Tweet time

These two little love birds were hiding out in my veggies and I didn't have the heart to separate them.

Well, hullo there strangers!

I've been a busy wee bee - more on why another time - but I was lucky enough to go to the launch of the latest issue of Sport a while ago (can't believe it's taken me this long to blog about it!) where the winners of the Unity Books competition, The Long And The Short Of It, read from their stories and launched the book of the same. 

Cover art by Anastasia Doniants.

The competition was for stories under 1000 words or over 10,000 words. Emily Perkins introduced the winning pair and asked them lots of interesting questions about how they write and what they write, and why, before asking them to read. 

First up was Kirsten McDougall who read with understated humour and perfect comic timing her story "Clean Hands Save Lives". It was a very deserved winner, a real stand out story, and ended, for me, just perfectly.

Emily asked some more questions and then Lawrence Patchett read from his long story "The Road to Tokomairiro" which made me wish I had entered with one of my historical fiction pieces. Lawrence paused for another chat with Emily before giving a second reading and afterwards I got the mic and asked a question of my own - whether the winners thought there was such a thing as a competition story. I mentioned how there seemed to be a rise in writers offering tutorials or courses in "how to write winning stories". Interestingly, all the writers said they didn't think a competition story should be any different from any other story - that your best work should be the aim of any writing, regardless of the venue or outcome.

I met Emily Perkins - again - afterwards and asked her lots of questions which she was lovely enough to answer even though I was gabbling my words terribly - nerves, I might add, not falling down water - and I had a chat with the very talented and similarly shy Anastasia Doniants who is responsible for the cover art on the book and who very kindly offered to give me advice on my latest project. Enough, enough!

And so, to show my love for my bloggy faithfuls - and a welcome hug to any newbies - I'm giving away my sole copy of "The Long And The Short Of It"  - signed by both winners and Emily Perkins - and Anastasia Doniants - to the first person who can guess which of the following songs I won a gold medal for singing in my school talent competition, age12:

1) Like A Prayer (Madonna)

2) Walking in the Air (written by Howard Blake, popularly sung by Aled Jones)

3) Where'er You Walk (Handel)

4) I Think We're Alone Now (Tiffany)

Good Luck!

Wedded this

All of you who took part in the Small Stones challenge earlier this year, like me, will be familiar with the lovely Kaspa and Fiona who organised it. I was lucky enough to have a stone included in the book - see side bar - and I'd like to take a wee moment to thank them both and to wish them HUGE
CONGRATULATIONS - they are getting married on the 18th of June!

Anyone who would like to wish Fiona and Kaspa well can do so by posting a small stone here on the 18th.

They are also running a free e-course for people interested in The Art of Paying Attention - see clip below.

I'll be back soon with more writing news.

Break hers

I have a one sentence story up at MONKEYBICYCLE.


Mega thanks to Steven Seighman.

Woe men

Two links to make you think.

The first is about a something that happened a long time ago.

How times have changed, eh?

The second is about now.

Some change.

You see, I'm one of those women who doesn't believe much has changed for women since Emily Pankhurst supposedly "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". People may hide behind religion or any other man made abstract constucts but there is only one question to be asked, still: when will women be given equality? I reckon I might be around in another forty years to see what's changed.

Love scent

I read it's International Write-A-Tiny-Poem Day, over at Women Rule Writer's blog, and thought it would be lovely to join in and post a tiny for you here. It's also Mother's Day (if my blog posts this with the wrong date - it's lying - trust me it's mother's day; I have hand made cards, flowers with half of next door's shrub still attached, and gifts), one of my gifts has a curiously worded label, which is now my found tiny poem:
Bath Salts

to make beautiful
the love scent in your life

Leg it over there

Is this the funniest photo of a pair of legs you've ever seen?

There is some excellent work in the latest edition of Otoliths, including a very moving poem from Michele Leggott - highly recommend read.

In other news:

went to a very interesting reading on Saturday evening, given by members of The Author's Mouth group here in Auckland. There'll be another on the last Friday of May, at Borders in Albany's Westfield Mall. In future I will not down two coffees immediately prior to meeting people or wear skinny jeans to drink said coffee and sit for a long period of time.

completed a first draft of my screenplay, finally, and it's awful. Putting it aside for some considerable period of time until I have fathomed what to do with it.

writing and drafting poetry daily and coming up with some interesting things and I got the idea for my next collection of short stories - all of them, all in one go - like being hit by a creativity mannequin and swapping outfits rapidly. Now I need to stay focused and finish what I've started.

discovered many things make me laugh, often at inappropriate moments.

What are you lot up to and what do you know?

Mashing nations

Tea's up. Fancy a sup? Let's see who's made tea and who's got pot luck.

Tiny teapot or big draw?

And the winner is.....

A little dreg soaked, the winner.....

Drop me your address in an email, Steven, and Shamfeign will wind its way to you.

Thanks to all of you who took part.