April/May/June 2014

Issue 118
WRITING
GROUP
PROFILE
POETRY
PROSE
ARTICLES
STEPHEN BOYCE
Lynn Shepherd
THE MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS
AND WRITING GROUPS
thenewwriter.com

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Build suspense
Write great dialogue
and an Authors Guide to Twitter
Prose & Poetry Prizes
Winners 2013
contents
2 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Publisher
Guy Pringle
Editor
Madelaine Smith
Guest Poetry Editor
Stephen Boyce
Subscriptions
Mel Mitchell
[email protected]
Design
Park Corner Design Ltd
Editorial Consultant
Merric Davidson
Digital Consultant
Nathan Davidson
www.digitaldavidson.co.uk
The New Writer
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Stubbington, Hampshire PO14 2JU
Telephone 01329 311419
All raw materials used in the production
of this magazine are harvested from
sustainable managed forests.
Every effort has been made to trace
ownership of copyright material, but
in a few cases this has proved impossible.
Should any question arise about the use
of any material, do please let us know.
April/May/June 2014
Issue 118
WRITING
GROUP
PROFILE
POETRY
PROSE
ARTICLES
STEPHEN BOYCE
Lynn Shepherd
THE MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS
AND WRITING GROUPS
thenewwriter.com
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Benjamin Franklin
April/May/June 2014 | Issue 118
Build suspense
Write great dialogue
and an Authors Guide to Twitter
Prose & Poetry Prizes
Winners 2013
Cover photo
Juliet Caird
Supplement
Winners of the Prose &
Poetry Prizes 2013
Fiction & poetry
FAI RYTALE SONNETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
POETRY SELECTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
WRI TERS PROMPT RESPONSE . . . 60
MOVI NG ON . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
A Readers Challenge response
by Sue Wilsea
CROWMAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
A piece of micro-ction by Thomas Brown
Features
LI STEN AND BE HEARD . . . . . . . . . . . 14
G F Phillips tells us about the
Listen Up North project.
MEET THE PUBLI SHER. . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Alison Glinn asks Neil Astley to tell
us about Bloodaxe.
A STOCK OF STORI ES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Jerome Fletcher tells us how
Sharpham House plays its part as
a creative writing venue.
I NTRODUCI NG NAWE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
POETRY I N FOCUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Stephen Boyce On Self Publishing
with a Twist.
WRI TI NG GROUP PROFI LE . . . . . . . . 62
Val Booler introduces us to her
Writing Group, Writers LInk.
FI VE BOOKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Lynn Shepherd tells us about ve books
that have inspired her as a writer.
How to
CYBER SI STERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Lynne Hackles & Glynis Scrivens
tell us about being long distance
writing buddies.
WRI TI NG FOR YOUNG ADULTS . . . . 6
Vanessa Curtis takes us into the world
of Young Adult Fiction.
HOW TO BUI LD SUSPENSE . . . . . . . . . 9
Claire Kendal tells us how she built
suspense in her recently published thriller.
HOW TO TWI TTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Emily Benet explores the uses of
Twitter for writers.
WRI TI NG WI TH JANE AUSTEN . . . 12
Rebecca Smith explores what we can learn
from Jane Austen about creative writing.
VI SUAL THI NKI NG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Simon Whaley explores how photography
can benet your writing.
CUT, AND CUT AGAI N . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Stephen Boyce shares advice on
editing poetry.
THE ART OF DI ALOGUE. . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Jacqui Lofthouse coaches us in the art
of dialogue.
WRI TERS GROUP THERAPY . . . . . . 57
Simon Whaley Bad Language.
HOW TO WRI TE A NOVEL . . . . . . . . . 58
Andrea Gillies tells us what works for her
OFF SCHOOL THAT DAY . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Zo Fairbairns looks at similies
and metaphors.
what s new?
thenewwriter.com 3
Patience Agbabi
In Telling Tales award-
winning poet Patience
Agbabi presents an inspired
21st century remix of
Chaucer's The Canterbury
Tales retelling all of the
stories, from the Millers
Tale to the Wife of Baths in
her own critically acclaimed
style. Agbabi is a former
Poet Laureate of Canterbury
and her newest collection
gives one of Britains
most signicant works of
literature a thrilling new life.
Look out for Telling Tales
readings at a venue near
you. If your poetry needs a
bit of inspiration, go and
see Patience.

L
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WHAT S
NEW?
Our regular column of news
snippets and insights into
the world of writing
April/May/June 2014
Issue 118
WRITING
GROUP
PROFILE
POETRY
PROSE
ARTICLES
STEPHEN BOYCE
Lynn Shepherd
THE MAGAZINE FOR WRITERS
AND WRITING GROUPS
thenewwriter.com
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Benjamin Franklin
April/May/June 2014 | Issue 118
Build suspense
Write great dialogue
and an Authors Guide to Twitter
Prose & Poetry Prizes
Winners 2013
On the Cover
Our cover image this time was one
of the runners up in last years Cover
Photography Competition and was
supplied by Juliet Caird of Durhamhill.
Ozzie the Llama is a very special part
of the Durhamhill experience where
writing and other courses are run. It
looks in this picture as if Ozzie is a
keen writer (or maybe reader) too.
Find out more at www.
largeholidayhomes-durhamhill.co.uk
Websites to check out
www.26.org.uk
26 aims to inspire a greater love of
words in business and in life.
www.foundpoetryreview.com
for anyone who wants to try cut-
up or Found poetry. Opportinities to
submit, articles, projects and more. US
based but a great resource.
www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom
Responsive, proactive and an
open door to writers, BBC
writersroom is always looking at
new ways to nd and champion
talent for all BBC platforms.
Charleston Festival
Join the party for a landmark
25th Anniversary Charleston
Festival an extravaganza
of books, ideas and
performances. The venue,
once a home and meeting
place for the artists,
writers and thinkers of the
Bloomsbury Group, provides
a matchless context for the
inspiring events.
The programme includes
many dening voices of
the last 25 years: Carol
Ann Dufy creates an
Anniversary poem; Ian
McEwan reveals a new
work; David Hare discusses
politics and drama; Richard
Dawkins shares his sense
of wonder; Nicholas Hytner
celebrates Shakespeare;
Grayson Perry mixes art
and fashion; Michael
Morpurgo believes there is
no glory in war. See more at
www.charleston.org.uk
International Poetry
Competition in
commemoration of
Wilfred Owen
To mark the Centenary of the
outbreak of WWI, The Wilfred
Owen Association has
launched an International
Poetry Competition in
commemoration of Wilfred
Owen (18931918). The
competition is looking for
poems which capture the
spirit of Wilfred Owen. Closing
date is 30 June 2014. More
details can be seen at http://
bit.ly/WoAcomp14
how to
Cyber Sisters
4 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Lynne: Id been caught out before by Australians, and
New Zealanders, claiming to be relatives and later
turning up on our doorstep for a free holiday. Thats
one of the draw-backs of having a rare name like
Hackles. But this message was different. It was from
an Australian whod seen my stories in magazines
over there. She wanted to be a writer and was asking
for my help. I decided to reply and thats how I
remember Glynis Scrivens and I meeting.
Glynis: I was sending my work out into the world, and
it was winging its way back to me. Sometimes quickly.
Sometimes taking many months. But always bearing
the same letter of rejection. I was having better luck at
home. But I soon noticed that most of our Australian
magazines were using stories by English writers. The
same group of half a dozen or so names. I knew they
were English because Id check their websites, hoping
some of the magic would rub off. Their publication
credits would amaze me. How did they get stories
published in places like Italy and Sweden? I was at
out getting a couple accepted in Australia.
One day I checked Lynne Hackles website. Id just
nished reading one of her stories. They always had
that something special about them. A moment in time
where something happened that mattered to someone,
and possibly even changed their life. She seemed like
my kind of person. Someone with my values.
I took the scary step of sending her a message.
Lynne: Its a long time ago but I recall that all Glynis
needed was a bit of encouragement. Someone to
tell her, Yes, you can write. I looked at a few of her
stories for her. They needed very little work to make
them of a publishable standard. Mostly all that was
needed was a bit of Anglicising. What the hell is a
doona? Id email her. Its a duvet. Its English but not
as we know it. Their jetties are our piers, they wear
sneakers rather than trainers. If either of us wanted
to mention trees or owers wed ask each other about
the local ora and fauna and what time of year these
things appeared.
Within a few months wed exchanged addresses
and phone numbers and I remember my rst phone
call to Glynis. Shed sent an excited email about a
Cyber Sisters
success so I decided to actually speak to
her. This was before Skyping. Her little
daughter, Amy, answered. When I said who
it was, I heard her shouting to her Mum,
Its Lynne. Its a real writer. I also remember
the surprise of hearing Glynis for the rst
time. Oh, that accent! It was nothing like the
ones in Neighbours.
Glynis: Speaking to another writer was a liberating
experience for me. Id tried going to a writing group
at our local library but Id been told quite bluntly
that writing for magazines was selling out, wasting
my talent. So it was reassuring to hear Lynnes
tales of the English writing holidays at Caerleon.
Places where courses were held about writing for
magazines. How I envied her the camaraderie with
the other writers she met there.
Speaking to her, I felt validated. Now I had a
writing friend and realised that, if I persevered, I
could become a writer. It was a word I hadnt been
game to apply to myself.
Lynne: I enjoyed sharing my experiences with
Glynis. I would tell her all about the writing holidays
and weekends I went on. Sometimes Id post the class
notes to her. We also shared stories, both discovering
that those closest to home the ones about family
problems, daughters relationships were the most
difcult for us to write. We would exchange these
stories and try to make helpful comments to each
other. We let each other know of new markets and
those that had closed. We celebrated, especially
when we both had stories in the same issue of a
magazine. When we were sick and couldnt write,
we still managed to knock out a daily email to each
other. Over the years, between us, we must have
written almost ve million words in emails alone.
(Im working on 500 words per day over 15 years here,
multiplied by two to cover us both.) We not only
tried to solve each others writing problems but we
also commiserated and gave each other advice on
personal problems too. When the LSO (Long Suffering
One husband) had multiple heart attacks, Glynis
was there for me, even though she was physically
Lynne Hackles lives in Worcestershire, England. Glynis Scrivens lives in Brisbane,
Australia. They have been friends for a long time. In spite of telling each other that their
work needs deleting (polite version) they remain friends. Here they chat together to let
you know what youre missing if you dont have a writing buddy.
on the opposite side of the world. Later, when I wrote
about his heart attacks, Glynis read the articles rst
to make sure they were of a publishable standard.
We began calling each other Sis and decided we
were cyber-sisters. I trusted her implicitly when she
critiqued anything I sent to her.
Glynis: If theres one time I lose perspective, its when
Im writing about something close to my heart. You
can be too close to an experience to use it properly
in a story. And yet theres nothing like personal
involvement to add depth to a plot, to make things
matter. Its a thin line I tread with some stories, as
most writers do. When these stories work, theyre
my best. When they dont work, I want to know.
Lynnes always been that second pair of eyes for me.
Its reassuring to know shell say, This is a therapy
story, one you needed to write if the story doesnt
work as ction. And when she says its a gem, I know
its a winner. She tells me the truth and I know I can
trust her to do that. And when she asks for my honest
opinion, thats what she gets.
Lynne: Sometimes, when I havent written a short
story for ages, I can stop believing in myself. Then a
story arrives and, once written, off it goes to Glynis.
Is this any good? I ask. And she tells me. Not as a
family member or friend would Oh, thats the best
story Ive ever read. No, I can count on my cyber-
sister to give me the whole truth and nothing but the
truth because shes another writer and she knows
that false praise is useless. Far better to tell me I need
more practice to get back into the swing of things.
Some of the comments weve made about each
others work would make a lot of writers hair stand
on end. But being honest is part of our relationship.
Glynis: Because we focus on different kinds of
writing, we often seem to prod each other out of our
comfort zones. Push each other to the next stage,
to try something harder we may not have had the
courage to consider left to our own devices. This
seems to be particularly the case with major projects.
Last year I read on Facebook that Compass books were
interested in a title on editing and mentioned this to
Lynne. Write them a proposal, she told me. I needed
telling a few times.
Lynne: And Ive begun something new too. Something
huge for which Ill need a lot of encouragement. Im not
sharing it with anyone even my cyber-sister though
shell be my rst reader. At the moment Glyniss task
is to give me a prod every so often to make sure I dont
fall by the wayside.
Glynis: Writing isnt just about the money, important
as that is. As well as submitting to the high paying
markets, I also write for worthwhile magazines
that can only pay a small amount. When its a UK
magazine, I ask them to post the cheque to Lynne,
rather than see our greedy banks gobble it up in
fees. These amounts add up and can be used to cover
magazine subscriptions and other things.
how to
Cyber Sisters
thenewwriter.com 5
Cyber Sisters
Lynne: Other things like custard powder. Birds
Custard is not often available in Australia so I make
up regular parcels of it, together with Yorkshire Tea
(leaves not bags) and take them to the Post Ofce
where the cashier always asks whats in the parcel.
Custard? they usually say in a high-pitched dont
believe-you voice. Comfort food for my cyber
brother-in-law, I once said. Because he has Red River
Fever. A great opening line for a short story, isnt it?
Glynis: When it comes to writing stories, its easy to
overlook things in our own lives that feel mundane to
us. Ive been surprised over the years when everyday
happenings at my place elicit a gasp of surprise from
Lynne, often followed by, Youve got to use that
in a story. With rather a large menagerie of pets,
including ducks, hens, dogs, lorikeets and a cat, we
often have a comedy of errors here. Recently one of
our new chicks has turned out to be a rooster (Ed:
A rooster is a cockerel to the English amongst us), a
black frizzle called Svetlana. Roosters arent allowed in
suburbia because they crow in the wee hours. Not to
be defeated, Amy, now grown-up with a partner and
baby, brings Svetlana inside every evening, and keeps
him overnight in the bottom of a wardrobe. A vet told
us this trick, explaining that roosters crow at rst
light. Svetlanas rst light is now at a respectable hour
when his crowing cant disturb neighbours. Dont be
surprised if you read a magazine story about Svetlana
and our arrangement. Why? Lynnes pointed out I have
to use it. For me, it was part of our usual routine.
Similarly, Lynne will sometimes describe
something thats happened to her, and I want to know
what happened next, as though it was already a story.
Write it, I tell her.
Lynne: It would be fantastic to be able to phone
Glynis and say, Meet you for coffee this morning,
then we could discuss these things, face to face.
Thats not possible but we do all the other things
friends and sisters do. We send Christmas and
birthday gifts. We exchange copies of magazines. But
most importantly we share our writing. Ill get that
huge project nished because
Glynis will be there for me
(as well as the LSO). Our
relationship may have
begun with me helping
her but now we are
denitely equals. My
life has been enriched by
having a writing buddy/
cyber-sister.
Glynis: Weve shared a lot of
ups and downs. Shared a lot of
secrets. Looked out for each other.
Would I have made it as a writer
if I hadnt sent that email to Lynne
that day? Maybe. But it wouldve
been a lonely journey and I wouldve
stumbled more often.
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Writing for young adults
6 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Writing
for
adults
young
Award-winning childrens author Vanessa Curtis
takes us into the world of Young Adult Fiction.
A
s a teenager I read everything I could
get my hands on, from the thrill of Alan
Garners The Owl Service to the guilty
pleasure of Danielle Steels Flowers in the
Attic. The subject matter of these novels was gripping,
often shocking. They were aimed at the Young Adult
market, even though they could also be described as
crossover novels due to having been read and enjoyed
by countless adults too. YA novels for todays readers
continue to shock and entertain. The term Young
Adult Fiction was coined in the 1960s by the Young
Adult Library Services Association and has gone from
strength to strength ever since. My decision to set
up The Curtis Literary Consultancy and specialise in
helping authors who write in this genre has sprung
not only from the memory of those thrilling books
I enjoyed reading when I was a teenager, but also
from the considerable challenges of working as a YA
novelist. Im a passionate advocate of strong, clear,
sometimes controversial or harrowing novels with a
voice which grabs the reader round the throat and
compels them to follow through. Nowhere is it easier
to nd this sort of writing than in the novels of todays
YA authors and its exciting to work with new writers
in this genre.
So what makes YA ction so specically different
from childrens ction? For a start, its not just
childrens ction but with older characters. (Neither
is it adult literature which has been dumbed
down.). In YA novels, the characters are almost
always adolescents and the books are aimed at teens
between 12 and 18 years old. There are less likely to be
sub-plots in YA ction. Instead there might be only
one main plotline and a character whose actions
drive the story forwards. The narrative is very often
in the rst person present tense, something less
commonly found in childrens novels. This allows for
an immediacy which has a powerful impact upon the
reader, as they feel they are at times inside the head of
their teen protagonist. It also allows for a confessional
tone which can endear a reader to their hero/heroine
straight away. Usually adult characters are not overly
evident in YA ction, whereas in ction for younger
children parents feature more prominently.
The narrative voice in YA ction is make-or-break
most agents will know from the very rst line of a
novel whether the author has got it right whether
its clear, compelling, unusual, shocking or endearing
enough to keep a reader wanting to turn the page.
The opening of a YA novel is all-important teenagers
are busy and will decide in the rst thirty seconds
whether they are going to want to read on or not. So
something I teach people at my literary consultancy
is how to write a great, attention-grabbing opener of
a novel. It can include a shock, an immediate piece of
dialogue or some piece of information so intriguing
that a reader just has to carry on reading.
Subject matter is another area which can clearly
dene a novel as being Young Adult. In this genre
a writer can really tackle any subject whatsoever.
Nothing is taboo, so long as it is handled with
how to
Writing for young adults
thenewwriter.com 7
sensitivity, honesty and great writing. Todays YA
readers enjoy those elements of a novel that can relate
to situations they may have encountered in their own
lives. The more controversial the subject matter, the
greater the buzz when these novels are published. For
instance, Tabitha Suzumas recent novel Forbidden
deals with an incestuous relationship between a
brother and sister. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
is narrated by a sixteen-year-old with cancer. And
novels for YA dont have to be set in the present day, of
course my forthcoming historical YA novel The Earth
is Singing (Usborne) tackles the true-life story of the
murder of the Jews of Latvia in Riga, 1941. But because
events are seen through the eyes of the narrator,
fourteen-year-old Hanna Michelson, nothing is out
of bounds, including the difcult subjects of torture,
starvation and transportation of prisoners by cattle
truck. Not all YA readers want their subject matter
grounded in total realism, however. Some require
more escapism from the grind of their daily lives,
so something which appeals to these readers might
well be Steampunk a heady mix of science
ction, fantasy and technology.
Characterisation is all important in
YA ction, because often there are far
fewer characters in these novels than
there are in books for younger children.
It helps if theres something unusual,
memorable and/or subversive about them
or their activities for example, a vicars
daughter might be in a thrash metal
band or a prudish straight A student
might be tortured by hearing crude
voices in his/her head etc. I
always advise clients to be
on the lookout for any use of
clichs in their writing, be it
in characterisation or plot.
Its important that a new
author makes their YA novel
as unusual, memorable and
Vanessa is pleased to ofer 10% of her
consultancy services to readers of The New
Writer. Vanessa also works with writers of
adult ction/non-ction as well as childrens
and YA authors.
See www.curtisliterary.co.uk for details
of the services ofered by Vanessas
Literary Consultancy.
how to
Writing for young adults
8 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Discover your writing potential in the beautiful tranquil setting of
Durhamhill with the support of two experienced tutors: Margaret
Elphinstone, author of The Sea Road, and Mary Smith, novelist, poet
and journalist.
Workshop topics cover the creation of characters and plot, explain the
role of narrative voice and provide guidance on life-writing. There is
ample time to discuss your ideas & work with your tutors and fellow
writers.
Course dates:12-14 May & 6-8 Oct 2014. Fee of 295 includes
accommodation and food. Numbers are limited to ensure plenty of
individual attention.
Contact J Caird: [email protected] or tel. 07843 476862.
www.largeholidayhomes-durhamhill.co.uk
A beautiful location, very
welcoming hosts and just the right
amount of challenge and
reassurance
Residential Writing Courses at Durhamhill
Galloway, SW Scotland
Supportive atmosphere, ideal
surroundings, stimulating practical
activities for positive learning,
brilliant, great group of people,
excellent course leaders
exciting as possible in order that it will stand out
amidst the towering stack of unsolicited manuscripts
in the agents slush pile. A strong, memorable
character can drive a plot forwards. A well-told love
story with stark, emotional depth and something
dark and quirky about it can leave a reader reeling (it
is rare for YA ction to not have any romantic element
whatsoever. Publishers know what sells!).
A contemporary YA novel will have its own
distinctive writing style. The author might use
teen language and slang. Dialogue can be short,
edgy and humorous. There will be descriptions of
clothing and musical tastes. All this helps
the reader built up a very visual image
of the character who is leading them
through a particular story. To help new
authors improve their characterisation
I often suggest that they draw up charts
of a characters likes/dislikes, musical
preferences and physical attributes
including skin tone, hair colour, the way in
which they walk/talk/sing etc.
Theres no set length to a YA novel. Just
as some childrens novels can be of epic
length, some YA novels are slim affairs.
A lot of new authors tend to overwrite
their YA novel, using owery descriptions
of landscapes, too much exposition/
explanation in large chunks of back story and
extending their sentences with weakening adverbs
and repetition. One of the best bits of advice I ever
learned as a new writer was nd everything ending
in ly and consider kissing goodbye to it! Its amazing
how most adverbs add nothing to a sentence and
can hold back the pace and tension of a plot, too.
Overwriting is something that I enjoy working on
with clients its gratifying to see somebody pare
down their novel until only the essential things are
left. Often theres a great YA novel swamped beneath
the over-writing and clamouring to get out!
how to
Building Suspense in The Book of You
thenewwriter.com 9
T
he Book of You is about a woman who is
being stalked. To gather evidence, my
heroine records all of her encounters with
her stalker in a little black notebook. Her
voice is conding and intimate. Each diary entry
forces Clarissa and the reader to re-live the events
she speaks of.
Clarissa addresses her entries to her stalker.
She uses the second person you and writes in the
present tense. This means that the reader occupies
the positions of both Clarissa and Rafe: the reader is I
with Clarissa; and the reader is you, being addressed
by her just as Rafe is. It is meant to be an intense,
unnerving experience, and hopefully a fascinating
one. In the present tense, events are still unfolding, so
theres a sense that the characters are as surprised by
what is happening as the reader. Samuel Richardsons
18th century novel, Clarissa, talks about writing to
the moment, and this is something I was thinking
about all the time as I was writing The Book of You. Its
a crucial element in creating suspense.
It was tting for me to use the second person
present tense because it captures the way Rafe
imposes himself on Clarissas mind even when he
is not actually there. But there are dangers in using
this narrative viewpoint. The tone could easily
have slipped into something too portentous. This
risk is heightened by the potential for introspection
inherent in the speaking I. My technique, as far
as possible, was to lter out anything that wasnt
dramatic and enacted. The form helped me: because
Clarissa is writing a stalker diary, only incidents that
are related to this were eligible for the notebook.
Clarissas notebook is a place for occurrences, not for
rumination. The stalker diary almost entirely obeys
the oft-cited writerly rule of showing and not telling.
All of this is in service of the fact that I wanted to
write a novel in which the reader would be impelled
to keep turning the pages. The story needed to
accelerate unrelentingly. My tight control of the time
frame everything occurs over eight weeks makes
everything seem pressing. The readers sense of what
was at stake had to grow as the novel progressed.
Part of what helped me to achieve this is the nature
of stalking itself. Typically, incidents will increase in
number and intensity and threat. Escalation. Thats
Building suspense
The Book of You
what the checklists in the stalker leaets all warn of.
Thats what they all say will happen. Clarissas voice
sometimes needed to be fevered, as though Rafe were
making her ill. From the beginning, sparing doses of
repetition and an awareness of the rhythms of her
language helped with this. It is you. Of course it is you.
Always it is you.
I had to make sure that the reader never went for
too long without Rafe popping up. At an early stage,
I actually went through the draft and made a note of
every page on which he appeared. Wherever the gap
between his scenes was too big, I would write a new
one. But of course I couldnt just write any old scene. I
had to make adjustments everywhere. I needed each
and every scene to be compelling in its own right but
it was important that Rafe wasnt too over-the-top
dangerous early on. What he does to Clarissa had to
have its own internal logic and development. It was
important that these scenes had the right sequence.
Another novel whose technique was formative to
what I tried to do is Charles Dickenss Bleak House. On
the one hand Dickens gives us Esther Summersons
rst person, past tense, incredibly immediate and
confessional story. On the other, he gives us the
third person, present tense narrative describing the
law courts and Lady Deadlock. Bleak House
beautifully weaves these strands together,
and the reader is increasingly drawn in by
the question of what these two seemingly
different worlds can have to do with each
other. I wanted my readers, also, to wonder
what the third person world of the rape and
kidnapping trial in which Clarissa is a juror
could have to do with her exceedingly
personal stalker diary.
However important it was to me to
build suspense in The Book of You, I didnt
want to frighten the reader with tricks,
or to lie to them, or to contrive
unnatural twists. I wanted the
novel to be scary because its
subject matter is scary. I wanted
The Book of You to be gripping.
But I also wanted to be true to
my heroine, to the story I was
telling, and to my readers.
Claire Kendal was born in America and
educated in England, where she has spent
all of her adult life. The Book of You is her
rst novel. Claire lives in Bath with her
family and is currently working on her next
psychological thriller.
The Book of You
by Claire Kendal will
be published
in April 2014 by
Harper Collins
Claire Kendal tells us how she built suspense in her recently published thriller.

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Twitter
10 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
W
hen I rst joined Twitter, I hated it. I
felt like I was in a room full of people
yelling out the rst thing that came
to their heads. I thought I would never
get used to it. Now, however, I consider it to be the
most useful and effective social network that I use,
not to mention the most entertaining.
Twitter has opened doors. It has brought me in
touch with people I might never have met otherwise,
including writers, editors, publishers and agents. The
writing community is very strong on Twitter. To nd
it, just type #amwriting into the search bar.
Some of the connections Ive made have led to
wonderful writing opportunities. As a direct result of
being on Twitter Ive collaborated with other writers,
been invited to contribute guest blogs and articles to
writers magazines and to speak at literary festivals.
Being active on Twitter has also increased my books
sales and alerted people to my social media workshops.
Its a great platform for developing your online
author prole, and if used well, it can help you build a
readership and increase your chances of publication.
How to
WHAT I S TWI TTER?
Twitter is a social network which allows users
to send text-based messages consisting of 140
characters, known as tweets. Tweets can include
links and hashtags. Links can be shortened at
www.bitly.com
Hashtags are often added to clarify what the tweet
is referring to, for instance, if you are tweeting
about the London Book Fair, you would add the
hashtag #lbf14. Anyone following the event will
then be able to see your tweet even if they dont
follow you specically.
Once you have set up a Twitter account you can
follow other users by going to their proles and
clicking the Follow button.
Users will be notied when they have new
followers and can opt to follow you back.
Your tweets will appear in the Twitter feed of your
followers. Likewise your feed will be made up of the
tweets of people you are following. Got it?
There are three options beneath every Tweet. You can
Reply, Favourite, or Retweet.
Click on Connect to view your
interactions and notications.
If someone retweets your
tweet it gets shared onto
that persons feed and with
their followers. The more
entertaining or interesting
your tweets, the more likely
they are of being retweeted
and of you attracting a
bigger following.

BY EMI LY BENET
Twitter Writing Prompts
In 140 characters (or a series of
140 characters):
1. Describe a day in the life of your
main character
2. Review a book youve read
3. Tweet in the voice of a famous, dead author.
Try Chaucer, Jane Austen & Shakespeare.
4. Explain the plot of the last lm you saw
5. Write a poem in rhyming couplets
Twitter
GETTI NG STARTED ON TWI TTER
Sign up at www.twitter.com. You will need to enter
your full name, email and username. Twitter will
check the availability of your username. This is called
a Twitter handle and will have an @ infront of it.
Dont choose a random Twitter handle. Think about
your online identity as a whole. If you have a blog,
perhaps you want to use a name that ties in with
that. If you want to develop yourself as a brand,
then go ahead and use your name. Try to avoid
using numbers, especially dates that will, well, date
very quickly.
Upload a prole picture otherwise youll be given
the default picture of an egg, which looks like spam.
Your prole picture doesnt have to be of you, it
could be a cartoon, or an image of your book cover,
or something that reects your personality or ties in
with your blog.
Add a biography. Dont make people guess who you
are and what youre about. Give them a hint, set
the tone, so they know why they should follow you.
If in doubt, look at other writers biogs to see what
theyve included.
Integrating your online presence is important. If
you have a blog or a website, add the link in the
space provided, so people who are curious about
you can nd out more. Likewise add a link to your
Twitter account from your blog or website.
Theres an option in Security & Privacy to protect
your tweets, but I dont recommend it. This means
you have to approve people who follow you and
your tweets arent seen by public. This could limit
your following and the opportunities that might
arise from being on the network.
how to
Twitter
thenewwriter.com 1 1
TWI TTER TI PS
Content Twitter isnt about sharing the minutiae
of your life although its easy to fall into the trap of
tweeting any old thing, especially if youre a writer
working alone most of the time! The question is,
would you retweet a mundane tweet? Id probably
unfollow someone who tweeted about their tea
drinking habits too often. To attract a following
you need to share good content. This could be a
whole range of things from comments on current
affairs, witty observations, links to articles you nd
interesting, jokes, quotes and #lifetips. If in doubt,
follow people you admire and see how they work
their Twitter magic. Its quite a challenge articulating
anything in 140 characters but just get started and
youll soon get used to it. You might nd yourself
really enjoying it!
Frequency If you want to develop your author
prole with Twitter then you need to be very
active on it. Tweeting once a month is pointless as
no one will bother following you. Why not begin
by allocating 10 minutes a day for engaging with
Twitter? Once youve got used to writing in 140
characters youll soon be tweeting without thinking
about it. You can also schedule tweets by using the
free social media manager www.hootsuite.com
Self-promotion Dont be shy about tweeting
your successes. If youve had a book published, by
all means tell the world. Just dont tell the world
to buy it every minute of every day. No one likes
to be bombarded by someone trying to sell them
something. If you need a rule, then tweet 15 non
promotional tweets for every self-promotional one.
In addition, dont go on Twitter just to tell everyone
repeatedly to join your Facebook page, if you tweet
interesting links from your Facebook page then
theyll nd their way there themselves.
Relax Whatever you do, dont fret over each
tweet. Just relax and be yourself. Twitter feeds
are constantly being updated and old tweets are
quickly buried under the new tweets. As long as
you show yourself to be a human not a sales
machine, Im sure youll be warmly welcomed into
the Twitter community.
I asked Twitter to nominate writerly tweeps
you should follow. These are just 10 who they
recommended:
Colleen Lindsay@ColleenLindsay
Joanne Harris@Joannechocolat
Paul Bassett Davies@thewritertype
John Self@john_self
Kerry Hudson@kerryswindow
Andrea Gillies@andreagillies
Jonathan Pinnock@jonppinnock
Isabel Rogers@Isabelwriter
Benjamin Dreyer@BCDreyer
Cariad Martin@cariadmartin
Emily Benet's debut book Shop Girl Diaries
began as a blog about working in her
mums eccentric chandelier shop and was
commissioned as a book and a short lm.
She has written about the benets of social
media for writers for several publications
and her guidebook Blogging for Beginners
is available as an ebook. Her second novel,
Spray Painted Bananas will be published
later this year by Harper Impulse.
wri ti ng wi th jane austen
Rebecca Smith
1 2 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
MAKI NG AN ENTRANCE
Pretty much anything anybody needs to know about
writing ction can be learnt from Jane Austen. I
love the way that she introduces and establishes
her characters in so many different ways. Whatever
genre you are writing in, you can experiment with
Jane Austens methods until you nd the one that is
right for your story. Youll notice other great writers
using these methods too.
SHOW YOUR CHARACTER DOI NG THE THI NG
THAT THEY MOST LOVE DOI NG
In the opening scene of Persuasion we see Sir Walter
Elliot doing the Regency equivalent of googling himself.
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was
a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any
book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation
for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one;
there his faculties were roused into admiration and
respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the
earliest patents; there any unwelcome sensations,
arising from domestic affairs, changed naturally into
pity and contempt, as he turned over the almost endless
creations of the last century and there, if every other
leaf were powerless, he could read his own history with
an interest which never failed this was the page at
which the favourite volume always opened
Writing with
Jane Austen
In the rst of a new series, novelist Rebecca Smith explores what
we can learn from Jane Austen about creative writing.
ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH-HALL.
Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784,
Elizabeth, daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South
Park, in the county of Gloucester; by which lady (who
died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born June 1, 1785;
Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, Nov. 5, 1789;
Mary, born Nov. 20, 1791.
Try introducing a character by showing them
doing whatever it is they love to do or something
that they do when they are alone. This might be
something thats quite mundane in real life but that
in ction can be made enthralling. Make sure that
readers know how your characters spend their time,
including their idle moments.
WHAT S BEEN LOST AND WHAT S AT STAKE
As well as showing us what it is that Sir Walter most
cares about, Jane Austen cleverly gives us a miniature
history of the Elliots. She goes on to tell us (in a really
subtle way) what the future may hold for them and
what one of the central issues of the novel will be. We
often see writers slipping this sort of information into
their opening scenes. Readers need to know what it is
that most concerns the characters, what the characters
care about and what they long for. We often nd out
that characters have lost something. Sir Walters son

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and heir was stillborn and his wife is dead. What will
become of The Elliots and Kellynch Hall?
Make sure that you dont hang around when it
comes to telling your readers whats at risk. You can
be subtle about it and slip it in the way Jane Austen
does in Persuasion (the last novel she nished) or
be more overt, following the model of Sense and
Sensibility, her rst published work. Here we learn
what has been lost and get little sketches of Elinor,
Marianne, Margaret and their mother all in the rst
couple of pages. By evoking feelings and ideas of loss
you can make readers care about your characters
straight away.
LET YOUR HERO OF HEROI NE BE
DI SCOVERED BY THE READER
The Austen heroine isnt always in the spotlight
straight away. Jane sometimes wanted to establish
a characters world and predicament before sending
her centre stage. She did this with Anne Elliot we
are told that she was only Anne. Fanny Price doesnt
make her entrance until Chapter 2 of Manseld Park.
Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old, and
though there might not be much in her rst appearance
to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her
relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of
complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly
timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air,
though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet,
and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir
Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly
The benets of this strategy are obvious when
the heroine is going to be quiet or neglected, but
even Elizabeth Bennet is introduced in this way,
and of course Mr Darcy makes a sulky rst
appearance. The world of your story can seem more
real if readers are led into it and then discover the
central character there. Reading an opening like
this can feel like going to a party and only after a
while nding that the most interesting person, the
one that you will lose their heart to, is that one over
there in the corner. Being slow to focus on the central
character will keep your readers on their toes and
leave you able to spring surprises and take the story
in unexpected directions.
WHEN YOU ARE UPFRONT WI TH
THE I NTRODUCTIONS
Sometimes Jane Austen introduces her heroine to the
reader straight away. She does this with Catherine
Morland of Northanger Abbey and with Emma
Woodhouse. We soon realize that these heroines have
a lot to learn. Jane Austen is sometimes quick to point
out her characters faults:
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a
comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to
unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had
lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very
little to distress or vex her.
wri ti ng wi th jane austen
Rebecca Smith
thenewwriter.com 13
But just a few lines later we learn that:
The real evils indeed of Emma's situation were the
power of having rather too much her own way, and
a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these
were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to her
many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present
so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as
misfortunes with her.
Writing to her niece, Fanny Knight, in March 1816,
Jane said pictures of perfection, as you know, make
me sick and wicked. Make sure that your characters
wont make your readers feel like that. We dont have
to like your characters, but we do have to nd them
intriguing. When Jane Austen was writing Emma she
said that she was working with a heroine whom no-
one but myself will much like. See if you can follow
Janes example and start showing your characters
in all their complexity from the very rst pages. You
may want to be upfront with the introductions, but
make sure that the reader starts seeing the faults,
oddities and idiosyncrasies straight away.
LET YOUR CHARACTERS
I NTRODUCE THEMSELVES
Sometimes the best way of introducing your characters
is to hand things over to them. Whether you are writing
in the rst or the third person, make sure that
your characters voices are heard from early on.
It may be that you want to show a particular
point of view from the very rst page, or have
your characters arguing or involved in a conict
immediately. The rst thing we learn about
sensible Elinor Dashwood is that she can stop
her mother acting rashly.
You might like to let a character take over
the narration completely. In Lady Susan we
are given almost nothing but the characters
voices. The novel consists of letters and the
narrator almost disappears.
Even if you dont want to tell
the whole of your story in this
way (or through diary entries,
emails or whatever) you can
use some of these forms as
conduits for characters voices.
The white space on a books
page around one of these
communications is pleasing to
the eye. Readers will nd that
your novel is more of a page-
turner if you are using them
the pages really will be turned
more quickly. Introducing a
character through a letter also
means that you are crediting
the reader with enough
intelligence to read between
the lines. You can be subtle and
sly and really have some fun.
Rebecca Smith is the author of three novels
published by Bloomsbury: The Bluebird
Caf, Happy Birthday and All That and A
Bit of Earth. Barbara Trapido called her the
perfect English miniaturist. Rebeccas rst
work of non-ction, Jane Austens Guide to
Modern Lifes Dilemmas was published in
the UK and North America in 2012. Her rst
novel for children was shortlisted for The
2012 Kelpies Prize in Scotland.
Rebecca teaches creative writing at the
University of Southampton. From 200910
she was the writer in residence at Jane
Austens House Museum in Chawton,
Hampshire. She continues to work closely
with the Museum, running writing workshops
and as one of the judges of the Museums
annual competition for young writers.

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G. F. Philips
1 4 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
T
he founder of listenupnorth.com, Rachel
Cochrane, is a published author who has sent
her work out in the past to well-established
publishers, only to come to a commercial
full stop. As she told me, I was continually frustrated
by the commissioning process. Hers was a typical
reaction, and with the spread of digital media she
began to look at the pros and cons of setting up a
spoken-word website as an alternative to the printed
text. She went through the necessary nancial and
legal obligations of insurance (about 1,300 per
annum) and a data protection fee; other key areas
were publicity and nding a suitable recording
studio. At last, with the technical back-up of a good
web designer, she conducted a dry-run of the website
for two months before going ahead from her home in
Stockseld, Northumberland.
To begin with, the website featured writers
mainly from the North East because that was her
home base. Then things developed through groups
of writers who had grant-aided projects, such as my
own involvement with a book of poetry, short stories
and photographs on North Tyneside landmarks called
From Segedunum to the Spanish City. The websites
geographical area soon expanded. As Rachel says,
Although its called listenupnorth, its not restricted
to writers in the north. I have taken on writers from
other parts of the country. To save writers travelling
to record their work here, I even accept podcasts as
pre-recorded material.
Preparation is vital. First, its selecting the writers
and their text. Whether its poetry, a short story or
the writer or others acting out a piece of drama, it has
to be read well and sound clear. As this is audio the
work needs a strong narrative, little dialogue and no
digression. After that its necessary to have a contract
to allow the written work to be recorded. Then a
prole of the writer, complete with photo, goes on the
Listen
and be heard
After nearly four years and with almost 1,000 visitors a day, the
spoken word website listenupnorth.com is going strong.
website and a recording time is booked. This all
takes time and money.
Finding writers for the website is, as Rachel notes,
all about the quality of content, which must be
challenging as well as down-to-earth. Any editorial
decision is always going to be highly subjective, but
she gets good feedback from other writers, and her
site has not only been of interest to the budding or
early career writer. Its eclecticism means an authors
age, style or track record is no barrier to being
accepted. Having people read their own work is a
nancial consideration, but its also a learning curve
for the writers as performers, and in hearing their
own voices played back on that rst take, it gives
them the opportunity to appreciate what the listener
hears at the other end.
The inclusion of the interview on the website is
a godsend for both writer and listener this was
certainly true for me. As an adult education tutor in
creative writing and literature, for me the interview
meant free advertising. Its a great opportunity
for proven writers to discuss their interests and
BY G F PHI LLI PS
'Staging a struggle'
has Rachel
Cochrane with
actors John Woods
and Helen Morris at
the audio recording.
The photograph is
by Ross Parker.
ambitions and to promote their recent publications.
More than anything, it is an excellent way to raise
an authors prole. For the listener, its a clue to
understanding the person behind the writing and
because you listen close up, its an intimate portrayal.
Rachel has also moved out into the community
to record writers and their work. This has often been
the result of community projects responding to the
listenupnorth monthly blog, a diary of who, where,
when and what has been covered on the website.
For example, Rachel recorded a womens writing
group from Easington, County Durham and
duologues from live theatre workshops. Writers
have also come via the newsletter of New Writing
North (a writing development agency) and
subscribers to Facebook and Twitter.
Recently there has been an increase in collaborations
such as the websites pairing with Writers Block, new
publishers from Middlesbrough, with the prize winners
being published in an anthology and a contract to
record their work through listenupnorth.
Such joint ventures give recognition to the authors
and their work, whether its through the printed page
or the listen-and-be-heard personal touch that Rachel
Cochrane has always insisted on as crucial to her
spoken-word website. She wants the way in which
the site is listened to kept exible through a PC,
downloads to an MP3 player or in a car.
The website started out at the owners expense.
Now Rachel admits, it has become bigger than
l i sten and be heard
G. F. Philips
thenewwriter.com 15
me. The high volume of
manuscripts means a 20
reading fee has had to be
introduced. As to recording,
the sound production has been
centralised with a move to a
Tyneside studio, which is more
expensive but provides greater
technical support.
But Rachel says, I am now in the process of
changing the way that listenupnorth operates. Plans
are afoot for even greater collaboration with writers
on projects that will attract funding or sponsorship
to enable me to keep the website going. Attracting
advertising and local sponsorship is a must. Two
local advertisers already support the website. That
said, she intends to keep up the community work
and perhaps publish CD versions using the websites
archives to spread the word, so to speak.
Listenupnorth has featured over 200 pieces of
audio content by 69 writers, including radio plays,
monologues, short stories, poetry and book extracts
plus author interviews. It has been an experiment
which so far has given writers the opportunity to
have their work encouraged, while for some the all-
important interview has enabled the writer behind
the work to gain a wider listening audience, not
just in points north. The natural progression for the
future is to go from sole trading to a partnership of
some kind.
G. F. Phillips is a member of the Society of
Authors, PRS and adult education tutor.
Rachel Cochranes blog on setting
up the website can be found at
www.listenupnorth.typepad.com
meet the publ i sher
Bloodaxe Books
16 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
M
ost graduates emerge from university
hoping to get a job. You founded
Bloodaxe. What gave you the idea
and the courage to do this, and what,
practically did this involve?
The job I was supposed to take fell through: I was
supposed to become a full-time editor with Stand
magazine, for which Id been working for three years
part-time while at Newcastle University, but had
a bust-up with Jon Silkin. Id also decided to start a
spare-time small press, which after a year took over
from the postgrad work Id switched to doing. Then I
worked part-time in a bookshop for a few years until
Bloodaxe could pay me a wage. That all took about
ve years.
But the impetus, what drove me, was part
exasperation, part exhilaration. There was so
much brilliant poetry being written by new and
marginalised writers which I came across in
magazines, on the small press scene and at readings,
so much of it deserving publication more than most
of what the London publishers were putting out. It
was only later that I discovered why: that poetry
publishing from the 50s through to the late 70s was
controlled by a small group of men in London, who
were mostly publishing a small group of poets,
mostly men, mostly living in London, many of them
friends or Oxbridge contemporaries.
You received an Eric Gregory Award for your poetry
in 1982; how do you balance the role of Editor &
Managing Director with your own writing?
The writing goes out the window. I switched from
poetry to novels during the 90s and the only way I
could get two novels written over a period of years was
to write solidly from 9am to 9pm in holiday weeks and
weekends and do rewrites between other things.
Staying alive
Neil Astley, Founder, Editor & Managing Director of poetry publisher
Bloodaxe Books talks to Alison Glinn about how he started the
company and his thoughts on the future of poetry publishing.
The anthologies Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being
Human are all edited by you; how do you nd and
choose which poets to include?
Staying Alive almost assembled itself: 500 of the
poems which had meant a great deal to me over
many years, many of which Id been photocopying
and putting in a le against a day when Id nd some
way of producing such an anthology. What I wanted
was an anthology which would introduce new
readers to contemporary poetry and show existing
poetry readers a much wider range of poetry of
many kinds from many countries than they would
otherwise come across.
With the later anthologies I found Id developed a
gut instinct for exactly those kinds of poems, and its
nothing to do with poetry being accessible but more
with particular kinds of poems connecting with the
reader, because of the way theyre written and what
theyre about. I read many many collections, and
can read poet after poet without nding such a poem
and I enjoy all that reading immensely and then
suddenly theres the poem, I recognise it immediately.
In goes the page marker.
Are there plans for another anthology?
The next anthology is The Hundred Years War:
modern war poems, out in May: another
international compilation the size of the Staying
Alive trilogy volumes, but each section covering
conicts from 1914 to 2014, from the First World
War through to Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. For
each war I have poets writing as combatants on
opposite sides, or as victims or witnesses. Where
possible, the poems from each war or conict
are presented chronologically in terms of when
they were written or set, building up a picture
of what individual poets from different nations
The Hundred Years
War: modern war
poems edited by Neil
Astley is published
in May 2014
12.00 Paperback
were experiencing at the same time, either on the
same battlegrounds or in other parts of the world
(including the home front), with, for example,
British, French and German poets all writing of
shared experiences in opposite trenches during
the ve-month Battle of the Somme. With most the
other war anthologies, its almost as though only
the English poets matter, but these are international
conicts. And in this also what Ive been trying to do
in all my anthologies and all my publishing: showing
readers not just some of the best poetry from this
country but other poetry that matters from other
part of the world.
How do you see the future of poetry publishing
in Britain?
Theres no shortage of good poets. Whats difcult
is maintaining a strong publication programme at
a time when Arts Council funding is always
uncertain and comes at a cost (bureaucratic
demands and requirements to follow their agenda),
and all that affects the subsidised presses. The
commercial lists are subsidised too, their poetry
lists being supported by trade publishing prots,
and a change of personnel can result in a poetry
list being scrapped by new management (as
happened at OUP) or turned upside-down by a new
editor (with poets forced to nd new publishers). And
both the subsidised and the commercial publishers
have been feeling the pinch, with the recession
affecting book sales and massive cutbacks in stock
and ordering at Waterstones. As a direct result of this,
sales of poetry collections in particular have been
falling across the board, and a time when print book
sales are down too. Ebook sales are still minimal for
poetry and dont go anywhere near making up for
this downturn.
meet the publ i sher
Bloodaxe Books
thenewwriter.com 17
Neil Astley has been editor of Bloodaxe Books since
founding the press after graduating from Newcastle
University in 1978. He received an Eric Gregory Award
for his poetry in 1982, and was given an honorary D.Litt
by Newcastle University in 1995. He has published
two poetry collections and two novels, The End of My
Tether (Flambard, 2002; Scribner, 2003), shortlisted
for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and The Sheep
Who Changed the World (Flambard, 2005), and several
anthologies, notably the Staying Alive trilogy, and two
collaborations with Pamela Robertson-Pearce, Soul
Food (2007) and the DVD-book In Person (2008).
Neils top ve tips for how poets can
improve their chances of getting their
poetry published?
1. Read all kinds of poetry, from the classics to
contemporary writers. Dont even think about
trying to publish your own poetry unless you read
poetry, contemporary poetry.
2. Do your research. Every editor is diferent, every
magazine and press is diferent. Make sure you
read what they publish and only submit to those
you feel should be sympathetic to your kind of
work.
3. Dont approach book publishers until youve
published many individual poems in magazines, on
websites or in pamphlets.
4. Check websites before submitting. If editors take
emailed submissions, follow the instructions.
If they dont, submit by post with a stamped
addressed envelope.
5. Support other writers and publishers by buying
their books. Otherwise, why should we give you
our support?

P
a
m
e
l
a

R
o
b
e
r
t
s
o
n
-
P
e
a
r
c
e
vi sual thi nki ng
Simon Whaley
18 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
L
ook at any magazine and youll see two things
ll the page: words AND photos (including
in this magazine!). Photos capture a readers
attention as they ick through the pages, and
when they see something they like, thats when they
stop to read the words.
Editors constantly consider how to illustrate a page
when deciding whether to buy a writers words. All
magazines are illustrated in some way. Pick up short
story magazines like The Peoples Friend, Take a Breaks
Fiction Feast or Womans Weeklys Fiction Special and
youll see that theyre illustrated too (although for
ction its not the writers responsibility to provide
the pictures).
Photography can benet both non-ction and
ction writers, like so:
NON- FICTION WRI TERS
It can increase your chances of publication. Editors
need words-and-picture packages so supplying a
complete illustrated package turns you into a dream
supplier. Sourcing pictures takes time, sometimes
hours, so the writer who can provide their own
photos is saving the editor time.
Not only does it increase your chances of publication,
it may increase how much youre paid. Some
publications pay extra for the photos. Which would
you rather be: the writer paid 100 for 800 words, or
the writer paid 350 for 800 words and six photos?
It opens up more markets. Some editors will
now only consider complete word-and-picture
submissions. If you cant supply the photos the
editor may not be interested in your words.
FICTION WRI TERS
The creative area of our brains also deals with
visualisation and the processing of visual images.
Simply looking at pictures stimulates our creativity.
Its an excellent way to generate ideas (and that
goes for non-ction writers too!)
Seeing a photograph of what we want to
describe enables us to produce a more detailed
written description.
Photographs enable you to add authority and
realism to your text.
Visual Thinking
How photography can benet your writing.
Many writers panic when an editor asks if they have
any pictures. Dont! You dont need professional
equipment. Advances in digital photography mean
that an ordinary compact camera you can buy on high
street today is capable of capturing a photograph that
can be published up to A4 in size, if not more. And
these days, even a mobile phone camera can take a
publishable photo. (Mobile phone cameras are great
because we tend to carry these with us most of the
time.) All digital cameras have automatic modes,
which means all you need to do is point your camera
at your subject, let it focus, then press the button.
Image stabilisation options on most cameras ensure
that 99% of your photos will be sharp.
As writers, we spend a lot of time looking at
words, but if you analyse the photographs you see in
magazines you may be pleasantly surprised.
NON- FI TION WRI TI NG
Letters & Fillers
Start small to begin with. Take a womens weekly
magazine, such as Take a Break, or Thats Life.
Go through the magazine and identify the reader
involvement pages. These often include a readers
letter page, a household tips page, a fun page (funny
pet or children anecdotes, or other family mishaps)
and possibly a recipe page.
Count how many of the contributions are
word-only and how many have photos.
What do you notice? Twelve months ago,
Thats Life magazine paid 30 for every
household tip they published and 50 for
every tip with a photo they published.
Today, they ONLY publish tips with
photos. So, if you want your household
tip published in this market, you HAVE to
send in a photo.
Look at the photos. Do they look like
theyve been taken in a professional
photographers studio? No. The images
used are the sorts you might take on a
compact camera, or mobile phone, and
share on a social media website. As long
as the photo illustrates the point of your
words, the magazine might use it.
BY SI MON WHALEY
Writing Exercise
We all have our own tips to make
life easier. Think of one you use,
write it up and take a suitable
photo. Send it of to magazines
tip page.
ARTICLES
The best way for non-ction writers to sell
more words is to produce the complete
words and picture package. Be sensible.
Dont target National Geographic! Instead,
take a magazine that focuses on a specic
subject matter or a hobby that youre
knowledgeable about, such as a gardening magazine
or a travel magazine.
Analyse the magazine, looking for the main
features and articles. Count how many articles are
illustrated with photos.
Who provided the photos? If you see Words by
Helen Smith, Photos by Mark Jones this suggests the
editor is happy to buy the words from one supplier
(the writer) and photos from another supplier (the
photographer). If you spot most articles are credited
as Words and photos by Helen Smith then you know
the editor prefers buying complete words-and-
picture packages. Finding photo credits isnt easy
(much to many a photographers annoyance!). If
editors use photos from several sources, such as
photographic agencies (Getty, Corbis, Alamy) or
tourist boards, the credit may appear immediately
next to the relevant photo, or near the spine of the
publication, usually in a minuscule font!
Analyse the photos. Do they all have blue sky?
(Essential for travel features to inspire readers
to want to go there.) Do the photos have people
in them? Are they wearing the right clothing? (A
cycling magazine may not use your photo if your
cyclist isnt wearing a helmet, for example.) How
do the photos tie in with the article? What specic
points do the photos illustrate and how are they
mentioned in the text?
Writing Exercise
Write an article for one of these magazines (such as
a travel feature about your home town) and take a
selection of photos to illustrate it. If you were a reader
reading your article, what sort of photos would you like
to see illustrating the article?
FICTION WRI TI NG
Turn your camera into your digital notebook.
Bring your characters to life! Have you seen a dress in
a shop window that would suit your main character?
Take a photo! Whats sweet would they choose in a
restaurant? Take a photo when you see it.
Where does your ctional action take place?
Photograph landscapes that inspire you. Visit them
several times, at different times of the day and
in different seasons. Note how the atmosphere
changes. Your photos will help you convey in words
that atmosphere to your reader.
Create a mood board for your short story/novel.
Register with Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) and
upload your photos. Create a board for each
character, setting or story. (Pinterest allows you to
keep boards private.)
vi sual thi nki ng
Simon Whaley
thenewwriter.com 19
Before you write a scene, look at your photographic
collection. Stare at the setting youre going to use,
look for the clothing your main character will wear
and imagine your character wearing them, in that
photo. Look for authentic details you can include in
your description.
Writing Exercise
Think of a place you know well, of which you also have
photos (but dont look at them yet). Write 200 words
about a ctional character arriving in that place for the
rst time. What do they see/experience? Next, spend ten
minutes looking at the photos you have of that place.
Scrutinise them for detail. Now write another 200 words
describing your characters arrival at that place for the
rst time. Compare the two pieces side by side. Which one
creates the better image in the readers imagination?
THE PRACTICALS
If youre taking photos to submit with your words,
here are a few practical points to consider:
Fill the frame. Look through your cameras
viewnder, or at the LCD screen. Make your subject
ll the screen. Get in close.
Look for unusual angles. Sit on the ground, or climb
a few steps, to alter the perspective.
Take TWO pictures: one landscape (with the
camera held normally) and one portrait (with the
camera turned ninety degrees). It offers magazines
exibility in how they use the photo.
NEVER insert photos into your article document.
Always send them as a separate attachment. If
emailing fewer than three images, send the photos
as attachments on one email message. Some email
systems cant cope with several large attachments,
so use an online storage folder like www.box.com,
www.dropbox.com instead. (You upload the images
to a folder, and then create a link, which you email
to the editor for them to use when they want.)
As writers, we use words to paint a picture in our
readers imaginations. There is much in common
between photography and creative writing. Both try
to tell a story. Both make a conscious decision about
viewpoint and how much information is revealed.
Both can still be interpreted differently by different
readers. With a little practise, using photographs to
inspire us can also help us choose better words to
improve the image we create in our readers minds,
and help us sell more of our words. For more tips
aimed at writers on how to take publishable and
inspiring photographs visit www.photography-for-
writers.blogspot.com. Happy snapping!
Simon Whaley
is the author of
Photography for
Writers published by
Compass Books
All photographs
in this article by
Simon Whaley
Take photos in
landscape format
and in portrait
format.
wri ti ng spaces
A stock of stories
20 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
I
n the coming months, Sharpham House
in Devon is running a number of themed
residential weekends for writers who want to
explore aspects of myth, nature, landscape and
site through language. The workshops will be led
by poet Alice Oswald (who has been awarded both
the 2002 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2013 Warwick Prize)
along with other experienced writer/tutors and are
aimed at a very wide range of writers, regardless of
your standard, expertise or medium.
An important element in the mix is Sharpham
House itself. Set in 550 acres of rolling Devon
countryside and sitting on a promontory above
a double bend in the river Dart, this 18th century
Palladian house plays its part in providing material
for the residential as inspiration, as social history
and as a stock of stories. It comes as no surprise that
a house of this date brings with it a complex history.
Written into the architecture and stones of the house
are already a number of tales, beginning with the
builder of Sharpham Philemon Pownall. In the 1760s
he found himself as a captain of a royal navy ship
in the West Indies, and only three months after war
with Spain broke out in 1762 he captured a Spanish
man-of war, the Hermione. Captain Pownall soon
discovered that, aside from the military importance
of his prize, Hermione was stuffed to the gunwales
with Peruvian gold, silver and tin. After the British
government had taken their share of the booty, the
Captain was left with 64,963 or the equivalent
today of roughly 5 million which provided the
wherewithal to construct this beautiful house.
Indeed, you could argue that Sharpham was really
built by enslaved Africans mineworkers. There is
A stock of stories
Jerome Fletcher tells us how Sharpham House plays its part as a creative
writing venue and an inspiration to writers and other artists.
a twist in this tale however. Although Philemon
Pownall started the building (or rather re-building)
of Sharpham, he never saw it completed. He had
returned to the Caribbean where at some point he
went to the aid of a ship that was being attacked and
was killed in the affray.
Over the centuries the interior of the house has
remained largely intact. A very ne cantilevered
staircase, a library with panels attributed to Angelika
Kauffman and ornate octagonal drawing room all
give a tangible sense of the history of the place. Beyond
the house lie the gardens and grounds. The formality
close to the house gives way to classic English parkland
laid out by Capability Brown. Beyond that is the gentle
rolling pastureland of Devon where sheep do indeed
safely graze and then, in the background, the brooding
presence of Dartmoor, with its wildness and harshness.
From the hills above Sharpham, the eye can travel from
the 18th classicism of the house to the romantic 19th
century sensibility of the moor in an instant. Then you
can walk from this elevated position down through the
vineyard to the banks of the River Dart. Here the tidal
ow reveals and conceals banks of slick mud, with its
attendant variety of birds from waders to gulls to ock
of eld birds and solitary raptors. The river from its
source among the rocks of Dartmoor to its conjunction
with the sea at Dartmouth formed the subject of Alice
Oswalds book length poem Dart.
As well as the obvious features of Sharpham,
both natural and constructed, there are a number of
other inspirational spaces for the writer to explore
and exploit, from the lime kilns to the quays, the
ruined conservatory, the volcanic plug, the reed beds
and the quarry.
In more modern times, from the mid-20th century
onwards, Sharpham House has been the site for a
new and different set of activities. The last owners of
the house, Ruth and Maurice Ash, were keen to use
this setting as a place for the pursuit of crafts, social
enterprises and spiritual practises such as yoga and
mindfulness. It now has connections with youth
services and social enterprises like the Robert Owen
Community, as well as organic and environmental
projects. It has become a place of reection, creativity,
healing and learning. This was to a certain extent
modelled on the ethos of the nearby Dartington
Hall community. In fact, Ruth Ash was a daughter
of Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst who established
Dartington as a centre for alternative arts education
and practice from the 1930s onwards. After the death
of Ruth and Maurice the Trust they set up has been
pursuing their vision for Sharpham. Central to the
Trusts activities now is an arts programme. They
have appointed an artist-in-residence for the last two
years and the present incumbent, Peter Oswald, is
developing a project around the gure of Parzival.
Peter was asked by Sharpham Trust to write a
dramatic piece to be performed on the estate. The
theme is to be the division of humans from nature
and how to heal it. Peter came up with the idea of a
play based on the Parzival myth, and approached
Martin Shaw, the mythteller and Parzival expert.
Martin agreed to co-write the piece. Whats emerging
is a play with a storyteller imbedded in it as a
character. The seven actors and two musicians of
Peter Oswalds Devon-based theatre company The
Abyss, will perform the play, along with Martin
Shaw. The audience will follow the action from one
wri ti ng spaces
A stock of stories
thenewwriter.com 21
A stock of stories
place to another on the Sharpham estate probably
including the house itself, and denitely including
the river. The story is vast, and follows the progress
of Parzival from holy fool, brought up in isolation in
the forests by his mother, to Grail King. In between,
he makes more blunders than most heroes do in their
nightmares, and has to learn from some very drastic
mistakes. The land or wasteland lies ruined,
and its recovery depends entirely on Parzival. With
Oswalds characteristic verse/prose mix, and the
raw language of Martin Shaws storytelling, the play
moves from high drama to high comedy and violent
physical action. The array of characters includes the
horned woman of the woods, Cundrie, the beautiful
Condwiramurs, the Fisher King and the Court of King
Arthur. The audience will be led by music and colour
through the volcanic landscape of Sharpham on a
summer afternoon, into the twilight.
As mentioned at the outset of this article, a
major plank of the arts programme at Sharpham
is a series of residential creative writing
weekends. These now offer you the
opportunity to benet from the multiple
creative resources of this extraordinary
place. In the company of experienced writer/
tutors you will experience the delights of
creative practice in a stunning setting.
The main difculty you will experience
may be to tear yourself away from gazing
at the landscape long enough to get
some work done. For more details about
these courses, go the web site at www.
sharphamtrust.org/Programme/The-Arts/
Creative-writing-courses
Jerome Fletcher is
Associate Professor
of Performance
Writing at UC
Falmouth and one
of the Sharphams
Creative Writing
Residentials guest
writers.
competi tion results
Fairy Tale Sonnet
22 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Competition
Fairy Tale Sonnet
Our Fairy Tale Sonnet Competition received so many terric entries
that we have had a really hard time choosing the winners. Some
were light-hearted, some more serious and some very dark indeed.
We are also happy to be able to publish a couple of runner-ups.
The Emperors New Clothes
Oh yes! That really suits me, dont you think?
Indeed sir, yes it does, youre looking fresh.
Why thanks! Youre right, Im really in the pink.
He thanked the rogue, ignoring naked esh.
The Emperor just stood there, in the buf
His subjects knowing not quite what to say.
A chance remark, impromptu, of-the-cuf
Regrettably contrived to spoil his day.
A little child revealed what all could see:
The Emperor has nothing on at all.
But no! The truths not destined to be free.
Its hidden in plain sight, a judgment call.
And so they all kept up the foul pretence
With everyone a party to ofence.
Steve Taylor
A clever and fun
re-evaluation of
the traditional
view of step-
mothers in
fairy tales.
We loved the use
of dialogue within
the poem. The
broadening of
focus at end adds
a sinister twist.
Wicked
Why are wicked step-mothers the curse
of fairy tale, legend and verse?
When everyone knows, the way that it goes
is that wicked step-daughters are worse.
Snow White? Her poor step-mum was needy.
She just wanted love, thats not greedy.
Okay, so the Queen may have been slightly mean;
but seven new boyfriends? How seedy.
And though it may cause apprehension,
young Cinders is well worth a mention:
neglecting her duty, parading her booty
at balls, using magic pretension.
Yes, everyone knows, the way that it goes
is that wicked step-daughters are worse.
Sarah Doyle
WINNER
Beast
His sts were bloodied ghting, matted beard,
unkempt mane, manners lost in loneliness,
in dirty clothes, the village cursed him weird
for drunken rages, house a cobwebbed mess.
He stole the blacksmiths girl and kept her slaved
at rst with threats to crush her fathers head.
The beast would grant her freedom from his grave
if she would tame his home and share his bed.
She bore with fortitude the beasts cruel ways
and calmed him singing sweetly for a year.
She begged to see her father for a day
though doubting her return, he let her go.
His change of mind was strange to him, unclear;
the compassion he thought hed never show.
Sue Spiers
Although basically
a retelling we
enjoyed the tone
and liked the
change of tack
in last couplet.
Especially loved
the phrase
manners lost in
loneliness.
Winning entries from the 17th annual Prose & Poetry Prizes 2013 from The New Writer
2 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Judges Comments on Short Story Winners
FIRST PLACE
The Lonely Toothbrush by
Russell Reader
The Lonely Toothbrush is a very short story about a
very lonely man an adulterous husband who got
caught. That sounds simple enough, but the intensity,
economy, emotional honesty and sheer humaneness
of Russell Readers storytelling leave you with a
more complex reaction than serves-him-right. The
Lonely Toothbrush never feels, as some less-successful
entries did, as if it has been hacked back from
something longer. Like all good short stories, it is the
perfect length for its content, and has the power to
trouble, to haunt, and to linger in the mind. zf
SECOND PLACE
My Chair by Esther Freeman
You realise pretty soon, as you read Esther Freemans
poignant, cleverly-structured story My Chair, that
you, the reader, are one step ahead of the narrator.
Hes a bewildered child who has lived through World
War Two at home with his mother, and who doesnt
know and doesnt like this intrusive violent man
who has turned up to share her bed. The author
skilfully manages the slow release of information,
as gradually the boy gets the idea. His response is
shocking but entirely credible. zf

THIRD PLACE
Cupid is a knavish lad by
Audrey Marlowe
In a morass of entries about relationship breakdown
and sadness, often death, Cupid is a knavish lad
caught my eye as an irreverent take on the short
story. Initially, the impression of a historical
and rather traditional setting didnt catch my
imagination. However, a jarring note was struck
with the introduction of contemporary teen slang.
Had I read wrongly? Intrigued I read on and a witty
tale unfolded where those traditional mores were
unwound and a modern day dilemma came to light.
Difcult to sustain over a longer term I suspect but
as a short story it more than fullled the brief. gp
Judges Comments
on Short Story Winners
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Short Story First Prize
thenewwriter.com 3
H
e stood there brushing his teeth, avoiding
eye contact with himself in the bathroom
mirror. The at was silent. No school run.
No half-eaten bowls of Coco Pops to clear
away. Hed see the kids next weekend hopefully. She
still refused to even talk to him. Just handed them
over without answering any of his questions, then
calmly closed the door in his face.
And for what, he thought to himself, as he listened
to the bristles brush against his pearly whites. A few
months of pleasure? It wasnt like they were together
every day though during that time, was it. There
were the shared lunch breaks, when theyd irt over
a subsidised salad, and occasional heavy petting
sessions after work, in the lay-by around the corner
from the ofce. Then there were those two hours
up the lane when hed said that hed gone to the big
B&Q to try and nd a special bit for his drill. Stolen
moments, every day or so. So it was more like a few
weeks, really, all in all.
Though, if you actually counted it all up, in hours,
itd probably come to less than a week. So, a few days
in total. That sounds about right. A few days of fun.
But every lunch that they shared, every half
hour in the car, it was all wrought with worry. Hed
be anxious, afraid of somebody spotting them, of
putting two and two together. Thats why they went
away that weekend, so that he wouldnt have to keep
looking over his shoulder.
Southport. A B&B. In hindsight he should have
booked something swisher, seeing as itd turn out
to be the one and only time that theyd do it. But he
wanted somewhere that accepted cash; he couldnt
risk anything appearing on his credit card statement.
He wished that hed remembered that when he
casually handed over his card at the service station
on the M6 Southbound. Hed told his wife that he was
going up to Edinburgh for a conference you see. It
didnt stack up.
It took two hours to get to Southport, separately
of course, and three hours to get back. Roadworks.
They spent an hour walking along the front, trying
to nd a restaurant. Then two hours sat in an Italian
place; a mediocre lasagna and what was probably a
shop-bought tiramisu. All the time on edge, looking
around, suspicious of that guy sat in the corner who
looked over at least twice. Was he an old friend?
Somebody from work? Best eat up. Lets go. Back to the
B&B, where they could begin. The reason that they
were there. They spent ten minutes or so fumbling
on the bed before the main act began. And then,
the pice de rsistance. Five minutes? If only. Thirty
seconds at best.
Thirty seconds of freedom. No dodgy guy in the
corner who might be related to his wifes cousins
neighbours friend. No worrying, no nothing. Just
sex, if hes honest. Thirty seconds of great sex, after
months of gut-churning guilty foreplay.
And theres his toothbrush now, in his new
bathroom, in his new at, sat by itself in the little pot
on the sink. No longer jostling
for space amongst the hard
brushes, the soft brushes, the
yellow Mickey Mouse brush
and the blue Spiderman one.
Its got the place to itself.
Russell started writing short stories a couple
of years ago. He currently ts his writing
around his day job in Lancaster, and tweets
via @russellreader.
BY RUSSELL READER
SHORT STORY FI RST PRI ZE
The Lonely Toothbrush
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Short Story Second Prize
4 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
T
he ugly man with the muddy black boots sits
down in my chair.
That's my chair, I tell him.
He bends forward and rufes my hair,
then leans back and lights his pipe.
It is my chair. It's red like the curtains, and I like to
run my nger along the swirly patterns. It feels soft
doing it one way, and bumpy the other. Sometimes I
sit in it upside down, pressing my face into the seat. It
smells like the leaves in the forest after it rains.
It is my chair. It has the mark on it where I dropped
my birthday cake. Mum saved up her sugar rations to
make it. I ate two big bits, then I was sick.
It is my chair. It's where I read my Beano, while
Mum cooks tea. When the smells waft through from
the kitchen it makes my tummy rumble. I hold my
nose and try not to think about my empty belly. Mum
says there's not enough ration books in the world to
stop me being hungry.
It is my chair. It's where I sit every night opposite
Mum. The clackety-clack of her knitting needles, and
Marmalade chasing balls of wool around her feet. I
drink my warm milk, then the bongs of Big Ben on the
wireless means it's time for bed. After I brush my teeth,
Mum comes to tuck me in, and kisses me goodnight.
That's my chair, I tell the man again. He has big,
appy ears and stupid round glasses. His clothes are
the colour of my bogeys. That's my chair! I yell, and
kick him in the leg.
His big hairy hand slaps the side of my head. My
ear burns. I want to cry. But I don't. Not like him. I saw
him crying yesterday when Mum was out shopping.
Everyone knows only girls cry.
It is my chair, I say, and stomp out the room.
BY ESTHER FREEMAN
My Chair
SHORT STORY SECOND PRI ZE
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Short Story Second Prize
thenewwriter.com 5
Mum is in the kitchen, chopping carrots.
He's in my chair, I tell her.
Then sit in mine.
When's he going?
He's home for good. I told you that.
But it's my chair, I tell her, and stomp out the room.
Mum says he's my dad, but I know he isn't. My dad is
far away, ghting Germans. My dad is really brave.
He's shot down lots of enemy planes, even more than
Biggles. When he comes home he'll put me on his
knee, and tell me all about his adventures.
I have a photo of my dad. I keep it in the tobacco tin,
along with my lead soldiers, underneath the melted
shrapnel. Mum took the photo, so she isn't in it. It's
just me and my dad. We're on the beach in Blackpool,
playing in the sand. Mum says it was the day before
the war started. I'm in a nappy. Dad is in a white shirt,
his sleeves rolled up. He has funny ears, like Mickey
Mouse; and round glasses, like Harold Lloyd. In the
picture he's laughing. I'm laughing. Mum says we all
laughed a lot back then.
The man in my chair doesn't laugh. He doesn't even
smile. I know he's not my dad, and he's in my chair.
I write a letter to my dad. I tell him about the man
in my chair. I take the letter to Mr Porter at the Post
Ofce. Mum says my dad is in Egypt. I don't know
where Egypt is, but Mr Porter will.
Behind his glasses Mr Porter's wrinkled eyes get
even more wrinkley. What you writing to Egypt for
Son? he asks.
To tell my dad about the man in my chair.
He holds my letter in his blue veiny hands, and
shakes his head. Your dad's not in Egypt anymore. He's
been demobbed. The war's over, surely you know that?
I don't know what demobbed is, but I know the war
isn't over. If the war is over why aren't there any sweets
in the shops? And why isn't Phillip Branston's dad
home? And his big brother, Stan. And his Uncle Terry.
Mr Porter won't take my letter. He says I'd be
wasting my money.
Mum asks me to lay the table. I put out knives and
forks hers near the cooker and mine near the sink.
She shouts at me, tells me to do it properly. When I
don't move she slams another knife and fork down in
the middle, making the whole table rattle.
Mum turns off the hob and calls the man in for
tea. He doesn't come, so she goes through to the living
room. He tells her he's not hungry, says he'll have
something later. I grab the knife and fork, and throw
them back in the drawer.
Mum comes back in the kitchen, and tells me to
wash my hands. I run them under the cold water,
but really I'm watching her. She chucks the carrots
onto the plates, and slams the mashed potato down
beside. There's no chops, she says, sloshing gravy
everywhere. They'd run out by the time I got there.
You'll have to manage without.
The front door opens, then slams shut. The man's
gone out. I hope he's gone forever. Mum rips off her
apron, and throws it at the draining board. Come and
eat your tea, she says to me.
I know that Mum and the man are going to bed because
the wireless is switched off, and I hear them walking
upstairs. They go into Mum's room, and the door shuts
with a clunk. I hear Mum laugh, but not her proper
laugh. It's high and silly. She's obviously pretending.
It's quiet for a bit, and I guess they're asleep. I throw
off the bed clothes and swing my legs out, but freeze
when I hear a squeaking noise. My feet shoot under
the covers again, and I look under the bed, because it
sounds like mice. The squeaking stops, and next door
in Mum's room I hear the man's voice. I think Mum is
crying. Then it goes quiet.
It's dark in the living room, and the only sound is the
clock ticking on the mantlepiece. Mum put the re
out, but it's still warm, so even without my slippers
my feet aren't cold.
I know where she keeps the matches. And the lighter
fuel. It soaks into the fabric, and it no longer smells of
wet leaves. But I don't care, because it's my chair.
I do the match third time. When I put it near the
chair it gobbles up the lighter fuel. The mark where I
dropped my birthday cake disappears under yellow and
orange ames. But I don't care, because it's my chair.
The ames nearly reach the ceiling, and the smoke
makes me cough. I watch the red material turn black. I
know it will no longer feel smooth one way and bumpy
the other. But I don't care, because it's my chair.
Upstairs I hear Mum's bedroom door open, and I
hear his voice. He sounds scared. I smile, because it's
my chair.
For many years Esther freeman has
worked as a ghost writer for not-for-prot
organisations. Deciding she d like to a bit of
glory herself she studied creative writing at
Central St Martins. Last year her rst short
story was published and shes currently
working on a novel based on the real life
stories WW2 female pilots.
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Short Story Third Prize
6 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
T
he Lords Capulet and Montague, with their
wives, sat at a table on an ornate balcony,
glasses and a carafe of wine in front of them.
The early evening sun poked its ngers
through the tangle of tumbling vine leaves that hung
above them. Intermittent shafts of bright light cause
the Venetian glassware to wink cheerfully and the
wine to glow serenely.
More wine, Lady C?
Lady Capulet nodded to Lord Montague and smiled
her thanks as he relled her glass.
It is all arranged then, my lord? Our Juliet is to
marry your Romeo, the wedding to take place soon,
Lady Capulet said, raising the glass to her lips.
Just think of it. Our families will be the most
powerful in Verona possibly even Italy, Lord
Montague enthused as he quaffed noisily.
Not only the most powerful, my friend, but also the
wealthiest. Our inuence will stretch half way across
the land. Lord Capulet drained his glass and relished a
distant vision of saint-seducing gold, and mastery.
Your Juliet is such a lovely girl, Lady Montague
simpered. Ive always said so. Already, I look on her
as my dear daughter. She nodded energetically, to
validate her own remarks, causing several hairpins to
escape from her elaborate coiffure and drop like the
gentle rain.
How kind of you, Madam. Of course, we have
always admired your Romeo. Such a lovely boy,
Lady Capulet responded and her unctuous lie was
well received.
The women continued in a similar vein while the
men concentrated their thoughts on their bright future.
Below them, in the courtyard, the young couple
discussed their parents plan. Juliet was slim,
fteen years old, with black hair, green eyes and a
determined chin. Romeo, long-legged, slightly built
and dgety, turned his thin, anxious face to Juliet.
Oh, Jules, what are we gonna do? Can you believe
this is happening? What can we do? I mean - get
married? Balls, balls! A boxful of balls!
Well, for starters you need to chill. Lets try to
think dont start being uncool. Juliet rolled her eyes.
Romeo exhaled noisily as he opped down
beside her.
Youre right Jules, but who the hell do our parents
think they are? But marriageI mean, youre my best
friend and all that but
I know! I know and I feel the same way. I love
you, Romy, but not, you knownot in that way. Weve
always been good mates but, fuck me, thats all there
is to it.
Well, I did, you knowthat one time when we
decided to lose our virginity. He tried, and failed, to ogle.
You feeling sick or something? No? Well stop
pulling stupid faces. Yes, we had sex and no, it didnt
mean love, it didnt mean anything, Romy. We dont
always know why things happen. We did it. We liked
it. End of. Its like were merely players on a stage
acting out our destiny.
Uh?
Never mind. Juliet patted Romeos head and
ashed him an enigmatic smile. Im going to talk it
over with Nurse. See if I can get some ideas.
Oh, right Ill chat with my man, Balthasar. Hes
a good bloke Get his adviceLook, lets meet here
again tomorrow.
Fine. Same time, same place.
Two pairs of doting parents looked down on the
scene below them.
Look how excited they are, Lady Capulet said.
Planning their dream wedding, Lady
Montague said.
The future looks good, Lord Capulet said.
Yes, the gods are surely in the giving vein today,
Lord Montague said.
That evening, when the sun abandoned its post and
their chores were completed, Balthasar, as was his
custom, joined Nurse in her room, where talk soon
turned to the planned wedding.
Itll never happen, Nurse said. Mark my words
itll never happen. Her heavy bosom swelled
with condence.
Is there another man, then? Balthasar asked,
enthralled by Nurses breasts and eager for gossip.
No, you ignoramus, theres no other man. But,
my Juliet will never marry. Shell never succumb to
a mans bidding Im quite sure of that. Marriage to
Romeo would bring her only toil and trouble.
Is that so? Balthasars attention had wandered
as he speculated on her reaction if he tried to give her
a cuddle. All the same, my Romeo would make a ne
husband for her.
BY AUDREY MARLOWE
SHORT STORY THI RD PRI ZE
Cupid is a knavish lad
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Short Story Third Prize
thenewwriter.com 7
Rubbish! Romeos always been a whiny bucket of
whinge ever since he learned to talk. You do say some
daft things.
I always thought he was keen on that Rosaline
you know. Shes a good-looking girl.
Well, between you, me and the forum pillar,
Rosalines got a Nurse paused and lowered her voice,
female problemshe cant have children.
Ah, well, a man likes to see proof that he can
father children only natural.
This turn in the conversation led Nurse to note,
with interest, Balthasars sturdy build, neat dress and
good looks.
Fancy a drink, then? she asked, reaching for the
wine. She ashed him a brazenly wanton wink.
Dont mind if I do, Nurse. Dont mind if I do.
Balthasar edged himself closer.
What in all thats Roman do you mean, woman?
Lord Capulet bellowed. What do you mean, Juliet
wont marry Romeo? And you, Montague, what do
you mean, your Romeo wont marry our Juliet?
Do simmer down, dear, and sit down, Lady
Capulet said as she guided her husband to a chair. Im
sure its just some misunderstanding. Dont you think
so? she asked Lord Montague.
No, Madam! I do not! These young people are
adamant. They said theyd sooner die than marry
each other. I tell you, Capulet, Im at my wits end.
The two men strode round the room together
in fervent conversation. The ladies sat eyeing each
other, like two birds on a perch and waited for their
husbands to tell them what to think. Lady Montague
continued with embroidering an entwined R and J on
a silk cushion-cover until the men returned.
Ladies, this wedding must, and will, go ahead.
In the meantime Juliet will be conned to her room,
Lord Capulet announced.
Your task is to get our son to man-up. Remind him
of his responsibilities and er, see that he shapes up
that sort of thing, Lord Montague told his wife.
Lady Montague resented her husbands tone and
stabbed her needle through the silk so vehemently
that the material split. She withdrew the needle,
wishing it was a dagger she saw before her.
Shit! she exclaimed.
Exactly, Lord Capulet agreed. Like it or not, Romeo
and Juliet will do as theyre told. And thats nal.
Come on, everyone, we have arrangements to make.
I overheard them, Romy. Theyre going to try and
force us. Im supposed to be locked in my room right
now, Juliet snorted. Like thats ever worked before.
Jules, Ill tell you straight. Im not going through
with it no way.
Romeo picked a cluster of grapes from a nearby
vine. They ate the fruit in silence, seeing who could
spit their pips the furthest. Romeo prodded Juliet in
the ribs.
What?
I must tell you something, Jules. I cant keep it to
myself any longer. The thing is, I love someone else,
and have done for ages and -
- Never! Well, colour me surprised. And guess
what? Me too, Romy - Ive been seeing someone for
ages and its the real thing. Its the very real thing. So,
youre planning to marry anyway, then?
Romeos face darkened like an eclipse. He kicked
the remaining grapes hard into the distance.
She wont marry me, Jules. Swears shell never
marry anyone. Im gonna ask her later to come with
me to Mantuayou knowstart a new life. Balthasar
said hed cover for me as long as he could but I
wouldnt tell him who it was
Ah, Im sorry, Romy. Juliet stroked his arm. Well,
its a good idea and I hope it all works out for you. Im off
now to see my own certain someone. Take care, mate.
Yeah, you too, Jules. Thanks.
I have good news, darling. Juliet snuggled up to her
lovers warm body.
Is it? Are you?
Its true. It seems that having sex with Romeo
wasnt the waste of time we thought it would be.
Oh, Juliet, come closer. Let me hold you.
Without a warning knock Romeo burst into the
room and stood transxed by the scene before him.
Rosaline? Juliet, is that you? What is all this? Are
you you know, are you?
Lovers? What do you think? Rosaline sat up in
bed revealing her naked body.
Romy? What are you doing here? And what the hell
has this got to do with you? Juliet rose up, also revealing
her nakedness. Rosaline, are you and Romy?
Itll be alright, Juliet, youll see. And you, Romeo,
dont just stand there like Banquos ghost. Get your kit
off and join us.
Rosaline drew back the bed covers and indicated
the space between her and Juliet. Romeo was
sufciently aroused. He did as he was told.
Nurse and Balthasar downed their drinks and placed
their glasses on the table.
You know wholl end up looking after this baby
dont you? Nurse asked.
You dont mean us, surely? Balthasar slipped his
arm round Nurses waist.
I certainly do. Rosalines too fond of her bed,
Juliets too juvenile and Romeos too aky.
Nurse poured more wine and Balthasar loosened
her bodice and gently fondled her breasts.
Well theyd better not bank on it, he murmured,
we might have one of our own
to care for eh?
Nurse didnt reply; she was
otherwise engaged.
The Lords Capulet and
Montague, with their wives,
sat in silence at a table on
an ornate balcony, a carafe
of wine and glasses in front
of them.
Audrey Marlowe lives in Buxted, East
Sussex with her husband Barry, in close
proximity to their extended family. When
she retired Audrey enrolled with the Open
University and studied creative writing and
literature. Last year she gained her BA and
is delighted that the many hours of study
have proved so worthwhile.
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17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Judges Comments on Single Poetry Winners
FIRST PLACE
The Postman and the Swans
by Alex Toms
I admire a poem that can tell a good story. And I
admire one that does so with air even more. Theres
much to enjoy in this funny, poignant, bittersweet
narrative from the detail of a person small / as a
gure in a landscape postcard to the charming idea
that someones heart could freeze like a beetroot /
planted in black Russian soil. Every image is a small
surprise. The voice of the narrator is condent and
beguiling. Theres a lovely concision in the language,
in the way that landscape and grief are brought
together. And theres something transformative in
it: I went back to the line ice chiselled away at him
/ sculpted him into someone new many times. And
I was haunted by the ending, the children at the
window with their faces franked by English rain.
An original poem, satisfying in a brilliantly
unsettling kind of way.

SECOND PLACE
When We Moved by
Heather Walker
This is a poem that yields more with every reading,
both in terms of its subject and its style. It invites
you to take a second look through the neatly sealed,
newly painted windows of its rst stanzas. The
house begins as a metaphor for a fresh start but it
slowly becomes a metaphor for complete ruin, as
past dalliance / seeps into the wood and apologies
that dont t / escape through rotting windows until
nally even the house / spews us out. Its this subtle
turn that drew me back to it.

THIRD PLACE
What I will do for you by
Sherri Turner
I liked this poem because it dees embellishment. Its
as spare, brutal and uncompromising as its subject
matter demands. Short lines emphasise its starkness.
Like the narrator in the nal lines, it refuses to
apologise for the obvious and, in doing so, makes us
think twice about how to read it. Its a good poem
because its difcult to paraphrase and it also leaves
very little to be said.
Judges Comments
on Single Poetry Winners
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Single Poem First Prize
thenewwriter.com 9
After his divorce, the Postman
wanted to go where no one
would think to nd him, where he d be small
as a gure in a landscape postcard,
so he sent himself to Siberia,
found that it delivered
a lonely land where wolves
still grieved in woods
and swans foretold the coming of the snow.
The rst winter was the toughest:
the wind cut like paper, whispered through cracks,
insidious as gossip. He wrote
to his children; no letters
came back. His heart froze
like a beetroot
planted in black Russian soil.
But the ice chiselled away at him,
sculpted him into someone new:
no longer Michael the postman,
but Mikhail the farmer,
hauling sacks of feed instead of mail.
Spring brought him a girl; her Cyrillic
fell like akes around him, melted on his tongue.
Twenty years on, his life is nearly complete,
but when Bewicks swans leave to winter
in Englands mild and misty grey,
he thinks of his children,
their faces blurred,
like faces at a window
franked by English rain.
Alex lives with her partner and sons in
Wivenhoe. She has been published in
magazines, journals and anthologies including
Writers Forum, SOUTH and Artemis Poetry.
In 2012 she had a poem highly commended
in the Essex Poetry Festival competition, and
last year was highly commended in the Poetry
London competition.
BY ALEX TOMS
SI NGLE POEM FI RST PRI ZE
The Postman
and the
Swans
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Single Poem Second Prize
10 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
When we moved
we white washed the walls,
repaired the cracks
until every room
was a new adventure.
Every sin, secret, guilt
was eradicated by anti-mould paint
guaranteed for ve years.
And after that?
A touch up. A new coat
to disguise every blemish.
No rip or spot left to lie
but be concealed
with putty, prima,
some good preparation,
a base for good decoration,
like foundations, solid, trustworthy,
until an act of God
or past dalliance
seeps into the wood,
a fungus, eating away at the oor,
spores spreading out, taking hold,
spoiling the new. Now
scabs are picked over,
words ung in anger
over walls still wet with tears,
accusations clinging to doors,
apologies that dont t
escape through rotting window frames
until even the house
spews us out.
BY HEATHER WALKER
SI NGLE POEM SECOND PRI ZE
When we moved
Heather lives on the borders of south west
London/Surrey and has been writing poetry
for a number of years. Her poems have
appeared in Areopagus, Reach, What the
Dickens? and OU Poets Anthology 2013.
She was runner up in Kingston Libraries
inaugural poetry competition in 2013.
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Single Poem Third Prize
thenewwriter.com 1 1
I will tell you the lies that
they told me,
so that you feel safe
even though you are not,
so that you are not afraid
as I have been
since I found out the truth,
so that you will be happy.
And when you nd out
that you were lied to,
as you will,
as we all do,
and you ask me why,
this is what I will tell you.
And I will not apologise
for the lie,
but I will say I am sorry
that the truth was too sad
to tell.
BY SHERRI TURNER
SI NGLE POEM THI RD PRI ZE
When we moved What I will
do for you
Sherri Turner has had numerous short
stories published in womens magazines
and has been placed or commended in
competitions for both poetry and short
stories, including previous mentions in the
New Writer short story and microction
categories. Her work also appears in a
number of short story anthologies.
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17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Judges Comments on Microction
FIRST PLACE
So the Dead Rose from the
Grave by Daniel Purdue
I loved the humour and the elegiac tone of this story.
Zombies have been popular lately, but this overturns
expectations of a zombie story. The writing is poised
and elegant and there is much to surprise a reader.
The use of the rst person plural worked well and the
ending was particularly deftly done. It is so easy to
overdo things at the end, but this story seemed to get
it just right. This story was striking for its originality
and the quality of the prose.

SECOND PLACE
Smells Like Geraniums by
Marie Gethins
This story takes a poster from World War II as its
starting point. I thought that the plotting was
particularly clever and that the story unfolded in
a simultaneously satisfying and unsettling way.
The grandmothers perhaps wilful ignorance was
portrayed deftly as was the contrast between the
grandparents garden and what the grandfather had
done for a living.
THIRD PLACE
FISH SWIM, BIRD FLY by
Lesley Pollard MacRae
I chose this story for its use of imagery. It also shows
how much can be done and suggested in very few
words. I loved the use of The Birth of Venus and the
way that the ideas and images were so completely
intrinsic to the plot.
Judges Comments
on Microction
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Microction First Prize
thenewwriter.com 13
W
ed all seen the movies, watched the
television shows. We gured we knew
what we were in for. But it turned out
all the advice was wrong. After a day
or two we put our shovels, our picks, our baseball bats
and crowbars back in our sheds. The dead didnt groan
or scratch or bite. They had no appetite for brains.
Instead, they ambled around, looking mildly
bemused, as though theyd come in from another
room and forgotten what they were looking for.
We saw them standing at bus stops, or riding the
Underground. They queued at the post ofce. They
came wandering into work and sat at their old desks.
Some of them turned up at their former homes and
watched television for hours on end.
The experts because of course, suddenly, there
were experts on this kind of thing said they were
attempting to return to the patterns of their lives.
Being dead, these new experts told us, was a lot
like being a rock under the sea. The sharp edges got
worn down, the individuality eroded, leaving a dull,
rounded core, like a pebble, formed from the most
deeply ingrained behaviours. We supposed that
made sense.
Before long we barely noticed them. To us, they
were just another person pushing a shopping trolley
around the supermarket, or sitting in the doctors
waiting room, or staring blankly from behind the
wheel of a gridlocked car. What difference did it make
if they were alive or not?
They never spoke, the dead; not to us, nor one
another. Most of the time it seemed they didnt even
see us. But sometimes theyd turn their heads, catch
us with their oddly penetrating stare, and sigh. It
was a sound that chilled us to our cores. A sound that
rolled up from somewhere deep within them; the
sound, perhaps, of every sorrow and regret theyd
taken to their graves. Afterwards, theyd close their
mouths and turn away, and wed shudder a little, and
go back to playing games on our phones, or reading
about celebrities, or watching our evening meals
rotate in the microwave.
And then, as suddenly as theyd arrived, the dead
were gone. We werent sure if theyd all left at once, or
disappeared one by one. We hadnt noticed. It didnt
make much difference, to be honest. Perhaps the
streets felt a little less crowded. Maybe it got easier to
nd a seat on the bus. But, really, nothing changed.
Except, every once in a while, maybe when we
were eating a sandwich at our desks, or icking
through the channels long after we should have
given up and gone to bed, wed hear the distant echo
of those terrible sighs. That
same shiver of dread would
run down our spines, and wed
look around, desperate to catch
someones eye, all the time
imagining ourselves there,
under the crushing darkness of
the sea, becoming a pebble, the
last of our sharp edges slowly
eroding away.
BY DANI EL PURDUE
So the Dead Rose
from the Grave
Dan Purdue lives and writes in Leamington
Spa. His short stories have been published
online and in print in a variety of places,
including The Guardian, The Fiction
Desk, Southword, The View from Here,
Defenestration, and The Waterhouse
Review, and have also won several prizes.
http://lies-ink.blogspot.com
MI CROFI CTI ON FI RST PRI ZE
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Microction Second Prize
1 4 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
BY MARI E GETHI NS
Smells like Geraniums
Marie Gethins won rst place in Tethered
by Letters ash, second at the Dromineer
Literary Festival and Sentinel Literary
Quarterly competitions, third in 99ction.net
and runner-up in Words with JAM. In April
2014, Flash: The International Short-Short
Story Magazine will publish her work. She
lives in Cork, Ireland.
G
randad planted practical things: neat
rows of onions and carrots, pyramids of
peas and beans. Herbs covered the front
garden corralled by knee-high clipped
hedges. Grandma cooked what he harvested, but left
the planning and gardening to him. She itted about
their Ohio kitchen: baking, canning vegetables. I
sat on a stool at the counter watching and listening.
Girlish giggles punctuated the stories of her youth,
tales from the time before marriage.
He died when I was about ten. A shadowy gure,
Grandad just seemed to fade away. I dont remember
much about it. No hospital visits, funeral or memorial
service. A very private man, you know, Grandma
said. He didnt want any fuss.
Framed photos appeared on side tables.
Is this your wedding? Why havent I seen this
before? A young girl with dancing eyes, a tall man
stood behind her.
Your grandfather didnt like clutter. Wasnt he
handsome though? This one is from work. Her nger
traced the side of his face and down the arm of his lab
coat. Grandma bit her bottom lip.
One Saturday I found the front garden beds
covered in gravel, the backyard paved. Potting
compost bags leaned against the shed wall. A line of
clay pots waited to be lled. By the back door, new
plants strained their plastic containers. I touched
the curling foliage - vivid green or banded in white
or bronze like trim on a cake. On long stems, owers
bloomed in miniature bouquets: pink, purple,
burgundy and vermillion. Grandma stood at the
wooden bench, dozens of plants by her feet, re-potting
a deep red specimen.
Grandma, whats going on?
She looked up and smiled. When we were courting,
your grandfather always smelled like geraniums.
She crushed a leaf, handing it to me. I didnt need
to lift it to my nose. The pungent, camphor odour
swirled around my head. I grimaced. Grandma
continued potting the red owered plant, humming
an old show tune.
Over peach ice tea she told me how they met
during the War. She 16, walking home from school as
he left the Cleveland Plant.
A chemist he told me, tapping the side of his nose.
Why?
A man of mystery your grandfather. Her eyes
misted. I knew better than to ask. He liked that
about me.
Grandma became known for her geraniums,
winning local garden shows, seeking new varieties.
She stole slips from public parks, private gardens a
master at deception.
Studying WWII for school, I typed his name
and the Cleveland Plant into Google. My throat
tightened. Words seemed to rise off the page, boom
in my head. Paragraphs and pictures jumbled
together: mustard, chlorine,
arsenic, lewisite, skin blisters,
burning lungs, death, death,
death. In a photo - scientists
in a lab, a tall man at the back,
face half in shadow. A public
warning poster showed a gas
mask, a red bouquet ahead
of the pig snout. Smells like
GERANIUMS, it said.
MI CROFI CTI ON SECOND PRI ZE
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Microction First Prize
thenewwriter.com 15
BY LYNDSEY POLL ARD MACRAE
MI CROFI CTI ON THI RD PRI ZE
FISH SWIM,
BIRD FLY
Lindsey is originally from Edinburgh but
now lives in London with her wonderful
husband and two young children, a dog
and a cat called Mouse. She used to be a
solicitor, has just nished a degree with the
Open University and will start training as
an English teacher in September. This is her
rst published work.
F
ish have prehistoric eyes, at and blank. They do not
express as other eyes do, but contain. Within them
is something that could have evolved into surprise,
amusement or boredom but didnt. There is only the
shadow of potential, unresolved.
Ive heard it said that people fear change, but for me its
absence is more terrifying. If we cannot adapt we are doomed
to endure.
Last week I cleaned the house, every inch of it: cobwebs from
behind curtains, uff from under the rug. Then I polished: a violent
campaign to restore lost brilliance. I made the table. It was crisp
and candle lit. I had a bath before you came home, thought of asss
milk, and asps. I let my hair rest, it fell at my shoulders.
I placed the rst course gently in front of you. The shell like a
fan: the birth of love. Its surface was ribbed and hard. It looked
indestructible, but really it was delicate: made in thin layers of
cream and magenta. Proud at its centre a plump naked lump: soft
and expectant.
You stared, unblinking. Is that it?
When you left the room it created new space that I stretched
into. In the gleaming surfaces around me I caught a glimpse of
something I hadnt seen for a long time. I recognised myself:
sharp face, soft breast, wings outstretched.
16 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Judges Comments on Poetry Collections
FIRST PLACE
Honesty Mirror by Ellen McAteer
This pamphlet offers us an embarrassment of riches.
Every poem is bristling with interesting images:
a raven / congregation in a Church, a soft grey
sympathy / of rain and stone in a morning scene
in Arduine, the Summer-coloured wrapping of a
conker, the shuttered faces of people in a market
square. Every poem seems so alive it almost leaps off
the page. But this isnt the kind of stylized honesty
the collections rst poem describes: the images arent
just for show but in service to some understated and
interesting themes the relationship between people
in different landscapes, the intrusion of ghosts and
the way you can become a stranger in your own
country (from Kurdistan). These poems explore
what it means to belong and, more frequently, to not
belong and the collection concludes on a hopeful
note: here I nd a homecoming, here / where our
faces are the only language we have. I was moved,
delighted and surprised.

SECOND PLACE
Still by Juliet Humphreys
I admired the subtle way this got under my skin. Its
a short, pared back collection and I think it requires
a lot of bravery and trust to let short poems speak
for themselves like this. Simplicity is deceptive. It is
also often underrated. Theres a lot going on in each
of these poems and every phrase works hard, from
the starkness of the opening (when the sister I was
expecting / made her mind up not to come) to the
nal poems comparison of sorrow to snow (like
snow it covers everything that grows). These poems
werent afraid to linger on the individual and the
particular, to show us isolation up close. Theres a
Buttery Effect at work here. Small events have big
consequences. In the poem Lost, a mother breathes
her last and a Cornish village / slips into the sea.
Frank and beautiful.

THIRD PLACE
Starting to Turn On the Lights
by Joe Caldwell
Theres a lot of condence and playfulness in this
skilful and varied collection, evident from the off
with Proverbs Translated from a Foreign Language
(which made me think of Christopher Reids brilliant
collection Katerina Brac). I think Ill be carrying
some of those tongue-in-cheek aphorisms around
with me for a while: Even a dentist / has many
cousins. Many of the poems that follow are formally
dextrous, but they never make too much of a show
of their form or put style over substance. Some
poems like Eye Doctor refuse to take themselves too
seriously, but others yield sinister undercurrents: I
was haunted by the striking ending of Lost: it is too
dark to go forward, / and much too late to go back.
Judges Comments
on Poetry Collections
Honesty
Mirror
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection First Prize
thenewwriter.com 17
In a museum
after the Honesty Mirror made by Frances MacDonald
Worn with looking
the mirror is
behind glass
reections absent
frame without picture
except the light
enclosed by
pewter plants and
womens hands
eshless gures
hung with cloth
of metal
tooled faces
long-ngered
makers hands
stylized honesty
seed beneath
pale silvered skin
sexless gures
owering
hair becoming stems
tasteless, scentless
untouchable
in beaten tin
the ageing spotted glass
has a photographs
silvered grace
lean in and see
your fathers ghost
in a weathered window
BY ELLEN Mc ATEER
POETRY COLLECTI ON FI RST PRI ZE
Honesty Mirror
A writer, songwriter, and tutor at the
Glasgow School of Art, Ellen is a graduate
of the Clydebuilt poetry apprenticeship
scheme. Her work has been translated
into Dutch, and she is part of a project to
translate Palestinian poetry into English.
She was commended in this year's
Baker Prize.
The Church Elder
He is a black crow stalking the raven
congregation in their oiled raincoats
the women are pigeons in their plain scarves
but here is one who seems a robin redbreast
brighteyed and laughing in her owered blouse
he passes her, his face a gargoyle
of the others sharp-beaked scowls
in church he raises his eyes to lead the prayer
and notices the roof bosses: budding, dark and intricate
much later he wakes shaking from a dream
where he is in the graveyard
gorging himself on wet, red berries
Mourning in Arduaine
A cool mercury light
water pulling sky to sea
that soft grey sympathy
of rain and stone
Shuna, small and jagged
echoed, with variations,
by Luing
Seil a faint fond shadow
embracing them both
each made of the same stone
and not quite tting
like broken jigsaw pieces
like family
each an island
holding to itself
but part of an archipelago
even when the rain
tears you from the horizon
I know you are there
I can feel the shape of your shores
through the currents that reach mine
Honesty
Mirror
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection First Prize
18 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Walking the woods
at sundown
A choice of paths
following the sun
we nd a lantern tree
half in Spring half
in Autumn
the yellow leaves
hold the light
the green leaves
hide it
it gifts us a dead leaf
and a brand new conker
still in its Summer-coloured
wrapping
prompting talk of childhood
the branches of family
the freedom that winter brings
to the leaf
Found in Translation
Oh! Look at the spider, knitting his net, you cried
getting the alliteration, but shaking the cobwebs
out of a language you feared you would never learn
Oh, never learn! It was as if your eyes were rinsed to childish clarity
by tears you had wept while reading me poems of Palestine;
as if your mouth made pictures, bright in primary colours
of things I had only seen in shades of Glasgow grey
I can hear music in your voice though I struggle to understand the words
as you read me Bitaqat huwiyya, and the music of your language
leaks into mine, an Afro-Celt dance mix heard on the radio:
weaving webs of words linked not by sense but sound; a mother-tongue
that sounds like a mother, heard by a baby who cannot comprehend,
but feels the voice as blood in its ears, the fury, laughter, rhythm, rhyme
and my heart strings sing to the call of migration
and try to y to a homeland which I have never seen.
Govan Market Square
People barking louder than
their dogs among the rails
of cheap clothes
they built a whole estate
on the waterfront here
with no windows looking
to the river
they raise squat concrete backs
to the water and sky
hunched up against the weather
square up to each other
nose to nose, pull blinds
like eyelids
keeping secrets in
the people seem
to have grown that way
too, never looking out or up
but only at the mudpie ground
or into each others
shuttered faces
Sauchiehall Street
After a long time
of bare concrete and branches
the suns touch quickens
my cold eye
to the proud blue bloom
of an articial ower
on a chemo-barren skull
to the tree of a man
bowed
under one budding son and
bound groundwards
by the bramble arms
of another
to the beautiful saxophonist
murdering jazz
and the freak shufestepping
beside him
it would take Howson
to arrest their solid forms
I can only hope
to root this wee miracle
in the mind of another:
Spring has come to my gaze again
Honesty
Mirror
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection First Prize
thenewwriter.com 19
Day of the Dead
The White Cart River runs
past the place where my father
lies in cold clay sleep
beneath a black stone
the same river keeks
between tenements and shopping centres
a secret river, running sometimes
underground, ushing the highrises
near the high at where I left
my Uncle his last bottle
came back to nd him
as empty as it was
we scattered his ashes
on Dads grave, November second
whiskey, cofee, a drymouthed song
guitars and owers
we tried to sing him to sleep
but he came to the pub as always
in a grey dust that clung to our lips
and gritted our ngers
though he left his voice behind
I imagine that it whispers
between the trees and stones at Linn
my Father said he was born listening
to that voice, followed by it
all his life, I wonder if we did right
but wherever we scattered him
he would have blown back to his brother
this morning is hot and blue and new
white sheets snapping in a Clydeblown breeze
my sons running among them
two ghosts on Glasgow Green
Crosscountry
The trees are all glaur and dwam
redbrown; predawn
this wood has not been sleeping
that is a false projection
it has been whispering
and ticking all night
it holds its breath only
for the change of light
the land drinks the waxing
glow through water
every dub an open eye
shining with greed
the burr of amber grass
on a viridescent plain
they bury their dead
by the railway line
in Linthithgow
how it must disturb their sleep
to hear the trains go by
except that they dont sleep
and it is their silence that
rufes me
a perfect hole
in a drystone wall
forms a piece of sky
pulled earthwards
two red deer puncture the gleam
of a sun not yet risen
with their bright and furry tongues
not sky but stream
I am used to seeing the sun set
over the sea; this morning I saw
the sun rise over Burntisland
remembered that we are
an island shard, spinning
never far from the light
Kurdistan
we drove into the mountains
light aked of the river
as children splashed across
to beg pencils
birds were building
nests in the pitted walls
we stood on the hills forehead
blue owers nodding
down to the white-painted
stones marking graves
Azad and Tekoshin
show blue eyes set like brooches
in autumn honey faces
their father rusty skin and hair recalls
far Donegal shores, he and my father
speak of daughters without a word
in common, laughing, nodding, holding hands
here they name their children
Freedom, and Resistance; here they ght for what
my fathers mother saw her people win
a lost accent makes you a stranger to your family
a lost language makes you a stranger in your own country
but here I nd a homecoming, here
where our faces are the only language we have
Still
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection Second Prize
20 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Still
When the sister I was expecting
made her mind up not to come
the inky rivers that snaked
my ceiling looked to me like cracks
in the shell that kept the attic airborne,
kept everything we couldn't use
from falling through my room.
My alarm clock safely hushed
I tiptoed to my window,
whispered to the sky what I couldn't say aloud.
In the dark I listened for the scratch of a claw,
the brush of a wing, the footfall
of a heart, marking time -
the sound of someone wanting to be born.
Breakdown
We were half an hour from home
when the car engine juddered.
Dad walked down the hard shoulder
in misty summer rain
to nd an AA phone.
Mum showed me a photograph:
a man she'd never mentioned
with his arm around her waist.
'No sign of Dad,' I said
and wished I'd gone too.
That Railway Children moment
when he returned.
BY J ULI ET HUMPHREYS
POETRY COLLECTI ON SECOND PRI ZE
Still
Juliet Humphreys is a poet and teacher,
based in Uxbridge. She also tutors a
U3A poetry group. Her poems have been
published in 'Acumen, 'Obsessed with
Pipework', 'Orbis', 'The North' and online on
'Ink, Sweat and Tears'.
Still Still
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection Second Prize
thenewwriter.com 21
Happiest Days
All I remember now
is how the girl pushing the pram
wanted to be a politician
and that her red-haired sister
spent every lesson sketching
the back of the boy in front
who proposed to me
on one knee with a Coke ring
the day that his friend
used the nib of his pen like a blade
to gouge out the title of 'Half Caste'
until there was a window to the next page.
Trying It On
In these clothes I'm seventeen
with a boyfriend and a job
and somewhere to go
on Saturday night
but the empty Topshop bag
sags like a parachute
come down to earth.
Idance around my bedroom
knowing I'll not wear them out.
Lost
With my mother's nal breath
a door closes
secrets breathe a sigh of relief
and slip away unseen,
names and faces uncouple
like partners after a dance,
wisps of conversation
are swept away by the air
and a Cornish village
slips into the sea.
Sorrow
Like snow it covers everything that grows,
whitewashes the light until it burns.
There's nowhere to go.
If there ever was a road from here
it has been closed, no-one can get through.
As snow falls on snow
it buries footprints,
now no-one has been this way before -
birds are long gone, even the trees are lying low
so there's only you: frozen, blue.
Starting
to turn
the
Lights
On
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection Third Prize
22 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Proverbs Translated from
a Foreign Language
Pine trees are tall
but they dont touch the sky.
A bird born on a Sunday
never learns to y.
Only a fool gathers the harvest
while dogs bark.
The one eyed woman
is beautiful in the dark.
In a rich mans house
it is always Christmas.
Even a dentist
has many cousins.
In the land of my fathers
these things are taught, and more,
and dozens, and dozens.
BY J OE CALDWELL
POETRY COLLECTI ON THI RD PRI ZE
Starting to turn
the Lights On
Juliet Humphreys is a poet and teacher,
based in Uxbridge. She also tutors a
U3A poetry group. Her poems have been
published in 'Acumen, 'Obsessed with
Pipework', 'Orbis', 'The North' and online on
'Ink, Sweat and Tears'.
Lost
Sheep pockmark the hillside,
blackbirds patrol the sky,
calling as if to ask
where the sun has gone, and why.
Wind whips round,
ecked with rain like spittle,
then hail like ak.
The car is distant;
its too dark to go forward,
and much too late to go back.
As the World Turns
Coming down today, dismantled,
its bones packed up and shipped
to another town,
the big wheel on the precinct, the eye
you could ride for six quid and look down
on the streets, on the patchwork
of gardens and elds,
on the valleys and towers.
In the houses, the days and the weeks,
the hands of the clocks,
the world-turning unicycles,
painstaking waterwheels,
the minutes and hours,
the everyday lives
of the people of the city -
they go on,
noticing or not noticing
its absence from the skyline.
Starting
to turn
the
Lights
On
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Poetry Collection Third Prize
thenewwriter.com 23
Eye Doctor
She said she was an eye doctor,
explained cataracts and
operating on the retina;
my lines were cornier.
She said she was an eye doctor,
but I swear blind
that her voice and her smile
and the sharp blue circles round her pupils
were making me see
less clearly.
Diferent Routes
My roots have been nourished,
and watered and pruned.
but more is needed to complete the square,
to come through.
Trees in rich soil nd diferent
routes to reach the stars
to say that your way must be ours wont wash,
it wont do.
Consider the heavens,
the shapes and the patterns
a compass point, a rose, a book, a cross
I navigate by these too.
Brick by Brick
They are rough to the touch;
dust crumbles from the surface
of the red rock of these bricks
with the sweep of your hand.
Step back:
see the smoothness of the structure,
the bricks connected one to one to the
thousands of the whole.
The weathered building stands proud
before the glass and chrome of the new city.
Step further back:
see the tiny, determined, gradual human
endeavour.
You can almost see the city being built.
When This Is Over
When this is over, I will wake up more slowly
and be conscious of lling my lungs.
I will go swimming and surface
and recognise my glistening body.
I will visit Glossop, Edale, Castleton, Hope.
When I have time I mean to have the hands of my watch xed,
to nd superglue for the arm of that mug,
to learn the art of making my own notebooks.
When this is all nished, watch me climb
to the top of a fairly tall tower and look out,
noticing the shapes of the houses,
the frost on the roof tops,
the birds singing in the chimes of a new hour.
Song
Her song stirs something in me,
like sunrise, or grace, or a promise:
take heart.
Call this a jumping of point,
a broadening of possibilities,
a start.
I can see for miles.
17TH ANNUAL PROSE AND POETRY PRI ZES
Results and The Judges
24 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Short Story category
Judged by Zo Fairbairns & Guy Pringle
First Place: The Lonely Toothbrush by Russell Reader
Second Place: My Chair by Esther Freeman
Third Place: Cupid is a knavish lad by Audrey Marlowe
Longlist: Sean Baines, Ann Corlett, Thomas Darby , Christopher
Fielden, David Foll, Christine Findlay, Mandy Huggins, Brian Leeson,
Denise Spencer, Judith Taylor, Susan Vittery
Microction category
Judged by Rebecca Smith
First Place: So the Dead Rose from the Grave by Daniel Purdue
Second Place: Smells Like Geraniums by Marie Gethins
Third Place: FISH SWIM, BIRD FLY by Lindsay Pollard MacRae
Highly Commended: Penny Aldred, Mandy Huggins, Cathy Leonard,
Mark Newman, Emma Norry, Jackie Taylor.
Longlist: Birte Pedersen, Anton Rose, Rachael Hamilton, Barbara
Leahy, Andrew Dutton, Isabel Rogers, Patrick Callaghan, Alison Lock,
Chloe Turner, Oliver Toms, Rob Bealey.
Poetry Collection category
Judged by Helen Mort
First Place: Honesty Mirror by Ellen McAteer
Second Place: Still by Juliet Humphreys
Third Place: Starting to Turn on the Lights by Joe Caldwell
Highly Commended: Nicola Warwick, Vicky Mackenzie
Honourable Mentions: Pnina Shinebourne
Longlist: Ann Lilley, Diane Jackman, Isabel Rogers, Elisabeth Sennit
Clough, Lee Whipple
Single Poem category
Judged by Helen Mort
First Place: The Postman and the Swans by Alex Toms
Second Place: When We Moved by Heather Walker
Third Place: What I will do for you by Sherri Turner
Longlist: Valerie Booler, Fiona Cartwright, Stephen Jeford, Laura
Massey, Morgaine Merch Lleuad, L F Roth, Natalie Shaw, Sukie Shinn,
Paul Smith, Belinda Stevens, Nicola Warwick
Results
The Judges
Our Judges this year were
Zo Fairbairns
Zo Fairbairns is a regular contributor to
The New Writer and newbooks magazines.
Zoe was the poetry editor for Spare Rib,
in the same decade working as part of a
collective of women writers to produce
Tales I Tell My Mother. Zoe has worked as
a freelance journalist and a creative writing
tutor; and has held appointments as Writer
in Residence at Bromley Schools (198183
and 198589), Deakin University, Geelong,
Australia (1983), Sunderland Polytechnic
(198385) and Surrey County Council
(1989). Zoe lives in South London and
currently teaches Creative Writing at City Lit.
Helen Mort
Helen Morts collection Division Street
(Chatto & Windus) was shortlisted for the
T.S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Prize. Helen
has also published two pamphlets with
tall-lighthouse press. Five-times winner of
the Foyle Young Poets award, she received
an Eric Gregory Award from The Society of
Authors in 2007 and won the Manchester
Young Writer Prize in 2008. In 2010, she
became the youngest ever poet in residence
at The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere and is
the new Derbyshire Poet Laureate.
Rebecca Smith
Rebecca Smith is the author of three
novels published by Bloomsbury and Jane
Austens Guide to Modern Lifes Dilemmas
(Ivy Press. 2012). Her rst novel for children
was shortlisted for the 2012 Kelpies Prize.
Rebecca was the writer in residence from
200910 at Jane Austens House Museum
and teaches creative writing at the
University of Southampton.
Results of the 17th Annual Prose and Poetry
Prizes 2013 from The New Writer magazine
i ntroduci ng nawe
Sharing what we learn
thenewwriter.com 47
W
hen I helped to form NAWE, over 25
years ago, I had no idea that a group
of 50 or so impassioned writers would
grow to an organization of over 1500
members, with connections around the world. But
NAWE did great things from the start, enabling new
writers to nd a voice and share their imaginative
craft with others. Over the years it has helped
Creative Writing to become established at university
level, and last year helped to introduce the subject as
an A Level too. It's not just about writers who teach,
but all writers who learn, which we do every time we
attempt something new.
I'm delighted to see an invigorated New Writer
magazine, even more so to see it complemented
by newbooks. It has long been recognized that
many aspiring writers fail through lack of wide,
contemporary reading, and most creative writing
courses now place reading at the heart of their
teaching. What distinguishes NAWE, as an additional
resource for writers keen to learn, is its community of
practice. Just as we learn so much from reading, we
can learn from direct involvement with other writers
through an organization dedicated to precisely that.
A compelling reason for any new or aspiring writer
to join NAWE is simply to keep informed of all the
latest opportunities: a weekly e-bulletin goes to all
members alerting them to new courses, workshops,
competitions and publishers' calls for submissions.
The Writer's Compass section of our website lists all
these opportunities in detail. The aim is to support
writers at all stages of their careers, helping both
new and established writers to make the most of
their talents. You'll nd "getting started" factsheets
and briengs, in-depth case studies and "how did
I get here?" features by writers who have become
successful in many different ways. There's also a
specic Young Writers' Hub for the under 25s.
we learn
Sharing what
Our magazine (and the full back
catalogue, a database of over 750 articles)
is available to all members online, and a
printed version is sent to all Professional
members, three times a year. The
magazine contains articles by writers working
in a great variety of settings, including schools,
universities, local communities, hospitals, prisons.
It also features reections on particular forms of
writing the short story, ash ction, poetry,
drama and screenwriting, and writing for children
and various aspects of the writer's craft, such as
character development, editing, literary translation
and digital publishing.
If you work with other writers, or have
ambition to share your craft with others in
educational or community settings, then
membership of NAWE is invaluable. You'll be
part of a large network of writers willing to share
their expertise through the magazine, website,
and our annual conference held mid-November.
If you undertake workshops or other writing-based
events, you'll also benet from free public liability
insurance (cover 10 million) and can obtain
through NAWE a DBS check required when
working with young people.
Associate Membership is 20; Professional
Membership 65. There is also Institutional
Membership for writers'
groups or any organization
wishing to share the benets.
NAWE has much to offer, but
we are still keen to learn. Our
programme changes as new
writers with new requirements
and new ambitions join the
fold. Let us know of new ways
in which we might help.
To get in touch, to join, or for further
information, please visit our website
www.nawe.co.uk or contact the
NAWE of ce on 01653 618429.
Email: [email protected]
Paul Munden, poet, was a
founding member of NAWE,
The National Association of
Writers in Education, and is
now its Director.
poetry i n focus
Jump Leads
48 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Jump
Leads
BY STEPHEN BOYCE
I
nspiration is a precious commodity. As Michael
Longley famously said, If I knew where poems
come from, Id go there. Every writer has her
or his own techniques for conjuring the muse:
taking a walk, sitting in a favourite chair, listening
to music and other rituals. But where do you nd
the spark that res you up late at night or wakes you
with burning creative energy?
One thing that works for me is to seek out
opportunities to write to commission. When
youre commissioned to write a poem you work
within a series of prescribed circumstances; these
might include the topic, the form, the timescale for
completing the poem, even the audience for the work.
And these conditions, like anything that constrains
the making of a work of art, can serve to stimulate
creativity, to make the imagination work harder.
The commission gives you a point of departure and
challenges you to nd a route to your goal which is
always to write the best poem you can.
Of course, the chance to be commissioned to write
a poem doesnt come along that often, but there are
ways of creating the same conditions for yourself.
The occasional poem, for example, a popular and
honourable genre, not merely because poetry is the
form we most commonly turn to when we wish to
express a shared sense of joy or grief, but because the
demands of writing to a deadline and on a given topic,
as well as the heightened emotion of the occasion, can
act as an effective creative spur.
I have a particular interest in responding to works
of art or collaborating with visual artists in various
ways, including through lm and performance. Im
fortunate that my working life brings me into regular
contact with artists, makers and curators, but its easy
enough to take yourself off to a gallery or museum
in search of a painting or artefact to inspire you. The
more you narrow your options the better, since the
point about a commission is that it comes without
choice; if you take it on you accept that the topic will
be decided for you.
Taking part in responding to works in an
exhibition without any foreknowledge of the images
or artists that might be selected for you, can be hugely
rewarding. The moment of clicking on the image le
which pings into your inbox or rst visiting the work
in the gallery, is always exciting and challenging.
Low Road is a poem I wrote in response to the
painting of the same name by Elizabeth Magill.
This was a writing challenge accompanying the
exhibition Under the Greenwood at the splendid
St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery in Lymington,
Hampshire. I was sent images of two paintings, but it
was Magills Low Road which instantly appealed to
me and triggered an emotional memory on which I
was able to build.
poetry i n focus
Jump Leads
thenewwriter.com 49
Jump
Leads
You can create a similar effect to the commission by
telling yourself the third painting on the left hand
wall of the second gallery is the one youll write
about or some other random choice. Museums, too,
are fertile territory for the poet because artefacts
which at rst glance might appear insignicant
or obscure often conceal intricate and fascinating
stories and can act as precise emotional and
imaginative stimuli.
I think of this process as similar to jump-starting a
car: you connect the painting or artefact to the part of
your brain that powers your writing, turn the key and
get the creative jolt that res you up. Of course you
may not know where youre heading or where you
will end up, but the engine is running, the wheels are
now turning.
A recent invitation to contribute a single poem in
response to an exhibition resulted in my writing a
sequence of eleven poems. Not only did the subject
introduce me to a rich imaginative seam, it also lent
itself to a particular treatment I would have been
unlikely to light upon without this commission.
Many of the techniques used in workshops
including some very good online ones are designed
to create this same effect, to narrow
your focus, to jolt the imagination into
creative action. Twenty minutes to write
an epistolary poem; a headline from a
newspaper as the starting point of a
villanelle, or writing about a piece of
furniture, are all prompts and constraints
and, as such, push the the boundaries of
the imagination.
The point is not how you get there, its
where you end up, so let the commission
take you where it will. In the end it doesnt
matter if the ballad you were going to
write about a locomotive turns
into a free verse paean to the
Turkish bath, so long as the
poem is a good one.
Stephen Boyce is the author of two
collections, Desire Lines (Arrowhead Press
2010) and The Sisyphus Dog (Worple
Press 2014). He is a trustee and Co-Artistic
Director of Winchester Poetry Festival.
www.stephenboycepoetry.co.uk
www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org

J
o
e

L
o
w
Low Road
It wasnt clear to me that you knew who I was.
Even so you seemed saddened when I left.
And more than sad. Thats what made it so hard,
both of us bereft, my heart heavier
with each wearying sweep of the wipers
as I drove the low road back to where I started,
windscreen crazed with patterns of rain, smeared and gone,
smeared and gone like the questions in your eyes,
the trees a tracery of blood vessels
or route-maps, blurred, indecipherable,
arching over the tarmac and white lines
as I followed the valley road into half-light.
POETRY SELECTI ON
poetry sel ection
50 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Tossed Up
The stench is unmistakable,
a shape on the black strand
half-buried in wet sand,
my dog runs and rubs her back on it
paws in bliss cycling the sky,
I run too and shout Away
and she goes, reluctantly.
The ancestral need in an instant
of covering ones smell
with a rotten other, wanting on instinct
to merge in the rot, the living with the dead.
The basic wish of plunging into what
is gone and gnawed by the currents,
getting the scent, the tang
and the whisper of the whirlpool.
A spring sun shone on the beach
this morning with a haze
like a choir slightly ablaze.
The sea roar stared from its maze.
Clouds cruising, glorious day
for a rst swim.
The carcass was there, behind me.
I didnt look at what it looked like.
Davide Trame
Dust
Master of contrast,
a hazy, drowsy shine,
light-grey, almost white
on mahogany wood,
but once wiped away with
an ochre cloth from the screen,
it turns into black dirt,
times perpetual birth.
Master of stillness,
accumulating as pupils
of the passing days.
They told us,
and its ever so clear,
its what we will all turn into,
re-turning I think
to the time when we ew,
before coagulating
into this momentary
substantial mess
in which sometimes
we manage to keep ying,
nonetheless.
Davide Trame
A Foreign Country
My grandmother nursed the insane:
colliers grown fearful of the dark,
tramps who d forgotten how to beg and
she helped restrain shell shock cases,
Hush Sir, hush, youll live to ght another day.
But it wasnt all bad, better paid
than Service and a lot more freedom.
Of duty they went up on the roof
gossiped over their knitting and
once earned themselves a shaky bow
from old Lord Tredegar on the hunt.
He was one of the Light Brigade, had his horse shot from under him,
we pointed them to the fox, hed lost the scent.
And they went to dances in Newport.
Enid, Jin and Gwendolyn Ellen.
We called ourselves The Butteries
in our pastel frocks and silk stockings.
Sometimes Mary the black nurse went too
she was from Tiger Bay, but quite pale.
When she powdered her face, we all said,
Dont worry none of the men will know.
Sarah Williams
Relicts
Grandad one of the few men left and
his eyes were shot crimson with coughing,
Im only t for Whitton now Vi
Ron Jenkins and Ron Jones had bad hearts
and Uncle Dicks worries cut his throat.
The rest war wounds, injuries at work.
Christmas was a widows gathering
trains and buses, they called charabancs,
bringing them all to Birmingham where
Granny had the long drop down table.
The brolly stand bulged with sticks while
hats hanging up in the hall like ags
signied who was in residence.
Over the best John West salmon and
sherry cream trie they talked babies,
knitting and the new ministers wife.
A synchronised shaking of heads,
Do you remember when Grace pawned
her mothers false teeth?
Without their men each a Head of State
and Granny relling the tea cups,
her forehead two hard knots, taking notes.
Sarah Williams
Decampment
Midnight snow, tinged indigo
Grey cloud hides the moons pale gold
Footprints come and go
Women run through snow
Wet feet leaving prints in cold
midnight snow tinged indigo
Tears of untold woe
Hot and silver, fall as slow
footprints come and go
Ravens call, winds blow
Echoing the endless wolds
midnight snow, tinged indigo
Underneath the glow
of stars they have escaped him: so
through midnight snow tinged indigo
footprints come and go.
Sara Clarke
POETRY SELECTI ON
poetry sel ection
thenewwriter.com 51
Pilgrimage
Visiting your childhood home
Half a continent away,
We are left by chance alone,
Family crush at bay.
As we savor this brief lull,
Girding ourselves to resume
Stations in the crucible
Of a crowded room,
You repeat a nursery rhyme
Treasured since you were a girl,
Which had lodged one sand-speck line
Where it was to pearl:
Thursday's child has far to go
Noise blares through an opening door
Then you add, standing to go,
I was made for more.
So you were. I trailed you in,
Like a pilgrim come to trace
Where the footsteps would begin,
Leading from this place.
James McKee III
The Event
did not happen
could not have happened.
That much is clear
from the silence.
He descends the stairs,
registers the groan
of each wooden step.
He walks to the window,
observes the way
the street inclines.
He re-enters the room
where nothing is stirring,
where there is nothing
but spots on the window panes
spots on the carpet, spots
on the face of the television
I cannot
I cannot
I cannot
rub them away
James Kilner
Anzio
Oh they were alive
and playing cards
in an eight foot trench
that was covered like
Eve and I had point
alone on our Italian beach.
The Germans had artillery
so reaching that grunts robbed
of rest all of them
might disappear unclaimed
for weeks. I caught a private
and brought him back at dawn.
The captain said, take him there
behind those trees and hurry back.
To kill like that. I marched
behind the bastard and he knew
and wept. I was seeing things
from lack of sleep. I saw my father standing
on the platform by my returning train,
the haunted question of him; I saw
stars on collars nally unpinned
and the manual of arms above our
barn lled with grain. The German
knelt and light specked him unfed
and leather hooved. There were leaves
and I was dappled too.
Charles Bane
Virgil Crosses the Sunset Bridge
Virgil was a man best described in terms of size.
Shoulders sloping mountainous,
with two hands the size
of pie plates.
He walked with thunderous step across the shop room oor,
emerging from the hangars cavernous end.
My father was also a big man.
He would greet Virgil along the catwalk,
pouring over blue prints
sharing the language of units and measures.
When they understood one anothers denition of the machine,
their talk shifted to Saturday and shing,
the where and how they would conquer the river.
Many years later, Virgil passed.
Hearing his name again,
I took the vision of a man diminished,
shrunken out of proportion,
clamoring for a sip of water from his bed like a child.
Then my father passed too.
As I traveled between familiar vistas,
there seemed no more mountains, no more thunder,
those hands seizing to pilot were all small.
I remarked while crossing the sunset bridge, the same boats dot the surface.
Yet somehow, the river feels barren.
Erick Mertz
On the Road
a found poem
20 30 40 50
DIVERTED TRAFFIC
STAY IN LANE
DUAL CARRIAGEWAY AHEAD
CONCEALED ENTRANCE
SCHOOL PATROL
ROUNDABOUT SPEED CAMERAS
No racing horses and carts
SINGLE LANE DOUBLE BEND
Oncoming Vehicles take Middle of the Road
LOW BRIDGE Elderly People
Disabled Badge Holders only
ROADWORKS
REDUCE SPEED NOW
ONE WAY TRAFFIC
END
Jackie Hinden
poetry sel ection
52 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
POETRY SELECTI ON
The Replacements
Shell create a new warrior
and make him into a weapon
in a nowhere place
on the edge of town.
Shell make him into a weapon
with his bodys strings.
On the edge of town,
hell make war
with his bodys strings
Under duress,
hell take to war.
He wont have much to say
under duress.
When confronted
he wont have much to say
in his defence.
When confronted
hell fall upon a sword
in his defeat.
When he fails
hell fall upon a sword
in a nowhere place.
When he fails
shell create a new warrior.
Amy Blythe
Little Moon
We spent an afternoon cleaning the attic
and came across a box labelled with your name.
Inside it a large and clumsy model
of space lay disarrayed. You pulled
it out, globe by globe, all parts
attached by tangled string. You lifted
the sun rst, followed by Mercury, Venus and Mars,
until soon your arms were over-lled with planets
and their tag-along moons. Some dangled
loosely, escaping your grasp. Others you held rm,
enclosed in your st, or locked in the crook
of your elbow. I watched you try to balance
a solar system in your hands
and when you let it fall I saw
ice giants and gas giants alike tumble
to the ground. We kneeled
down and began to collect the fallen pieces.
We both reached for the same small white
but greying polystyrene ball. I caught
hold of it rst. I held it up and tugged
at its sole string. In doing so,
I pulled your clenched st close.
You opened your grip and unveiled
a fading blue and green sphere.
Amy Blythe
Sea Dog
It was no secret that he felt more at ease
with the sting of salt burning up his nose
than with conversation,
Or that he only shaved his grey ecked beard
out of respect for the wife and sea seeds
he had left behind.
He took heart in the blue, built himself
a boon in the shape of a boat, small
but seaworthy.
His ngers had grown drab and leathery,
his feet had hardened against the curl
and sway of the ocean.
He waited for the hook and buckle of his once
able muscles as his knots bound him up, tight,
like coiled line.
He longed to hear a sh womans call, gulled
himself into thinking she would come, reached
for her in the brine.
And everytime he touched the water he lost
a little more of himself to the grey and turned
closer to stone.
Amy Blythe
Yellow Man
The last time I saw you out of bed
you were searching for fossils,
two hundred million years of them -
older than the stone they were found in;
we were half the sum of each other,
the weight of your footprints lessening
as bones began to surface
and the distance grew in your voice,
light
still hurtling across galaxies to nd you and air
still rushing to soak your lungs.
Outside your window
the wisteria sulked in your absence,
wild owers frowned and bees refused to dance.
When the last of the colour abandoned your cheeks
you remained cordial; writing your dreams,
sipping on oranges and listening to the world
through a bedside radio. People would stop me
to ask how you were, expecting the worst,
knowing your age better than I did and saying
it was no age at all.
We skinned your medicine, placed faith in roots
not doctors, pouring morphine down
plug holes and running you shallow baths.
Dogs were allowed on your ward;
dogs, shamanic healers, herbalists
but denitely no travelling relatives,
they would be as welcome as the jaundice;
I d visit you with bowls of brown rice,
nding you drifting on the cut grass breeze.
The morning you didnt wake up
the whole house shook and we all began digging;
they carried you away in a cardboard box
through the blackberry lanes to a quieter place
where people remembered you well,
and we left you there, behind stone,
for the next two hundred million years.
Dan Stathers
poetry prompt
Cut, and cut again
thenewwriter.com 53
I'm an advocate of Basil Bunting's terse advice to poets
to which I've added my own interpretation here:
1. Compose aloud; poetry is a sound.
Speaking your words gives you a stronger sense of
rhythm and metre as well as the cadence and echo; it
helps you think about punctuation and line breaks.
2. Vary rhythm enough to stir the emotion you
want but not so as to lose impetus.
Rhythm is one of the key inuences on emotion.
Think of the way speed, stress, intonation, volume
and intensity affect your response to story-telling,
how a slow, quiet delivery draws the listener in, a
rapid staccato line quickens the pulse.
3. Use spoken words and syntax.
Don't assume that poetry requires the use of archaic,
unusual or decorative language. Whatever the
thought behind the poem it should be expressed
clearly and sound as if it has been uttered naturally
and spontaneously.
4. Fear adjectives; they bleed nouns. Hate the passive.
Every word must earn its place, especially
adjectives. If you choose nouns with care you can
afford to be sparing with their qualiers, to use
them with specic purpose. Don't write for effect,
but for precision.
5. Jettison ornament gaily but keep shape.
One of the challenges of redrafting is to maintain
both the physical shape of the poem on the page
and the 'shape' of your argument, intention or
meaning as you pare away words whose function is
mainly ornamental.
Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6. Cut out every word you dare.
This is straightforward, but keep in mind 15 above.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.
Hold your nerve, read the work aloud at each
redrafting, detach yourself, ask yourself if you are
clinging on to your 'darlings'.

Never explain your reader is as smart as you.
By the same token, never be deliberately obscure,
your reader won't thank you for it.
Cut, and cut again
EXERCI SE
Take a poem you've written or are working on. Count
the words or use the word count function on your
computer. Then re-write the poem using half as many
words. What challenges does this give you in terms of
meaning, form, rhythm? Compare the two versions
below. Read them aloud. What is lost, what is gained?
Anniversary Waltz
You can count in cotton, paper, pearl,
in tin, in tooth-tested precious metal.
You can count the breaths you took, the vows,
the tears and sighs, the tables laid for two,
for three, for four, then back to three and two.
You can count the rings on ngers and those
on phones or at the core of trees that mark
the passing years; you can count the buds,
the falling leaves.
You can count, beside the bed,
the ticking clocks, the beep of monitors,
the drip, drip, drip and, before you part,
you can count the countless kisses, tender,
passionate, dry or doting you can count
the halting rhythm of the faithful heart.
Anniversary Waltz
Count in cotton, paper, pearl,
in tooth-tested precious metal.
Count the breaths, the vows, the tears,
the tables laid for two, or three or four.
Count the rings on ngers, phones and trees;
count the buds, the falling leaves.
Count the ticking clocks, the beep
of monitors, the drip, drip, drip, and
before you part, count the countless kisses,
tender, passionate, doting count
the rhythm of the faithful heart.
And nally, advice is only advice, rules even Basil
Bunting's are made to be broken.
Our Guest Poetry Editor Stephen Boyce shares some
writing advice that has proved successful in his work.
the wri ti ng coach
The Art of Dialogue
54 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
The
Art
of
Dialogue
Jacqui Lofthouse continues with her series
of articles this time coaching us in the art
of dialogue.
I just notice a feeling from people.
I notice particularly the cadence
of their voices, the sort of phrases
theyll use, and thats what Im all
the time trying to hear in my head,
how people word things because
everybody speaks an entirely
diferent language, thats really
what it amounts to.
Frank OConnor
Whether you are writing ction or
non-ction, writing great dialogue
will be a key component of your
work. Naturally, writers of ction will
immediately benet from improving
their dialogue-writing skills, but
non-ction books invariably need a
human element too and engaging
dialogue can provide that.
WHAT I S THE FUNCTION OF DI ALOGUE
I N A BOOK?
Powerful dialogue brings a book to life. It expresses
the essence of character and enables the reader to
get closer to a character: to believe in him or her.
Only a very masterful writer could make a novel
function without dialogue. Dialogue brings drama
to a scene, often moving it from the mode of telling
to showing. When we use dialogue, we have slowed
the story down to the pace of real life: we allow our
characters to live and breathe.
SHOULD DI ALOGUE I N A BOOK BE THE
SAME AS ACTUAL DI ALOGUE?
If you were to record a conversation in a bar and then
transcribe it, its unlikely it would make good ction.
The conversation may have some great moments, but
it is also likely to be repetitive and sometimes dull.
The writer should aim to eradicate the dullness from
the dialogue, including dialogue only when it has a
purpose in the narrative or really adds something
to the development of a character. Dialogue in
ction should rise above banal conversation and
reveal something about the speaker and his or her
motivation and character. Each scene must have a
sense of direction. Through dialogue, the change that
takes place in the characters internal life is often
revealed or hinted at.
HOW I S THAT SENSE OF
DI RECTION ACHI EVED?
A ctional scene is often a kind of intensied reality.
In other words, the writer aims to write a naturalistic
scene, yet is actually improving on reality. The writer
is looking for the essence of the conversation and the
rhythm.
When writing your own dialogue, ask yourself:
what is the purpose of this conversation? It is to push
the plot forward? To illustrate character? Unless you
are writing an experimental narrative, its likely you
are aiming to write dialogue that sounds realistic.
This can be achieved through use of the colloquial
or through hesitation and specic key phrases a
character might use. Yet you are also aiming to cut
out the fat. Your dialogue must have a purpose.
HOW CAN I TELL I F MY DI ALOGUE
I S EFFECTI VE?
Try reading your dialogue aloud, as if you were an
actor, rehearsing for a play. If youre aiming to write in
a naturalistic style, question whether your believe that
someone would actually say this? Does it sound real?
Would these characters really speak in this way? Or has
the dialogue become stilted and unnatural? Reading
aloud can give you a deeper perspective on your work.
the wri ti ng coach
The Art of Dialogue
thenewwriter.com 55
HOW DO I DI FFERENTI ATE
BETWEEN CHARACTERS?
In real life dialogue has many functions. We use it
to communicate, but we often hide behind what we
say, or do not say what we mean. In Kazuo Ishgurus
novel The Remains of the Day, the narrators dialogue
rarely expresses his true emotion.
Try not to use dialogue simply to further plot, but
also to give us a true idea of how a character would
speak. Youre aiming to get inside of your character: in
EL Doctorows words, a novelist is a person who can
live in other peoples skins.
The words a character uses can tell us a great deal
about that character, as can the rhythms of their speech.
Is your character hesitant? Does s/he talk without
thinking or is every word considered? What kind of
language does s/he choose? Does the character have an
accent, use slang or only the Queens English? To get the
dialogue right for Ern Higham, an old Norfolk man in my
novel Bluethroat Morning, I visited the National Sound
Archive to listen to men just like him, in conversation;
being able to hear the voice made an enormous
difference to my understanding of the character.
Its important, when drawing your characters, to
bear in mind their personal concerns. What subjects
are they drawn to? What engages their interest?
What kind of metaphors (if any) are they likely to
use? Essentially, you are creating an idiolect for your
character, a voice that is entirely their own, so it is vital
that their interests are reected in their words.
HOW CAN I DEVELOP MY OWN STYLE?
Every time you read a book, pay attention to the
dialogue. Ask yourself what constitutes dialogue that
is really successful? You can ask yourself the following
questions the answers will give you a personal
model for writing successful dialogue:
How does the author balance narrative voice
and dialogue?
If the dialogue makes the character leap off the page,
how is this achieved? What is it about the voice that
is particularly effective or believable?
In what ways does the dialogue deepen our
knowledge of the character?
Does the author tell us how the words are
spoken by using adverbs or suggest it by revealing
their actions?
Does the author use dialect and if so does this help
me to hear the voice?
What happens when dialogue is absent?
Begin to formulate your own rules for writing
effective dialogue, then practice writing it regularly;
when your characters voices come alive, your work
will shift to a new level.
Available on Amazon Kindle Worldwide
blackbird-digitalbooks.com
HOW TO BE A
LITERARY GENIUS
by Jacqui Lofthouse
A comedy for anyone who has ever
faced the blank page and survived it.
A hilarious page turner of a novel, especially if you
have ever studied creative writing. The writers in-jokes
and acerbic pen pictures of literary types spice up a
will-she/wont-she plot which zips you along.
C. Milner
the wri ti ng coach
The Art of Dialogue
56 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
Writing Exercise
My rst published story was called Talking about
Hilary and was inspired by a conversation I overheard
on a train. As I stated earlier, transcribed conversation
does not make good ction, but overheard
conversation can provide an excellent starting point
for developing ctional dialogue.
For this exercise, you need to be an eavesdropper.
Find a public place such as a train or caf, in which
you can overhear conversations. Listen carefully to
what others say and how they talk. Take notes if it is
possible to do this in an unobtrusive way and write
down phrases a person uses, aspects of their dialect,
their obsessions and the emphasis they place on
certain phrases. Might there be a germ of a story
here? What would happen if you stripped away all
inessential dialogue and distilled this conversation
down to a key message? Then ask yourself: what is
the person not saying? Do they have some kind of
secret? If so, how might they reveal this through body
language or gesture?
You might need to listen to several conversations
before you nd one that fascinates you
enough to write it down and transform it. But
when you do, be playful with the dialogue
and see if you can make the character come
alive. Embellish and change the dialogue to
deepen the signicance of the moment; you
might want to add a motivation that was not
originally present.
Finally, put the writing away for
two weeks. When you take it out again,
ask yourself: how believable is this
character? What might I do now to make
the dialogue more snappy and vital?
Your aim should be to condense
the essence of a characters
voice into dialogue that both
intrigues and convinces the
reader, as well as moving the
story forward.
Jacqui Lofthouse has taught creative
writing in a broad variety of settings, and
in 2005 founded The Writing Coach (www.
thewritingcoach.co.uk) Her aim was to
create a mentoring and consulting service
that was personal and took account of the
needs of the individual writer. Her mission
was to help writers to produce their best
work and get it into print.
wri ters group therapy
Bad language
thenewwriter.com 57
W
eve had an issue at our group over bad
language, writes Jason Newman, from
Derbyshire. One member read out a
story theyd written that contained
some swear words. Some members were offended
by this, whilst others felt that the language was
appropriate for the story. Theres now discussion about
banning the use of swear words in material, however,
some feel this is censorship and a step too far. What
should we do?
This is a tricky area, because, as youve already
pointed out, some members will be offended by
such language, whilst others nd it acceptable and
cant see what the fuss is about. With issues like
this, nding a compromise isnt easy, and it may
seem impossible to make decision without upsetting
someone. However, a solution acceptable to all may
be possible.
The moment you start banning words, you begin
the process of censorship, which in itself will offend
some people. In the UK, we have free speech, and
writers can write what they like, subject to the law
(defamation, copyright). I suspect your groups problem
isnt the use of bad language within the members
work but the reading aloud of such words during
a meeting. As a member, you are entitled to write
what you like, but if youre going to read it out then
you should respect the wishes of others. Every writer
should be aware of their audience.
At the group I go to, we have a rule stating that no
inappropriate material can be read out aloud, and its
the Chairs responsibility to decide whether material is
appropriate or not, before it is read out. Most members
are sensible enough to know whether their material
contains language that others may nd offensive and
so they obtain the Chairmans approval rst. If they
dont, and they start reading it out, this rule gives
the Chair the right (and the condence, because hes
applying the groups constitution) to stop the member
from reading aloud.
We instigated this rule because, at the time, a
15-year-old joined the group and we felt, as a group,
that we had a responsibility to the 15-year-olds parents
Bad Language
not to expose their child to inappropriate material.
Of course, the 15-year-old was probably exposed to far
more inappropriate language in the school playground
on a regular basis, but, the point is, we realised we had
a responsibility to consider others in the group.
Having a rule that prevents the reading aloud
of swear words, or inappropriate material, does not
prevent writers from using those words in their own
work. It only prevents them from reading those words
out. If you want to read your work out aloud and your
text has only a few such examples, then consider
replacing them with more acceptable words when you
read out your work.
If a member produces a piece of text that contains
several profanities and wants constructive feedback
on it, then a rule preventing the work being read out
does not stop that member getting feedback on it. In
this situation, members should be honest with the
group. Tell them your work contains such language,
and ask if any members would be willing to read it
privately for constructive criticism purposes. Either
take a couple of paper copies with you to hand out to
those who agree to do this, or email a copy to these
members later.
The use of bad language may be entirely
appropriate for the setting of your story, or piece
of work. If writing a story set in gangland New
York, it wouldnt be particularly realistic if you had
one character say to another, Excuse me old chap,
I wonder if you could pass me that Kalashnikov
please, because that young man over
there is annoying me. Conversely,
there is a skill in using profanities
sparingly to convey setting and tone in
a piece of writing, and getting feedback
from members who are willing to read
such material can help you get that
balance right.
Its not just profanities that causes
difculties for groups, but genres, too.
Some members might feel uncomfortable
about erotic ction being read out.
Essentially, group harmony is down to
members respecting one another.
BY SI MON WHALEY

how to
Write a Novel
58 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
T
his is how I write a novel, and how I advise
others to do it. Knowing the terror of the
blank white page, and all the blank pages
lying behind it, I dont usually start at the
beginning. I make myself write down and hone what
the story is about on one sheet more plot unspools
as it is re-written. Next, I make a list of characters
whove come to mind in imagining the story; I might
identify their faces using actors images online. Then
I start to write scenes, or the notes for scenes I might
use. The word might is crucial. Its vital to realise that
at this stage, youre free associating, and will come
up with a lot of stuff you discard later. Let yourself
imagine. Editing is easier than adding: I cut 15,000
words from Nina Findlay just before she was sent out.
How to
GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 1
NEVER SHOW THE WORK I N PROGRESS
TO ANYONE UNTI L I T S DONE
At that point, one or two other opinions are useful.
My books always go to another draft after my
agent has read them, and then to a nal one just
before publication: the last polish is always swift
and sure, after a break from being in the story. Your
subconscious keeps working on things. Give it time to
do its job.
So here I am, with a few characters, a few scenes
and other oddments, the often random points at
which the book has surfaced. More scenes are devised
and now I have a storyline: things happen in a
particular order (the orders important: all ction
needs tension). Only now do I try to start at the
beginning, and to write the book that stitches the
scenes together. I never read back.
write a novel
Andrea Gillies shares her golden rules for writing a novel.
GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 2
DON T READ BACK UNTI L YOU GET TO THE
END OF THE DRAFT
Far too many people give up because their rst
attempt hasnt gone well. Theyre stuck; its no good;
they dont have condence in what theyve written.
But thats normal. The rst draft is almost always
terrible; this I have learned. Whats important is
to get it down in words in any words, so that you
have a story, and things happen, and people talk
to one another. (If theyre slow to talk, put them
in a room together and listen to what they say. I
wrote a lot of The White Lie that way). While you are
allowing yourself to be free in what you write, your
subconscious will start on the project, and things
will begin to evolve. Youll also nd that some of
what you allow yourself to say when its not the
ofcial version will be writing that you dont ever
edit out. Sometimes were too tight and too anxious
about quality to allow ourselves to be creative. I am
rm with myself, these days, about the rst draft not
being the ofcial version. I can say anything, and do,
and go off on wild tangents that are trimmed back
in the second draft. Thats all good. That sets the
imagination free.
how to
Write a Novel
thenewwriter.com 59
GOLDEN RULE NUMBER 3
THE SECOND DRAFT I S THE PLACE YOU
WANT TO GET TO, AS FAST AS POSSI BLE
This is where the writing starts. You need ow, now:
observe Golden Rule Number 2. Once the rst draft
is done, from A through to Z (though of course the
ending may change radically in the rewrite), and
youve included all the characters, conversations and
scenarios you can currently think of that might be
important to the story, youre ready for the printout,
and big pots of tea and a red pen.
Though most of what you read may be awful,
chances are youll like some of it, even if its just
one scene, the development of one character, or a
conversation that strikes you as true. Its all progress.
Lots of crossing out and inserting goes on at this
point, and I go back to the laptop to write sections that
link the bits I want to keep, until I have a big jigsaw
puzzle and am ready to print out again. This is draft
1b. Youre not even onto the second draft yet, and you
may have used a lot of paper I used 6 packets in
total, or 3000 sheets, when writing The Enlightenment
of Nina Findlay. But thats my technique; I write
fast, and edit on paper, and dont judge myself,
because I have learned that its all part of the process.
Things get better slowly, until, (often between
drafts two and three), theres a sudden leap forward
thats reassuring. Sometimes, even then, I remain
unimpressed with my approach. This is the dog-
walking and thinking time. Perhaps the book needs
to be written the other way round and start at the
end? (I did this with The White Lie). Perhaps it needs
to be written in someone elses voice, from a different
characters perspective? (I did this with Nina, who
was originally rst person). If you feel you need to
start completely afresh, dont worry; that happens.
Writings mostly about stamina. I went to a dozen
drafts with Nina Findlay, the last of them written in
a month, a chapter a day, to synthesise the narrative
better. If youre writing your rst novel, good luck!
Remember, its never too late. My rst novel was
published when I was 51. Mary Wesley started at 70.
Andrea Gillies is the author of three
books: novels The Enlightenment of Nina
Findlay (2014), The White Lie (2012), and
the non-ction book Keeper, which won
the Wellcome Book Prize 2009 and the
Orwell Book Prize 2010. Andrea was born
in York and currently lives in Edinburgh.
www.andreagillies.com
write a novel
If you feel you need to
start completely afresh,
dont worry; that happens
wri ters prompt
Response
60 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
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String of lies
Shed laughed as she pulled them out
from folded depths of dark velvet.
Hed bought the pearls to charm
her into loving him.
They rippled, swung and curved
into a warm, accepting softness,
lifting and shimmering in the ballroom light.
Now he trailed them through his ngers
and pressed them to his lips
breathing in the scent that stayed
long after she had gone.
Fake pearls hanging down from hooks.
Strings of lies, waiting for another life.
Philippa Horton
This poem told the
story of a whole
relationship in
a few lines. The
likening of the
faux pearls to
a string of lies
is particularly
efective.
Writers
prompt
Response
off school that day
Zo Fairbairns
thenewwriter.com 61
A simile pronounced sim-illy, with the emphasis on
the rst syllable is a comparison. When describing
something that your reader does not know about, you
compare it with something they will recognise.
For example, if you write of a ctional character
that her hand was as cold as ice, you are using ice, a
familiar concept, to evoke something unfamiliar the
temperature of ctional persons hand.
Alternatively, the simile may take two familiar
concepts and compare them in a way that is
unexpected. Wendy Cope does this with men and
buses in the opening lines of her poem Bloody Men.
Bloody men are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.
Other examples of similes:
As smooth as silk
Stronger than the Sun (play by Stephen Poliakoff
about nuclear power)
Tastes just like butter (advertising slogan)
My luves like a red red rose (Robert Burns)
Like ships passing in the night
Some similes have been around for such a long time
that they have lost their power to surprise, amuse
or clarify. They have become clichs, and clichs are
boring. George Orwell, in his essay Politics and the
English Language warns against using any simile
which you are used to seeing in print.
So make up your own similes, using your own
perceptions. When novelist Elizabeth Taylor wrote of
the eponymous heroine of Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
that she would have made a distinguished-looking
man, and, sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked
like some famous general in drag, Taylor was probably
aware that most of her readers would never have
seen a famous general in drag. Its possible that Taylor
herself had never seen one, but she obviously enjoyed
imagining one, and invited her readers to do the same.
If someone betrays you whilst pretending to be your
friend, you might say she acts like a snake in the grass.
If you are really angry, you might say she is a snake
Of school that day
in the grass. Thats a metaphor
an implied simile. You are
not expecting your audience
to believe that your enemy is
literally a dangerous reptile,
but the statement that she is
one establishes the qualities
of cunning, treachery and
poisonousness that you want
to convey.
Many metaphors are in everyday use. You probably
already think outside the box about the credit
crunch, and may be worried about a possible housing
bubble, but Orwells warning about similes applies to
metaphors too: if you are accustomed to seeing it in
print, dont use it. Alternatively, nd a way to refresh it.
Weve probably all heard of the last-chance saloon, but
Guardian cricket correspondent Mike Selvey enlivened
it when he described a player as having drunk so often
in the last-chance saloon that he has his own glass kept
above the bar.
Some metaphors sustain entire stories, such as
Tania Hershmans My Mother was an Upright Piano. It
begins like this:

My mother was an upright piano, spine erect, lid
tightly closed, unplayable except by the maestro.
My father was not the maestro. My father was the
piano tuner; technically expert, he never made her
sing. It was someone elses husband who turned
her into a baby Grand.
Enjoy your similes and metaphors, but dont over-use
them, and dont mix them: the military spokesman
who warned that the virus of fundamentalism is
spreading like a cancer undermined a perfectly good
metaphor (the virus of fundamentalism) by sticking
a distracting simile on the end. (Which is it, a virus
or a cancer?) And the student who, on his rst day at
university, described himself as a sh out of water
on a steep learning curve was probably looking for
sympathy but deserved only ridicule.
Choose your similes and metaphors with care, and
use them sparingly. Otherwise you risk over-egging
the pudding.
Were you of school on the day they did similes and
metaphors? Zo Fairbairns on what you missed.

F
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wri ters group profi l e
Writer LInk
62 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
W
e call ourselves Writers LInk and we
met on a creative writing course held
in Malvern Library in 2010. When the
funding for the course ended, our
group began with eight of us who wanted to continue
our regular meetings. We get together weekly at a
members house in Malvern Link: hence our name
which at the time, we decided was rather witty..
We sit round Daphnes kitchen table and we keep
to the timing of the original course. In two hours
we can explore a topic; different aspects of writing;
we can each read out any work we want to share
and we have an exercise during which we all write
something on a given word for ten minutes only.
We have such a range of writing interests and
experiences that we can encourage each other to
explore our varied styles as well as trying all sorts
of themes and ideas to develop our writing muscles.
We did invite other local writing groups to join us
in a special workshop on dialogue with Mary Cutler,
scriptwriter for The Archers, to make this a viable
event, but our group size works perfectly and so we
would be cautious about increasing it.
Sheilah spent many years in Australia working
as a reference and research librarian in a large
teaching college. Returning to England in 1996, she
began writing as a freelance non-ction writer for
quilting magazines, both here and overseas. She was
Writer
LInk
already a member of the Malvern Writers Circle but
enrolled on the creative writing course to broaden her
writing experience.
Daphne was also recently invited to join the Circle
after starting creative writing in her retirement.
Letter-writing had been a feature of her life, from the
early days at boarding school, or from her time living
in South Africa. Work as a secretary meant amending
other peoples letters and reports so our meetings let
her imagination take over.
Karen is a singer and writer who found the library
course a lifeline after suffering work-related stress.
The group became a weekly focal point supporting
her creativity and continues to be an imaginative
connection to the writers.
Maddie joined the class at the library when she
was off work due to illness and some years later, still
nds in herself the need to write. She is particularly
interested in putting complex feelings and emotions
into a few words so her writing leans towards poetry
and haiku. She is a member of The Haiku Society, as
is Kate, our youngest member, who is still working in
the caring sector.
Im a former librarian who wanted to write
something more imaginative than book reviews,
press releases, annual reports and minutes of
meetings. I have been surprised by nding that a lot
of my work comes out as poetry rather than prose.
Val Booler, winner of our Poetry
on a Postcard competition,
introduces us to her group.
Moira describes herself as at the frivolous end of
the group, a McGonagall of poetry and murderer of
haikus (a self-deprecating claim we all hotly dispute.)
But she also admits to caring how she expresses her
ideas and has found our habit of studying different
genres and ways in which other writers achieve their
aims has given her a feel for the rhythm of her prose.
Last but not least is Julian, who nds the group a
refreshing inspiration and space for his creativity,
in contrast to his other writing roles of editing a
community newsletter, writing lengthy dyslexia
reports and helping dyslexic students with their
writing. As the only man in the group he also ensures
the male voice is heard.
Our weekly meetings provide fun, friendship
and absolute trust that we will support each other
along our writing journeys. These journeys have
been physical and not just metaphorical. Reading the
article on Found Poetry in issue 115 made us realise
that we have found our inspiration in many places as
we enjoy regular outings together.
One of our rst trips was to The Barber Institute,
the art gallery at the University of Birmingham.
We each chose a painting or object to stimulate a
piece of work: a critical description, a story based on
a portrait, or imagining what happened next after
the incident shown. For example, as a yoga teacher,
I was inspired by a 16th century statue of the dancing
Shiva and the subsequent poem was printed in the
regional yoga newsletter.
A recent Edward Lear exhibition at the Ashmolean
had us catching the train to Oxford one morning,
where we made ourselves write a limerick before
going off to explore the rest of the wonderful
collection and come back with more ideas.
Mention the Needle Museum in Redditch to
those not in the know and you hear people saying
What? Needles? but we had a fascinating time
there. The development of the industry was a
trigger for our writing: we could imagine the work
done by the nest needles used in eye surgery, or the
history of whaling harpoons ( which are, if you think
about it, very large needles). We could also explore
the history of the workers who usually died young, as
they were not protected by anything like Health and
Safety. The museum is next to the site of the former
Bordesley Abbey so we could think about how to
present historical ction in the time of the dissolution
of the monasteries.
On a dark October evening, we booked a Ghost
Walk with a town guide to explore the darker side
of Worcesters history and warmed our chilled souls
with a hot drink afterwards before producing our
own spooky stories.
Coming up on our outings calendar is the new
Ashmolean at Broadway, the Inrmary Museum
in the former Worcester hospital and maybe a visit to
a courtroom.
One thing we are sure of: we are not going to run
out of ideas!

wri ters group profi l e
Writer LInk
thenewwriter.com 63
Writing Exercise
Writer LInk use the exercises set in The New Writer
as inspiration. In Issue 115 Writing Together, Writing
Alone explored Found Poetry. Val writes:
We had a visit to Worcester Cathedral which is on
our doorstep. We had the chance to wander round
the amazing building by ourselves, and that is where
I found a poem. By noting down inscriptions, signs
and notices, by reading about unique nds like the
skeleton of the pilgrim in the crypt, the words came
together to form a poem.
Lines taken from
Worcester Cathedral
Please enter quietly:
Do not disturb the dead.
Here born, here bred, here buried
Here lies
Kings will usually lie in state.
Chant for the prince in the chantry.
The Jesus Chapel is open for prayer:
Here lies hear lies.
The crypt is open.
Walk here from Compostela
Leave your boots and bones
Here lies?
Endow a monument.
Once living, now marmoreal forms
of angels on earth and now above
Here lies read lies.
Take a photo, marvel briey
at stone and wood and coloured glass.
Buy a postcard, stop for a cofee
The tower is open to visitors.
Val Booler

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readers chal l enge response
Moving On
64 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
T
elling Matthew she was leaving was not
going to be easy, Steph thought. In fact, it was
going to be one of the most difcult things
she had ever done. It would be more straight
forward if they rowed all the time, as she understood
people in their situation were meant to do, instead of
which for most of the last four years theyd enjoyed
an easy, companionable relationship. As she carefully
manoeuvred her car out of the works car park and
headed towards home, she told herself to be strong and
to remember why she had to do this. The fact remained
that she had become very dependent on Matthew and
that wasnt fair on either of them. It was nobodys fault
but it was time to break free and now was the right
time to do it. Matthew had a lot to give to the world
and it was not fair that she should stand in his way.
She stopped at the local supermarket, pulling into
one of the bays nearest the store. She shopped for
their evening meal, choosing items with unusual
care: melon for starters followed by the makings for
a prawn risotto and nally a chocolate mousse for
dessert. All his favourites but would it perhaps be
kinder to prepare a dish he didnt particularly like
liver and bacon for example - given the news she
was going to break? And would it be better to tell him
before or after they had eaten? Beforehand would
probably spoil the meal but she didnt know whether
she could hold it together while they ate. Then there
was the question of what to drink. He was bound to
be shocked when she told him. Would a few glasses of
good wine dull the edge of his disappointment or just
encourage him to argue and get upset?
Steph was so preoccupied that it took her far
longer than usual to complete her shop and even then
she forgot to put basics like bread and milk in her
trolley. The kind woman at the checkout offered to go
and fetch them for her but Steph declined the offer
with thanks. She was already later than usual and
Matthew fretted if he didnt know where she was.
If she was honest with herself it was the feeling of
being stied by him that was another reason for her
deciding that the break had to happen.
BY SUE WI LSEA
In TNW 116 we asked subscribers to write a short story of
no more than 1500 words on the theme of Moving.
We liked the way
Sue led us into
the story in a
conventional way
and then turned
the tables on our
expectations.
Moving On
It was dark by the time she drew up outside
their house and lights blazing from all rooms
declared that Matthew was already home. It was
his habit to come in from work and throw all the
light switches on no matter what room he
intended to occupy and then put the music system
on at full blast. Turning off the ignition, she
experienced a familiar ash of irritation at his
extravagance and yet simultaneously was struck
by how strange and silent life would be without
him. Before she could do any more thinking,
Matthew was opening the car door and with
characteristic kindness (which only succeeded in
making her feel even worse) helped to get her and
the shopping inside.
In the hallway Rags, their overweight spaniel,
waddled up to her and enthusiastically licked her legs
as he did every evening,
Rags! Stop it! Will you just stop! For goodness sake,
Matthew, what is wrong with this dog!
Rags slunk back, adopting his customary
woebegone expression, doleful brown eyes looking
up at Steph as if pleading for the smallest morsel
of affection. It wouldnt just be Matthew shed be
leaving, thought Steph guiltily, as she held out her
hand and patted and cuddled a grateful, slobbering
Rags who had always been Matthews dog rather
than hers. There was more, much more, shed be
leaving behind.
On her way home she had decided that on balance
her announcement would be best made after the
meal. However, this meant she felt so anxious that
she could only pick at her food. Matthew, on the other
hand, tucked in with his usual enthusiasm. Finally,
a loud scraping of his bowl indicated he had nished
his mousse.
That was great! he said, smiling at her, If this
is what working late means, then you must do it
more often.
Youve got some chocolate round your mouth.
Steph said, remembering how hed always
loved chocolate.
Sorry. He wiped it off with the back of his sleeve.
Why dont you use a Steph had to stop herself
from automatically admonishing him. Suddenly it
struck home to her how, without meaning to, they
had both fallen into a pattern of familiar responses
which left little room for spontaneity. This was the
prompt she needed. Matthew, love she said taking a
deep breath to steady her nerves, Ive got something
very important I want to say to you.
He smiled questioningly at her with only the
briefest icker of anxiety crossing his face, I
thought there was something wrong. Youve been
a bit nervy the last few days. Are you feeling alright?
Is your medication playing up? Theres an early
surgery tomorrow morning. I could ring now and
leave a message.
Darling, dont worry. Im ne, Steph said Its just
that Im not quite sure how to say this.
Spit it out.
readers chal l enge response
Moving On
thenewwriter.com 65
There was a pause. The mufed sound of next
doors television could be heard faintly through the
dividing wall.
Ive been offered a promotion. Its down South
so theres a move involved. She took a deep breath I
want to go alone. Its a chance for me to give you your
freedom and for me to have mine.
Matthew, who had his wine glass at his lips, put
it down without drinking, But Mum! Im happy as
we are.
Matt, youre twenty-six now and its high time you
made your own way in life, nd yourself a nice girl
and settle down. Youre not going to do that with me
to look after.
I dont look after you! You get around more in that
thing he indicated her wheelchair than many able-
bodied people.
It was meant to be short term, you coming to
live here after the accident, Steph said quietly. Its
been four years now. I cant tell you how much Ive
appreciated that and loved having you with me but
its time for us both to move on.
As Steph nished speaking they both
unconsciously glanced at the photo in the silver
frame standing on the sideboard.
What would Dad have said if I let you go?
Matthew asked.
Dad would agree with me. You know he would.
I miss him. Matthew blurted out and
suddenly he was her little boy again with scuffed
knees and chocolate round his mouth. He tapped
the spoon against the side of his empty bowl to
hide his agitation.
We both do. But you know what he was like. He
would never have wanted to survive with the kind
of head injuries he sustained. I was lucky to get away
with just losing the use of my legs.
Lucky? Thats not a word I would use. He was still
now, sitting back in the chair with his chin on his
chest and arms tightly folded the way he did when he
had decided to not give way on something. He looked
just like his Dad and Steph had to smother a smile.
Whats so funny?
You are. And I do feel lucky so thats something
well just have to agree to disagree on.
But how will you cope? Was it her imagination or
did Steph detect a trace of relief in his voice?
Ill cope very well. As you will too.
Matthew unfolded his arms and reached forward
for his wine glass. Slowly he took a sip. Ill think
about it.
He had agreed and they both knew it. There was
another pause, this time an easier one.
Im trusting this will be an amicable separation?
Steph asked, smiling at her son.
Very Matthew replied. You get custody of the
wheelchair and I get custody of Rags.
Access every other weekend? Steph enquired.
Agreed.
And they leaned across the table to touch their
glasses very gently against one another.
fi ve books
Lynn Shepherd
66 twitter.com/thenewwritermag | facebook.com/TheNewWriterMagazine
I
cant remember a time when I couldnt read.
My parents tell me I taught myself at the
age of three, and I think they must be right,
because I cant recall ever seeing letters as just
incomprehensible squiggles of black. I lived half my
childhood in a book after that, captivated by the
alchemy that turned words on a page into images
and pictures in my head. It was a kind of magic, and
it still is, only now I get to weave some of those spells
myself. Theres no greater enchantment than that!
Its hard to distil a life of book-loving into ve
books, but here is my list. Some of these I read and
loved as a child, and some have turned me into the
writer I am today.
THE GOD BENEATH THE SEA
by Leon Gareld and Edward Blishen
This is a wonderful re-telling of the Greek myths
for children. I remember I had another book on the
same subject before this, which I must have read a
hundred times (and stood me in excellent stead when
it came to my English literature degree) but what
I loved about this particular one was the sheer joy
of the language. The muscularity of it, the richness
and inventiveness of the prose was an absolute
revelation. When I started writing this article I looked
the book up on Wikipedia and found that it inspired
Philip Pullman too. It seems I am in good company!
THE LORD OF THE RI NGS
by JRR Tolkien
There must be thousands of people who would have
this book on their list of favourites, and probably for
many of the same reasons. I read it rst at the age of
twelve, and my love of it has never diminished. Thats
a very formative age, especially for a thoughtful child
growing up in an ugly London suburb, and I think my
love of nature stems in great part from this book. And
when I read more about Tolkien and found he was a
professor of English at Oxford, that inspired me to try
to study there myself. In fact I recently met someone
at my old college who went to Tolkiens lectures in the
1940s extraordinary.
MANSFI ELD PARK
by Jane Austen
Well this one really had to be on the list! I studied this
book for A level (and can still recite huge chunks of
it by heart), but even at the age of eighteen I thought
there was something odd and intriguing about it. Its
so like, and yet so very unlike all Austens other works.
Even back then, I wondered if there might be the ghost
of another book in there, trying to get out, and it was
that book that re-imagining of Manseld Park as
a murder mystery which was the rst novel I had
published. And how much fun writing it was.
A MASCULI NE ENDI NG
by Joan Smith
Some people might think this is an unusual choice,
but I include it here not just because its a really good
read in its own right, but because it was the rst book
that made me think I might be able to be a writer
myself. Joan Smith is great at clever crime, and thats
what Ive try to write too. I was lucky enough to meet
her a couple of years ago, and tell her the inuence
shed had on me. Denitely a fan-girl moment and
one I never dreamed would ever happen!
THE FRENCH LI EUTENANT S WOMAN
by John Fowles
If youve read Tom-All-Alones you wont be surprised
to nd this one in my list. The rst and still one of
the best neo-Victorian novels, and an inspiration
for my own second book. When I rst read it I was
exhilarated by the way Fowles tells a Victorian story
from a 20th-century perspective, and I adopted
the same knowing narratorial stance in Tom-All-
Alones. And I later discovered that they lmed a tiny
sequence for the lm just yards from our old house!
BOOKS
Lynn Shepherd, author of Tom-All-
Alones, tells us about ve books
that have inspired her as a writer.
Lynn Shepherds most recent novel is A Treacherous
Likeness, a ctionalisation of lives of the Shelleys. The
book was a 2013 historical novel of the year for BBC
History magazine, and one of the 100 best novels of
the year for Kirkus Reviews. Her previous books are the
award-winning Murder at Manseld Park and Tom-All-
Alones. Lynns website is www.lynn-shepherd.com and
her Twitter ID is @Lynn_Shepherd.
microfiction
Crowman by Thomas Brown
thenewwriter.com 67
Crowman
BY THOMAS BROWN
Poetry
Competition
2014
Plus
Publication
}
1st Prize: 200
2nd Prize: 150
3rd Prize: 100
thelondonmagazine.org/tlm-competition
[email protected]
@TheLondonMag
thelondonmagazine1732
First established in 1732
Judged by Hugh Dunkerley
and Michael ONeill
Opening Date: 1st May 2014 - Closing Date: 30th June 2014
T
hey think hes scum. They pick on him
because hes short, because of his hair,
which is that bit longer and darker than
everyone elses. Black, like pitch, or the tears
a shadow might cry if they punched it in the gut and
called it names.
Hes skinny, yeah, but hes no twig. Theres muscle
beneath this pale skin. If he moves a little, leans his
chest to the right, he can see it in the mirror, sliding
between his bones and his esh.
Emo, they scream, emo, emo, emo, until the word
loses all meaning in his ears.
So what if he dyes his hair? He likes it black. It
keeps him invisible by nightfall. Hes no twig. Hes
no shadow either. He is the bird that nestles in the
shadows and the twigs, who makes those things its
own. He plucks the twigs from the branches, he casts
shadows beneath his wings. He is Crowman.
Snap.
He springs to his feet and ies from the mirror
at the sound of approaching footsteps, mindless
of whatever hes just broken in his haste. He snatches
his t-shirt and wrestles it around his neck just as
the door swings open. His mothers face appears
in the bedroom.
What are you doing up here, Corvin? Why was
your t-shirt off?
Just playing.
Dinner is ready in twelve minutes, she calls back,
her footsteps vanishing down the stairs, and put
your glasses back on, young man.
He sits very still for a moment in silence. Then he
gets to his feet and potters over to the cabinet.
Crowman hates wearing glasses, but theyre
important to preserve his alter-ego. Also, he has to
kind of admit, he cant see all too well without them.
PEMBROKE COLLEGE University of Cambridge
Creative Writing in Cambridge:
The Pembroke College~National Academy of Writing Summer Programme 2014
This collaboration between Pembroke College and the National Academy of Writing offers a
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For more information visit: www.pem.cam.ac.uk/creativewriting2014
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