Heterogeneous
Bits of pieces cropping up at the end of the year -I was very pleased to have two poems – Addressing the Weather and Honeycomb – accepted by Alba, a very good webjournal that specialises in short poems.
How wonderful is the new Kate Bush album? I mean to say I’ve been a fan since Hounds of Love but she’s still got this rare ability to innovate, surprise and delight decade after decade.
This has been the year for reading and re-reading – have discovered and re-discovered so many good books this year. Particularly loved the miniature silver-covered Penguin classics series – I just like miniature books. I have a phobia of collected works – give me the edit. It was nice to re-read some old favourites in this form – great stories like A Distant Episode, Children on Their Birthdays and La Grosse Fifi.
Was very pleased to see that my poem, The Lazarus Dream has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize.
Also a year of re-connecting with films after several years of feeling disaffected with going to the cinema, though having said that some of the best stuff I saw this year was watched at home. For some reason I’ve been pushing in a slightly gothic direction of late – all of the highlights are ghost/horror films – The Innocents, The Haunting and even the everso ridiculous Insidious (gas-mask seance hello) which for all its flaws has a little terror going on.
Flash fiction in Irish Times
Check out my flash piece in today’s Irish Times.
Dumb was as good as dead; better to utter
After a blog hiatus I am back with some miscellaneous stuff.
Look out for the next edition of Abridged 23: Dust and Desire. I’ve got a sonnet in it. They’ve a fancy new site here.
As I’ve been AWOL from the blogosphere I’ve missed loads of stuff. Big congrats to Eimear Ryan for her storming year – well deserved!
Catching up with stuff it was nice to see that my Contrary story, The Pool, was featured in Wigleaf’s 2011 Longlist of Top 50 Very Short Fictions, and that a poem of mine was longlisted for the Lightship poetry prize.
Loved the new Carol Ann Duffy collection, The Bees. My faves would be Premonitions (a very moving poem about her mother), Telling the Bees, Atlas, and Snow. Love the description of the Snow as ‘a huge unsaying.’ The name of this post is taken from one of the sections of the collection.
A belated mention re: The Sunday Independent Hennessy supplement. It was great to be involved, and I especially loved the high concept photo shoots!
I’ve just finished Tom Vowler’s debut short story collection The Method and it’s very impressive – he’s got great versatility and daring. I like diverse collections, and Vowler is authoritative regardless of whether he is writing about the criminal underworld, suburban angst or future dystopias.
I was delighted to hear I received 1st prize in this year’s Jonathan Swift Short Story Award. Unfortunately I couldn’t make the ceremony because of family issues, but it’s always a lovely event and big thanks to everyone involved in organising it over the last few years.
You Have Put a Cigarette Out in a Piece of Birthday Cake
Check out what your favourite 80′s band/artist says about you (courtesy of McSweeney’s) -
Apparently I’m somewhere between ‘You have lost a mood ring in a hot tub,’ (Eurythmics) and ‘You have been bitten by a cat while trying to dress it in period costume,’ (Joy Division). Both of these are at least half-way accurate.
Other priceless ones include – ‘You have lost several silk scarves to escalators’ – (Cyndi Lauper)
‘You have been caught kissing a copy of The Little Prince’ – (Erasure).
‘Your safety word is forty-seven syllables long’ – (Grace Jones)
‘You minored in something’ – (REM).
‘You have tasted a scented pen’ – (Simple Minds)
Bytes
Here I am, emerging from writing and life-stuff – a wedding and the like, to throw a few snippets here and there.
First up here is a link to the wonderfully eclectic Shot Glass Journal, an online journal that specialises in short poems – I’ve got 3 pieces in their latest edition. The link is here.
I got a short fiction piece into this year’s Binnacle Ultra-Short Anthology – it’s a piece called Reduce. These anthologies are very unique – each piece is produced as a separate card, so each ‘anthology’ is essentially a box of cards each with a story or poem printed on them. It’s a nice thing to have and they give you multiple copies of your piece (presumably to hand out to friends etc).
I have a piece in the latest edition of ‘Flash – The International Short-Short Story Magazine.’ It’s an excellent magazine – past contributers have included Beryl Bainbridge and Margaret Atwood. This edition has pieces by William Wall, Etgar Keret, Ana María Shua, and Ian Rankin. My piece is called Historical.
In a side line running down the length of the back cover they have a list of all the names you might possibly throw at the genre – it’s a nice touch, I hadn’t heard all of them before. It includes – flash fcition, micro fiction, sudden fiction, postcard fiction, minute fiction, drabble, byte, ficlet, 69er, nano fiction, 55 fiction, furious fiction, fast fiction, quick fiction, skinny fiction, the short-short story.
I like furious fiction, byte, ficlet, but I particularly like the whimsy of skinny fiction and the short-short story!
Revolving Signposts
Looking forward to Ali Smith’s new novel, There but for the, due on the 2nd of June. Loved The Accidental.
This is a year of re-reads for me – am enjoying Lydia Davis’s translation of Madame Bovary. I almost never find time for re-reads, but this year I’m almost tempted to let re-reads dominate as it’s good to return to the books you’ve loved enough to keep on your shelves as favourites.
There’s a new Kate Bush album (sort of) to look forward to, Director’s Cut . I’m not sure yet about the single, Deeper Understanding, but some of the previews sound intriguing. Apparently there is a ‘proper’ album on the boil and scheduled – very tentatively – for either later this year or sometime next year.
A few nice things – a story highly commended in the Inktears competition and a poem published in the very nicely-produced The Cathach, the link to The Cathach is here
Hennessy Awards 2011
The Hennessy 2011 award results are out – Siobhan Mannion took the First Fiction award and overall prize with her story ‘Lightning Bugs’ – well done to her. Afric McGlinchey won the Poetry Award with two very spare and beautiful poems – ‘do not lie to a lover’ and ‘Under the heart a horseshoe shape’ – congrats to her. A huge congratulations to Eileen Casey for winning the Emerging Fiction Award with her brilliant story ‘Macaw’. Thrilled for her. Well done Eileen!
Untold London
I blogged about being runner up in the Write Queer London 2011 competition recently. The winning piece and runner up have been put up onto the Untold London site. The link to the poem in question is here.
Flash Story at Necessary Fiction
Gemini Poetry Open Award 2011
Received some wonderful news – I’ve won the Gemini Magazine Poetry Open Award. Gemini Magazine is a quality American short story and poetry magazine and I was honoured to have my poem ‘The Lazarus Dream’ chosen in first place in their 2011 Poetry Open Award. You can check out the site, poem and background to the poem here.
