Cheshire Literature Prize

It took my Christmas-fuddled brain a while to work out the meaning of the lovely letter from the Judging Panel Chair at the Cheshire Literature Prize but my entry was one of the top 25 shortlisted from over 260 entries and, as such, will be published in the Prize Anthology. The winners was Tessa Sheridan - congratulations, Tessa! - whose story lends its name to the anthology title, Zoo. I'm chuffed to have made the shortlist for this prize for those with a connection to Cheshire. I was born and raised there, before leaving to do my degree down South. But I'm a Northerner by nature, and I love to write in a Northern voice when the story suits, a silly example being this nifty flash. My paternal grandmother was a Lancashire lass, whose father owned a meat and potato pie shop in Bolton, the earnings from which paid for a whole street of houses, named Meat and Potato Row. That's Northern royalty for you. In fact my grandmother (golly, would Alan Bennett have loved to spend just ten minutes listening to her talk about her neighbours) was the basis for the main character in the shortlisted story. A tribute I like to think she'd have enjoyed. God bless you, Nan-Nan.

Merry Christmas

It's been a funny old year, hasn't it? But, hey, there's a whole new decade waiting around the corner. I'm told we must call it Twenty-Ten and not Two Thousand and Ten. Is this correct? In which case why aren't we right now in Twenty-Nine? Or are we? Dear me, these things are tricky. In any event, thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this blog and to comment and to read my stories when I link to these. I hope you have wonderful Merry Christmases, and that the new decade brings everything you hope and wish for.

Love is a Colour, Green is a Taste

I'm flashing at Pindeldyboz today, with this piece I wrote a while ago. Love is a Colour, Green is a Taste is... a little kinky, with a twist at the end, but it feels seasonal for some reason. By way of complete contrast, Water's Edge, is at EDF today. A sad story but uplifting, I hope. Grateful for all comments, as always.

Wouldn't it be lovely if this rain turned to snow?

I know, I know. It would be lovely for about three hours and then I'd be complaining about how to climb the hill for my latte. But some of you are lucky enough to have the first snow of Winter already (and did you see the photos of Babbacombe last week?) so it's time for me to break out my seasonal joke. It's surreal, almost Dali-esque. I first heard it from a six year old.

Q. What did one snowman say to the other?

A. "Can you smell carrots?"

Cinnamon Anthology, and the Pushcart Prize

Lovely news today. The editors at Cinnamon Press have selected my flash story, I cannot carry a tune, for inclusion in their next anthology, Exposure, due out in September 2010. They had over 4,000 submissions, so the odds of being chosen were slim. Congratulations to everyone who was successful in having a story selected, including my good friend (and neighbour!), Tania Hershman. I'm really looking forward to reading the anthology when it comes out.

The acceptance from Cinnamon came hot on the heels of the news that the editors at Prick of the Spindle have nominated my flash, Flood Plain, for the Pushcart Prize. I'm honoured they chose me for one of only three fiction nominations in 2009. Thank you, Spindle eds!

Aesthetica Contest

Congratulations to the winners of the 2009 Aesthetica Creative Works Competition: Shadric Toop (Artwork), Louise Beech (Fiction) and Sally Spedding (Poetry). They will be published in the Creative Works Annual, available in Borders (and, I hope, elsewhere given the bad news about Borders that broke this week).

I was lucky enough to receive a Commendation for my entry. The editors sent a lovely email: "Your work was highly commended by the judges. This year we have done something new in the Annual, and created a Commendations List. Your name and the title of your piece The Pheasant Feather Hat are listed on this page. There were only 50 commendations per section, so this is a great honour."

Over 2,500 short stories were entered, a tremendous number for any contest. I'm really looking forward to reading the winning story.

Count us in moons

This morning I got an acceptance for the last unpublished flash in my folder. Yikes. I'd better write some new ones. I totted up, and this latest will be my 100th flash to be published. Yikes again. Did they all go to good homes? Well, maybe not all. Would I rewrite any if I had the chance (or the time)? Yes, nearly all of them. But there are maybe a dozen of which I am unreservedly proud, ones that connected with the reader. Which is not to say I regret sending any of them out into the world. The process of subbing and being rejected is essential, I think. Writing is a solitary art but we get better by engaging with our readers. I couldn't keep my flashes unread any more than I could keep children in an attic; words need a turn in the real world of reading, a rough and tumble, the chance to have the edges knocked off them. It's how stories grow and get better.

So I'm going to celebrate my 100 as a piece; we've grown up together.

According to the Scoville Scale charting the comparative heat of chillis, at 100 we're a Peperocini, or Cherry Pepper. In Bingo Calls, we're Legs Eleven (11) plus Dirty Gertie (30) and a Brighton Line (59).

In champagne nomenclature, we're half a dozen Balthazars plus a Jeroboam, or simply five Nebuchadnezzars.

As an American banknote, we'd feature the portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

As a Euro, our colour is green. Our Roman numeral is C. Our Dewey Decimal Book Classification is Philosophy. Were we a Poker Hand, we'd be 25 Royal Flushes.

In Canasta, we'd be Going Out. Count us in decibels, and we're Firecrackers. Or, as a Haydn symphony, we're The Military (in key G).

We're equivalent to 10 Greek Aceana in length, and 20 bushels (measured in man loads) in weight.

Count us in moons, and we have 5 times the number of Uranus; 50 times more than Mars. But we're only one tenth the size of the number of sweetbreads aboard the Titanic.