I mentioned a few weeks back that I won first prize in the Friends’ of Morley Literature Festival Short Story Competition 2013.
Last Sunday was the prize giving and I travelled up to Morley in West Yorkshire to receive my certificate and a cheque for £50. The certificate came nicely framed and it’s gone straight on my mantelpiece.
Gervase Phinn is the patron of the festival and he rounded off this year’s festival with an entertaining talk before making the presentation. As well as telling us about his experiences as a country school inspector (think James Herriot in a school inspector’s clothing) he was full of funny examples of mistakes we make with the English language, from his new book Mangled English – A Humorous Anthology of the Misuses of the English Language. I wish I’d written them all down now but if the book is half as enjoyable as the talk it will be a good read – and might make a good Christmas present for someone interested in words.
If you’d like to enter the Morley 2014 short story competition contact the organiser, Stuart Pereira, by emailing fmlitfest@yahoo.com for full details and an entry form. Entry is free and it’s an open theme – so what have you got to lose?
Gervase Phinn is an accomplished public speaker who knows how to hold an audience and keep them interested. I think it’s a skill that today’s writers need to master – whether it’s for promoting their work or teaching and running workshops. It’s also something that I’m useless at – so I’ve joined my local Speakers’ Club, whose strapline is ‘Speaking with Greater Confidence’.
If you’d like to find out how my first meeting went have a look at my guest post on the Sutton Coldfield Speakers’ Club Blog.
Many thanks to those of you who’ve taken the time to review Karen’s Story – The Museum of Fractured Lives. I do appreciate your honesty and I’ve learned a lot from the comments. There’s still time to enter the draw to win a Book Journal by leaving an Amazon review. Full details are here.
Finally, if you’d like some tips on plotting your novel, Nick Daw’s Three Great Techniques for Plotting Your Novel or Screenplay is going to be free on Amazon over the next few days. If you want some ‘straight to the point’ advice it’s worth a read (and, as with any free book, please consider leaving a review if you enjoy it).
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