Meet Children’s Author – Lorraine Hellier
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Events on August 26, 2012
Fellow Midlands-based writer, Lorraine Hellier , has asked me to tell you about her latest book. It is the fourth in her children’s Serendipity series and is called ‘The Boy Who Tricked Trolls’.
The blurb about the book is tantalising:
Alex discovers the secret passage through a Grandfather Clock which leads to a fantasy world on the island of Serendipity. Desperate to help rescue little Amy, he and his friends are captured by trolls in the underground caves. How will he escape?
“Despite being part of a series the book can be enjoyed as a standalone novel,” says Lorraine. “The story is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and it will appeal to readers aged around 7 to 11 years.”
Lorraine is a retired dental therapist and now visits schools encouraging children with her reading and writing workshops. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and also attends the same writing group as me – Lichfield and District Writers.
“The advice and encouragement of other writers is invaluable,” she explains. “I would recommend anyone new to writing to make contact with other authors for support.”
Having finished the hard graft of producing the book, Lorraine is now busy organising events to make sure it reaches as wide an audience as possible.
“I’m also working on the second draft of book 5 in the series,” she continues, “and preparing activities for children at my author events and school workshops. Plus, I’m making notes about other ideas before they take over my head!”
Lorraine will be promoting her book between 10am and 3pm at Lichfield library on the 8th September 2012 and also at Burntwood library on the 22nd September at the same times. If you live in the Staffordshire area why not go along and meet her?
Signed copies of Lorraine’s books are available via her website and the novels can also be bought through Amazon. They would make the perfect present for junior school children (and don’t forget, Christmas will be upon us before you know it!).
Two Free Competitions From Erewash Writers’ Group
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on August 22, 2012
Some of you may have entered the Erewash Open Short Story Competition mentioned on this blog earlier in the year. The results are now out.
Plus, two new free competitions are now open for entries:
- ‘Twin’ Flash Fiction Competition – write 500 words on the theme of ‘Twin’. The judge is Rosalie Warren, author of ‘Coping with Chloe’ and 2 winners will each receive a copy of Rosalie’s book plus £10.00 cash.
- Creepy Christmas Chiller Competition – write a scary Christmas story of up to 2,000 words. There are 2 age categories in this competition and each offers a first prize of £40, second £15 and a third prize of £5.
Closing date for both competitions is 8th November 2012 and full terms and conditions are here.
Writing Prompts from Castleton
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Poetry, Resources, Writing, Writing Exercises on August 17, 2012
It wasn’t only poetry that I toyed with in Castleton in the Peak District.
I also jotted down some ideas for short stories and I’m going to share them with you because I know that we’d all produce completely different tales (& submit them to different places) from the same initial prompt.
We stayed in Little Lilac Cottage – a tiny 350-year-old dwelling with a king-sized brass bed, a Victorian rolled top bath and open beams on the ceiling. Reading through the guest book I tried to imagine all the other visitors to this romantic cottage, why they came and whether the holiday lived up to expectations:
- Honeymooners – young or old? first or subsequent marriage?
- A couple having an affair – unused to spending so much time together, will they still get on or will guilt take over?
- A holiday to save a marriage – away from it all, can they get their relationship back on track or will it go up in flames?
- First holiday for years without the children – do the couple still have anything in common?
We did plenty of walking and one day came across a set of intertwined initials carved into a tree by a waterfall:
- Who carved them and why?
- What happens when one or both of them come back to revisit the carving?
There’s also plenty of scope for stories with a historical setting:
- Think of all the people who were born and died in our cottage
- A local told us that the last ‘ordinary’ people to live in our cottage brought up 3 boys there – how? The house was barely big enough for the 2 of us!
- The old coffin route from Edale to Castleton. At one time there was no consecrated ground in Edale and all the dead had to be brought over the hill to the church in Castleton
And that final point brings me to my poem – poetry connoisseurs please look away now. The rest of you can blame Julia, Susan and Alison, who all asked to see it after my post about the poetry writing workshop I attended in Castleton.
A Coffin Route Farewell
My baby, wrapped in sacking and loaded on a mule
a tiny corpse under a pauper’s shroud.
My baby, born mute, motionless and far too early
now travels the path toward Castleton.
My baby, cast out from home to ride with a stranger
in search of consecrated land.
Exhausted from birthing I never even held you.
They snatched you away without time for farewell.
My baby, you never shed a tear but my eyes will never be dry again.
The Olympics (for the last time) & Win Afternoon Tea with Clare Balding at the Ritz
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-writing on August 12, 2012
How was the Olympics for you?
I thought it was terrific – that wonderful opening ceremony, the wall to wall coverage by the BBC and the buckets of gold medals for Team GB. Last weekend I was lucky enough to get down to London to experience things for real. We stood outside Buckingham Palace in the pouring rain to watch the women’s Marathon and the following day saw Synchronised Swimming Duets at the Aquatic Centre in Olympic Park.
Inside the Aquatic Centre
Both places exuded a real ‘feel good’ atmosphere. Everyone was friendly, including fellow spectators, volunteers, police, London transport staff etc. It’s a shame that we can’t bottle this ‘proud to be British’ feeling so that we can take another swig when the doom and gloom of the double-dip recession hits home again.
Thank you, LOCOG for an amazing 2 weeks (and I don’t usually follow any sort of sport).
Clare Balding has played a major part in bringing these Games into our living rooms and, as well as being a sports commentator, she is also a writer. Her book, My Animals and Other Family, will be published on September 13th 2012. The book includes anecdotes from Clare’s childhood about her pets and she has organised a competition to celebrate its launch.
She wants to see your pictures, stories and poems about the pets that have touched you. The winners receive copies of My Animals and Other Family, and one winner will join Clare for tea at The Ritz.
To enter, go to www.facebook.com/clarebaldingofficial. Alternatively, you can email entries to digital@jamesgrant.co.uk
Closing date is September 13th 2012 and entry is free. Full terms and conditions are here.
So if you’ve got a poem tucked away about your beloved dog, cat or tarantula, why not send it in?
Writing Poetry in Castleton
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Events, Poetry on August 7, 2012
“When you write poetry, imagine looking through a small window. Focus on just one aspect of the scene,” advised Alison Riley on a recent ‘Poetry Stroll and Write’ which I stumbled upon whilst on holiday in Castleton, in the Peak District.
As I’ve said before, I am not a poet but anything remotely writing orientated always grabs my attention, so whilst my husband took himself off for a walk, I joined the poetry session.
Alison was full of good advice.
Whenever I attempt a poem I immediately start worrying about its form – rhyming? free verse? sonnet? etc. Alison suggested that I forget all of this and instead let myself go with some free writing about what was around us.
“Don’t worry about form or rhyme,” she said. “That can all come later.”
I managed some disjointed phrases about the mountain rescue van parked nearby. It definitely wasn’t poetry but Alison reckoned that with a bit of polishing it could become a reasonable poem.
Alison then showed us the poem ‘Resolution‘ by Jo Bell. It’s about Castleton at New Year and, sitting there in the quaint old village where it was written, it was extremely evocative. I began to feel that maybe I too could write a poem and, back in our rented cottage, I did. It’s about the ‘coffin route’ from Edale to Castleton (before there was a church in Edale, the corpses had to be carried over the hill into the next town for burial) – at the moment it’s just a rough version in my notebook but maybe one day I’ll dare to bring out into the light of day…
Thanks for the inspiration, Alison!
Alison Riley organises the Derbyshire Stanza of the Poetry Society.
Seeking a Short Story Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on August 1, 2012
Eddie Walsh from the sadly defunct Emerald Writing Workshops competitions has refunded entry fees for his competitions that
would have closed later in the year. So now I’ve got £3.60 to use as the entry fee in another contest. So I’ve been looking around to see what there is with a £3 to £4 entry fee and discovered the following selection of short story competitions:
- Monthly ‘Writing Magazine’ Competitions – £3 for subscribers and £4 for non-subscribers but I’m going to give these a miss because, as a subscriber, I can enter the contests in the Writers’ News section of the magazine for free (I’ve unofficially set myself the challenge of entering the WN comp. each month & have managed 3 so far, with th 4th in the pipeline).
- Monthly ‘Writers’ Forum Competitions – £3 for subscribers and £6 for non-subscribers, plus there is the option of paying an additional £5 for a critique. This is a possibility but I know I’ll be tempted by the critique and a total of £8 is a lot for one competition.
- Dickens Bicentenary Writing Competition – £3 per prose piece/£2 per poem. Entries to be inspired by a character from a Charles Dickens novel. Closes 15th August 2012. Not for me – I’ve read very little Dickens so unless I went for Scrooge, I wouldn’t know who to base my hero on.
- The Word Hut 5th Short Story Writing Competition – £4 entry fee with prizes of £50, £25, £10. 1,000 words and an open theme. Closes 16th September 2012. I’ll give this one some thought and have a look through my ‘stock’ of 1,000 word stories.
- Speakeasy Open Creative Writing Competitions – £4 per story/£3 per poem with prizes of £125, £75 and £50 in each category. 2,100 words and an open theme. Closes 31st October 2012. This is another one for me to consider but I might have to write something new to meet the word count – most of my stuff seems to be shorter.
And if you’re looking around for other competitions to enter a good resource (which I’ve used in my searching) is the Writers’ Reign website.
Good Luck!
All the Bells – Work No. 1197
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Non-writing on July 27, 2012
At 8:12 am today I took part in ‘All the Bells’ to ring in the first day of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The event was masterminded by Martin Creed and the aim was to ring all the bells in the country as quickly and loudly as possible for 3 minutes. It was timed to be exactly 12 hours before the opening ceremony of the Games, which starts at 20:12 this evening.
At St. Michael’s Church, Boldmere in Sutton Coldfield we chimed the heaviest 6 of our 8 church bells. An official Olympic volunteer at the football in Coventry, Debbie, came along in her (very smart) uniform to support us and took the picture below (I’m the one in the middle with the black T-shirt).
All this Olympic mania made me wonder what happened to the 100 chosen to be ‘Olympic Storytellers’ after the invitation for us all to apply last year. I wasn’t successful and have heard nothing about it since. But a quick trawl of the web has thrown up the Olympic Story Tellers’ Website. Here each of selected writers has published their news and views of the Olympics. There are poems, photographs and blog posts – take a look if you get a minute.
Mincing Your Words
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Non-writing on July 22, 2012
Did you know that many of our swear words have religious roots? Or have you any idea where the phrase ‘mincing your words’ comes from? I’d never really thought about it until I heard Thought for the Day on Radio 4 last Monday with Clifford Longley.
He explained how years ago swearing in public could get a person arrested and punished. Bad language would be noted down by the police officer who had witnessed it and then, in court, the piece of paper would be silently shown to the judge so that he could decide on the offender’s comeuppance.
The most offensive swearing had its basis in religion and therefore contravened the commandment, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Hence, the reason that many people took offence.
To avoid the repercussions of their bad language, people used to ‘mince their words’ to disguise what they were really saying. Here are a few of the minced expressions:
By Our Lady (which referred to the Virgin Mary) became Bloody
God Blind Me became Blimey
Christ became Crikey or Cripes
By God’s Wounds became Zounds (I have to admit I’ve never heard of this one)
These minced words passed into common use at different times in the last few hundred years. So, if you write historical fiction and have characters with a tendency to bad language – take some time to discover exactly what they would have said and whether they would have been in danger of getting arrested for it!
Paranormal Book Winner!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Uncategorized on July 18, 2012
All the names went into a cereal bowl (not with the Weetabix!) and the winner was drawn.
It is … (pause for effect with camera close-ups of all the contestants to see how they’re bearing up to the tension) …
REBECCA otherwise known as Littlemerants and she is the author of the Pint-Sized Rants blog. Do go visit her and see if you share her opinions on erotica, sharks and reality TV.
Thank you to everybody that entered – it’s reassuring to know that I’m not blogging into a big black hole where nobody’s listening!
Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Events on July 15, 2012
Could you co-write a novel with your teenage daughter? That’s what Jodi Picoult did when her daughter Samantha pitched an 
idea to her for a young adult novel.
The result is Between the Lines. It is based on the idea that the characters in a book can live their own lives when the book is closed. When the book is opened they must jump back into their pre-ordained story roles, like actors who appear in the same production night after night. But what happens when a teenage girl falls in love with the illustrations of Prince Oliver in a fairytale book and the prince wants to live a life outside of the story pages?
Jodi and Samantha came to Birmingham Library theatre last week to talk about the novel and I went along to hear them. Samantha is 16 now and suggested the idea to her mum 3 years ago. They spent 1 school summer holiday talking about the concept, the following summer writing it, the next summer editing and this summer they are promoting the finished book.
Jodi was the disciplinarian, setting the number of hours per day they would work or the number of pages that must be completed. She also did the typing, just because she’s got quicker fingers. The two of them sat side by side in Jodi’s office and literally spoke the story aloud to each other, often coming out with exactly the same words and ideas – I’m sure this is only possible if you have an extremely good relationship with your teenager!
Despite being only 16, Samantha was a very confident young woman and gave a reading from the novel as if she were a born actress.
The audience at the Birmingham talk included several school parties who asked Samantha for advice on becoming a writer. She urged them to write to a set schedule in order to get it done. Jodi added that taking some sort of writing course was also extremely useful.
Finally, Jodi says there are 2 skills which are essential to any writer:
- Be able to write on demand
- Be able to self-edit
So, it shouldn’t be too difficult to produce that bestseller if those are the only 2 things we need to master!
Don’t forget you have until midnight tomorrow (Monday 16/07/2012) to enter the draw for a copy of Writing the Paranormal Novel by Steven Harper. Click here for details.
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- Samantha van Leer and Jodi Picoult spill the beans (bookwitch.wordpress.com)
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