Let's Get Villainous!

The Bournemouth Festival of Writing has released a whole load of photographs, courtesy of Solid Imagery, and so I have included a selection from my workshop, Let's Get Villainous, which was a huge success. But don't worry if you missed out. I hope to run this one again so watch this space.

The Bournemouth Festival of Writing

The Bournemouth Festival of Writing took place last weekend with a wide range of events, talks, workshops, an author’s marketplace, book launches, writing on the beach – not to mention the now infamous naked writing workshop hosted by the wonderfully named Jonny Fluffypunk. (I didn’t take part – too much of a coward). 

I was delighted to be part of this event, running a workshop called ‘Let’s Get Villainous’ which was a character workshop with a difference – the aim being for all the participants to take away with them a particularly nasty alter ego, to use in their writing however they liked. I ran the workshop with a series of character prompts followed by various role play activities so that everyone could really get into their character’s heads.

This was my first time at the Bournemouth Writing Festival and I’ve not run a workshop for several years, so naturally my biggest fear was the dreaded empty room. All week I had been seeing events selling out, but really I needn’t have worried – mine wasn’t far off capacity.

And the participants themselves were fantastic. They responded really well to the prompts and as soon as the interactive part began, everyone working together in small groups, the room filled with laughter and energy. There were some wonderful characters and scenarios being explored – I really hope that I will one day see some of them in print.

As for the festival overall, it was a huge success. Dominic (the organiser) is really putting Bournemouth on the map with this, and I look forward to being involved again next year, either as a speaker or a delegate.

Let’s Get Villainous

 

Earlier this month I attended the launch event for the Bournemouth Writing Festival which will be taking place in April in the town. I was there because I will be taking part this year, delivering a writing workshop on the Saturday.

My workshop is called ‘Let’s Get Villainous’ and is a character workshop with a difference. The goal is that at the end each participant will take away with them a thoroughly despicable and villainous character, or maybe an anti-hero, to do with whatever they wish.

We will be using a combination of lucky dip prompts and role play activities to create our characters and then really get into their heads and get to know them. It will be quite interactive and hopefully a lot of fun for all concerned.

Tickets are available here: Why not come along and join us.

The launch event itself was well attended and buzzing with energy. It was great to finally get to network with other local writers and I’m really looking forward to this year’s festival.

I hope to see you there.

Getting Literary in Yeovil

The Yeovil Literary Festival is in full swing, packed with all sorts of exciting authors and events. I was up there yesterday and today and I’ve come away buzzing – inspired to get on with some new writing. There are still two more days to go but I thought I would share with your some of the highlights so far.

Yesterday the festival kicked off with the Yeovil Prizewinners event. I was there in my capacity of short story winner 2016 but all the rest of this year’s winners were there as well – something of a first – I don’t think everyone has been able to make it before! The standard was excellent and diverse. The winning novel was superb and I can’t wait for it to be published and I can read the whole thing – and I’m pretty sure it will be – it was really good!

Some of the past winners were there as well, now published and with books to sell, and it was a lovely feeling to be amongst them with my own. Sue Yockney and Chip Tolson were launching their latest books. Sue’s new novel, Outside the Box, is a satirical romp, and Chip Tolson has just released a collection of his short stories, many of which are Yeovil Prize winners in their own right. 

Jackie Gingell, myself, Sue Yockney and Chip Tolson 

Chip and Sue on the bookstall - selling like hot cakes

Chip and Sue

And their books! This is my haul from the event! 

Today I headed back up for a crime writing workshop run by local crime writers Clare Donoghue and Chris Ewan – yes I’m thinking of dabbling in a bit of murder and mayhem – which was excellent but I do wish it had been longer. In fact they’ll be running a course in Taunton soon. Unfortunately a bit too far for me to get to.

But one of the best things was bumping into other authors. It was particularly nice to meet fellow Allsort Emma Carroll as well as Kiran Millwood Hargrave who I met at the Yeovil Prizewinners event a couple of years ago and has now had her first book published.

I only wish I could have stayed longer and spent more time talking all things writing. I hope to see you all again soon!

The Purbeck Literary Festival

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing and recently I’ve been cutting down on author events. However, I did manage to spare a few hours at the weekend to join my fellow Littoralis, Laura James and Kathy Sharp to run a panel event at the Purbeck Literary Festival.

Kathy Sharp manning our table of books

The title of our event was ‘A Foot in the Door – A guide to getting published.’ where we talked about the benefits of being with a small publisher and discussed our experiences.

Although the focus of the day was largely on self-publishing, I hope that many of the authors who attended our event will feel encouraged to explore the small publisher route as a viable option. Certainly our experiences have been very positive, even though we all write in different genres and are published by very different publishers.

Events like this are always a good networking opportunity and it was nice to catch up with local authors. If you are in the area the Purbeck Literary Festival has events running all week so do check out their programme and see if anything takes your fancy.

And if you would like to know a bit more about the Littoralis – four Dorset authors inspired by the sea - then do visit out facebook page for regular updates.

This Little World: stories from Dorset Writers

About a year ago I became involved with an exciting initiative from the Dorset Writers Network. The idea was to run a series of writing workshops across rural Dorset to encourage people to have a go at writing a short story set in the county. These stories could then be entered it into a competition being run by DWN for inclusion in an anthology.

I ran workshops in my local village hall and at a local secondary school as well as being involved in the judging and mentoring for the adult entries.

There have been many people involved throughout the process and on Saturday the project reached its culmination with the launch of the anthology This Little World: Stories from Dorset Writers.

The This Little World book launch and Writers Day took place at Dorchester Library. At the launch event the organisers talked about the project and some of the featured authors read out their stories. A couple were stories that I had picked out which is a lovely feeling, but I have to say I was particularly impressed with the children’s entries! What a wealth of young talent this county has!

As well as the launch itself there was a series of writing workshops covering all sorts of subjects from writing dialogue to poetry and screenplays and The Littoralis (me and fellow local authors Laura James and Kathy Sharp) hosted a panel event where we discussed our experiences with our publishers. Despite all of us being published by small mainstream publishers our routes to publication and our experiences of the process couldn’t have been more different!

The whole event was extremely well attended and the anthology sold out within minutes! But fear not. The paperback version is available on Amazon and an e-book edition will be following soon. It is packed with a wealth of wonderful Dorset set stories and would make a perfect Christmas present.

The Booker Prize 2015

Yesterday the winner of the Booker Prize was announced – and in case you don’t know it was Marlon James for A Brief History of Seven Killings.

Every year in the run up the award the YCAA runs a Booker Debate at the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil. A panel of six people read and review the shortlisted books, and for the past few years I have been honoured to take part. Some years none of us think we have the winner. This year three of us did, which I think reflects the interest and diversity of this year’s shortlist.

This year I was allocated Satin Island by Tom McCarthy to read.

Now if you look at the reviews for the shortlisted six you might notice that Satin Island comes off quite badly being slated for being boring and pretentious. But I think it is wrong to write it off so easily, because it is in fact a really interesting book.

Yes. It is quite pretentious. For example the name of the main character, U, I think is meant to draw analogy between U the character and You the reader.

The characters we meet are vague and thinly drawn. U has a friend called Petr and a woman he sleeps with called Maddison but none of these characters are given any great depth; their relationship with U superficial. It is almost as if U is swamped with so much else that the real world lacks definition.
U Works for The Company and is tasked with writing the Big Report, both of which are also frustratingly vague. In fact U spends most of his time at work in his basement office surfing the internet and navel gazing.

And yet there is so much more to this book. U is constantly bombarded by images, news reports, the internet. Too much information for any one individual to assimilate. In fact the whole novel feels like it’s buffering – that frustration you get when you try to watch something but it simply won’t get going.

And this is where, in my opinion, this book is extremely clever. We live in an age of information overload. In a way we are buffering as we try to take it all in, and I think this is the effect the author was trying to achieve. In which case it works. Satin Island is a true reflection on our times and the world we live in.

I also found it surprisingly readable – for a book that never actually goes anywhere and has no characterisation, no plot, and nothing actually happens.

This is a book that I suspect everyone will see slightly differently and we will all come away from it with a different perspective. And it is this multi-layering that I think is where the genius of Satin Island lies. Yes, it may be pretentious but I suspect it could also just be brilliant.

And I reckon that sometime in the future someone will be writing a PhD thesis about it and how it reflects this world of information overload we live in.

Skylarks and Storyslingers

One of the main disadvantages for a writer of living in a remote corner of rural England, is the fact that the publishing industry tends to be very London orientated. As a result opportunities to network with agents and publishers are few and far between.

But one such opportunity did arise recently when the relatively new Skylark Literary Agency decided to venture out from the city and visit writers around the country. One of their visits on this tour was to the Storyslingers writers group in Shaftesbury.

I felt particularly honoured because the Storyslingers invited me along to give an author’s perspective on the industry, so I packed up my bag of books and hit the road north.

The drive to Shaftesbury is, for me, a long and winding one, not helped by the fact that Friday is changeover day and the roads are clogged with holidaymakers. Or that this particular Friday every tractor in Dorset seemed to be on the same road as me!

The venue for the talk was in Gold Hill museum, at the top of that pretty hill, immortalised by the Hovis advert of the 1970s. The Room we were in looked out across the fields and hills and the view was stunning.

Amber and Jo spoke to us about the agenting business, what they provide for their authors and what they are looking for in clients. The Q&A which followed covered all aspects from negotiation of contracts to the agent author relationship and the use of pen names.

It was a lovely evening, interesting and insightful, wonderful to see the Storyslingers again and to chat with Amber and Jo. So thank you to the Storyslingers for organising such a useful and informative event, and to Skylark for coming all that way to talk to us. It was really nice to meet Amber and Jo in person –it’s always good meeting an online acquaintance in the real world!

Here’s a picture of us at the top of Gold Hill. We’re standing on a slope though so I’m not as tall as I appear.

A Boagane and A Giveaway

My mother comes from a tiny village on the Isle of Man called Maughold (pronunciation Mack-uld). I grew up listening to the tales that she and my grandmother used to tell us – of the fairy folk and strange mythical creatures that prowled the cliffs and woodlands, the moorlands and the hills.

Over the years I’ve tried to track these legends down, but the names of these creatures are words I have only ever heard spoken and never seen written. And that is a problem with Manx words – how on Earth do I spell them to type them into google? Take Maughold for instance? See my point. (Okay, if you’re a Manx speaker it probably all makes sense. But in our family the language died with my Grandparents.)

However, at last I have managed to track one of these creatures down.

My Grandmother used to tell us about a horrible sprite that haunted the village with its screams – and this creature was called a Guv-Na-Scoot. A bit of imaginative googling later – and there it was! A Boagaine (or I believe more commonly Buggane) called a Gob-ny-Scuit.

Bugganes were demonic creatures said to be covered in black hair, with claws, tusks and a large red mouth. This particular one terrorized the inhabitants of Maughold with its terrible screeching when the wind blew in for a certain direction. However, a certain William Kinnish was determined to find the source of the periodic wailing that so worried his neighbours and did indeed  discover the source – a cleft in the cliff face that acted as an Aeolian harp when the wind blew in from a certain direction. And so the buggane was nothing more than a natural curiosity.

The cover art on my short story collection, The Scribbling Sea Serpent, relates to one of the stories inside called The Screechers. And the inspiration for this story was – yes, you’ve guessed it – the Gob-ny-Scuit.

And so on to the giveaway. I am offering up one signed copy of The Scribbling Sea Serpent and to enter please use the Rafflecopter form below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Creative Writing with Kate Kelly

Thursday evenings 18:00 - 20:00 at Dorchester Waterstones
Running from Thursday 4th June – Thursday 2nd July

Topics covered will include:

• Getting started – voice and setting
• Developing rounded characters
• Writing dialogue
• Point of View
• Plotting
• Getting published. Writing for a market.

The course will be suitable for all levels. Bring pen and paper and loads of enthusiasm. Participants will be encouraged to share their work.

Total cost: £80 per person

To book your place contact Kate at: katekellybooks@gmail.com

Places are limited so book now.

The Guardian – Eco week and twitter chat

It’s Eco-Week over on the Guardian’s Children’s site, and a variety of authors have been contributing articles on all sorts of eco-related themes, from Piers Torday talking about why Cli-Fi isn’t Sci-Fi to Helen Skelton talking about how her kayaking expedition up the Amazon inspired her new book.

I was also fortunate enough to be invited to take part and today my top tips for writing an eco-adventure story goes live.

So do head over there and take a look – Here’s the link - and tonight why not join all the authors for a twitter chat #GdnEcoChat between 7 – 8 pm (UK time). I’ll be there and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may like to ask

Dorset’s Digital Stories

On a bright but bitter February morning I was joined in my local village hall by thirteen eager writers. The reason for this? Well, the Dorset Writers’ Network is running a competition for local writers. The aim is to produce an e-book with stories up to 500 words, which reflect the diversity of the county. In order to encourage people to put pen to paper a series of workshops were scheduled at rural locations during January and February, and I was one of the writers involved in running these.

As sunshine streamed in through the windows of the Old School Hall we explored setting and sense of place. We then went on character development and touched on dialogue and self-editing. I could see some really interesting stories starting to develop and I do hope the participants go on to complete these and enter them. Workshop participants can enter their first story for free but even if you didn’t attend a workshop you are still able to enter.

The Dorset Writers’ Network is run by professional writers and arts facilitators and its aim is to promote events, projects and training opportunities for writers in the county. The Dorset’s Digital Stories project is funded by Arts Council England's Grants for the Arts and Dorset Community Foundation and the book is scheduled to be published later this year.

For more details and to check out the competition rules visit the Dorset Writers Network website.

Look Again

Over the next few weeks the Dorset Writers Network will be running a series of short story writing workshops in various rural locations across Dorset. These are leading up to the launch of Dorset Writers Network e-book competition for short stories of 500 words or less set within the county.

 

One of the main things we will be discussing in these workshops is sense of place. All the stories are to be set in Dorset, and so sense of place will be a major component of any work produced. In fact capturing a good sense of place is essential in any story. The reader needs to feel grounded and be part of that setting. Place can become a character in its own right.

 

 

 

But what of Dorset? What sense of place does the county conjure up for you? Is everything quite what it seems?

Do you imagine a sea front, golden sand and donkey rides, children eating ice cream and splashing in the sea, easy laughter and sunshine?

Look again.

A homeless person shivering under a sleeping bag in a bus shelter. Desperate. Alone.

Perhaps you see a pretty harbour, yachts with jolly flags and trawlers sporting bunches of pink buoys? Sitting eating chips and watching children fishing for crabs?

Look again.

An empty mooring with floral tributes. Memories of fishermen who did not return. The sea is not kind.

Maybe you see pretty cottages by a stream, honeysuckle and thatch, kingfishers darting over the water?

Look again,

Sandbags in front of the doors that were still not enough to hold out the floods. Boarded up windows, garden a tangle of weeds.

Or do you see green fields and grazing cattle, swathes of poppies beneath the summer sun, clouds of butterflies along the footpath?

Look again.

Crops flattened by a storm and rotting in the field. Another farm up for auction.

Look again. What do you see?

For details of Workshops and to see if there is one close to where you live check out the Dorset Writers Network website, and do join us for the launch of the e-book competition at Dorchester library on 24^th January.

Yeovil Literary Festival II

I have just returned from a brilliant couple of days up in Yeovil, where I have been participating in the second Yeovil Literary Festival. The festival has been amazing and I had a really fantastic time, catching up with old friends and immersing myself in all things literary!

In all I was involved with three events. The first was the Past Winners of the Yeovil Prize panel event on the Friday morning. The list of success stories continues to grow and this year it was lovely to be joined by several of the poetry winners. Here we all are. As you can see several of our winning books have now been published.

Winners of the Yeovil Prize, past and present.

In the evening I was the host for an ‘In Conversation With” event, and the lovely gentleman I was asked to host was Jason Hewitt, debut author, whose novel, The Dynamite Room is simply superb.

In conversation with Jason Hewitt

And then, the next day it was off to the library, to run a writing workshop for a fabulous bunch of kids. Sadly my friend and fellow author Carol Hunt had flu and couldn’t be there, but they were such a great bunch of kids – so enthusiastic and imaginative, that even when the workshop had officially ended, they were all still sitting, scribbling away. I’m sure there were some budding authors in their midst!

Children's Writing Workshop at Yeovil Library

So congratulations to the organisers who made all this possible. Last year’s Yeovil Literary Festival was really good. This year’s was even better! I can’t wait until next year!

Follow Me Follow You Book Launch

My good friend Laura E James celebrated the launch of her second Romance novel, Follow Me Follow You (published by ChocLit) at the weekend and she invited me and two other local authors, Carol Hunt and Kathy Sharp, to join in her celebrations.

The launch was held at the Chesil Beach Centre and we arrived to find the landscape shrouded in a fine sea mist – fittingly atmospheric for a gathering of authors who have called ourselves the Littotalis – ‘meaning from the seashore’.

By the time we had set up our stands the sun had burned through and the venue was bathed in sunshine, blue skies and sea with the golden pebbles of Chesil beach for our backdrop.

Laura gave a reading from Follow Me Follow You while her children fetched extra boxes of books to keep up with sales. In fact we all sold well and really appreciated Laura giving us the opportunity to be a part of her launch.

Follow Me Follow You is available as both an e-book and paperback. Here is the Amazon link. Do check it out.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival

I have just returned from the Edinburgh International Book Festival and I am still buzzing – because I wasn’t there as part of the audience – I was there as an author.

Mine was a joint event with the lovely Sarah Crossan, author of dystopian duology Breathe and Resist as well as the Carnegie nominated The Weight of Water. Or event was called The End is Nigh and formed part of the Baillie Gifford Schools programme of events, hosted by Hannah Love of Faber, who was as lovely as her name suggests.

We read extracts and answered questions about our books, both about the writing process and our inspirations as well as the environmental issues our books address and the emerging genre of Cli-Fi (Climate Fiction).

Afterwards we had the opportunity to meet some of the kids and sign books for them in the festival bookshop. A couple of school groups had come across from Glasgow and they’ve given the event a lovely write up here.

 The Book Festival was held in the beautiful Charlotte Gardens, event venues and bookshops set up around the edge with lawns and seating in the middle where people gathered to drink coffee or eat their lunch. The authors had a separate area, the Author’s Yurt, where we could chat and relax both before and after our events

Of course no visit to Edinburgh during festival time would be complete without checking out The Fringe and we spent some time sampling all that the city has to offer at this time of year. Some of the street acts we saw were quite superb and the whole city was vibrant and alive.

Participating in The Edinburgh International Book Festival was a wonderful experience and has to be one of the highlights of my year so far.

Cli-Fi at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The brochure for the Edinburgh International Book Festival is now live and within a few days the tickets will be on sale, and I am thrilled to say that I’m going to be taking part! I’ve taken part in Literary Festivals before, but nothing quite as high profile as this one.

My event will be on Monday 18th August and forms part of the Baillie Gifford Schools programme. I’ve been teamed up with the very lovely Sarah Crossan, author of the superb YA dystopian novels BREATHE and RESIST and our event is called The End Is Nigh. We’re going to be talking about our books and in particular the environmental aspects – the melting ice caps in Red Rock and the loss of the forests in Breathe.

You can download the full brochure here and find out more about the wide and varied programme of events here.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Sarah again, and I’m really looking forward to talking about Cli-Fi with the kids.

But there’s another reason I’m so excited about heading up to Edinburgh - it’s the city where I was born and whenever I go back there I have the feeling that I’m coming home. I can’t wait.

Literally Sand!

Who would have thought that I would find myself taking part in an author event at Sand Sculpture Festival, but last weekend that is exactly what happened.

Sandsculpture is a feature of many seaside towns and in Weymouth, Dorset the sand is particularly fine and the sculptures of an exceptionally high standard. There have been sandsculptures on Weymouth beach since the 1920s but four years ago the sculptures were brought together under one roof to form the sand sculpture park that is Sandworld.

This year Sandworld’s sculptures are themed around books and authors, and the sand artists have been working hard to bring your favourite characters to life – from Moby Dick to Alice in Wonderland, Charles Dickens rubbing shoulders with Tolkien – but this stunning Warhorse sculpture has to be my favourite. Who cannot feel moved by the tenderness shown between horse and boy?

 

In order to celebrate the Grand Opening of this fantastic sand sculpture festival, five local authors were invited along. Kit Berry cut the ribbon and declared us open and we took turns giving readings to spellbound audiences.

We were given out own special authors area where we set up our books while the sandworld staff kept us supplied with coffee and burgers. In fact I can speak for us all if I say that we had a really lovely day. But enough words. I’ll let the following pictures speak for me.

The author area

Carol Hunt introduces us to the Portland Mermaid

The five local authors, Myself, Carol Hunt, Kit Berry, Kathy Sharpe and Laura James

A young fan asks Kit Berry to sign her book

Moby Dick - note how the waves form the pages of a book!

Bridport Story Slam 2013

Last night I was at the Beach and Barnicott in Bridport for the 2013 story slam, organised by Frances Colville and Kathy Hallsworth, where I had been invited to be one of the judges.

If, like me, you’ve never been to a story slam before, I’ll explain to you what happens.

The format is very straightforward. Authors register to take part and their names are put into a hat and drawn at random. Each then has five minutes in front of the microphone to read their short story.

The five minutes was strictly enforced and if you are taking part in one of these events I would strongly advise you to make sure your story stays within this time frame. Several over-ran which was a shame because we never heard the ending and, so often with a story this length, ending is everything. You final line is your moment to wow your audience, to leave them with the resonance of what you have just read.

The stories we heard were amazing. We had so many varied themes and wonderful settings. Fabulous characterisation and daring story structures. But in the end one stood out for us all as the clear winner. A delightful story called Denial by Gill Smith. This really was a perfect example of how to write a short story!

The second and third places were harder to choose because we all had our favourites but in the end we selected Ged Duncan in second place for his bold story structure and vivid scene setting, and Maya Pieris in third place for a piece that was almost poetic, every word packing a punch, with sinister undertones!

The venue was cosy and informal, the turnout really good, and it was a sheer delight to see so many people embracing the spoken word.

And of course it was great exposure for Red Rock!

Here are my fellow judges, Julie Musk of Roving Press and short story writer Gail Aldwin, ready to start judging.

And a big thanks to the organisers for making the event such a success.

The Post Publication Whirlwind

The past few weeks since Red Rock hit the shelves have passed in a blur of excitement. I don’t think my feet have touched the ground and I’ve barely had time to breathe. There’s been so much happening I hardly know where to begin.

I’ve been taking part in so many author events – I’ve already blogged about the Yeovil Literary Festival but I’ve also been in to a couple of schools and last week I was back up in Yeovil where I was on the panel at their annual Booker Debate.

I was allocated ‘We Need New Names’ by NoViolet Bulawayo to review. I’ve no idea how I managed to make the time to read it but somehow I did – helped by the engaging prose and fascinating subject matter. I don’t think it will win but I do recommend it.

And there’s more to come. This Saturday I’ll be doing a book signing in Dorchester Waterstones so if you’re in the vicinity do call in and say "Hi." And then there's the Story Slam - an open mic event in Bridport at which I'm judging - and yet more schools to visit....

But as things start to calm, like seas after a storm, my thoughts return to other ideas, and new characters start nagging in my year – “Tell my story.” “Hear my tale.” And I know that I need to sit down and get to know them – I need to get writing again.