It has been a wonderful writing week for me.  Firstly, I judged the Greensleeves annual short story competition run by the Southampton Writers’ Circle, who made me very welcome.  The stories were all great and all are capable of being published, following some further editing.  I prepared critiques for the stories and these went down well.  They’re planning on inviting me back!  This whole thing came about as a result of networking at the Swanwick Writers’ Summer School earlier this year.  Now I am not the world’s most natural “networker” so I am especially pleased about this.  I very much hope I will see the stories again, published, in due course.

FAIRYTALES WITH BITE

Rules for Fairy Godmothers lists those do’s and do not’s every fairy godmother worthy of her wand must know.  There is everything from not zapping just because you can to not being surprised your client doesn’t do exactly as you tell them (none of them ever do).  Can you add to the list?  My own favourite here is rule 7.  What do you think?

THIS WORLD AND OTHERS

Unreliable Characters are something I love in fiction and in the recent Greensleeves competition I was pleased to come across excellent examples of these.  In each of the stories, I guessed at the ending after reading the first page or so but am glad to report I was wrong in every single one of them!  I love stories and characters that misdirect me like this.  It is partly because they keep me reading to see if my guesses are right or not.  It is also because, just as in life you get unreliable people, fiction should reflect that too.

BOTH WEEBLY WEBSITES

I update my News Pages on both websites every Friday with publication news and so on.  (Am conscious I should have mentioned this before!).

PUBLICATION NEWS – ALFIE DOG LIMITED

I’m delighted to say Alfie Dog Limited have accepted my short story, The Delivery, and this will be up on site in early December.  I plan to post more details and links nearer the time but am very pleased about another acceptance.

CHANDLER’S FORD TODAY

I’m glad to report my lovely editor has been updating author side bars and intros and now This World and Others is listed in mine.  Previously it had been just my main Fairytales with Bite website.  I’m looking forward to being able to add Author of From Light to Dark and Back Again,  my flash fiction collection currently being produced by Chapeltown Books, in due course.

Anyway tonight’s post shares events at my local library.  There will be a Books of 2016 discussion event and, separately, ebook and emagazine surgeries for those wanting to know more about these.   I hope all of these events go well and those going to them are both entertained and find them  useful.  My library recently linked up with a local school as part of the Story Shuffle Project, which is linked to the retelling of the legend of Sir Bevis of Hampton (Southampton’s legendary hero – think James Bond on tapestries, the very first comic book!!).