Incorporating Writing Issue Vol 3

incorporating writing
Issue 4 Vol 3 REVOLUTION REVIEWS Jocelyn Hurndall Lionel Shriver CK Williams Roddy Doyle Anthony Capella and much more
4 pages of opportunities and industry news
George Szirtes - Marina Lewycka - E-Revolution
Incorporating Writing
(ISSN 1743-0380)
Contents
Editorial New to the Neighbourhood Interviews Marina Lewycka George Szirtes
Page
Editorial Team
Managing Editor Andrew Oldham Deputy Editor SE/Interviews Sarah Hesketh Deputy Editor Midlands/Articles Fiona Ferguson Deputy Editor NW/Reviews G.P.Kennedy Sales & Marketing Manager Graeme Hind Columnists Dan McTiernan, Andrew ODonnell, Dave Wood, Sharon Sadle. Contributors Janet Aspey, Claire Boot, Ben Felsenburg, Sara Hymas, James Johnson, Tom Spurling, Bridget Whelan, Rebecca Wombwell Cover Art Samantha Mills Design Marsh Contact Details http://www.incorporatingwriting.co.uk incorporatingmag@yahoo.co.uk
Sarah Hesketh introduces this issue and tells us about her auspicious start.
Sarah Hesketh meets the author.
14 32
Sarah Hesketh catches up with the poet and discusses the future of UEA.
Articles The Name Means Voices
After Tom Spurling tackled travel writing in the last issue, readers have called for more.
5 8
Flax Books: A New Voice
Sara Hymas of Flax Books, tells us about what they hope to achieve.
Words in Wales
literature in Wales.
Claire Boot reveals the new face of
24
Columns A Novel Death
Dan McTiernan talks candidly about his own revolution. EDITORS NOTE: Sharon Sadles column has now come to an end and will be replaced from the next issue.
11
Artwork Perfect Eye
Incorporating Writing is an imprint of The Incwriters Society (UK). The magazine is managed by an editorial team independent of The Societys Constitution. Nothing in this magazine may be reproduced in whole or part without permission of the publishers. We cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, reproduction of articles, photographs or content. Incorporating Writing has endeavoured to ensure that all information inside the magazine is correct, however prices and details are subject to change. Individual contributors indemnify Incorporating Writing, The Incwriters Society (UK) against copyright claims, monetary claims, tax payments / NI contributions, or any other claims. This magazine is produced in the UK. The Incwriters Society (UK) 2005
Cover artist, Samantha Mills, exhibits some of her work.
28
Reviews News and Opportunities
35 47
New to the Neighbourhood

Editorial by Sarah Hesketh
It was hardly the most auspicious of job applications. I had one of the worst colds of my life. Two days after New Year and I was still feeling the after effects of midnight excesses which included making lemon pigs and singing Auld Lang Syne stood on a bench on the top of Parliament Hill. Disastrously, my interview subject had stood me up and so I was forced to cobble together an article based on facts cribbed from a few vague press releases with only a leftover batch of Marks and Spencers reindeer shaped biscuits sustaining my will to live. Yet here I am, newly installed as Incorporating Writings Interviews Editor. Its funny how things can turn out. Ive already had the pleasure of meeting Benedict Allen (frighteningly articulate, anxious to show off his warrior shields) and Daljit Nagra (desperately nice, bought me a cup of tea), and I hope to be bringing you more insightful comment from figures in the culture business in the future. As for this issue which, via the mystical
processes which govern the Incorporating Writing editorial process, has come to hold the title Revolution (in the regions) I can admit to a vested interest in at least two of the pieces. A Lancastrian by birth, the work of Flax publishing goes a long way to dispelling my prejudice that the Northwest has never put much store by its literary talents. East Lancashires top celebrities include: Wallace Hartley fiddled on the Titanic whilst every other sensible bugger was trying to get near a lifeboat, Betty Boothroyd high-kicking former Madam speaker, Carl Fogarty World Superbike legend, and John Simm recent star of BBCs nostalgia-fest Life on Mars and the first and only famous alumni of the now defunct Edge End High School, Nelson. I was sixteen years old before I realised Sylvia Plath was buried up the hill and Mytholmroyd was in fact the birthplace of Ted Hughes, not just a hippy village on the outskirts of Burnley. Although all credit to Accrington Arts Centre for introducing me to my first professional poetry reading. The late, lamented Michael Donaghy arrived late on the rattling Transpennine, looking unsure as to why hed come at all and wondering if he should have brought his passport. More recently, Ive been sampling the heady artistic atmosphere of Norwich. Its a town where you cant move for fear of running into a writers group and a new religion of culture has replaced the old one, as the majority of the citys famously numerous churches are now bookshops, or gallery space or an arts centre. Arts council funding is pouring into the county (in a daring escape bid from the Olympics committee, perhaps?) and my interview
with George Szirtes examines the future of the local monolith that is the UEA Creative Writing Course.
East Lancashires top celebrities include: Wallace Hartley - fiddled on the Titanic whilst every other sensible bugger was trying to get near a lifeboat
Ask me ten years ago to give you an example of regional literature and Id probably have thrust James Herriotts collected works at you books that told me about the landscape in which I was living. Since leaving university I havent lived in the same county for more than nine months, whats my regional character now? Can I still claim to be Lancastrian if no longer pronouce coke and cork exactly the same? Am I going to start searching for justification for my irrational hatred of the Yorkshire cricket team? I genuinely hope not. But as both Szirtes and Marina Lewcyka (both survivors of their own, bloodier revolutions) highlight in this issue, the world gets ever smaller. The massive movements within the EU mean that countries like Poland and Hungary are just as important a part of our region now. Their inhabitants are our neighbours and, important and fun as it is for literature to assert a local character it has to bear in mind that that local character is no longer the figure it once was, and might be as prone to a shot of vodka these days as it is to a pint of Black Sheep. What else do we have in this issue then? Tom Spurling gives us the second of his astonishing reports from South Africa, where revolution is still a dangerous
word. Claire Boot examines the remarkably vibrant potential in that strange negative devolution, exploring how Wales has become the British capital of literary festivals. Marina Lewycka talks about what it means to be a Ukrainian in Yorkshire (and indeed a Yorkshire woman in the Ukraine) and George Szirtes a Hungarian in Norfolk. Plus weve got reviews of Anthony Capella, Roddy Doyle and CK Williams. Not much change from the usual international flavour then. Ive only just moved to the neighbourhood. But its going alright thus far.
Sarah Hesketh is Deputy Editor (SE)/Interviews for Incorporating Writing. Originally from East Lancs she is now enduring the flat lands of Norfolk and studying for an MA in creative writing at UEA.
Incorporating Writing will go quarterly in 2007. Themes for 2007 include FOOD (October). Guidelines can be obtained from the editors below All enquiries and deadline details are available from: Andrew Oldham (Managing Editor) andrew_incwriters@yahoo.co.uk Fiona Ferguson (Articles Editor) articles_incwriters@yahoo.co.uk G.P. Kennedy (Reviews Editor) reviews_incwriters@yahoo.co.uk
CALL FOR WRITERS
www.incorporatingwriting.co.uk
The Name Means Voices

Article by Tom Spurling
A bakkie-load of Shangaan construction workers huddles tightly in their rainbow beanies. The young men slap backs and flash smiles as they scoot past a bevy of Boers dressed head-to-high-knee in khaki. The property developers suck their skafes and puff steam rings through the icy air. Its Wednesday morning in the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estate. Across the R40, a stream of Toyota Hi-Ace taxis pull up in front of La Bamba supermarket. Farmhands and well-made wives banter in circles on the steps and chew fried chips, the air already full of sweat and laughter. Army green safari vehicles crowd the petrol bowsers, and from a cloud of dust comes the inaugural class at the Amazwi School of Media Arts. Here in South Africa, where history is delicate and fresh, revolution is a dangerous word. Hundreds were exiled for imagining a post-Apartheid state, and millions suffered trying to outlive it. But in this sleepy tourist town, on the edge of
Kruger National Park, fifteen young Shangaan and Sotho women are learning to tell their stories straight. Its the first Wednesday of the month, and time for the Editorial Meeting. The first edition of the signature publication, The Amazwi Villager, is just three weeks away, and the students are restless to see their names on the page. Lydia, fresh from her Rise & Shine snack stall, sits quietly in a huge apricot sun hat; Constance dishes out sweet cherry bubblegum at a rand for six pieces; and Maria, the dressmaker, in her black velvet boots and a white woolen sweater, laughs to herself, no longer crying beneath a Marula tree, no longer so ready to quit the bush beat. The newly built classroom of claycoloured concrete, thatched roof and high wooden beams echoes with Tsonga whispers. The students are reluctant to present their new assignment ideas. The editor is ready to bend their ideas to fit.
As one-by-one the topics are revealed, the threads are hope and life and struggle, but death, it seems, is everywhere. Theres a profile of a prosperous coffin-maker, a tombstone carver, an investigation into Burial Societies, a day-in-the-line at a hospital, plus a staple diet of abortion, AIDS and TB.
potato salads, cream-filled fatties, packets of Big Korn, Tupperware containers of thick beef stew, bags of wet peanuts and dry mopane worms. Copies of the Daily Sun change hands like winter gloves, and Gloria, this weeks blogger, writes a celebration of feminine might. According to a survey conducted by the Media Monitoring Project, in 2005, only 26% of news coverage in South Africa focused on women. Furthermore, the huge majority of this coverage presented women in reference to their families, or as unfortunate victims of crime. This in a country with a nearly 52% female population highlights a discrepancy in gender representation. The old boys club, it seems, has only changed colour. Similarly disheartening is the way in which gender stereotypes are upheld by South Africas influential tabloid press. For every story of witchcraft and fraud, it seems there are two dealing with sexual assault. There is a lot of media reporting on rape, states the Media Monitoring Project report Who makes the news?, but it tends to victimize women or keep them silenced. The report continues that, on February 16 2005, a prominent soccer star was charged with raping an underage girl. The married celebrity denied the charge, but much of the media attention was on his celebrity status, rather than the allegations themselves. Likewise, a study in the Rhodes Journalism Review found that South Africas women journalists not face a glass ceiling, but indeed one made of concrete. In light of South African womens misrepresentation in the media, the role of Amazwi, which mean voices in Zulu, is political as much as social. Rural stories struggle to be told in South Africa, as journalists must give precedence to the stories that affect their readers lives. As
Similarly disheartening is the way in which gender stereotypes are upheld by South Africas influential tabloid press
We break for lunch, and the students burst into sing-song relief. Aish, this journalism stuff is too hard! moans Thandi, 22, for whom writing stories is in fact too easy. On her first assignment, Thandi spent an evening at a local shebeen (unlicensed bar), witnessed one stabbing and another near-death, and wrote it all up with poetry and poise. Her Group B teammate, Siphiwe, 27, is a bronze Sotho athlete with high cheekbones the right side stamped with a ceremonial scar and a broad, ready smile. She wants to be a sports broadcaster, but for now, its an illegal immigrant from Mozambique who fills her days. Meanwhile, Bongekile, the accomplished, unofficial matriarch of the group, is trying to sort through the mess of government housing. Revolutions can take at least four drafts to finish, usually handwritten and always double-spaced. Once submitted, everyone heads for Pick n Pay. Like a high school cafeteria, the class-come-newsroom bristles with mess and noise. Milk cartons - Maluti Fresh - twice-fried chicken,
scores of men rush for the cities to find employment, many women are left behind, and life goes on unreported.
Revolutions can take at least four drafts to finish, usually handwritten and always double-spaced
Yet here in the poor northern province of Limpopo, where news is usually bad, the women of Amazwi are blessed with an added responsibility. Rather than merely entertain the urban middle-classes with the oddities of the outback, they must bring everyday life to the breakfast table of the communities in which they live. Its a tough job, but theres no need to hurry. Its slow news that sometimes burns brightest.
Tom Spurling is a freelance travel writer from Melbourne, Australia. He has recently returned from India on assignment for Lonely Planet, and is now a writer-in-residence at Amazwi Media Arts School in rural South Africa. Amazwi, meaning voices in Zulu, trains local women to tell their own stories and to produce a community newspaper. The program also produces a. magazine - Africas first literary journal - which specialises in creative non-fiction inspired by the continent. www.amazwi.org
Flax Books: A New Voice

Article by Sarah Hymas
Litfest, the Lancaster-based literature development agency, has been quietly revolutionizing the approach to regional publishing since its first poetry competition in 1979. The annual festival has a long history of commissioning new work for performance from emergent writers. But never an organization to be static, this has fed the genesis of Flax Books, the new publishing imprint committed to highlighting contemporary voices from Lancashire and Cumbria. There are a host of small presses already in existence, publishing some astounding new work, but none focus solely on these two counties. Is this a rod for our back? Reducing the scope of writers we publish might sound like a recipe for parochialism; but this is not the case. It is the dichotomy of the region, the tension between the rural and urban, the ex-industrial and eco-tourism that were interested in.
The first two anthologies have presented that range of voices, lives and perspectives. It is from this diversity we want to build an identity - not only of excellent production values and spirited writing, but - of a literary ecology that will grow beyond its initial boundaries and fertilise thought and understanding of an area of England that itself is always growing. The two digital anthologies celebrate and explore the potential of digital publishing. It is the inevitable future of literature, if Random House, Bill Gates, Google and the others have their way. This is a publishing revolution that Flax Books are keen to be a part of, and making the most of the medium. There are new sensory possibilities unique to the medium, replacing the tactile with the aural and visual. Audio clips are linked to our anthologies, so the
reader can experience the difference between their reading of a work and the writers reading. The anthologies walk the wire between traditional and contemporary design to reflect the subjects and styles that the writers of this region are absorbed by. They throw the local detail into the global context that Internet distribution offers. Perhaps its best to let featured writers speak for themselves: Its very exciting I think that digital publishing will inevitably become more and more popular in the next few years and so to be in on it at the start, so to speak, is great. The potential readership is phenomenal when you think about it. I like the way the anthology looks as well which is important - its easy to access and visually interesting and of course it can do things that a paper book cant. Traditional forms are still hugely valued, however, and we recognise were not alone in this. The writers in each anthology are provided with publicity materials, specifically postcards, to enable them to promote the work themselves, but also to have something tangible with their work on, that they could pass around to friends and colleagues, a companion to the anthology itself. As well as publishing the best writing of the region, Flax aims to ensure the writers are best prepared to profit from their work being in the world. We are as interested in the professional development of the writer as we are in their writing. To this aim, a bespoke development programme for the published writers has been set up. This includes web-based profiles, skillsexchange schemes and one-to-one mentoring programmes. So the writers we take on need to be committed to this
ethos of a symbiotic relationship, between Flax, themselves, and the other writers in the publication. Ive been amazed really how far that single story and being involved in the Square Cuts stuff has got me. Its done a lot for my confidence and has certainly made it possible to get a little closer to being a real writer - I now have an agent, which wouldnt have happened had I not been chosen for the anthology. Being involved in Flax and the litfest has done more for my career than anything else. I think writers spend so much time on their own tapping at little plastic keys that its very rewarding and reassuring when people who are clearly passionate about literature want to hear your work and believe in what youre doing. The professional development ties in with marketing. We have organised a series of readings for each anthology, and its great to gather most of the writers together, hear the differences and chords in their work. The readings I enjoyed very much, and felt that I was getting better and better each time I read. It was such a confidence boost to have people in the audience and organising the events who were so passionate about writing. The readings were great fantastically organized. The Lancaster reading was the most profitable for me in terms of confidence, exposure and eventual outcome. I met agent, who is now representing me. There are plans for 2008 to publish print volumes that will focus on fewer writers. These also will show an enthusiasm for detail and design, and be books to
continued page 13...
10
Column by Dan McTiernan
A Novel Death
and my mother just couldnt cope with it. At night we drank too much because nobody could sleep; thats what people do in those circumstances and its amazing how prescriptive the process is. On night three I had a blazing row with my mother which when I went to bed felt like the end of our relationship, but in the morning was accepted by both of us as a symptom of bereavement. We both moved on as if it needed to happen but then no longer mattered. - It doesnt get any better, its just that I think about it less often. - Maybe it doesnt. Maybe thats how it works. Its still shit after all. My step-father died unexpectedly of heart failure nearly four months ago at the age of 53. The term step-father immediately gets a different reaction when you tell people the news. Oh, its just your stepfather, thank God its not your real father. Well, even though I resisted his arrival in our lives when I was a hormone-fuelled teenager, he became my father slowly, and my dependence on him and sense of loss at his death, both stand as testament to his success in that role. Step or not, it feels like my dad died. Amongst the tumult of immediate post death activity I noticed myself behaving in a way that seemed familiar to me but only through fiction. I made repetitive phone calls to friends and family in which I broke the news to them, and they reacted like theyre supposed to, with shocked denials and tearstained platitudes, and when I hung up I sat and cried outside in the garden because phoning people is the job nobody wants
Four months later I start to wonder what it is that a novel can teach me about life that I cant learn by simply living it
I was frustrated in the days following his death because I was unable to read. I couldnt concentrate on the words on the page because I was stressed and exhausted and often had had too many glasses of red wine. But surprisingly it was books that kept coming back to me at night. I kept recalling passages from novels I had read that now meant more than they had at the time. The dull shock in Annie Proulxs Shipping News as her protagonist learns of his wifes untimely demise in a car wreck. The weight that ambles behind him like a shadow as he tries to make sense of a life cleaved in two. Or the internal chitter Raskolnikov is plagued by following his murderous act in Crime and Punishment. Even though I hadnt committed a crime, Id never talked to myself as much in my
11
life. I constantly questioned the motivation for my refusal to accept his dinner invitation on the night of his death and repeatedly indulged the regret that I didnt offer more of my time to him whenever he had wanted a chat on the phone. The subconscious language of grief was strangely being translated into plain English through my memory of fictional accounts of loss and disturbance; and while I was unable to read, I contented myself with a time when I could. Four months later I start to wonder what it is that a novel can teach me about life that I cant learn by simply living it. Death, the most natural of states needs to be seen to be believed, but Ive seen it now and am starting to learn. Most obviously the novel gives us the experience by proxy. A novelist opens up worlds and experiences hitherto unheard of and by reading novels we literally transport ourselves to other dimensions. James Hiltons Lost Horizon irrevocably altered the Wests perception of Tibet and the Himalayan region because it was written at a time when hardly anyone white had been there (including the author). But what of the quotidian experience in novels; the daily grind that sometimes serves as a storys necessary backdrop? While the narrative leads us to something out of the ordinary, the majority of Jon McGregors If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things comprises of suburban residents going about the dull minutiae of their lives. Yet what McGregor offers us as a reader rather than as a simple observer of our neighbours washing their cars and putting out their rubbish is a claim to the importance of these events. Everything in a novel is there for a reason and when we experience something similar in reality we may make a subconscious link with its
archetypal fictitious equivalent, imbuing both the real and the unreal with more importance than either would otherwise deserve. Of course Rons death is important regardless of whether Stevens father dies in The Remains of the Day. But I think, had I not been able to judge my reaction to death against Stevens mute frustrating acceptance, my experience may have been different and perhaps less rich.
The clich that when someone dies suddenly you hear people talking about death all around you has been true for me
Frequently my mind slips back to a chapter in Murakamis The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in which the narrator finds himself trapped at the bottom of a dried up well for several days. He mulls over the long story Lieutenant Mamiya had told him about a time during the WWII in which he too found himself trapped at the bottom of a well. Faced with nothing but himself and the dank walls of his prison, Toru Okada finally begins to understand what happened to Mamiya all those years ago. Enveloped in almost total darkness and in terrible pain, Mamiyas despair was dangerously overwhelming until the angle of the sun above him caused a warm shaft of light to bathe his entire body for a few precious seconds before arcing further and returning the well to gloom. Those few seconds became the central point of Mamiyas life and as the same event occurred on each day of his incarceration, the sensation of the importance of this light increased. So much so that when he eventually escaped
12
and, via a Siberian prison camp, made it home years later to Japan, and even nearly forty years subsequently, the ray of sun that touched his skin was still the crowning moment of his life. When I first read that chapter I was moved by the reality of a life that continues beyond a point at which it could happily stop. Mamiya lives for many years after that event but feels like he hasnt really lived a day longer in any meaningful sense. When I sat down to write the first clumsy draft of Rons eulogy, I tried to cling on to that notion at least in some abstract way. It is better to have lived happily for a short time, to have impacted so positively on other peoples lives, than to grow old and not have achieved those things. Perhaps the meaning of Rons life had been fulfilled already and anything else was just a gradual slide into decrepitude and obsolescence. Im not sure I believe that, as I think he still had a huge amount to offer the world, but Im in no doubt that Murakami brought me some solace at the time. A great painter can make us view the physical world around us differently, but a great writer may permanently colour our perception of the internal landscape of emotion. The clich that when someone dies suddenly you hear people talking about death all around you has been true for me. It seems everything I read involves pulmonary edema or men dropping like flies of heart attacks in their early fifties. Ive been on somewhat of a Paul Auster binge lately, feeling the need to start again almost immediately with his next novel after finishing the previous in order to maintain a single tonal clarity to my reading. Auster seems to understand the random brittle nature of our lives in a way that works for me extremely well at the
moment. His books are not short on tragedy and I wonder sometimes if I should be wallowing instead in some puffball soul-massager like the travails of Precious Ramotswe rather than the gritty reality of Brooklyn existentialism. Yet I feel deep comfort in the intensity of Austers writing and understand that what he is saying is not that life is difficult, but simply that life is this and the sooner we can assimilate that notion into ourselves, the sooner we can engage fully with it. The notion of finding real life in the pages of fictional novels may seem bizarre, but the act of reading, like meditation, is one of reflexivity, an investigation of ourselves that means more than the mere act of living and breathing by itself. My mother has asked me to go collect Rons ashes from the funeral director as theyve sent her a letter asking that this happen soon. I dont even know whether theyll be in an urn of some description or just a small cardboard box. Ron used to be six foot three and weighed over twenty stone. He was a sod for not fastening his seatbelt but this is one journey Ill make sure he does.
Writer, magazine editor, film maker and film lecturer, Dan McTiernan schizophrenically wanders through his well travelled working life safe in the knowledge that underneath the media faade, hes really an eco-builder and smallholder.
13
...continued from page 9
treasure, reflecting the passion Flax has for writing, writers and its region. I would absolutely recommend that people send work to Flax. I felt that there was a genuine passion for the writing and a real interest and focus on the writers themselves (which did an awful lot for my confidence as well). The events and the anthology have been produced with professionalism and dedication. You cant ask for much more than that. For more info on Flax Books, see: www.litfest.org
19 Abercromby Square Liverpool, L69 7ZG readers@liv.ac.uk www.thereader.co.uk Website includes news, events, shop, blog, podcasts. First published in 1997, The Reader has always been a platform for passionate responses to literature. If you love reading, youll be delighted to find The Reader, the literary magazine written with you in mind. The Reader organisation also delivers a variety of innovative literary events and community projects in the North West. Subscription: (1 year/4 issues)24
Sarah Hymas is the Publishing Development Manager for Litfest. She edits Flax Books, and organises professional development sessions for writers throughout the region, both on a one-toone basis and for groups. She is also a published poet, most recently in the British Councils New Writing 15, and collaborates with a musician to create sonic art for performance, writes for other performers and is a childrens puppeteer.
14
Marina Lewycka: Tractors and Caravans

Interview by Sarah Hesketh Photos by Ian Phillpott
15
It is a shame really, sighs Marina Lewycka, but Ukraine is a new country trying to find its place in Europe, and I can understand it doesnt want to be represented on the world stage by a woman with enormous breasts and an incontinent old man. I hear its going into Chinese shortly, though. Its certainly a heavy dose of irony to bear, that despite the thirty or so languages Lewyckas best-selling first novel, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, has been translated into, it remains unavailable in her mother tongue. Beloved by book groups and critics alike, the tractors book as she likes to shorthand it, got a spot on the Orange shortlist, saw her become the first woman to win the Wodehouse Prize and was a favourite with the nations over fifties, picking up the Saga Award for Wit. Her new novel, Two Caravans, (at a recent appearance at the UEA Literary Festival, an audience member queried whether all her books were going to feature some form of transport) continues with the theme of the immigrant experience, exploring the adventures of a group of Ukrainians and Poles who are trying to earn themselves a piece of the good life, fruit-picking in the fields of Kent. With current political wranglings about EU expansion, and this years May Day march focusing on the rights of migrant workers, she certainly seems to have produced a timely set of books. But was that a deliberate move? Not at all, she insists. There were two other unpublished novels before the Tractors book, and a lot of false starts as well. I think that I was aware that theres been a huge surge in interest in migrant literatures. But I think the main reason it was so successful was that the story about the older man who falls in love with the younger woman is an age old story, its universal. With the new book it was less of a coincidence, because when Id finished the tractors book my husband shoved this pamphlet into my hands and
said, Oh, youll be interested in this. It was called Gone West: Ukrainians at work in Britain Today and it had just been published by someone from the TUC. I thought, oh, theres a story in this, and indeed there was.
She cites James Joyce as one of her greatest loves, and isnt it a terrible Joycean thing, to hang your work on the framework of someone elses writing?
Her new novel certainly seems more socially aware than the first, with its cast of migrants, traffickers and employers quite happy to exploit their cheap workforce. Was it a conscious shift away from the family-oriented focus of the first book? Well, I started off quite happy to write a sequel, and everybody said, no, you mustnt do that. Sequels never do well. And then as Tractors was more and more successful my publisher said, well, actually, do you think you could manage a bit more of the same? So I sort of went for the same but different. So its still a story about migration and people starting off in one culture and ending up in another. I very much wanted these characters that had brought their stories with them and were acting them out in a strange and sometimes completely inappropriate setting. Theyre all still living through those issues and dilemmas which really belong in their home country and not in England at all. And I just hope it doesnt put too many people off because when people say the phrase condition of England novel my heart sinks really. But I guess if Im honest, that was part of what I had in mind. And of course, in both books theres this
16
Interview by Alexander Laurence sense of these huge global churnings and people being swept around and swept out and being put on trains and ending up in completely different places. Its the same huge churn and upheaval that happened after the Second World War, but its just got a different name now. Its globalisation.
suppose, but also beautiful. To be out in the fields, in the sunshine, and to feel part of this community. And along with the dangers faced by migrant workers, I wanted to capture some of that wonderful feeling in Caravans. Its a dichotomy perhaps represented in the choice of her epigraph from Chaucer, being preceded by a dedication to the Chinese cockle-pickers who died working off the coast of Morecambe Bay. It is a bit of a strange contrast, she admits. But you know, recently weve all this commemorative stuff about the abolition of slavery. But you have to remember that now, on the shores of the Mediterranean, bodies of young African men are being washed ashore every week. But people dont call it slavery anymore because its a part of these huge movements of labour. It was such a hugely ambitious thing, but I wanted to try and encapsulate that movement in two caravans. Two tiny spheres. Originally it was going to be one caravan which was going to be like a small round thing perched on the top of a hill and it had the whole world inside it, but of course that didnt really work, but that was definitely the image I started with. So what about the Chaucerian aspects of the book? Well, what I hoped I took from him was the sense of fun combined with quite a serious purpose. Structurally, also, its kind of Chaucer in reverse, all these characters starting together, but then spinning out. I think the interesting thing about Chaucer is he never overcame his structural problems. He never even finished the Canterbury Tales. Hed set himself an impossible task really, but he doesnt let that get in the way of his sheer enjoyment and the characters. It still sparkles, that sheer sense of fun and pleasure which you get from reading it.
Youve lived all your life as one person and suddenly, just as youre thinking of retiring you become another person
Its thanks to that historical churning that Lewyckas family found themselves in England. (Well, Ive always thought of myself as thoroughly English really.) She was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, and by a stroke of luck her family found themselves in the British occupied zone at the end of the war. It was a complete chance of history, because my mother was from Eastern Ukraine and should really have been sent back. But her father was moving around at the time she was born, in what was at one time Poland. So for the purposes of migration she was classed as Polish and she was allowed to stay. But otherwise they would have been sent back and put into the camps. Her family started life in the UK in a refugee camp in Surrey, before moving to Sussex, when we lived with Malcolm Muggeridges mother-in-law, she muses. Mum was basically a domestic and dad went off and drove tractors somewhere, in fact. He worked as an agricultural worker and then it was after the war ended, when I was about three or four, that we moved up to Yorkshire. She recalls this time, working with her mother in the fields as a picker, as an extremely happy one. It was objectively horrible I
17
I started off quite happy to write a sequel, and everybody said, no, you mustnt do that. Sequels never do well
18
For the avid reader, there are a set of correspondences to be spotted between her own characters and those of Chaucers pilgrims. Martha, for example, is a kind of prioress figure. You know, the fact that she loves animals, and shes very dainty in her eating habits. I didnt want to put a little pendant in and make it too obvious, but she does speak French youll notice and all of them have got a kind of Chaucerian equivalent.
My parents were certain that their familiy wouldnt survive, but they did
She cites James Joyce as one of her greatest loves, and isnt it a terrible Joycean thing, to hang your work on the framework of someone elses writing? Well, its a game, really, isnt it. Its fun. Its a game that you play with your readers, though not with all your readers because not all your readers want to play that game. But for those readers who do like Chaucer like I do, its an extra little something. And its the same with the Bob Dylan lyrics really, thats a similar sort of game. Though there are some parts where Tomasz makes pronouncements which sound as if they ought to be Bob Dylan but actually theyre not. I made them up. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Tractors book, and one of the most praised aspects of her writing, is Lewyckas ability to transcribe the slightly broken English of her characters, as it sounds to the ear. I think that was the mistake of my nonpublished novels, that they were actually very literary, which now seems very oldfashioned. But Ive always had a very good ear for listening to sounds and rhythms. Im very good at poetic forms
like sonnets and villanelles. And so I really wanted to write a novel in a kind of demotic voice because I think the demotic voice is the contemporary voice as well. Moving from talking in a certain voice to writing in that voice is a very big step. But actually, once you hear the rhythm you dont have to hear the exact sentence, and often its just to do with the absence of articles. Ive found posts on blogs by Russians or Poles and theyre wonderful, theyre magic because they just come straight out with these wonderful sounds and you think, God, I wish I could write like that. Its Polish immigrants that have taken the share of media attention in Britain thus far. Which is very nice for the Poles but its very hard for the Ukrainians being out of the EU. Because theyve always been very close as nations, and one lot being in and one lot being out is very difficult for them. The Ukraine has applied to join, but they wont be allowed to. Possibly ever, certainly not for 20 years. Its all to do with this terrible phrase, enlargement fatigue. And now there are all these issues about Turkey and I dont know what will happen. But it does seem terribly unfair that the Ukraine shouldnt be in. Because Ukraine is no longer in the Soviet Union, its not in the European Union, so where is it? What theyre going to try and do is shove it into NATO which will actually be a very destructive thing because the Eastern part of Ukraine really wont accept NATO. Whereas the western part will probably be very keen on NATO, so that will exacerbate that split. The whole countrys basically split between a pro-Russian half and a pro-Western half. Her writing has certainly brought her closer to her Ukrainian heritage, and even brought about a reunion with some longcontinued page 21...
19
portraitsiberuttrek
21
...continued from page 18
lost relatives via the magic of the internet. My parents were certain that their familiy wouldnt survive, but they did. Whilst researching her family history for Tractors, she made a tape of her mother, recounting details of her past. After mum died I realised that there really wasnt enough there to make a story and I was going to have to make a lot of it up. But when I was reunited with the family in the Ukraine I discovered that my mums sister was still alive and she had no idea what had happened. She was seven or eight years younger than my mum and her sister had just sort of vanished into thin air. But I still had this tape and suddenly I was able to give her a tape of her sister, speaking in her own language. It was so lovely and so sad. So not just a bestseller and a strong future career as a novelist, but a new
family of sorts, as well? Yes, it was very nice. But it is also very strange to have such major upheavals so late in life. Youve lived all your life as one person and suddenly, just as youre thinking of retiring you become another person. She smiles and you can definitely hear the Yorkshire twang. No Ukrainians in the next book.
www.incwriters.co.uk Incwriters Award 2008

Outstanding Contribution to Literature (Magazines)
Are you a magazine with Literature and Arts content? Would you like support in kind worth up 1500? Then enter your magazine for the 2008 award, entry forms and further details can be found at: www.incwriters.co.uk/award.htm Incwriters is a promoter and e-publisher, founded in 2002. It continues to be a one stop shop for readers, writers and promoters. The website is run by members of Incwriters. It is free to join and have a voice in the world of Literature. The site has free downloads, audio, imprints, forum, chatroom and much more. Judges for 2008 are Andrew Oldham (Incwriters Founder), Libby Tempest (Manchester Libraries), G.P. Kennedy (Reviews Editor for Incorporating Writing), Steven Waling (Poet, published by Salt and Smith/Doorstep) and William Park (Magazine Listings Editor and published by Spike). For further information contact Claire Summers, info@incwriters.co.uk This site is welcome alternative to the world of glossy promotion and gross retailing. Makes you feel that writing matters, and that it is thriving in all manner of ways - David Constantine, Modern Poetry in Translation. Has everything you are ever likely to need know about poets and poetry - Orbis
If one word sums up Incwriters, we could choose no better one than integrity - Quarterly Tadeeb International
Red Ink 2/Summer 2007 (ISSN 1751-1496) 2.50
Eds. Peter Lewin & Andrew Oldham Cover Art: Lisha Aquino Rooney Poetry: Jadwiga Kindermann, Ashley Chantler, Naomi Bagel, Jacqui Dunne, Matthew Griffiths, Chishimba Chisala, Matthew Friday, F.J. Milne, Peter de Ville. Story: Gemma Caunce. A PDF magazine publishing a series of poems by poets and publishing prose of any length from microshorts to novellas. This issue sees exceptional work from Naoimi Bagel and Gemma Caunce, a prose writer to look out for. With over 40pp in each issue, buy a one issue or subscribe for two years for tiny sumof 7.50
Anthills and Stars by Kevin Duffy (Bluemoose Books ISBN 0955336708ISBN 13: 9780 955336706) 7.99
Fiction. It's 1968, and in Paris the students are rioting but in Broughton, 20 miles East of Manchester the Permissive Society has just arrived, driving a multi coloured VW camper van...Mrs. Hebblethwaite thinks the devil himself has arrived, he has. Bluemoose is part of the Incwriters Affiliate Scheme, for further information on the scheme, email info@incwriters.co.uk
The Bridge Between By Nathan Vanek (Bluemoose Books ISBN 0955336716 ISBN13:9780955336713) 7.99.
Non Fiction. Born and raised in Toronto, Nathan Vanek, Yogi and Guru,spent much of his adult life in India.He communicates the essence of his knowledge and insights into the dramatic contrasts between the two countries, and the essential oneness of us all. Bluemoose is part of the Incwriters Affiliate Scheme, for further information on the scheme, email info@incwriters.co.uk
ALL TITLES AVAILABLE FROM WWW.INCWRITERS.CO.UK/SHOP.HTM

For further information on any titles, email the book team at bookteam@incwriters.co.uk
24
Words in Wales
Article by Claire Boot
Wales is big on words. Actually, about six foot six big. Thats the size of the letters over the entrance of the new Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff. Home to Wales national dance, opera and literature promotion companies and to an alien hospital run by un-Hippocratic cat nuns in the BBCs Doctor Who its a veritable powerhouse for culture and the arts. As the writing on the wall over the entrance declares, In these stones horizons sing. It also says, Creu gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen, which translates as Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration. For not only is Wales big on words, but we have twice as many to play with. Welsh is the most ancient language in Britain, most closely related to Cornish and Breton but very much alive and kicking. Gone are the days when Welsh schoolchildren were beaten for speaking in their mother tongue; today, theyre eligible to win 10,000 for Welsh Book of the Year. Currently, one in
five people in Wales speak Welsh and its a policy of the Welsh Assembly (our version of the Scottish Parliament) to make Wales a truly bilingual country. Writing in Wales is enriched by bilingualism. Were not talking straightforward signpost-style translation Millennium Stadium versus Stadiwm y Mileniwm, for example but the creative cross-pollination of different phonetics, phrasings and philosophies. Bilingualism means that our small country sustains two high quality literary magazines, the New Welsh Review in English and Taliesin in Welsh. A470, the quarterly magazine of the Welsh national literature promotion agency Academi, is named for the mother road that links north to south. Split evenly between Welsh and English, it features independently-written articles on literary news and events this side of the Severn Bridge. Competitions for poetry, fiction and drama in either language regularly bubble up. As well as a Welsh writer getting their hands on a nice
25
trophy and a nicer cheque for the Book of the Year, as mentioned above, theres an English language category too. The recently announced short-list showcases an impressive variety of works; there are essays on climbing by Jim Perrin, a Welsh Arabian Nights from Lloyd Jones and lyrical poetry by Christine Evans for the English, with a biography of Welsh nationalist Saunders Lewis from T. Robin Chapman, historical fiction by Gwen Pritchard Jones and a Cardiff-based novel from Llwyd Owen for the Welsh. Both winners will be announced in a glittering ceremony in the Cardiff Hilton on July 9.
festivals, celebrating Welsh art and culture find their beginnings in 1176. Lord Rhys of Cardigan invited poets and musicians from across Wales to his manor and duly rewarded the best with a seat at his lordships table. Over eight hundred years later, writers are among those who have made a significant contribution to Welsh culture from opera singer Bryn Terfel to rugby player Gareth Edwards still honoured with election to the Gorsedd (throne or high seat) of Bards at the annual National Eisteddfod. At the other end of the timeline, the nineyear-old BayLit Festival in Cardiff Bay is becoming a regular fixture in the literary calendar. This years events saw collaborations between Welsh and Catalan writers, an open mic evening for emerging performance poets and a thoroughly genteel face-off between Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate, and Gwyn Thomas, National Poet for Wales. Motion and Thomass readings of and musings on poetry were chaired by Gwyneth Lewis, herself a former National Poet for Wales and the person responsible for shaping those words on the front of the WMC from suggestions by over one thousand people. Dylan Thomas, probably Wales most famous literary export, inspired his birthplace the ugly, lovely, town of Swansea to establish an annual festival as well as a theatre, an arts centre and a literary prize in his honour. In fact, Thomas-related festivities abound; this spring saw the inaugural Laugharne Weekend in the small town where his beloved Boathouse still stands. The Weekend, fittingly eclectic, went from Keith Allen to Rachel Tresize via a live reading of cult film Twin Town with Rhys Ifans and a discussion on life on the run with Howard Marks. Theres a few more Welsh-born writers waiting in the wings for an eponymous
This revolution may not be televised, but its certainly worth watching. And it is not that this surge of literary and cultural activity is a new thing; its artistic soul is as old and as deeply embedded as its ancient stones
Thanks to bilingualism, we have literary festivals coming out of our ears not bad for a country where sheep outnumber people four to one. In fact, according to the Arts Council of Wales, one in five Welsh adults attended an arts festival in 2005. The Hay Festival in Powys, famously described by Bill Clinton as the Woodstock of the mind, attracts around 80,000 visitors each year alone, thereby engulfing the towns resident population of 1,450. With 39 bookshops stocking an estimated one million books, Hay-on-Wye is a magnet for writers and readers outside of festival week too. Words also enjoy a prominent position in the Eisteddfodau. These gatherings, or
26
festival. Much-loved childrens author Roald Dahl was born in Cardiff to Norwegian parents and christened in the Norwegian Church now standing in Cardiff Bay. The Welsh capital also produced Andrew Davies, the literary adaptation supremo responsible for small-screen versions of Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House and The Line of Beauty. And, bringing us back to where we started with cat nuns in Cardiff, Swansea boasts Doctor Who dynamo Russell T Davies as one of its own. This revolution may not be televised, but its certainly worth watching. And it is not that this surge of literary and cultural activity is a new thing; its artistic soul is as old and as deeply embedded as its ancient stones. Its not a sudden uprising from within, but a growing awareness from without; from the rest of the UK and beyond. The revolution has arrived simply because the rest of the world has begun to sit up and take notice.
Claire Boot finds herself back in Wales after stints in England, Benin, Liberia, South Africa and the USA. Phew. She might just stay put for a while, unless or until another globe-trotting opportunity comes her way.
27
Samantha Mills
incorporating Eye: Perfect writing
28
29
Lisha Aquino Rooney
30
Lisha Aquino Rooney
Samantha Mills surface images are 31 based on photographing vernacular surfaces (details from different images appear here as the final prints are larger than A4 - contact artist for dimensions and costs) that are deconstructed and digitally manipulated, to enhance the surface for various types of media. The image of Lost and singer influenced by the punk era and fly posting on various surfaces that are worn away to create a vernacular artwork and textured surface, which leads on to the red rubber laminate and liquid design thestudy of deconstructed materials to create surfaceImages by photographing and manipulation of surfaces, for surface pattern for various media. E: sjmillsdesigns@aol.com
Interview by Sarah Hesketh Photographs by Caroline Forbes
32 George Szirtes: Revolution
I think Norfolk has increasingly come to act as a kind of antithesis to Budapest
Lisha Aquino Rooney
33
If you wanted a measure of exactly how pervasive the arts are in Norwich, then you need look no further than a recent piece of graffiti scrawled above the cashpoint outside the city centre Tesco Metro. Instead of the usual expletives the green chalk screams enthusiastically Kiss my Art Hole! Its over thirty years now since Malcolm Bradbury first set up shop at UEA, establishing what is still referred to as The Creative Writing course. The names McEwan, Ishiguro and Tremain have become a kind of local mantra, but with recent headline grabbing appointments like that of Martin Amis at Manchester, and the current explosion of creative writing courses in higher education across Britain, can Norwich really hang onto its status as Englands centre of literary excellence? Well, muses George Szirtes, in his gently blinking way, That will depend on the quality of the course, the staff and the level of investment. Szirtes has acted as tutor on the poetry strand of the UEA MA course for a number of years now, and this year saw his student numbers fall to an all-time low of just three. Which is probably down to a number of factors. Applications for arts MA courses were down across the board this year and were not quite sure why. It might have something to do with top-up fees coming in people certainly seem to be waiting a few years after their BA to come back to creative writing, which in my opinion is no bad thing. We certainly had more than three applications this year, but Denise [Riley his co-tutor] is not one to stint on quality, and get bums on seats for the sake of it. The defection of Patricia Duncker (also to Manchester) seems to have heralded a new awareness in the UEA corridors that now is not the time to be complacent about their reputation, and a recent
restructuring programme has seen Lavinia Greenlaw poached from the rival course at Goldsmiths and current hot property Giles Foden drafted in to address what was perhaps perceived as a lack of big-name tutors. I think the chances are good for UEA maintaining its reputation for unearthing the best new talent. Partly because of the long tradition here, but also because of Norfolk itself. I suspect Norfolk is on the rise and the proximity of Norwich to the sea on the one hand and to London and Cambridge on the other might be a draw. Szirtes and his family first moved to Norfolk in 1994. For the terribly prosaic reason of employment. Norwich Art School has always contributed as much as UEA to the artsy vibe of the city, Its students certainly tend to get out more, I think. And I was asked to design and deliver a creative writing course as part of the Cultural Studies BA. His wife, an artist and photographer, took up a teaching post at a local school and the two have been settled in the local village of Wymondham ever since. It certainly seems a remarkably settled end for a writer who was born at the centre of a metropolitan, European conflict. Szirtes was five years old when he and his family fled Hungary after the 1956 uprising, slipping over the Austrian border in the middle of the night. They came to England as refugees and it wasnt until 1984 that Szirtes began to actively write about his native city of Budapest. His most recent collections The Budapest File and the TS Eliot Prize winning Reel have both returned again and again to the city of his birth and most of his poetry seems deeply rooted to a sense of place, or rather an exiles uncertainty and fascination with place. So has Norfolk entered that catalogue of imaginative landscapes upon which he
34
can draw? I think Norfolk has increasingly come to act as a kind of antithesis to Budapest. Theyre the landscapes that have book-ended my life. Budapest is urban, European, war- and revolutiontorn, and much changed. Norfolk represents not violent change but erosion, a kind of residual version of pastoral. That is to put it rather crudely. Budapest is fast, spectral, troubled, filmic: Norfolk is slow, natural, communal and ageing. It is itself a residual part of a historical England I recognise from my early years in the country. His own sonnet sequence, Backwaters: Norfolk Fields, dealt explicitly with Norfolk as a real and imaginative landscape. It was dedicated to the then living, WG Sebald, another foreign writer who settled here, of course. And in another related long poem, Meeting Austerlitz a Norfolk field is the cross-over point where I meet with the ghost of Sebald. Ive also written quite a lot of poems about the coast and about the local area generally but they tend not to be purely descriptive but part of an attempt to understand England, its history, and my own place in it. As well of course as the history I bring with me. His fellow UEA tutors also seem to be catching the Norfolk bug. Trezza Azzopardis new novel Winterton Blue is set in a nearby town. I think there is in fact a strange power in the place. But what about its relative isolation from the rest of the country? Does that help or hinder the work thats produced here? It is a predominantly white area, though that is changing. I dont imagine it becoming a centre for hip-hop in the near future, but it has a big international student population and large numbers of poor immigrant workers from various parts of the New Europe. It is slowly unbending. Our street in Wymondham has Australians, Russians, poets and
artists. And we already have about fifteen poets signed up for next years course, he smiles. Theres room for a little more literature yet.
I think the chances are good for UEA maintaining its reputation for unearthing the best new talent. Partly because of the long tradition here, but also because of Norfolk itself
35
Tuck In
Reviews column by G.P.Kennedy World, as reviewer Janet Aspey asks us to, Imagine if you will the plot of Sliding Doors, Gwyneth Paltrow wearing a particularly unattractive, mousy wig, bad clothes and a permanently solemn expression!
By looking at titles that are current or classic, in book form or other media, across the myriad genres of literature, I hope you will be both entertained and inspired
Welcome to the Reviews section of our wonderful magazine. This issues offerings remain faithful to my quest to offer a tranche of the literary world that brings interest, variety and innovation. By looking at titles that are current or classic, in book form or other media, across the myriad genres of literature, I hope you will be both entertained and inspired. The featured review for this issue is Defy the Stars, Jocelyn Hurndalls stunning biography of her photojournalist son, Tom, who was killed on the Gaza Strip as he carried a Palestinian child to safety. Reviewer Ben Felsenburgs piece tackles the bristling subject matter with his trademark brio coupled with candour and acumen. We enjoy a bright and breezy tackling of Lionel Shrivers latest, The Post Birthday The reviews section is burgeoned further by Pulitzer-winning poet CK Williams celebrated Collected Poems, and the book on tape version, or more accurately on CD, of Roddy Doyles rip-roaring Paula Spencer. Last but by no means subject to clich we welcome aboard a new reviewer as recent Fine Art graduate Rebecca Wombwell serves us a consummate micro review of Anthony Capellas epicurean delight, The Food of Love. Tuck in.
GP Kennedy is the Deputy Editor (NW)/Reviews. He is a writer, lover of language and would-be goliard. Further he is a passionate pedagogue and an alliteration amateur. Deep-down he still wants to be a professional goalkeeper.
36
Featured Review Defy The Stars: The Life And Tragic Death Of Tom Hurndall by Jocelyn Hurndall with Hazel Wood Bloomsbury hardback 16.99, April 2007 ISBN 978 0 7475 8944 0
heard about Rachel he wanted to see what was going on in Gaza, Mohammed says in Defy The Stars, Jocelyns account of her quest to understand the circumstances of the shooting, and her pursuit of justice from the Israeli authorities. From his mothers depiction Tom was clearly a young man of almost manic energy and unashamedly high-principled, known by his family and friends as one of those rare types who never look the other way; instead, he kept an eye out for the younger kids who were prey for the bullies and muggers of Tufnell Park in north London. In her eyes, his leap into international politics through the ISM was a natural extension of his personality. Others might have seen the Old Wkyehamist as naive, a bizarrely inverted successor to his public school imperialist forebears who had journeyed out to the Middle East to impose their idealistic visions of how the world should be, but for his mother, Toms journey out to Iraq to be a human shield in the run-up to the 2003 war was true to the boy who even as a toddler was forever wanting to see over walls and around corners. After Iraq she had lost contact with Tom somewhere in Jordan. The next she knew of him was the dreadful call that effectively told her that that, though his body would survive
Cui bono? Its a question that needs to be asked of the killing Tom Hurndall, the twenty-one-year-old International Solidarity Movement activist who was shot in the head by an Israel Defence Force sniper in April 2003, dying nine months later, having never emerged from the coma he entered almost immediately. Hurndall was the campaigning organisations second martyr of the year: Rachel Corrie had been felled by an IDF Caterpillar bulldozer just weeks before. Indeed, according to Mohammed, the young Palestinian man Toms mother Jocelyn Hurndall met in Rafah, the Gaza town where her son had arrived just days before he was mortally wounded at a checkpoint there, Corries death drove him to come. Tom told me that when he
37
a while, really now he was gone.
Tom was clearly a young man of almost manic energy and unashamedly high-principled, known by his family and friends as one of those rare types who never look the other way
Jocelyns book has been co-authored with a professional writer, Hazel Wood, and there are many neat turns of phrases and pat descriptions that read untruly voiced. In between, the emotions of Jocelyns experience have been caught in aspic, sometimes with curious results: much play is made of the fact that one Israeli doctor explained Toms injuries were commensurate with those inflicted by a baseball bat attack. Its understandable that at the time, bewildered and angry, she should have misunderstood this to be a suggestion he had not been shot, but surely it was simply an illustrative description? As Jocelyn wanders through the oppressive environment and complex issues of Gaza, its again understandable that she should subscribe to the simple mantras supplied by those who had befriended Tom in his final days, but still the comparisons with a concentration camp and an apartheid state, at one point on a single page, are reductive and blas. Its odd too, considering the many suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli citizens at the time, that Jocelyn finds the security checks she finds everywhere almost provocative. These thoughts belong to the instant judgement of a journal, not the reflection of retrospect.
At the time Tom came to Rafah the second intifada had run for almost three years, and thousands had already died. The town was known to be one of the main tunnel runs from Egypt through which the resistance, or terrorists, were supplied with weapons and explosives. Anyone coming in could expect to find a high level of military activity and consequently that they would be exposed to risk should they attempt to obstruct the business of either side in what was effectively a war. Handsome Tom Hurndall and Corrie now the subject of the internationally lauded play My Name Is Rachel Corrie have been harvested by the movement for their names and images to become a rallying call for radical students in search of a cause. The sniper who shot Tom has been sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter by an Israeli court, but she sees the Bedouin semiliterate as a fall guy for the army and authorities. Its worth asking to what extent the ISM who fired Toms passion and facilitated his journey envisaged the possible consequences and profit of putting youthful idealists in harms way, yet the question is too terrible to contemplate for a bereaved mother who has nothing left of her son but his ideals. Ben Felsenburg
39
The Post-Birthday World Lionel Shriver HarperCollins, 2007 15.00 ISBN 978 0 00 724341 9 517pp
up with Ramsey Acton to celebrate his birthday, something she has always done with Lawrence for several years. It is this evening that acts like a coat hook for the rest of the novel. Irina has her very own sliding doors or should I say sliding kiss moment. Should she kiss the mockernee Cockernee, leather jacket wearing snooker player, Ramsey Acton, whom she suddenly finds attractive after several glasses of wine and a doobie, or should she run into the bathroom, resist the kiss and thereby stay faithful to preppily dressed, nice but boring, Lawrence. She does both, and so we follow her for the rest of the novel in two parallel narratives. Imagine if you will, the plot of Sliding Doors, Gwyneth Paltrow wearing a particularly unattractive, mousy wig, bad clothes and a permanently solemn expression, and you get close to both the plot and the protagonist of Shrivers latest novel The Post-Birthday World. Irina McGovern, a shy childrens book illustrator with Reynauds disease, has long lived under the shadow of her longterm partner, Lawrence. He is an intellectual snob who, we are repeatedly told, works at a think tank specialising in terrorism. Sex is routine, they dont kiss, and evenings consist of reading the Daily Telegraph, watching Newsnight Review, and eating homemade popcorn. When Lawrence goes away on a business trip, Irina feels lost and reluctantly meets
I kept asking myself how Shriver could hit me in the chest and eviscerate my senses
And this would be fine if Shriver allowed us to care for her characters. I wanted to care about them. I wanted to find both of the men attractive in their different ways. Most of all I wanted to like Irina and care about what happened to her. Sadly, I did not. But for the writing of this review, I would barely have got past the first few pages. I kept asking myself how Shriver could hit me in the chest and eviscerate my senses, as she did in We need to talk
40
about Kevin only to desensitise me to the point of annoyance with The PostBirthday World? Why is the former such a strong competent novel, and why is this simply not?
In the most part, it is badly written, particularly whenever Ramsey is talking. It doesnt sound real, and the condescending air in which it is written makes it very hard for the reader to see him as anything other than a two dimensional character
My answer mainly comes in the form of Shrivers dialogue. In the most part, it is badly written, particularly whenever Ramsey is talking. It doesnt sound real, and the condescending air in which it is written makes it very hard for the reader to see him as anything other than a two dimensional character. With lines such as Thats bleeding decent of you, pet. and Its queer how the thing what attracted you to someone is the same as what you come to despise about them as well as constantly calling women bird, grates to the extreme. Speech rhythms that make accented speech so interesting are not present and are replaced by confused tenses and, worse, confused regional dialects. I kept expecting Ramsey to start dancing with his snooker cue and start singing snooker loopy in a chim chiminee chim chim charoo style. Then there is the plausibility of the worlds Shriver is creating. This was never in doubt throughout Kevin. Unfortunately,
it never is anything but doubtful in Post-Birthday World. The twenty plus mentions of Lawrence working in a think tank does not make me believe purely on its being repeated to me. Nor is it enough to name drop famous snooker players or show Irina having a conversation with Mrs John Parrot to believe in her version of the world of snooker. Then there is the crucial character of Irina herself. She always reads more like a self-plugging tool for Shriver than as a character in her own right. I wish she had read another newspaper, other than the one Shriver writes for, I wish she hadnt got Reynauds disease, like Shriver herself, and I wish she had even described a different dress for Irinas award ceremony than the one Shriver wore when she won the Orange Prize. If you are not acquainted with Shrivers work then do not make this your introduction. It lets down her talent as a writer and is nothing short of a disappointment. Read We need to talk about Kevin and leave this one on the bookshop shelves. Janet Aspey
41
Collected Poems C. K. Williams Bloodaxe 2006 20 ISBN 1 85224 753 3 682 pp

years of fatherhood and father-loss. I feel the heat of his rage and I am again a television viewing, newspaper reading witness to events too shameful to be forgotten. I share his half hour wait in a dead mining town and look into the same mirror and feel the same cooling breeze; and its not daunting at all. There is a voice here that is tender and compelling and very human; but I dont want to give a misleading impression. Williams is not an easy read, or a comfortable one.
Holding a mans life in your hands is daunting, especially when you are required to review it. Collected Poems was published by Bloodaxe to celebrate C.K Williamss 70th birthday and it covers four decades in chronological order. Described frequently as the modern Walt Whitman, the Princeton professor has been awarded numerous literary prizes, including a Pulitzer. Called the most challenging American poet of his generation on the back cover, Williams is sometimes simply described as the best. And here he is, sandwiched between 682 pages, and hes on my desk. So, no pressure then. I open it up at random. I dip through the
Williams is not comfortable but he is often right

His road to poetry was not entirely easy either. A child of the Depression, he was born in the year that also produced MASH actor and all-round good guy Alan Alda, and I sense a kind of brotherhood and gentleness of intelligence in these East Coast men, but Alda was born to acting in a way that Williams was not born to words. He was a jock, a college basketball player, who felt that there had to be more to life than dunking. He found what he was seeking in an English course that he was forced to take and crossed over to the nerds. Poetry didnt find me in the cradle, or anywhere near it, he said later. I found it. His first important poem was A Day for Anne Frank published in 1969 and it is also the first poem in this collection. It is
42
hard to understand how the Holocaust could have passed by an educated young man growing up in a Jewish family in the 1940s and 50s he suggests it was both too shattering and too shameful for his parents generation to mention - but Williams first learnt the truth from a friend when he was 22.
His passion for politics remains but he is equally clear sighted about the personal. In Waking Jed he watches his baby son. I insist, he resists, and then, with abrupt, wriggling grace, he otters down from sight One of the last poems in this collection Cassandra, Iraq captures the sense which all of us who were opposed to the war in Iraq feel when we hear the news. There can be no satisfaction in knowing that every day we are vindicated on the streets of Basra. Because we, in our foreseeings, our having been right, are repulsive to ourselves, fat and immobile, like toads. Not toads in the garden, who after all are what they are, but toads in the tale of death in the desert of sludge. As one toad to another, I warned you: Williams is not comfortable but he is often right. Bridget Whelan
Anne Frank contains images that still hurt to read, as when he imagines Gestapo children tumbling in haystacks of hair
He agonised over an epic poem on the subject. He wrote and rewrote it, never satisfied with the result, until he started to compose a letter to a newspaper arguing that Civil Rights activists were wrong to link American racism with the brutality of Nazi anti-Semitism. After a few sentences Williams realised that he was the one who was wrong. the black experience was, indeed, as bad as it seemed, worse than it seemed. The poem and the rest of his poetry grew out of an ability to question his own cherished convictions and forge them into something intellectually more rigorous and morally more honest. Anne Frank contains images that still hurt to read, as when he imagines Gestapo children tumbling in haystacks of hair. Their mothers must have thrown them into their tubs Like puppies and sent them to bed Coming home so filthy stinking Of jews hair Of gold fillings, of eyelids
43
Paula Spencer (Audio CD) Roddy Doyle Random House Audiobooks 2006 16.99 ISBN - 1846570360
daughters, has mesmerised readers across the globe into a better understanding of the paradox that is Eires two-headed dragon, a land divided yet not conquered. Which makes the unmitigated disaster of Paula Spencer such a head butt to the face.
Listening to a novel on an audio CD is a curiously deflating experience. If youre used to the touch of a rough book spine nestled in the palm of your hand, the revelry of time lost whilst devouring lines as copiously as you might grainy images from a porno movie, then the audio CD can only be a mockery. Perhaps therein lies the earth-shattering fault at the heart of listening, not reading. For the width and breadth of his literary career, Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle has traversed the ever mutating landscape of his homeland Ireland, scarred as it is by the political complexities of a country buried for years in the shifting tides of IRA terrorism and inordinate poverty. His rich canon of characters, each an embodiment of the changing face of Irelands sons and
As Ireland breathes in the smoke-free air of economic independence, so Paula sees her way clear of the stale fumes of seventeen years of spousal abuse and alcoholism
Paula Spencer is his second novel to use the same title character, returning ten years later to the heroine he punchbaged onto the page in his superbly astute 1996 peon classic The Woman Who Walked Into Doors. It is a timely return following, as it does, the current fiscal revival of Ireland and its replacement of religious fervour with material consumption as an immigration influx feeds the limitless production capabilities of the nation. As Ireland breathes in the smoke-free air of economic independence, so Paula sees her way clear of the stale fumes of seventeen years of spousal abuse and alcoholism.
44
While the first novel dealt with the ignominy of physical abuse, the second attempts to address the mentally demanding process of recovery.
Paula Spencer is a plodding trawl through the minutiae of a life lived in the shadow of alcohol
It is a crying shame that the book seethes with a sentimentality of the working classes that does little to honour the harsh fight for survival, but more to heap further threadbare notions upon an already clich-ridden echelon of society.
Despite its well-intentioned parallels between failed parenting and the national implications for Ireland, a country in recovery itself, Paula Spencer is a plodding trawl through the minutiae of a life lived in the shadow of alcohol. A novel marked out in junctures of time since the The novel begins four months and five last drink became so torturous a path to days after Paulas last drink. The daily venture down that I would find myself battle against failure is recounted in first reaching for the nearest bottle of person narrative as Paula lurches towards Vermouth Travelogue of Steinbecks rather than drag myself War the dim light of catharsis, vaguely hopeful through the staccato Article by Claire Boot three-word of the redemptive qualities of sobriety. sentences littered like empty beer Oldham Photographs by Andrew cans on the highway of Paula Spencers past But think about it. If you were running and present. away you wouldnt actually be running. Youd have stopped. Rather than feed my imagination, it It sounds desperately profound doesnt it? And read out loud with a gritty Dublin swoon of tone, it cant help but pluck at your oversized heartstrings. But look a little closer. Jeremy Kyle is as adept at offering pat observations. Same thing here. Occasional bouts of humour break Paulas tense, disjointed delivery but do little to alleviate the monotone radio hiss actuality in which Doyle presents every aching second of Paulas daily crawl from bed and into consciousness. The question of what happens when we fail our children is the gin soaked, hardened aorta of the story and conceptually its only redeeming feature. While Doyle employs a simplicity of language to portray the depths to which the human spirit can stoop, his cardboard cut-out family are less human, rather more like the spurious side characters of a long-running televised hospital drama series. diluted a multitude of characters down to the tawdry lone Irish voice of actress Ger Ryan. Unfortunate it is that the narrator has such a grating voice that both my interest and thoughts of masturbation fell by the wayside quicker than a drunk after closing time. God knows I needed one for the road. James Johnson
45
Food of Love Anthony Capella Time Warner Paperbacks; New Ed edition, 2005 6.99 ISBN 0751535699 320 pp
contrasted with Capellas characters where his writing is occasionally clumsy, plodding and unremarkable. In some ways this is very effective as is emphasises the main character, an American exchange student called Laura, in contrast to her newfound environment. Lauras story unfolds as Tommaso enlists the help of his friend Brunos culinary skills in order to win her heart.
Food of Love by Anthony Capella provides the reader with a raw taste of Italy. This novel celebrates Italian food as a way of life, with a culture that revolves around eating to show social status, style and knowledge. Capella travels extensively in Italy and this is evident through his writing Food of Love is a clear and accessible reference that provides those who have not travelled to the country with an insightful and colourful illustration. This novel is also a warm and affectionate reminiscence for those who have experienced the country of Capellas subject. This writing style enables the contrasts within the novel. References to food and to Italy are written with an enthralling, deeply authentic style with a use of Italian phrases, recipes and food based metaphors. This honest clarity is
This writing style enables the contrasts within the novel. References to food and to Italy are written with an enthralling, deeply authentic style with a use of Italian phrases, recipes and food based metaphors
As Laura is besotted with the food, and Tommaso, Bruno falls in love with her (completing the triangle), as his cooking communicates his passion. Lauras character becomes the most endearing perhaps as she is from a culture more similar to ours or perhaps because Capella is aware of a predominantly female readership. This character is then maintained through the readers empathy for her, caused by the passionate descriptions of the enchanting food. It is these emotive elements that make the
46
reader more receptive to the novel as a whole. The characters seem secondary in Capellas style to the food, a tool to illustrate his culinary descriptions. The reader is placed as an equal among the characters through the social nature of eating within the plot, the subjectivity of food and writing in the 3rd person. This is the success of the book the reader is included in the action and seduced, echoing the characters. Rebecca Wombwell
REVIEWERS
Janet Aspey is a recent MA Creative Writing graduate with a drama background. She is particularly interested in feminist history and literature, and is currently working on her second novel. Pen for hire Ben Felsenburg is currently covering prime-time TV for a national newspaper and scribbling contemporary dance reviews while busily not writing a novel on death, golf and postcolonial cuisine. James Johnson With his first feature film script about to be shot in Manchester, James remains hopeful that a trip across America in search of artist Felix Gonzales Torres will provide him with the impetus he needs to keep pen to paper and continue writing what he really wants. Bridget Whelan Rebecca Wombwell
47
No-one is excluded from entering a new scriptwriting competition, although Red Planet Pictures are seeking new writers rather than those who have been writing for top shows for some time. The annual writing competition will result in a new writer receiving a 5,000 prize, representation from an agent and a commission from Red Planet Pictures, the production company set up last year and sponsors of the award. Submit no more than ten pages of a script and a covering letter with a half page on your work. Those sending a full screenplay will be disqualified. All entries must be sent in screenwriting format. Shortlisted writers will be invited to submit a full script in a second round. Finalists will be invited to a workshop day with writer Tony Jordan and will receive mentoring from Red Planet Pictures. Tony Jordan has advised those entering to write from the heart since the search is for good writers and if you can write, the judges will spot it. Entries may be emailed redplanetprize@redplanetpictures.co.uk Closing date September 1, 2007. Screen Yorkshires Spark scheme is encouraging writers to develop their feature film and television scriptwriting skills. The scheme assists writers who live or work in the Yorkshire and Humber Region with strong ideas and a passionate desire to become a professional screenwriter to develop their concepts into treatments, and ultimately into scripts. Selected participants will join a development programme of residential workshops and tutorials. Participants will then be expected to submit a detailed treatment of their feature film idea. All treatments will be assessed by Screen Yorkshire and projects with potential will be supported to develop further either to a revised treatment or first draft script. For details, see http://screenyorkshire.co.uk LONDON LIMING Friday 20 July, doors from 8pm, performances at 8.45pm and 9.45pm The Rich Mix, 35 47 Bethnal Green Road London E1 6LA 9.00 / 7.00 concs (Box Office 0207 613 7498). Renaissance one & Tilt in association with Rich Mix presents London Liming: a spoken word party. London Liming is a spoken word event that combines the carnival atmosphere of Trinidad
Industry News and Opportunities

liming culture with the cosmopolitan styles of London - a chilled-out eclectic vibe at which people can mix, drink, dance and experience the best in spoken word. The event offers short bites of Poetry, Fiction, Comedy and Commentary, interspersed with Soca, Brazilian, Reggae, Soul and dance tunes all evening. Jump up, wind down & feast your eyes and ears on some of the UKs best spoken word writers & performers and special guests. Featuring: Patience Agbabi, Metis, Sophie Woolley, Sureshot & Polar Bear. Hosted by Melanie Abrahams & Nicholas Makoha. www.renaissanceone.com www.myspace.com/londonliming A night out at London liming is a unique experience offering a mix of vibrant music and excellent performances from some of the best writers around. The delicate balance between the readings, performances and music is nicely achieved, there is saying at London Liming that goes If you have legs, then you can dance. Chroma Magazine Poetry And Picnic In The Park. It is to be held on Wednesday 1st August, In Hyde Park London . We will be meeting between 12.00pm and 1.00pm at Speakers Corner, then moving on to a suitable spot in the park. Those attending to bring with them their poetry, picnic, beer/wine. ON WHOSE TERMS? CRITICAL NEGOTIATIONS IN BLACK LITERATURE AND THE ARTS Reply to: OnWhoseTerms@gold.ac.uk Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK March 13th-14th 2008 This conference focuses upon local, international and transnational engagements with Black British literature and the arts in relation to its production, reception and cultural position. Through the multiple disciplines of the arts, it creates a meeting point for prominent and emerging scholars, writers and practitioners in order to explore the impact of this field, both at home and abroad. The context is one of critical investigation and celebration; a journey along diasporic and aesthetic routes. EVENTS: Andrea Levy interviewed by Blake Morrison Kwame Kwei-Armah in conversation with Britains key Black directors Malorie Blackman leading a
48
forum on young peoples writing and writing for young people with Deptford Secondary School pupilsMalika Booker performing her acclaimed one-woman show Unplanned EXHIBITIONS: A History of Black Theatre in Britain (Victoria and Albert Museum) Black British Lesbians (photographs by Ajamu Fotographie) KEYNOTE ADDRESSES AND INVITED SPECIALIST PANELISTS Hilary Carty, Joan Anim-Addo, R.Victoria Arana, Neil Astley, Simon Gikandi, Gabriele Griffin, Les Back, Margaret Busby, Bndicte Ledent, Valerie Mason-John, Susheila Nasta, Nii Parkes, Lyn Innes, Kadija Sesay, SuAndi, Mark McWatt, Sukhdev Sandhu CONTACT OnWhoseTerms@gold.ac.uk Deirdre Osborne (Goldsmiths, University of London), Mark Stein (University of Muenster, Germany), Godfrey Brandt (Birkbeck, University of London) CALL FOR PAPERS We invite papers across a broad spectrum of interests: drama, poetry, prose, performance, film, visual arts, curating, arts management and history. Areas ofdiscussion might connect with the following ideas: (i) At home and abroad sights and sites of reception. Critical engagements with Black British literature and the arts differ according to political and geographical contexts. Many artists and writers themselves embrace diasporic and transnational identities and aesthetics. What are the consequences of this multiple reception and affiliation? How is an indigenous notion of Black British culture affected? Which critical vocabularies are employed, which critical agendas enacted when discussing Black British cultural production? On whose terms is Black British cultural production created, distributed and evaluated? (ii) Securing credentials. Chris Ofili has been accused of playing to the audience (and to the judges) thereby securing his credentials as a black artist. In contrast, some writers and practitioners steer clear of the term and face the charge of effacing their black heritage as they encounter mainstream and commercial success. What is the relationship between mainstream acceptance and opportunities for producing radical black- centred work? (iii) Historicising the field. Black writers have been
published in Britain over the past three centuries although there is no extant evidence of this in drama before the twentieth century. What are the lines of descent and tradition that connect writers and performers across time and place? What were the formative conditions of production and reception for early black writers and artists in Britain? What part do contemporary historical novels, poetry, visual arts, or drama play in retrieving and reviving past times, to recirculate and celebrate marginalised voices? (iv) Publishing. Black presses have played a vital role in getting black writers into print. Small presses such as New Beacon Books, Karnak House, Bogle LOverture, Peepal Tree, Mango and X-Press (to name a few) have devoted themselves to fostering black peoples writing. Wasafiri, Calabash, SABLElitmag and Third Text have also played a crucial part in providing a platform for writers, securing audiences and engaging with new work. Other non-specialist presses too, such as Sheba Feminist Press, Virago, Methuen and Nick Hern Books have been instrumental in publishing poetry, novels and plays by black writers. How is sustainability a factor today and what interventions are being made in the light of Danuta Keanes Arts Council-funded reports into publishing In Full Colour and Free Verse? (v) Celebrate or segregate the problematics of a Black British canon? When Marsha Hunt instituted the SAGA Prize for Black British-born writers in 1995, this registered both indigenous black peoples literary output and the fact that it was not yet a customary inclusion in the national cultural landscape. If the canon is key to artistic longevity and revival of work, what part does canonisation play for Black British literature and the arts? (vi) Arts bodies, cultural policy and education. Challenges to publicly-funded educational and arts bodies raise questions about the criteria for and beneficiaries of subsidy. Can policy initiatives and educational programmes reshape the cultural industries? What kinds of pedagogical approaches have been developed in disseminating and teaching Black British literature and the arts both inside and beyond the UK? How do they impact upon experiences of multiculturalism and Black artistic production, here and elsewhere, and how do they shape understandings of Black British culture? (vii) Sexual/textual practices Articulations of gay, lesbian and trans-gender experiences have regularly side- lined the perspectives of black people. Black sexualgender politics have also contended with feminisms inadequacies. How are socio-sexual categories negotiated and represented across
49
forms, disciplines and sites of writing and performance? Who are the boundary breakers? Which aesthetic principles are at work? (viii) Carnival and Spectacle. The Notting Hill Carnival has developed from a small, communitybased event, (celebrating still-retained links to Caribbean culture), into a key feature on the London calendar, showcasing the presence of the Caribbean diaspora. Over recent decades, establishment anxieties regarding public control, media representations and political agendas of inclusion and multiculturalism have exacted an increasingly distorting process upon the Carnivals future and integrity. Where is Carnival placed within contemporary British culture? Papers and visual materials are welcomed which cover any aspect of Carnival anywhere in the UK and its history up to now. First Call for Papers Please send your abstract (250 words) and a short bio to: OnWhoseTerms@gold.ac.uk DEADLINE: 15th September 2007 http://onwhoseterms.org/ TWO NEW ROYAL LITERARY SOCIETY FELLOWS - FROM CUMBRIA Kathleen Jones has been appointed a Royal Literary Fund Fellow to Teeside University and John Murray to appointed to Lancaster University, with both taking up their Fellowships in September. The Royal Literary Funds Fellowship scheme for writers was launched in 1999 and is based mainly in UK universities and higher education colleges. RLF Fellows are established professional writers of literary merit, representing a wide range of genres, including biography, translation and scientific writing. Fellowships run the course of an academic year from midSeptember to mid-June and the Fellow commits to be available for contact with students on two regular days a week, with an additional half-day each week spent in preparation/liaison with staff and RLF/review, etc (though this time need not always be spent on campus). BOOK LAUNCHES AT THE WORDSWORTH TRUST Two book launches in one evening will be held at the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere on Tuesday 31 July. First, there will readings by colleagues and friends of Sally Woodhead from Sallys selected poems The Thorn Apple, posthumously published by The Wordsworth Trust this year, then Mark Ward will be reading from his new volume of poems Used Rhymes (Aussteiger Publications) and from his forthcoming collection Thunder Alley: Sonnets and other Poems. The readings will
be held in The Wordsworth Museum at Grasmere at 6.45pm, with wine served at the interval. The event is free but you must reserve a ticket in advance as space is limited. Please contact Julie Nattrass by 25 July - email: events@wordsworth.org.uk or tel: 015394 63527 Copies of The Thorn Apple can be purchased on the night (price 5) or after 25 July from wordsworthshop.co.uk (price 5 plus p&p). Copies of Used Rhymes can also be purchased, price 5. SCRIPTEASE REVEALED SCRIPTEASE REVEALED is a cabaret style evening of new writing performed by professional actors and compered by a mystery guest - at the time of going to press all we know is that he, or she, is one of the funniest poets and compeers on the circuit - all will be revealed at a later date. So Would you like to submit a script? If so, then send your previously un-performed five minute play about revelation to: Rachel Ashton, Old Fire Station, Abbey Road, Barrow-in-Furness. The submission deadline is 13 August, and selection on 15 August - and dont forget to put your name and address on it! CUMBRIAN LITERARY GROUP Apart from making mention of Michael Barons recent talk on Tom Rawling to the Cumbrian Literary Group, their events have until now fallen below the All Write radar! All that is about the change, as the Group has sent details of its forthcoming events, which I reproduce in their entirety here: Saturday 18 August 2.30pm Philip Edwards, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Liverpool and Fellow of the British Academy, will give a talk on The Major Tragedies of Shakespeare. Saturday 15 September 2.30pm Members Anthology: The Film of the Book (a television or cinematic adaptation of a literary work). Members may volunteer to speak for approximately four minutes on a work of their choice. Always a wide-ranging spectrum to enjoy! Non-members are welcome to all sessions, which are held in the Methodist Hall, Southey Street, Keswick. The cost is just 2, and there is ample car-parking on site. Further details from Secretary Joyce Fisher: joyeff@btinternet.com COMPETITIONS GALORE If you want really comprehensive coverage of all the writing competitions around then Carole Baldock of The Competitions Bulletin tells me that her magazine is the one to go for. There are
50
hundreds of chances to win umpteen kinds of prizes with opportunities for publication as well as prizes. Details of all the current UK writing competitions are there, with around 100,000 in prize money in each issue, which may have around fifty-plus competitions for poetry, forty forty short story competitions, plus opportunities for collections, anthologies, playwriting, non fiction, books etc. The Competitions Bulletin. Each issue costs 2.50 post paid, and you can subscribe for as many issues as you want. Write to Carole Baldock, 17 Greenhow Avenue, West Kirby, Wirral CH48 5EL, enclosing cheque/PO payable to Carole Baldock - and dont forget to include your name and address. If you want to know more, you can email Carole at carolebaldock@hotmail.com TRESPASS MAGAZINE Reply to: trespassmagazine@yahoo.co.uk Deadline: August 5 2007 Boundariesimportant beacons, neon signs showing us where the fun stuff is, or suffocating strictures designed to smother? Contrasts like good/evil, prostitutes/saints, do they need each other to exist? In the vacuum of bland neutrality, what is beauty? How will we know unless we have the repulsive to compare it to Who defines what is repulsive/beautiful? We are looking for submissions for a new magazine which is set to come out in September. We can not pay contributors but anticipate a high level of exposure. Theme: Trespass and everything the word embodies. We are looking for: Art Photography Poetry Short fiction Music Articles: (Such as the importance of innovators, rule breakers, iconoclasts) The Editor will consider suggestions. Submissions must be: witty, well researched (if article), can be sexy although not pornographic. Deadline is August 5 2007. Please email the Editor, trespassmagazine@yahoo.co.uk mankypoets Adle Geras (thats Adele with a grave accent, in case your browser has garbled it) is a renowned writer for children and adults and used to be conspicuous on the poetry scene. I have tempted her out of her poetic lull and she will, with her usual wit and charm, read her poems on Friday 20 July 7.30 to 9.30
at Chorlton Library (side door) Manchester Rd/ Longford Rd for a map, enter M21 9PN in multimap.com all welcome 2/1 opportunity to read your own poem too MC copland smith floor poets live music Pictures of Adle and more details available on http://adelegeras.com/ www.mankypoets.tk Canadas Forgotten and Neglected Arc Poetry Magazine Resurrects 13 Dead Canadian Poets You Should Know But Dont Collection of Essays the First of its Kind to Acknowledge the Contribution of 13 Canadian Poets Not Recognized in their Lifetimes or TooSoon Forgotten www.ArcPoetry.ca Ottawa, Ontario, June 11, 2007 Arc Poetry Magazine launches a special issue featuring poetry by 13 forgotten and neglected Canadian poets. The work of each of these poets is featured alongside photographs and essays by Canadas best contemporary poets and critics, who argue why their work ought to be revered and remembered. Arcs Forgotten and Neglected issue was launched at a reading in Ottawa on Saturday, June 23, 2007 at 5 pm at the Manx Pub, 370 Elgin Street. The issue hits newsstands across the country just in time for Canada Day on June 30, 2007, and will be available through December. Issues of Forgotten and Neglected can be ordered directly through www.ArcPoetry.ca. The issues launch will be accompanied by special podcasts on Arcs website that feature works by the Forgotten and Neglected poets read aloud by the essayists who wrote about them. More reports and reviews from the Fabinder, Rossellini retrospectives in Berlin: www.parametermagazine.org RED INK 2 www.incwriters.co.uk/shop.htm Featuring poetry by Jadwiga Kindermann, Ashley Chantler, Naomi Bagel, Jacqui Dunne, Matthew Griffiths, Chishimba Chisala, Matthew Friday, F.J. Milne, Neil Elder and Peter de Ville with fiction by new-comer, Gemma Caunce. Red Ink 2 is edited by Peter Lewin and Andrew Oldham. The only PDF magazine in the UK to publish prose of any length, from a series of micro fiction to a novella (in any genre), and to include a series of poems by individual poets in each issue - giving you a wider and deeper taste of Literature. Submissions are welcome from poets and writers from the 1st June - 31st August each year.

Incorporating Writing Issue Vol 3

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Incorporating Writing Issue Vol 3

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

incorporating writing

4 pages of opportunities and industry news

George Szirtes - Marina Lewycka - E-Revolution

Sarah Hesketh meets the author.

Articles The Name Means Voices

Flax Books: A New Voice

Claire Boot reveals the new face of

Columns A Novel Death

Artwork Perfect Eye

Cover artist, Samantha Mills, exhibits some of her work.

Reviews News and Opportunities

New to the Neighbourhood

CALL FOR WRITERS

The Name Means Voices

Flax Books: A New Voice

Column by Dan McTiernan

...continued from page 9

Marina Lewycka: Tractors and Caravans

...continued from page 18

www.incwriters.co.uk Incwriters Award 2008

Red Ink 2/Summer 2007 (ISSN 1751-1496) 2.50

ALL TITLES AVAILABLE FROM WWW.INCWRITERS.CO.UK/SHOP.HTM

Article by Claire Boot

incorporating Eye: Perfect writing

Lisha Aquino Rooney

Lisha Aquino Rooney

Interview by Sarah Hesketh Photographs by Caroline Forbes

32 George Szirtes: Revolution

I think Norfolk has increasingly come to act as a kind of antithesis to Budapest

Lisha Aquino Rooney

a while, really now he was gone.

Collected Poems C. K. Williams Bloodaxe 2006 20 ISBN 1 85224 753 3 682 pp

Williams is not comfortable but he is often right

Industry News and Opportunities

Potrebbero piacerti anche