Reading | the writer is a lonely hunter

A visit to Winstone Books of Sherborne

by gailaldwin

Winstone’s is situated at 8 Cheap Street, towards the top of the town in Sherborne. The shop is double fronted and light streams into the space that contains a huge range of books. As well as shelves along the walls, there are central displays and stands for book-themed gift cards. A quarter of the floor space is dedicated to children’s books and the owner, Wayne Winstone has worked hard to establish links with schools to promote reading as an important life experience for children of all ages.

The children’s area is inviting with a couch, a rocking horse and a standard lamp to entice families to stay and browse. Children are invited to review books and as part of the Sherborne Literary Festival, a short story competition for children was held.

Wayne has been successful in attracting authors to deliver talks and book signings at the shop and recent events included a book launch by Sarah Challis. Read the rest of this entry »

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Wimborne Literary Festival, 1-3 November 2012

by gailaldwin

Earlier in the year I paid a visit to Gullivers Bookshop in Wimborne and you can read about my experience here. I’m delighted to again be writing about Gullivers but this time in relation to the Wimborne Literary Festival which the book shop is hosting for the second year. The on-line programme has just been published and there’s a wide range of workshops for adults and children. Click here for the link to the site.

I’m pleased to see Dorset’s writing talent on the programme, including a workshop to be delivered by Sarah Steele who runs the Wimborne Writing Group. This will be a treat for anyone interested in poetry. Sarah is an experienced tutor who runs the Wimborne Writing Group which meets once a month on a Wednesday in the Community Learning and Resource Centre. Members are experienced and talented writers who enjoy tasks and activities set by Sarah to develop writing skills. The collaborative support offered by group members is something I definitely miss now that I am temporarily unable to attend the sessions due to work commitments. You can read more about Sarah here.

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Four Buses: going to print

by gailaldwin

You may remember that back in July, I won a competition to have sixty copies of my flash fiction and short story collection titled Four Buses printed by CPI Anthony Rowe. While it was great to become a winning author, I didn’t realise how much work would be involved in claiming this prize. I was asked to submit a print-ready pdf of the collection together with a monochrome cover. I set to work, finding out about typesetting and organising the stories. The process was more involved than I had imagined and together with editing, this took a considerable amount of time. I even turned my hand to producing a mock-up of the cover but had to seek professional help for the final version. You can see the cover below:

FourBuses Cover v2

I’m delighted with the reviews on the back page, it’s great to have positive feedback from writers that I admire:

‘A varied and interesting collection from a fresh new voice.’

– VANESSA GEBBIE, author of The Coward’sTale

‘This is clever writing! Ingenious, perceptive and heartfelt: snapshots of real lives, which make us look twice – and with new understanding – at the familiar.’

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Mere Literary Festival and flash fiction competition

by gailaldwin

I was pleased to learn about the Mere Literary Festival and I can now share with you details of their flash fiction competition. You’re asked to write up to 350 words which must include a given phrase which will be announced on the website on 27 September. There is a category for the under 16s which is free but all other entries are charged at £2 with £1 for additional entries. Please send your story through the post which must be received by 5 October. Prizes are £50, £25 and £10. For further details, click here for the MFL website.

My blog now has over 100 blog followers and I when I started out on 30 November 2011, I promised myself that I’d run a small competition to celebrate if I ever reached the 100 mark. I’m delighted and honoured to have so many people interested in reading my posts. Thank you. My only concern is whether there are enough people interested in entering a competition. I have a prize in mind, a copy of ‘Reading Like A Writer’ and you can read a review of the book by Louise Doughty here. If I get more than 10 comments expressing an interest in entering, I’ll get cracking with deciding on the format and drawing up the rules of entry. Have a think about it and let me know.

This is the cover of the first edition but you can win a new paperback copy.

(Image used under fair use rationale).

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What the Dickens? magazine – going for a print edition

by gailaldwin

What the Dickens? Magazine #2 What the Dickens? Magazine: Issue 4 - The Olympia Edition

If you haven’t had a chance to read the brilliant bi-monthly What the Dickens? magazine that celebrates creativity in the visual arts and writing, now’s the time to take a look here. There are all sorts of articles of interest including author interviews, book and film reviews, competitions, creative writing and poetry and a fantastic range of visual stimulation. On top of all that, I offer a column titled ‘Help! The dog at my manuscript!’ which answers writers’ questions.

The editor, Victoria Bantock is aiming to get the seventh edition of the magazine published in print as well as on-line. This provides a unique opportunity for a double dose of submissions to be received by 15 September. What the Dickens? magazine invites submissions with the theme of Pumpkin for the October issue and Journey for the December issue. Please get busy with your ideas, be creative and enter your work by the deadline. Full details for submission can be found here.

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Heading for Edinburgh, a holiday hit

by gailaldwin

Ann Hathaway’s Cottage, Stratford

The destination for our family holiday was Edinburgh. We stopped in Stratford-upon-Avon so that we could use the hotel reservation and theatre tickets cancelled earlier in the year due to exam revision pressure. (I’m pleased to say that my daughter got two As and a B in her A levels and will be going to study history and American studies at Nottingham University). We saw Troilus and Cressida at the Swan which I enjoyed but my husband thought it pretentious and my son wanted to slit his throat rather than go back in after the interval. The interpretation was baffling with the Trojans represented as North American Indians and the Greeks as desert soldiers and there was a transvestite for the fool. In addition, there were TV screens around the stage showing footage of Inuit cultural traditions interspersed with Hollywood movies. Now that was a little confusing, particularly when the actors watched the screens and replicated the actions. Overall the family gave it the thumbs down, as did The Guardian, and you can read review here.

Beatrix Potter’s Cottage

We stopped for a few days in Cumbria with our friends the Huggetts and managed to visit the lakes, Beatrix Potter’s home and spent a day at the seaside. The weather was wonderful and the company great. Our first night in Scotland was in Glasgow and we had breakfast in the Willow Tea Rooms which boasts an interior designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and serves a splendid Scottish breakfast. Following a visit to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (there’s a fascinating and brave section on Glasgow life) we drove to Edinburgh where we stayed in a Stockbridge flat for the rest of our holiday. Read the rest of this entry »

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A splendid story slam in Shaftesbury

by gailaldwin

I wrote an earlier post promoting the story slam in Shaftesbury here and I’m now delighted to share with you details of this great event. Organised by Jennifer Oliver and Jennifer Bell who run Storyslingers a creative writing group held at the Shaftesbury Arts Centre, the story slam offered the chance for writers to read their work to an audience and gain feedback. Five writers put their names forward for the competitive element of the evening, and five others took the microphone to showcase their work.

The judging panel comprised Allie Spencer author of romantic comedy novels including Summer Loving and Summer Nights and myself (recently awarded first prize in the Winchester Writers’ Conference ‘Slim Volume, Small Edition’ competition).

Allie Spencer (left) and Gail Aldwin (right)

I was thrilled to be invited to judge the event and I’d love to see more story slams taking place across the county. Allie was a great person to deliberate with in finding the winner and runner-up, particularly as the standard of all the stories was very high. We finally agreed that James Broomfield’s story should win due to its extraordinary content (about a man trying to find his brotherhood in North Devon by experimenting with smoking beard trimmings). Technically the writing was superb with a strong and unique voice. Runner up came Andy Hamilton’s ‘Stage Fright’ a classic ugly duckling scenario told in a fresh way.

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A visit to Imagine Books, Weymouth

by gailaldwin

Just 50 yards from the sea front at Weymouth, and a pleasant walk along St Alban Street, (affectionately known to locals as Flag Street) you’ll find Imagine Books at number 23.

Displayed outside the shop with its distinctive black and gold signage are children’s books, postcards, sun hats, beach bags and wind chimes. This provides an idea of the merchandise to be found within.

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Writing Britain (and more about notebooks)

by gailaldwin

The British Library’s current exhibition Writing Britain illustrates the changing landscape of the country over the last 1000 years with reference to items from the collection and loans from elsewhere. The exhibition includes artwork, original manuscripts and texts that explore a range of locations grouped according to the following sections:

Rural dreams
Dark Satanic Mills
Wild Places
Beyond the City
Cockney Visions
Waterlands

Interestingly, writing about Dorset features in several of the sections, including Maiden Castle by John Cowper Powys which tells the story of a supernatural presence at the iron-age hill fort near Dorchester. Jane Austen’s Persuasion is set in Bath and Lyme Regis, where Louisa Musgrave falls from the harbour wall (known as The Cobb) in an attempt to gain male attention. Harold Pinter’s script for The French Leiutenant’s Woman, based upon the novel by John Fowles is also set in Lyme Regis. A little further along the Dorset coast, Chesil Beach features as the location for Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name, where Edward and Florence spend their wedding night at a fictitional hotel on the beach.

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Dorchester: Thomas Hardy Country

by gailaldwin

Just outside Dorchester in the parish of Stinsford, the poet and novelist Thomas Hardy was born in 1840. He grew up in the cob and thatch cottage at Bockhampton, which like Max Gate (the home he later designed and occupied from 1885 until his death in 1928) is open to the public through the National Trust.

From the car park, after a stroll through woodland, you reach the back of the cottage. Follow the path to the gate and into the cottage garden, planted as it would have appeared when Hardy occupied the house. The accommodation was renovated to make room for a growing family, including turning a staircase around to create a bedroom for Hardy’s sisters.

This is the view from Thomas Hardy’s bedroom, where he was able to see on the hill at Portesham, the monument erected in memory of his distant relative Vice Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy. You can find out more about this in an earlier post here.

It was at a small table, like this one, that Hardy wrote the first of his novels set in Wessex, the fictional county based upon Dorset. Few authors besides Hardy have such strong associations with the landscape and culture of their local area.