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

Vote For Fifteen Minutes!

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Brighton Waterstones, Janet Swinney, Lulu allison, Mathew Clayton, Pierre Hollins, Reviews, Storgy, The Dry, The Saboteur Awards, The Short Story, Threshold's Short Story Forum, Tracy Fells

I’m having a great week! After many months of plugging away at promoting Fifteen Minutes things are finally starting to happen. It’s quite difficult to promote a short story collection, generally bloggers don’t want to know and short story journals want finished reviews. This week I found out I had been shortlisted for a Saboteur Award, a big deal in short story circles. I am beyond thrilled that people took the time to vote for my book, thank you to anyone who did so. I now have another favour to ask – the shortlist is open to the public to decide the winner so even if you voted to nominate me you have to vote again. It’s really easy though, just click on the link below, you don’t need to vote in every category but you every vote counts.

https://www.saboteurawards.org/

Awards like this ensure that short story collections get a much needed publicity boost.

I got back from a lovely holiday in Lyme Regis to find that I’d been longlisted for The Thresholds Feature Writing Competition. I try to enter this every year but failed to do so for the last couple because I’ve been so busy with Fifteen Minutes. This year I specifically set aside some time. I do think that if you practice any craft you should examine the way the masters work. If you were studying art you’d look at Picasso’s methods or DaVinci or Monet as a short story practitioner I find it extremely helpful to look at great writers in depth and try to work out how they do it. I really enjoyed researching and writing my feature for Thresholds and it certainly paid off – the shortlist is published on April 23rd so fingers crossed, I’m in very good company on the longlist.

Last night I was part of a panel event at Brighton Waterstones on crowdfunding with Unbound. Editor In Chief Mathew Clayton chaired and also on the panel were fellow Unbounders Lulu Allison and Pierre Hollins. It was a lovely evening, not least because it was about the books rather than funding or promoting them, Mathew got us all to talk about how and why we’d written them, the audience asked questions and bought books and there was a little wine. Brighton Waterstones are brilliant at events, they host loads of different authors so keep an eye out for what’s on next. A big thank you to Richard and the team there even if we don’t agree on The Dry!

Also this week three excellent reviews for Fifteen Minutes. It’s so nice when people like your work but it’s even more rewarding when the reviews show that they know exactly what you are aiming for and fully appreciate it. Please have a look at them here.

http://thresholds.chi.ac.uk/when-will-i-be-famous/

https://www.theshortstory.co.uk/the-short-story-review-fifteen-minutes-by-erinna-mettler/

https://storgy.com/2018/04/07/book-review-fifteen-minutes-by-erinna-mettler/

Don’t forget to vote!