Author: Peter

I'm a retired civil servant in Surrey, UK. and long-time blogger at Conscious Entities. These days I'm spending more time writing stories and doing other creative stuff

FreeFall

June 27, 2024

One of my stories has been shortlisted in FreeFall magazine’s annual contest! I’m not allowed to say which one until the judging is complete.

July 2024 Competitions

June 23, 2024

Here again is a look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (so no poetry or competitions not open to UK writers, for example).

  • With a deadline of 1 July, New American Fiction looks for a full work of various kinds (novel, novella, collection) likely to be at least 100 pages.  Entry $25, top prize $1,500
  • It’s still not quite too late to enter the London Independent (LISP) contest if you are willing to pay the late fee of  £16.50 and get your entry in by 1 July. They want up to 3,000 words and the prize is a mere £100, so honestly not great value for money at this stage.
  • The Goldenberg Prize is offered by the Bellevue Literary Review – entries must be on the themes of health, healing, illness, mind and body, and run to no more than 5,000 words. Entry is $20, top prize $1000, and again you need to be quick because the deadline is 1 July.
  • The Hastings Book Festival wants up to 2,500 words: the entry fee is a weirdly precise £8.25 and top prize just £250. Deadline 7 July.
  • The HG Wells prize this year is for stories on the theme ‘The Fool’, of up to 2,500 words. Entry is £10 and the prize is £500. Deadline 8 July.
  • The Doris Gooderson Prize comes from Wrekin Writers, who say that at least half the profits from their comp will go to the Severn Hospice. They want stories up to 1,200 words, entry is £5 and the top prize is £200, with a deadline of 12 July.
  • Leicester Writes will accept stories up to 3,500 words: entry is £7 and the prize is £200. Enter by 15 July.
  • With the same deadline, the Adrift comp has a word limit of 6,000: entry is $30 and the top prize is $500.
  • Petrichor looks for 100 to 350 pages of finely crafted prose. Entry is $25 and the prize is $1,000.
  • Witcraft looks for short humour of 200-1000 words: $5 to enter with a prize of $250, and like all the rest the deadline is 31 July.
  • My good friends in Norwich are again running the Olga Sinclair Prize: up to 2,000 words on the theme ‘Nature’, £9 entry and £500 prize.
  • And in Munster the prestigious Séan Ó Faoláin prize is for stories up to 3,000 words. Entry is €19 and the first prize is €2,000 plus an invitation to read your piece in Cork, accommodation paid for.
  • Hawk Mountain wants a collection of stories: $20 entry and you could win $1,000 plus publication.
  • The Plaza Literary: First Chapters comp wants the first 5,000 words of your work: entry £20 and a prize of £1,500.

Not Ian McKellen

June 21, 2024

We had booked to see Ian McKellen as Falstaff in Player Kings, an abbreviated merging of Shakespeare’s Henry IV parts one and two. Then he fell off the stage and was hurt. At first he hoped to be back on Wednesday, then they said one more day cancelled and he’ll be back on Thursday (our day). On Thursday, they said the performance was going ahead – but with the understudy. Nobody would want Sir Ian to take any chances, but of course it was disappointing.

The understudy was David Semark, and he did a very good job (perhaps being physically a better match for Falstaff). The production was very good. Modernish dress, and for some reason the characters smoked cigarettes. The sword fights, here performed with knives, sat oddly in a battle where guns and high explosive were being used.

The cuts needed to bring two plays down to a manageable single evening had some impact – Hotspur here, deprived of scenes with his wife, lacked charm and seemed merely belligerent: on the other hand for some reason he was depicted as easily defeating Hal, who had to resort to abusing the sporting chances he was given and stabbing his opponent in the back.

Toheeb Jimoh’s reading of Hal gave us an uncertain Prince rather than the steely, cold manipulator which is another reading. This perhaps sat well with the merging of the plays. Shakespeare had to depict Hal’s transformation twice for two audiences, and when you put both together he seems less decisive than he does in either play alone. I thought (and I know you can’t criticise Shakespeare) that the merger also highlighted the redundancy of some minor characters

Some wonderful passages, of course, and an enjoyable evening still.

Creation

June 20, 2024

We went to a performance of Haydn’s Creation in Westminster Abbey – a great experience.

Haydn was apparently inspired by hearing oratorios in England – he must have listened to the Messiah and thought ‘I could do that’. And he did, producing one of his best-known works, popular ever since its first performances. The libretto, a bit more intelligible than the rather obscure one for the Messiah apparently comes from an English text, but has existed in parallel English and German versions since the beginning. Some of the words sung here differed very slightly from those in the programme and, I think, from those I sung at school fifty years ago.

But it’s the music that matters, and Creation, just as a good oratorio should do, delivers all the entertainment, emotion and uplift of a fine opera while remaining upright and morally unimpeachable, without any of the lush presentation and morally questionable themes you’d get in one of those Italian things…

Page Turner Entry

June 4, 2024

The Page Turner Awards are unusual in allowing other people (if you so choose) to read your entry and comment before the judging starts. So here’s mine, Scrooge and Marley, a prequel to A Christmas Carol. This is just the first ten pages. I don’t know whether it helps, but comments are very welcome!

Beethoven

May 26, 2024

We went to the RFH for Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and Ninth Symphony (the London Philharmonic with Danny Driver on piano). What a programme – a whole evening of the greatest music ever written, with none of those attempts to make you work for your reward by listening to something more avant garde.

I’m always impressed and even moved by the way Beethoven, whose life was not great by then (unwell, personal life in ruins, short of money and cruellest of all for a dedicated musician, stone deaf) did not give us a lament or a dirge as his last symphonic word. Instead he summoned up the same optimism and faith in humanity he had put into the Third, and left us all a last great shout of joy.

Food books

May 21, 2024

Our new kitchen has one cupboard door which merely covers a piece of wall. So I have covered the wall with shelves of fake books, all literary classics except the names have been changed into food puns.

The full list, if you can bear it, is as follows.

The Handmaid’s KaleAtwood, Margaret
Mansfield PorkAusten, Jane
Wuthering BitesBrontë, Emily
Burger on the Orient ExpressChristie, Agatha
Tart of DarknessConrad, Joseph
The Red Batch of PorridgeCrane, Steven
A Christmas CarrotDickens, Charles
Barnaby FudgeDickens, Charles
Grape ExpectationsDickens, Charles
Martin ChorizowitDickens, Charles
Olive TwistDickens, Charles
Leek HouseDickens, Charles
Silas MarinadeEliot, George
The Grated GatsbyFitzgerald, F Scott
Lord of the FriesGolding, William
The Crumpet MajorHardy, Thomas
Cress of the D’UrbervillesHardy, Thomas
Food the ObscureHardy, Thomas
The Bun Also RisesHemingway, Ernest 
The Old Man and the BrieHemingway, Ernest 
To Ham and Ham NotHemingway, Ernest 
Finnegan’s CakeJoyce, James
The TrifleKafka, Franz
Lady Chatterley’s LiverLawrence, DH
To Grill a MockingbirdLee, Harper
Cider with RoastiesLee, Laurie
One Hundred Beers of SolitudeMarquez, Gabriel Garcia
Loaf of PiMartel, Yann
Life of PieMartel, Yann
Scone with the WindMitchell, Margaret
The Cabbage in the RyeSalinger, J.D. 
Beans and NothingnessSartre, Jean-Paul
Midsummer Night’s CreamShakespeare, William
Much Ado about StuffingShakespeare, William
The Taming of the BrewShakespeare, William
The Winter’s AleShakespeare, William
Of Mince and MenSteinbeck, John
Vanity PearThackeray, William
Banana KareninaTolstoy, Leo
War and PeasTolstoy, Leo
Fried Bread revisitedWaugh, Evelyn
Vile ButtiesWaugh, Evelyn
The Island of Doctor MerlotWells, H.G.
The Thyme MachineWells. H.G.
The Pitcher of Durian GravyWilde, Oscar
SalamiWilde, Oscar

(The shelves are not correctly alphabetised, I know. That’s just realism.)

June 2024 Competitions

May 20, 2024

Here again is a look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (including two for older writers like me).

·      The Salamander Prize is for stories up to 7,500 words. Entry is $15, top prize $1,000 and the deadline is 1 June.

·      The Writer’s Digest has a word limit of 4,000. Entry is $35 and the top prize is $1000 – awarded in several categories and lots of lesser prizes are awarded to good entries. An overall winner gets $5,000 The deadline is 3 June.

·      New American Fiction’s competition is also open to non-Americans. They are looking for a full-length work, but it could be a collection of shorts, novellas, or even flash as well as a straight novel. $25 entry, $1,500 prize and the deadline is 15 June.

·      The excellent: Stories Through the Ages, from Living Springs, is for baby boomers plus (people born in 1966 or earlier) They will accept up to 5,000 words, charge $20 and award a prize of $500 as well as publication. The deadline is 15 June.

·      Writefluence    is back. This year they want stories that begin ‘What?’ No prize except publication, but then entry is still only Rs. 199/-  ($2.25 approx). Enter by 15 June.

·      The Uncharted competition is for cinematic stories (ones that are easily imagined in film form), of up to 5,000 words. $20 entry and a prize of $2,000. The deadline is 16 June.

·      Write by the Sea looks for up to 2,500 words, entry is €10 and the winner gets €500 plus an elegant trophy. You’ve got until 16 June.

·      If you’re a Bardsy member, their Spring Anthology competition is $20 with a prize of $500 – the word limit is 2,000, and the deadline 24 June.

·      The Imagine 2200 competition invites you to do just that, presenting a climate-fiction vision of how a greener world might be flourishing by that year. They want 3-5,000 words and the top prize is $3,000, but entry is free! The deadline is 24 June.

All the rest have a deadline of 30 June.

·      WriteTime is another one for the oldies – over 60s, in this case. Only 1,500 words is required, £5 to enter and a £50 prize – not huge value for money.

·      The Wells Festival of Literature looks for up to 2,000 words: entry is £6 and the prize is £750.

·      The regular Henshaw competition,  ow run by Hobeck Books, has word count of up to 2,000, entry £6 and top prize £200.

·      The Moth is back, looking for up to 3,000 words: entry is £15 and first prize £3,000.

Do let me know if you achieve recognition in any of these!