Kreativ Blogger Award

With thanks to Nuala Ní­ Chonchúir, a terrific writer and blogger, who awarded me this and prompted me thus: 1. Post the award on your blog and link to the person who gave you the award. 2. List seven things you love. 3. Pass it on to seven blogs you love.

My Seven Things:

1. My daughter
2. Her father
3. Our new home city (moving soon!)
4. The original shutters and window-seat in our new pad
5. Books
6. Spending time with my mother
7. Shaking up the mix, decluttering, moving on.

My Kreativ Blogger Award recipients:

Words in Place
Nik's Blog
Vanessa Gebbie's News
Douglas Bruton
Anne Brooke's Writing Journal
Do You Write Under Your Own Name?
Help! I Need a Publisher!

No obligation on anyone to participate but let me know if you do so I can check out your responses.

Long Shortlist

Thanks to Jason Stout for spotting that my story, Two Minute Silence, published by Smokelong Quarterly, made it to the Long Shortlist for The Wigleaf Top 50.

Fish One-Page Prize

Congratulations to the winners, who will have the best time in Bantry in July. I'm pleased and proud to have made the short-list with my story, Six Degrees of Expatriation. Fish is a great force in publishing and it's always an honour to have work recognised by them.

Pick Ugly

A short short story of mine, Pick Ugly, was one of the Commended entries to the Leaf Books Nano Fiction Contest 2009, and will be published in their anthology. This makes me very happy.

A Perspex Crucifix

Issue 25 of foto8 magazine is just out and it carries my column, A Perspex Crucifix, about the propaganda photograph of my family taken by the Japanese in Borneo in 1944. The publication is a beautifully printed, perfect-bound, spot-varnished monument of a magazine. I am thrilled and proud to be a part of it.

Best news in ages!

Fellow writer and good friend, Tania Hershman, received a special mention by the Orange judges for her stories of remarkable quality. Orange is a huge huge prize in the world of writing and I'm so delighted that Tania got this well-deserved plug. You're a star, T!

Poems

My first ever. I'm still nervous about these, but they're up at Ink Sweat & Tears if you're interested. Inspired by science!