The Small Wonder festival celebrating the short story is the literary festival William Trevor loved: “The best literary festival I have ever attended,’ he said. He was there a few years ago – this year, there were others, and it was marvellous stuff. Highlights for me included Adam Marek’s and David Vann’s event, with readings of two of the shortlisted stories for the Sunday Times Short Story Competition. And two talks, one on D H Lawrence, by David Constantine, and one on J G Ballard. And A S Byatt in conversation, and and and… of course, being up there myself with my lovely talented friend Tania Hershman. Here’s some pics taken by Axel Hesslenberg, official photographer of the event.
Poetry news:
I sent a few poems to Bridport this year. Why? Dunno. I like to support, I think it is a smashing competition and have great respect for it, the organisers, the readers, who all work so very hard, to raise money for the Bridport Arts Centre. I didn’t win anything, not unsurprising – but I did, joy of joys, get two poems onto the shortlist. Now that shortlist is anything but short, but given the thousands of entries, (last year, over 8000 poems) there must be something OK with them. Trouble is – I have NO idea why they made it. Or what was wrong with the ones that didn’t…
Novel news:
Maggie and I met last Tuesday - I'm unhappy with the ending of the novel, and she agrees. So... Im still working on it. Plod, plod plod...
Congrats on the poems, V!
ReplyDeleteWish I could have been at Small Wonder. As for the shortlisted poems at Bridport - who knows? Matters of taste, of timing ... Does it matter, as long as they're still being written and still being read and heard?
ReplyDeleteBon courage for the novel: faux pas t'efforcer, ça viendra, tu verras - c'est promis!
Well done on the Bridport shortlistings - that's some achievement! And battle on with the novel ending. Or give yourself a week off when you DON'T think about it, and maybe the better ending will appear.
ReplyDeleteThank you, thanks you! All marvellous advice and nice things.
ReplyDeleteOoh, congrats for making the shortlist with two poems anyway - I'd be thrilled with that! Best of everything getting the ending just so for your novel.
ReplyDelete