The Playboy And The Bog Man

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Hugh Hefner, Margaret Atwood, Playboy, The Bog Man, The Saboteur Awards, Thresholds, Wilderness Tips

My essay on Margaret Atwood’s short story The Bog Man was a runner-up in the Threshold’s Feature Writing Competition. I am very happy with this – I specifically set aside some time to write for this competition this year and it really paid off. The story was published in Playboy in 1991 and I speculate on why Atwood would have accepted the invitation to do so. You can read  it here

I’ve got a busy week. There is a wonderful Rattle Tales show at Brighton Fringe on Wednesday, hosted by brilliant poet Deborah Turnbull and featuring a fantastic line-up of authors. If you’ve not been before you should go – like bedtime stories for adults in a candle-lit bar with wine!

On Saturday I will be at Wordstock at Brighton Open Market. A free all day literary event with publishers, authors, spoken words groups and workshops. I’ll be wearing my Brighton Prize and Unbound hats on the day and it looks set to be a great event.

On Saturday evening it’s the Saboteur Awards. The awards got a great write up in The Independent a couple of days ago and were described as, ‘here to shake up the literary establishment’. It certainly needs a shake. I am very excited to have been shortlisted and want to thank anyone who voted for 15 Minutes! Producing this book was one the hardest things I’ve ever done and it’s very nice to see it getting some recognition. I’ll keep you posted!

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/sabotuer-awards-literary-prize-festival-poetry-spoken-word-indie-publishing-sabotage-reviews-a8345536.html

From Twitter Tale To Novel

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Grist, Harper Collins India, Huddersfield University, Manoj Pandey, Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, short stories, Short Story Competitions, short stoy collections, Tales On Tweet, Teju Cole, Twitter, Unbound, Unbound Digital, Yuko Shimizu

It’s been a long summer and I’ve been quietly working behind the scenes. You’ll be pleased to know that my collection has been edited, with immensely helpful input from Unbound, and is as a result a much better book. It also has a new title. Gone is the over long full Warhol quote; the book will now be published as Fifteen Minutes. The editing was an interesting process. A lot of the stories had already been professionally edited but, in my experience, things can always be improved on. The copy of my first novel that I take to readings has writing all over it where I’ve added or cut things from the printed text and that was published five years ago! A book is never finished but hopefully this collection is now at its best. I am very happy with the editorial decisions made so far. Sometimes I kept things the way there were, simply out of gut instinct, anyway between us we’ve come up with something I am extremely proud of. I can’t wait for you to read it. People keep asking me when and the answer is ‘soon’. The book has been sent for copy editing, which I am told takes about 3 weeks and then – who knows? But it will be soon and I will keep you informed every step of the way. Even though the book is 100% funded there is still time to support it. If you love short stories and think they should get their due credit in the publishing world please pledge via Unbound you will help raise the profile of the short story and get your name listed in the book as a supporter.

In the meantime, one of the stories has been published in a much redjuced form in a beautiful little book called Tales On Tweet. This is the origin of the story Ruby of the Desert. The full story has also been shortlisted for Huddersfield University’s Grist competition and will appear in their anthology early next year. I’ve also been working on the idea of turning it into a novel. Tales On Tweet is a Twitter account by Indian writer Manoj Pandey. A couple of years ago they asked for 140 character stories, this year they chose a bookfull to be illustrated and published by Harper Collins India. There are stories by Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, Teju Cole and lesser mortals like me. It was quite hard to get hold of a copy, the first one didn’t arrive and I had to turn to Amazon Marketplace to get one. The book is gorgeous and wise and each tale is illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, a Japanese Illustrator based in New York. I love my page (even though, or perhaps because, they spelled my name wrong!) I love how it sums up the tale by creating the heat of a diner kitchen and the passage of time through the sheer number of teabags. Does the waitress win the lottery? I think your answer to that says more about your personality than mine.