Snowmageddon!

Tags

Devon, ghost stories, RattleTales, short stories, snow, spoken word, suspense

As we’re all snowed in, well in Brighton there is less than a centimetre but it still counts, I thought I’d post my short story about snow, Footprints. I wanted to write a traditional English ghost story and it really works best read aloud in a warm candle-lit pub – but as none of you can get out…

FOOTPRINTS by Erinna Mettler

The blizzard resulted in a lock-in. The Druid’s Head was at the edge of the village, a good half a mile away from the first houses. At eleven Ryan, its landlord, looked out of the window at the thickly falling snow and declared we’d all freeze to death if we tried to walk home.  Settled by the fire with freshly poured pints, someone said we should pass the time telling ghost stories. And so, as the blizzard rattled at the windows, five grown men set about trying to scare each other silly.

Most of the tales were bad movies re-located to the Devon countryside, deaths foreseen, cannibal farmers, The Dartmoor Witch Project and Ryan’s nonsense about the poltergeist that drinks all his profits. No-one was in the slightest bit frightened, but it was fun and even as the snow stopped, we lingered, reluctant to leave the cosy camaraderie and trudge home in deep snow. The hours passed with each story. Beer flowed, heads became fuzzy, words slurred. Alex, our local teacher, went last. He’d been reluctant to join in when normally you couldn’t shut him up.

‘There is one story I could tell,’ he said when pressed, ‘it happened right here in this pub, well outside anyhow.’  He looked over at Ryan who was tidying the bar. ‘Years before you took it over.’

‘Go on then Alex,’ said Ryan sceptically, ‘do your worst.’

Alex put down his pint and began his tale with an earnest expression.

‘I was eighteen. I worked here then for the owners, Marianne and Valentin Fomitch. They were a bit weird. He was Russian, if you can believe it, and she was a hippy. Valentin always wore purple – cords and a poncho usually – and he had piercing green eyes, long grey hair, a pointy beard and a pentagram tattooed on his neck. Marianne floated around him in diaphanous dresses and hardly spoke. Valentin was so brusque he quickly alienated himself from the village. He refused to pay bills for honest work, barred regular customers and was generally as rude as he could be, so hardly anyone came in here in those days. They probably didn’t need me here at all but Valentin was always taking off for days at a time and said he wanted a man around.’

‘But you’d do, eh?’ interrupted Ryan.

We shushed him crossly, eager for Alex to go on, for as you can see he had a way of telling tales.

‘There was a lot of gossip about where Valentin went and what he did when he got there. My brother Denny, who was prone to a little night wandering himself, said he’d seen Valentin in the woods at full moon carrying out some sort of naked ritual with a dead deer and a hunting knife. He’d heard the deer’s squeals and hidden in the trees to watch. He said he was sure Valentin had seen him, that he stopped mid stab with the knife held high and turned to look in his direction. It creeped him out so much he didn’t go poaching again for months – not until he was sure he wouldn’t run into our Russian friend again.

This one night, Valentin came back almost as soon as he’d set off because a blizzard had suddenly blown up, much like this one.  At 10 o’clock, when the snow had stopped and there still weren’t any customers he said I could go. As I went to the door it crashed open and a man ran inside. He rushed up to the bar and looked over his shoulder as if he expected someone to follow him inside, but all that came in was the wind and a cloud of powdery snow.  He was young man, trendy and not at all dressed for a blizzard. He wore a thin suit jacket, jeans and sneakers not even gloves or a scarf. He was soaked through. Snow clung to his clothes in clumps that he began to brush away as if it were alive. He was jittery alright; when I shut the door he nearly jumped out of his skin then held his hand to his heart. His upper-class voice shook as he spoke to Valentin.

‘Do you have a phone? Damn car’s broken down – a couple of miles back.  Completely dead.’

Valentin nodded tersely at the pay phone by the window but when the man saw what he meant, he hesitated.

‘Don’t suppose I could have a drink first?’ he said glancing nervously at the door. ‘Had a bit of a shock, need something to steady the nerves.’

Valentin made no attempt to serve him so I went back behind the bar and poured him a brandy. He downed it in one, his hand quivering as he put down the glass.

‘What happened,’ I asked, ‘did you hit something?’

I figured he must have run over an animal in the snow, you know what mess a deer can make.

He shook his head.

‘Damnedest thing. I’m lost. Must’ve taken a wrong turn and then couldn’t find my way back to the main road, drove through the snow for an hour at least. The car gave out in the middle of a wood.’

Marianne moved over to Valentin and hung onto his arm, pale and wide-eyed like a frightened child.

Our guest went on, words rattling from him like hailstones.

‘Everything died instantly. Engine. Lights. Radio. The snow had stopped so I decided to walk up the road, thought I must be near a village, or a house at least, and that I’d freeze if I stayed in the car. City boy you see, no food or blanket in the boot. The clouds had cleared and moon was bright so I knew I’d be able to see the way. I stepped out onto snow a foot deep. I hadn’t passed any houses for miles so I decided to go on into new territory and walked away from the car.

A few yards along the road, I realised there was another set of prints beside me. I don’t mean that someone had walked up there before I had – I mean another set of footprints was being made next to mine as I walked. I could see the snow depress as my feet sank into it just as if someone were walking along with me but – there was no one there.’

He shook his head again and frowned.

‘I stopped and they stopped.  It sounds crazy I know. There was nothing special about them. They looked like human footprints; a man’s shoes but with a long pointed toe. I looked behind me and saw that they started by the car as if someone else had got out of it when I did. I stood for a while trying to make sense of it and then I heard the breathing – quick, and in time with my own but very definitely not mine. Then I saw the vapour.

Well, I didn’t hang about, practically ran the all the way here, fell over a few times – that’s why I’m covered in snow. My ‘companion’ matched my pace right up to your door.’

At this point Ryan knocked over a half empty glass, splattering its contents over the bar onto the stone floor. We all turned to him and tutted, but he just laughed and came to our side of the bar with a mop and started to dab away at the mess.

‘If I may?’ said Alex.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Ryan smirked, squelching the tiles with the mop.

Alex sighed and carried on.

‘I poured the stranger another drink and this time he sipped it. Valentin and Marianne didn’t move.

The man laughed softly. ‘Must have snow fever,’ he said.

Warmed and fortified by the brandy he called the AA from the payphone, taking care not to look out of the window while he talked.

They took a couple of hours to reach us. I sat with him while he waited. He was a nice chap. His name was Sebastian and he was a record producer down to work at some pop star’s country house. I played bass in a band back then so we talked about music. By the end of the wait we’d decided that his mind must have been playing tricks on him, that logically there couldn’t have been another set of footprints, that the woods and the full moon on the snow must have worked their magic on his imagination. I even went outside to look, just to make sure. I looked up and down the road as he stood in the doorway – there was only one set of prints in the snow. Sebastian seemed to relax after that, put the whole incident down to tiredness and the effects of the blizzard. I told him I was going to study in London the following year and he gave me his number; said he’d show me around his studio when I got there.

Valentin and Marianne didn’t speak to him once. Barely even looked at him. But they didn’t go to bed either – they just sat in a booth away from the fire whispering to each other.

The AA phoned back and said they were waiting by Sebastian’s car.  I left with him and Valentin closed the door behind us. As he bolted it I thought I’d heard Marianne say,

‘Valentin, for pity’s sake.’

Outside, the snow seemed to reflect the stars above, glowing like diamonds in the moonlight. I shook Sebastian’s hand in farewell as I was going right into the village and he was going in the other direction – back towards the wood.

For a moment I wondered if I should go with him, but it would have been silly to walk him to his car and then to have to walk all the way back again. I looked over my shoulder at him when he was on his way, and for a second I could’ve sworn I saw another set of footprints beside his own and heard the double creak of decompressing snow.’

Ryan rubbed a glass quickly with his tea-towel so it squeaked and everyone looked in his direction and laughed nervously.

‘What happened to Valentin and Marianne?’

‘Never saw them again – they did a moon-light flit. The pub was locked up for months until the new owners arrived. The estate agent said there was all sorts of weird stuff left in here, black candles and voodoo dolls, symbols drawn on the floors upstairs. Funny,’ he said looking at Ryan, ‘but people don’t seem to stay here long – maybe there’s something in your poltergeist story after all.’

We looked at each other as they clock ticked loudly and the hairs raised on my forearms despite the heat of the fire.

‘What about the guy,’ I asked. ‘Sebastian? Was he okay?’

‘As far as I know he met the AA and went back to London. They didn’t fix the car though; my brother saw it the next day and it stayed by the roadside for a week before someone towed it away. It was odd, but there was no story in the local paper, no missing person reports or police investigation so, after a while, I just forgot about it.’

‘You called him though, when you got to London?’

Alex looked at the floor.

‘No, No I didn’t.’ He mumbled. ‘I never dared to.’

‘Even though he was a record producer and you were in a band?’

‘I thought about it a lot but was I scared. What if I called and found out he was missing, last seen in Devon? But I have always wondered…’ he swigged at his beer, ‘if there was another set of footprints in the snow, what kind of being was it that could have made them?’

Everyone was silent for a while, the only noise the spitting of the fire and the wind shaking the windows.

Clyde, the policeman, spoke first. He quickly finished his drink and said, ‘that’s me done.’

‘Yeah, me to‘And me.’

‘And me.’

And in a flurry of coats and downed drinks we all said goodnight to Ryan – who bolted the door quickly behind us – and were soon standing outside on the thick glistening snow as the wind wailed up the lane. We turned right to walk into the village and I pulled my coat around me, surreptitiously looking back over my shoulder so the boys wouldn’t see me do it and take the piss. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. I pulled at Clyde’s sleeve and we stood and watched them moving after the others through the snow – footprints with no owner.

THE END

Unbound Diary Part 10 – I’m Trying To Prove The Popularity Of The Short Story

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Beach Hut Writers, Brighton, crowd-funding, Latest TV, Laura Wilkinson, publishers, short stories, ShortStops, spoken word, starlings, The Short Story, Thresholds, Unbound, Women Writers, writers

It’s been quite a week. I could see that I was getting towards the deadline for raising funds for my short story collection In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes. It felt like I was stalled at the 40% mark and that I would never get enough support for the project to go ahead. I couldn’t really see what to do but I knew that I didn’t want this opportunity to slip away. In the last few weeks I have done events, sent out emails and press releases, written blog posts and had stories from the book published in journals and still there were only a handful of responses. I was very grateful to each and everyone of those new pledgers but I needed more. I decided it was time to change tactics. Over the last few days I have spent 6 hours a day solidly marketing. I have contacted every journal and short story organisation I could find and asked for their help. To my surprise the answer has  almost always been yes. One editor replied within minutes with the opening line, ‘Hi Erinna – you’ve come to the right place!’ I was so grateful I could have cried. In the next few weeks I have articles coming out on Women Writers, The Short Story, Thresholds and Short Stops as well as guest posts on the blogs of friends and colleagues. The first of these is out today on Laura Wilkinson’s blog and she has cleverly called it In The Future Will Everyone Be Crowdfunding?

Last Friday morning I’d just got in from the school run when I took a phone call from Latest TV , in response to a press release I’d sent out a couple of weeks ago, could they come around in an hour to film me? I looked around my extremely messy house in horror but obviously I agreed. Creatives aren’t meant to be tidy, right? The film was posted on their Youtube channel on Tuesday and it has been an absolute godsend. It really represents what the book is about, how celebrity culture is everywhere and that this is not necessarily a good thing, and that one of the aims of the crowdfunding project is to draw attention to the lack of support given to the short story by UK agents and publishers. (When I write this in any article the editors always tell me I have to say ‘most UK agents and publishers’ but you know what, fuck it, this is my blog, and I want to go on the record as saying that this is true of 99.9999% of all UK agents and publishers!) I have set the film up to post on a loop on Twitter and Facebook with the buy-line ‘I’m trying to prove the popularity of the short story,’ and it’s getting quite a lot of attention as well as bringing me new pledgers. I am going to use the film as the basis for the campaign over the next couple of weeks. As of today I am at 58% and it really feels like I’m going to make it. I still need people to pledge so if you love short stories and think that they should get more attention from publishers please pledge to this collection.

Latest TV video

 

Unbound Diary Part 9 – Reading Aloud

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Beach Hut Writers, Brighton, Brighton Fringe, crowdfunding, Exeter Street Hall, John Lennon, publishing, short stories, short story collections, Sourdough, spoken word, The Beach Hut Writing Academy, Unbound, writers

I’m nearly 9 weeks in to my crowdfunding project for my book of short stories on fame, In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes. I’m going to be doing a few spoken word events in the next few days and. as a director of one (Rattle Tales), I thought I might give a few pointers about how to read to an audience. If you are a writer, at some point, you will have to do this in order to get your work seen. Even when you are a seasoned Booker Prize-winning author you still have to read your work to audiences. It may seem like the antithesis of everything else you do (ie, sitting at a desk writing down weird scenes from your imagination) but it’s just the way it is.

Practice. I use reading aloud as part of the editing process anyway. After I have finished a section of work, I will read it out to myself. I will often stand up to do this or even walk about. This exercise is invaluable for locating the dead pieces of writing, the weasel words, unnecessary punctuation, missed punctation and for providing a flow to your words. I urge you to add this to your writing method. If you are reading a piece at an event always read it out to yourself several times first. Make alterations to the piece that arise from this exercise then read it again. If you can bear it, read it to a couple of people you trust. If you do this enough times you will almost know the piece off by heart.

Eye Contact. If you know the piece off by heart you will be able to make more eye contact with the audience. Look up from you paper occassionally, pause for dramatic effect, address your words to them. I don’t mean stare creepily at one person, in fact if you look at a point just at the top of their heads the audience will get the impression you are looking at them without feeling uncomfortable about it. Smiling helps too and don’t forget to introduce yourself or at least say hello.

The Shakes. All authors get the shakes from time to time. Nobody notices. I have spoken to many first time readers who thought the audience was distracted by their shaking hands or legs. My right leg used to shake uncontrollably when I read. No one ever mentioned it; in fact people said I didn’t seem nervous at all. I have also seen famous authors at big festivals trembling so much their papers rustle. No one minds, they just want to hear the famous author read. If you are uncomfortable with your shaking hands put your pages in a lever file or on a clip-board. Rattle Tales provides a music stand. Sometimes nerves help the piece, I’ve cried at the end of a story and had loads of people come up to me and say what an impact it had because it was heartfelt. Try and keep it together til the last sentence though!

Slow Down. Most people read too fast. Nerves make you speed up, make you want to get it over with. My advice is read it to yourself at your normal pace and then slow it down a notch for the event, relish in the pauses, emphasise the important sentences, take your time over the dialogue. You might want it to be over quickly but the audience want to take it all in. Most spoken word events asks for no more than 2,000 words. This is because after about ten minutes an audiences’ attention wanders no matter how good the tale or the reader. If you are reading an extract bear this in mind, don’t rush to fit longer pieces in.

Acting is for Actors. You are not an actor, well, you might be, but in this case you are a writer. To listen to your story the audience doesn’t need the full Meryl Streep. They don’t want a cast of characters with different accents all competing for attention like a multiple personality disorder. Do appropriate accents by all means but don’t shout as if you are projecting at the Theatre Royal and keep the showing off to a minimum.

I will be putting all this into practice at Exeter Street Hall on Friday May 13th with nine other fabulous Brighton writers who are all members of The Beach Hut Writers. We will be talking about everything from how to get published to how to cope at spoken word events. The genres include, crime, noir, literary fiction, women’s fiction, self help, cookery and diet books and childrens fiction, so there is literally something for everyone.

May 26th is the date of Rattle Tales Brighton Fringe show hosted by the fabulous Lonny Pop. We have just finalized the programme and there are some amazing stories on the bill from a huge variety of authors. I will be reading a short story (Sourdough)from In The Future which was the story I read at the first Rattle Tales show five years ago. I don’t expect to be as nervous as I was then. Tickets are available at Brighton Fringe Box Office and they usually go fast!

If you think that short stories deserve a bit more attention from publishers please plegde to my collection because that’s what I’m trying to prove. In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes will only be published by Unbound if I get enough pledges. You don’t have to be from the UK and you don’t have to have a Kindle. There are just 3 weeks left to show your support.

Unbound Diary Part 8 – A Medieval Knight With An I-phone

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Beach Hut Writers, Brighton, crowdfunding, crusades, dreams, Exeter Street Hall, medieval, Myriad, Myriad Editions, publishing, Rattle Tales, reading aloud, short stories, spoken word, Umi Sinha, Unbound, writing

As I write I am 44% funded. This means that well over a hundred of you have supported my book. To my new supporters I want to say a massive thank you, you are making this happen. I have until the end of May to reach 198 pledges, it’s time to take it up a notch.

Regular readers will know that I am a Director of the spoken word group Rattle Tales. We have a show coming up at Brighton Fringe Festival and we’re selecting stories for it now. Last night I had a dream that only five people turned up to our show. Our previous Fringe shows have all been sold out, sometimes we’ve had to turn people away, and the show has been a Pick of the Fringe by The Independent newspaper. It’s extremely unlikely that no one will turn up. In my dream not only did no turn up but I forgot my story and when I tried to phone home to get someone to bring it to me my i-phone snapped in two, the venue staff were busy jousting in the back garden and the only person in the bar was a medieval knight dressed in crusader armour – he didn’t know what an i-phone was.

I’ve been trying to analyze this dream all day. I think it’s to do with the event I did recently to an audience of seven. It’s definitely to do with asking people to pledge to my collection and most of them resembling a medieval knight with no knowledge of i-phones when asked. Lots of people have said they are happy to help and will definitely pledge but then don’t. Some people have been very affronted to be asked. In response to a recent mail-out through Rattle Tales one person accused us of begging and hoped the project failed. You can just ignore the request you know, or just say no. I’m not begging. I’m asking you to choose to buy a book in advance, in much the same way as you would choose to buy a book in a book shop – you don’t have to but you might want to. The same mail-out brought me ten new pledgers and for that I am very grateful

I have a few events coming up and I really hope that a. people will come and b. some will pledge to the book. I will be appearing at Exeter Street Hall on May 13th with lots of other Beach Hut Writers, ten in fact, all talking about the when, why and what of writing for a living. I’m also going to talk at Brighton University on May 10th with the author of Belonging,  Umi Sinha, and Vicky Blunden from Myriad Editions and then I will be reading Sourdough (recently published by New London Writers) from In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes at the Rattle Tales show on May 26th. Please come along to any or all – don’t leave me alone with the medieval knight.

For the rest of the week I will be sending out press releases, pitching articles and generally trying to get my book notice in the hope of attracting more pledges. Thanks again to my new supporters – you really are making a difference!

My Unbound Diary Part 6 – Crowdfunding Events, Pledgers and The Radio

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Amanda Palmer, BBC Radio Sussex, Brighton, City Reads, crowdfunding, digital publishing, James Ellis, literature, Lonny Pop, Pierre Hollins, Rachael de Moravia, Rattle Tales, Sarah Gorrell, short stories, spoken word, Stephanie Lam, Stephen McGowan, TED, The Brighton Prize, The Nightingale Room, Unbound, writers

I am half way through! And it’s not been easy I can tell you. I feel like I’ve had to coax each pledge into being. My short story collection In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes is so close to 30% funded. Obviously, I need a lot more pledges to reach 100% in the next 6 weeks. I am banking on momentum. Word of mouth, people wearing down in the face of constant bombarment. I would hate me right now if I wasn’t me. Once again thank you to everyone who has already pledged; I am in awe of you because you are making this book seem possible and when it is funded you will have helped create something new.

I have just started on an all out email campaign. Emailing everyone I know either directly or through Facebook. It’s a bit soul destroying. I can’t shake the feeling that I am begging but my friend and fellow writer Stephanie Lam directed me to Amanda Palmer’s TED Talk on crowdfunding (The Art of Asking) and that made me feel a whole lot better. I’m not begging, I am offering people the opportunity to co-create a book that wouldn’t otherwise exist, to be a part of the art.

It’s interesting who pledges and who doesn’t. It’s not what you expect. People you haven’t seen for years reply immediately and say they’ve pledged and ask how you are. People you’d expect to be onboard from the off flat out tell you it’s not their thing. I wonder if the digital aspect is putting some people off. The book will initially be available in digital format only. This isn’t to say you need an e-reader to read it, when the book is published you will get a copy emailed to download onto whatever, laptop, PC or phone you prefer. There will be paper copies I am told, for events and signings and if the book gets enough pledgers it might even get a full press – but that is a long way off. Right now I need to meet my target of 253 more pledges.

One thing which hasn’t surprised me is the community around the Unbound crowdfunding process. There is a Facebook group for shell-shocked Unbound authors to swap tips and give each other encouragement. Most authors are lovely supportive people – and I’ve met a lot of them in the last ten years! I put a post up about doing an event in Brighton and several writers replied and after a few email exchanges it’s going ahead in Brighton on the 18th April. If you are in the area please come along – entry is free. So is the venue, thanks to a tip from City Read’s Sarah Hutchings I managed to book the wonderful Nightingale Room in side the Grand Central Pub right next door to Brighton Station. Unbound authors James Ellis, Stephen McGowan, Rachael de Moravia, Pierre Hollins and me will be reading from our books. My fellow Rattle Taler Lonny Pop will be hosting and there may even be someone from Unbound editorial to answer questions about crowdfunding. I will be on BBC Radio Sussex tonight at 5.50 to talk about The Brighton Prize but always on the look out for new supporters I will be mentioning this event too!

My Unbound Diary Part 5 – Back On Track

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Catherine Smith, crowdfunding, Dianna Vickers, fame, fiction, Gethin Anthony, James Ellis, Latitude Festival, poetry, publishing, short stories, short stoy collections, social media, spoken word, stars of the week, Unbound, Word Theatre, writing

Crowdfunding a book is overwhelming. There is so much marketing to do just to eek out one or two supporters. Unbound (the crowdfunding publisher I have signed to) send you a pledge update once a week so you can see who has pledged and what level they’ve opted for. Everytime someone pledges I want to shout their name from the rooftops. In fact my book In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes is, as the title suggests, about fame and I am going to offer to give top pledgers the star treatment on social media.I will make you famous for a week. This is not necessarily about the amount pledged. Here’s the first:

Last week I was a bit despondent having only achieved 13% of the required funding in a month. This week I am 26% funded! Over a quarter of the way there! This is a big deal for me; I am beginning to think that it can be done. There is about 8 weeks left to pledge. If I work really hard I can do it but I can’t do it without your help.

Amongst my pledgers this week was my old Creative Writing tutor, the wonderful poet and short story writer, Catherine Smith. When I first started writing Catherine made me feel as though I was actually good at it. She also taught me that adding a bit of poetry can lift prose into something really meaningful and thought-provoking. I write poetically, I can’t help it, I like language to flow, to alliterate, to unfold like a movie in your mind. (These days I don’t like too many similies so I don’t know why I wrote that last bit.) Catherine left me a message on my last blog post:

I loved Starlings and am so glad you are going down this route, Unbound is an excellent model, though I think UK publishers need a kick up the arse to be less prejudiced against publishing short stories, which as we know is a transcendent and exacting form.

Take note UK publishers and thank God for Unbound, who really are enabling many writers outside of the mainstream to get published.

Unbound have a Facebook support group on which shell-shocked writers can exchange experiences and come up with new ways to get pledges. One of the writers, James Ellis, is a Rattle Tales regular and I asked if he wanted to do a funding event in Brighton. Other authors in the group expressed an interest too so I’m going to book a date at The Brunswick Cellar Bar and see what happens.

I have a sort of plan –  when to contact certain people, when to push Facebook/Twitter ect. how to drawn attention to the project. One of the stories (Underneath) was performed by Games of Thrones actor Gethin Anthony and Diana Vickers at US spoken word group Word Theatre’s UK shows a couple of years ago. I contacted Word Theatre to ask if they could help promote and was told there was a video of one of the events. I was lucky enough to see the performance at Latitude Festival and it remains one of the thrills of my writing career. Here’s a short extract:

Please pledge to this book of short stories. There is something in it for everyone. For just £10 you can help bring this book to life.

https://unbound.co.uk/books/fifteen-minutes

 

 

Full Of Things That Have Never Been

Tags

Araminta Hall, Bridget Whelan, Brighton, Catherine Quinn, competitions, Cornerstones Literary Agency New Writing South, David Headley, Emlyn Rees, Jo Rees, Kate Harrision, Laura Wilkinson, literature, Lizzie Enfield, Myriad Editions Julia Crouch, publishers, Rattle Tales, Rilke, Sharon Bowers, short stories, Simon Toyne, Simon Trewin, Small Batch, spoken word, starlings, Sue Teddern, The Angel House, The Beach Hut Writing Academy, The Short review, William Shaw, Write by the Beach, writing

And now we welcome the New Year. Full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Isn’t that a glorious quote for the new year? January is a difficult month, everyone is full of lethargy and Christmas excess. This year it seems like all our heroes are dying. The weather is awful. The nights are long and dark. It’s hard to get motivated. For a writer it can be the most depressing time of year. I have often found it hard to get started. If I haven’t written for a couple of weeks, getting back into stride can feel like climbing a mountain. It’s all a matter of perspective of course, as Rilke’s quote illustrates. This year I am determined to see the new year not in terms of the past but in terms of what’s to come.

Rilke was himself was a wanderer, a traveller of no fixed location, he sought lovers and patronage and never truly settled. He moved from one possibilty to another, across Europe into the Middle East and Russia, back to Paris and then, fatefully,Switzerland where he died at 51 of leukemia. A short and packed life of longing and regret that produced breathtaking poetry. Read some.

This year my resolution isn’t to lose weight or drink less! I probably will, but under no pressure to do so, 2016 will instead be a year of action. I have plans. I have words to write and opportunities to exploit. I have a fully finished short story collection and a half finished novel. This year I will find an agent and a publisher and move things on and if I don’t find either I will move things on anyway. There is always a way. There are always things that have never been.

The first Rattle Tales show of 2016 takes place on Feb 16th at The Brunswick in Hove. We had an amazing response to our call for submissions and we are reading through them all now to come up with a programme as varied, entertaining and thought provoking as all our shows. Do come along and see what we are all about.

. 

I am involved in two very exciting projects this year. Firstly, The Brighton Prize (of which I am a co-director) enters its third year and we are in a position to expand. The competition will go international for the first time and we are adding categories for flash fiction and local writers. I will have more information on this very soon but we recently asked for volunteers to help us develop the prize, and Rattle Tales in general, and were literally overwhelmed by the response. I’m really looking forward to the group taking this project forward and to working with new, talented and enthusiastic people.

I am also involved in The Beach Hut Writing Academy, a new writing school established by professional writers in Brighton. I did my first course for them last year, co-teaching on short story practice with Bridget Whelan, and it was a very enjoyable success. The new courses begin on Jan 21st with a Fiction Writing course run by best-selling author Aramanita Hall and then a TV and Radio course taught by Sue Teddern and Hannah Vincent. Our most ambitious plan for early 2016 is a writers conference in Brighton on March 12th. Write by the Sea will feature, best-selling authors, publishers and agents taking part in panel discussions, workshops and one to one pitches, all at the beautiful sea front venue The Angel House. We have agents Simon Trewin, David Headley and Sharon Bowers, Cornerstones Literary Agency, local publishers Myriad Editions, The Writer’s Guild of Great Britain, authors Simon Toyne, Julia Crouch, Lizzie Enfield, Laura Wilkinson, Araminta Hall, Catherine Quinn, Kate Harrison, Sarah Rayner, Sue Teddern, Bridget Whelan, Jo and Emlyn Rees, William Shaw and me. There will also be one to ones where you can pitch or discuss your current project. The full programme is available on our website and the early bird rate is in place until Jan 24th.

Before I had a publisher for Starlings I attended a similar event at The Jubilee Library run by New Writing South. I met other writers, agents and publishers and came away with a wealth of advice and contacts that really helped me get my book published. Rattle Tales is sponsoring a session on Writing A Prize-winning Short Story and so two worlds collide. You’d be crazy to miss it.

‘Guitar Bands Are On The Way Out’ British Agents And Short Story Collections

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#Authorday, agents, Are You Sitting Comfortably?, Cloud Atlas, cookbooks, crime, Elizabeth Strout, George Saunders, Gone Girl, Granta, Jennifer Egan, Liar's League, Neil Gaiman, Peters Fraser & Dunlop, publishers, Rattle Tales, Raymond Carver, short stories, short story collections, Small WOnder, spoken word, The BBC National Short Story Award, The Beatles, The Bridport Prize, The Manchester Fiction Prize, The Word Factory

On Friday, checking in with Twitter, I came across #Authorday, which invited tweeters to ask agents from Peters Fraser & Dunlop questions about their work. I am presently sending out a themed collection of short stories so I thought I’d ask the obvious.

#Authorday how come agents hate short story collections when the best do actually sell better than bad genre?

The answer?

Because finding a publisher to buy them is like putting a magnet to a haystack for that elusive needle.

I replied that as it was once again the year of the short story it should be getting easier for agents to get publishers interested and asked if it wasn’t a matter of pre-conception all round? Another short story writer commented that he too was disappointed by the lack of mainstream push for the genre. Neither of us got any further response.

This makes me so mad. What is it with British agents and publishers? They seem to be the only ones who hate short stories. It is not the case in the US or India. I have been writing them for a decade now. My ‘novel’ was actually a series of inter-linked short stories,  people other than my family bought it and read it (not many granted, but I didn’t even know some of them). In all that time I have only spoken to one person about books who told me they didn’t like short stories. I have co-directed a short story night (Rattle Tales) for the last five years. We have produced 12 shows and most of them were completely sold out, sometimes we had to turn people away at the door. How can this be the case if people don’t like short stories? There are hundreds of organisations putting on similar events up and down the country; Liar’s League, The Word Factory, Are You Sitting Comfortably? to name but a few, plus countless festivals with short fiction strands. There is even a whole festival dedicated to the genre, Small Wonder, at Charleston farmhouse no less, always packed out even though it is in the wilds. How do they continue to run if no-one buys any tickets? How come lit mags like Granta survive if no-one buys short stories? Type the words short fiction journals into Google and look at the huge list that comes up! Are they all running on air and goodwill?

How come The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Spectator and many other non-literary titles commission short stories? If no-body likes them, why would they bother? Why is there a BBC Short Story Prize (aired on Radio Four),  a Costa one, a Sunday Times one, the Bridport? How can The Manchester Fiction Prize offer thousands in prize-money if no-one is interested in anything other than crime and ghost-written celebrity cookbooks?

If no-body likes short stories how come Jennifer Egan and Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer with them? Those two books were not novels in the traditional sense, they were short story collections disguised to suit the pre-conceptions of agents and publishers. If no-one buys them why were collections by George Saunders and Neil Gaiman number one on the New York Times Bestsellers list? Remember Cloud Atlas? Booker nominated, glossy Hollywood movie, Richard & Judy Book of the year. It’s a collection of short stories! Or ‘six nested stories’ if you want to quote the publisher blurb.

Without short stories, there would be no Hemmingway, Chekov, Fitzgerald, Steven King, Laurie Moore, William Trevor, no Flannery O’Conor, no Raymond Carver. Thank god for indie publishers. However, the indies are overrun with submissions (strange that, as no-one is interested in short fiction) many close their windows after just a few weeks, some are only accepting recommendations from authors on their lists and agents. Back to agents. Remember the story about Decca telling The Beatles that they wouldn’t be signing them because ‘guitar bands are on the way out’? Remind you of something?

How many short story collections did you buy in the last year? they ask smugly. About fifteen actually. I know I’m not average in this but I know I’m not the only one. It’s a nonsense question anyway, did Malcolm Gladwell’s agent say how many books of essays on society and genius did you buy last year?

Brighton Waterstones has a stand dedicated to short fiction publications (established by short story writer Sara Crowley when she worked there). The shelves on it are not always full, sometimes there are spaces where books have been bought! They stocked the Rattle Tales Anthology this year and do you know what? They sold some!

Crime and cook books done well are wonderful but no-body needs another version of Gone Girl because it’s easy to sell. Shake it up a bit, dust off the guitars, you might be surprised.

Losing Control – TEDx and The Brighton Prize

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Book Slam, Charleston, Cheryl Powell, competitions, control, Grit Lit, literature, Lonny Pop, Lucy Flannery, Peter James, Rattle Tales, reading aloud, short stories, spoken word, TEDx, The Brighton Prize

Last night I did something I’ve never done before. It was the awards show for the 2015 Brighton Prize and I am lucky enough to be one of the Directors. We wanted as many of our ten shortlistees to read as possible, fortunately our winner Lucy Flannery was there to read her prize-winning story, Calm Down Dear, but our two runners up, Tamsin Cottis and Cheryl Palmer couldn’t make it.  I offered to read Cheryl’s story Mermaid for her. I loved this story from the first round of reading, it was very striking and original and had a poetic rhythm to it fitting to the title. When I was practising in the afternoon I realised that I hadn’t ever read somebody else’s work to an audience.

I made my stage debut five years ago, when I read at Brighton’s Grit Lit event in December 2010. I was absolutely petrified and on last! Somehow I managed to get through without anyone guessing how nervous I was. I thought that my right leg was shaking so much that people must have seen it but nobody mentioned it. What people did do was come up and congratulate me on my reading. Since then, I have read my own work many times, usually in dingy cabaret bars but also in festival tents and university conferences. I am always nervous but it does depend on what I’m reading. If a story is very personal to me I will be terrified, if I have any doubts about what I’m reading my hands will tremble and my mouth will dry. Sometimes, when I know it’s good, when people I trust have told me it’s my best, I will be more in control. 

On Friday I went to the TEDx talks at The Brighton Dome. The theme this year was Losing Control. All the speeches addressed the relinquishing of control as a positive experience, the act of venturing out of our comfort zones making us better humans, more open, able to live up to our true potential. These talks made me think of my own experience reading my writing to an audience. At one point my nerves were so bad that I had a form of hypnosis to try and tackle the root cause. It worked, up to a point, but I always have a little bit of stage fright, I always stumble a bit over my words or suffer from shaky hand syndrome. Last night was the exception. I think because the words weren’t mine I could read without fear. I didn’t feel nervous at all. It was probably my best reading. Now comes the tricky bit. It’s okay to be a bit nervous but I would like not to be. I would like to be able to read my own stories the way I read Cheryl’s. To be in control. Then again, perhaps losing control makes me a more emotional reader and helps get the message across with more impact. Whichever it is, I know that if I want to be a writer I have to keep on doing public readings, it’s part of the game, and if you want to be a writer you will need to do them too. So, deep breath, let yourself go.

The winner of the Brighton Prize 2015, Lucy Flannery, with our host Lonny Pop. The shortlist and details of the prize are on our website www.brightonprize.com

Field of Dreams – Setting Up A Short Story Competition

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Bath Short Story Prize, Bethan Roberts, Brighton, competitions, Laura H. Lockington, Radio Reverb, Rattle Tales, short stories, spoken word, storytelling, The Bridport Prize, The Brighton Fringe, The Brighton Prize, The Bristol Prize, Threshold's Short Story Forum

If you have visited this blog before you will know that I am one of the founders of the spoken word group Rattle Tales. We are a group of writers who met on the MA at Sussex University and, when we left, continued to meet to workshop our writing. After a while, we decided to set up a regular literature night to showcase our own stories and give emerging authors the chance to read their work to an audience. Our nights have proved extremely popular. We ask the audience to get involved by discussing the stories they have just heard with the author.

The core Rattle Tales members are all practising authors. Just like you, we enter writing contests and send our work to journals and spoken word events. We like to read our writing aloud. Since we put on our first show we’ve run over ten events (including one at Green Man, one at Small Wonder, one in France and several at Brighton Fringe) and published two anthologies. The stories published are the ones read at our nights and for many authors it is the first time their work has been published.  We are a true co-operative; the eleven Rattle Tales members have equal say in everything. We share the work, we argue over the decisions and any modest profit we make goes straight back into venue and publishing costs. Many of our readers go on to success in competitions, or have their work published in journals or performed on the radio. Reading your writing aloud to an appreciative audience instils a confidence in you that you don’t get from having it appear in print. I speak from experience here; the first public outing for my writing was in print but nothing compares to taking a deep breath and reading your work to an audience who listen to your words, applaud and even congratulate you in person afterwards. It makes you feel invincible.  It makes you want to approach agents and editors and shout ‘publish me!’ from the rooftops. Rattle Tales wants to give every writer the chance to feel this way.

At one of our meetings we discussed the possibility of setting up a short story prize. We were surprised that there wasn’t a regular prize in Brighton, there are prizes in so many other cities and Brighton is stuffed full of writers. We were also aware that there isn’t a prize which is tailored to the spoken word. Rattle Tales stories have to work being read aloud to an audience and we wanted to celebrate this particular under-appreciated writing skill.

When we booked the theatre for our first spoken word event there was a feeling that it didn’t matter if no one turned up because between us it was only the cost of a good night out. It was a similar feeling with The Brighton Prize. But on a much bigger scale. We all sat down together and discussed how much we could afford to stump up for the prize-money if only a couple of people entered. We agreed to keep the entry cost down, both to ensure more entries and to make the prize more accessible. Between us we set the prize fund at £500, the maximum we could afford with only a few submissions.

We are lucky, there are a lot of us and we have people with different skills. Between us we can cover the writing of the contracts, the marketing, the admin, the website, the posters, editing, spreadsheets the list is endless. It takes up a lot of time but we all felt it was something we should do, something that you writers out there would want us to do.

We decided that the optimum time for the prize-giving would be at our sell-out Brighton Fringe show. This show is a real event with a great atmosphere and reading at it is a fantastic experience for any writer. Aiming for May though did mean we were a bit rushed, with a short 2 month submission period.

We needed judges and we were unbelievably lucky because the first local authors we asked said yes straight away. Bethan Roberts (author of Brighton City Reads book My Policeman and the upcoming, Mother Island) and Laura H. Lockington (author of The Cornish Affair, Stargazy Pie and literary journalist) were on board and suddenly we had a real competition.

The Brighton Prize has been a learning curve, we bit our nails waiting for the first entries to come in, we tweeted and posted, sent out newsletters and contacted the press, begged listings in writing magazines and airtime on local radio. And just like the baseball fans in the movie Field of Dreams the entries began to come in, a trickle at first, then a torrent and by midnight on the last day we had enough entry fees to cover the cost of the prize fund, our Fringe show and an anthology. That’s it though, we’re not going to get rich, and we’re not in it for the money. Your entry fee goes into giving more writers the opportunity to perform at and be published by Rattle Tales.

Right now we are reading like crazy to make the deadlines set for the long-list and the short-list and then to narrow those down to the ten stories we’ll send to Laura and Bethan. So far we have been struck by the quality and originality of the stories submitted. It’s going to be very hard to choose which ones make it through.

We have also struck by the generosity of the other short story competitions out there, particularly the B’s, Bath, Bristol and Bridport. We are the new kid on the block but everyone has been generous in their retweets and encouragement. The people who run these competitions really care about writers and it shows.

Thanks also to Threshold’s Short Story Forum, The Brighton Fringe and Radio Reverb but most of all thanks to anyone who entered our little competition. Good luck!

For more information about the Brighton Prize and Rattle Tales click here.