. A full list of winners will be sent provided SAE is
enclosed.

Further information including guidelines and entry fees at
-http://www.thenewwriter.com/prizes.htm
or send SAE for printed Entry Form to The New Writer, PO Box 60, Cranbrook,
Kent TN17 2RE
tel 01580 212626; fax 01580 212041; admin@thenewwriter.com
or writers can enter at the secure credit card server at
http://www.thenewwriter.com/entryform.htm

Last year's winners are listed at http://www.thenewwriter.com/prizewinners.htm

The New Writer: the contemporary writing magazine which publishes the best
in fact, fiction and poetry is published bi-monthly, annual sub £27.00
(UK), £33.00 (Europe incl. Ireland air mail), £37.50 (Rest of World airmail)

For a free recent back copy of the magazine send 3 x first class stamps
(UK) or 5 IRCs to: PO Box 60, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 2ZR.

The New Writer email News is included free of charge in our subscription
package.
This monthly emailing to our subscribers covers (a) breaking news of urgent
interest to writers, (b) announcements that we receive too late for the
next issue of the magazine, (c) other useful items including market updates.


If you would like to see the latest email News go to http://www.thenewwriter.com/
and click on the pink box.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Evening Star webcam of waterfront redevelopment.

From the Evening Star website....

"Our webcam shows work taking place on the multi-million pound redevelopment of Ipswich's waterfront, viewed from the roof of the Evening Star's offices in Lower Brook Street."

Link:
Evening Star Webcam

Related Links:
Evening Star

Guardian Unlimited Books: Internet culture spells doom for strait-laced orthographers

One of my favorite little 'literary' haunts on the internet is the Guardian Books page - if you cant find anything to get you going elsewhere there will always be something there to 'whet your whistle' - this is from an interesting article from earlier this week....

'If you believe the internet is the fount of all wisdom, giving free rein to bloggers to exercise their vocal cords, think again. Ancient English cliches and expressions are being mangled by the culture of cut and paste and the spread of unchecked writing on the internet.

According to the Oxford English Corpus, a database of a billion words, dozens of traditional phrases are now more commonly misspelled than rendered correctly in written English.'

Link:
Guardian Unlimited Books : Internet culture spells doom for strait-laced orthographers.

Related Links :
Guardian Unlimited : the Guardian website
Guardian Books webpage

Monday, May 08, 2006

Writers and other delusional people: There is no more gullible, self-delusional, fog-headed being on the planet than an aspiring writer.

J. Steven York pictured rightThis is a highly erudite and enjoyable rant from the official blog of J. Steven York pictured right a US based best-selling novelist and genre-writer.

The quotes I love are 'an entire industry of crooks, con-men and scam artists exists to exploit them (writers),' and 'It's like the entire herd of antelope crowding around the lion shouting, "Eat me! No, eat me!"'

Found by Margareta ....

I heard yet another story the other day of a writer being scammed by a so-called agent. What was most horrifying about the story was not that they were paying the agent to rewrite their stuff, but the sheer glee and delight with which the writer was submitting to the process.

Rule #1 in this business is: Money always flows towards the writer. If it doesn't, something is seriously wrong. If you fail to recognize this, or worse, mistake it for success, you are playing the fool.

There is no more gullible, self-delusional, fog-headed being on the planet than an aspiring writer. So predictable and common are their delusions that an entire industry of crooks, con-men and scam artists exists to exploit them, and such a sweet deal it is for them, too. Not only are most of their scams perfectly legal, their marks are actually grateful to be scammed! It doesn't get much better for a predator than that. It's like the entire herd of antelope crowding around the lion shouting, "Eat me! No, eat me!"

Wait. No. Keep reading. You may resemble this remark. Fact is, most of us do at one time or another. And if it does describe you, take comfort that you have plenty of company. I hear from these people all the time. Some of them I've had extended correspondence with, and I've learned some things.

Most of the writers getting scammed aren't dumb. They're nice, intelligent people who sincerely want to be writers, and have simply lost their way. Most of them are so invested in whatever flavor of Kool-aid they've swallowed that they not only can't see the truth, they don't want to. Yet most of them are aware, on some level, that something is wrong. That's usually why they write me. They have concerns. They have questions. Just not enough to wake up and look around.

Read on

Related links:

J. Steven York's Multiplex of the Mind: Writers and other delusional people
J. Steven York's weblogYorkwriters.com, the official web page for Steve and Chris York

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Patrick Parrinder's Nation and Novel: The English Novel from Its Origins to the Present Day.

Nation and Novel: The English Novel from Its Origins to the Present Day  Patrick Parrinder
In the Guardian, Terry Eagleton reviews Patrick Parrinder's Nation and Novel: The English Novel from Its Origins to the Present Day.

The review makes for provocative and interesting reading - and is 511 pages shorter and £25 cheaper.

The review passes through the books rich landscape populated by the likes of Defoe, Scott and Dickens, and concludes with....

As the Victorian age passed into a world of mass migrations, new nation-states and the collapse of empires, national identity became an increasingly self-conscious literary topic. As Parrinder points out, the very idea of national identity, as opposed to national character, reflects a certain anxiety. National character, supposedly, is an objective set of features (in the case of the English, common sense, moderation, idiosyncrasy, philistinism, emotional reserve and so on), while identity is usually what you are still in search of. "What are we?" is a less unsettling question for a nation to ask itself than "Who are we?"


Related links:
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Books | What are we?
Link to the books page on Amazon

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Short Story Radio: internet radio station showcasing new fiction online.


Found by Jan ....

Coming soon to an Internet link near you …………

Have you come across www.shortstoryradio.com which is an internet radio station that shortly will showcase new fiction online? It’s a chance for Writers to have their work professionally broadcast and made available to the widest audience possible recorded by professional voice actors. Stories must be written in English,


Writers who submit a story for consideration are offered their own web page, which can contain a short biography and also an excerpt from the story they submitted for consideration in either Word™ or PDF format.

Catch - there is a story submission fee! But in order to launch with a selection of quality stories already available, they are asking writers to submit a story for consideration free of charge.

From these they choose ten - fifteen stories which will be recorded and broadcast from the site's launch date. Writers who are interested in submitting a story for our launch should contact Ian at editor@shortstoryradio.com for further information.

Writers of any nationality are welcome to submit a story, but the story must be written in English. There is no restriction on period or style but the story must be fictional.

Maximum 3,000 words. Stories should not contain expletives or content of an overtly sexual or violent nature.

Stories submitted for consideration must not have been published or broadcast previously and must be original pieces of work written by the writer who has submitted the story.

You will receive email confirmation once your story has been received, but only writers whose stories are accepted for broadcast will be notified. No further correspondence will be entered into once work has been submitted. If you do not hear from us within 4 weeks of submitting your story please assume that on this occasion we have chosen not to accept your story.

Writers may submit only one short story at a time, but are free to submit up to ten short stories in any six month period.

Stories cannot be altered or changed after they have been submitted.

Unfortunately we are not able to offer feedback or a critique of stories submitted to us.

You retain the copyright to your submitted story, regardless of whether or not it is chosen for broadcast. Copyright of the recording of broadcast stories remains with Wyndham Granite Communications, who have the right to broadcast the recording of each story on shortstoryradio.com for a period of six months. After this period any further broadcast or use of the recording of a story can only be made by prior arrangement and with express permission of the writer and voice actor.


....Thanks Jan.

Felixstowe Scribblers Weblog Feed