Happening here, Monday

Just a little note to tell you we'll have a guest writer here on Monday.  

Andrew David Barker has written a fantastic letter-to-himself - you know, like Vanessa Gebbie and Kerry Hudson did - to mark the release of his debut novel, The Electric.

AND he's very generously going to give away TWO copies (one Kindle, one physical) of the book to TWO of you, my lovely readers, and all you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to comment on the post when it goes up on Monday.

Look at the front cover of the book!

Read this extract of Andrew's letter!

In the late 90s you’ll join a rock band as a lead guitarist and get signed by a small record label. You’ll record a single, go on photo shoots, tour up and down the country, and live quite a hedonistic lifestyle. You’ll think you’ve made it. You haven’t.

…

All that you will go through won’t be easy – I won’t lie to you – but that creative itch in your mind – that is small, but still very much there when you’re 16 – will grow…

--------------------------------------------

See you back here, Monday. 

About old penpals

A few months ago Dan Purdue alerted me to this call to write a handwritten letter for a new journal, The Letter's Page, edited by Jon McGregor. Ooh, I said, that sounds right up my street.

Some reasons: I like making marks on a page, real pages. Especially with a biro, I'm okay without a fancy pen. I also like a little bit of autobiography, something from myself onto a page to someone else. That's what I loved about the Art House Co-op's Fiction Project (you can read about my experience with that here). I like making a real-life thing.

The Letter's Page theme for Issue 2 was 'pen pals'. Well, I've had a few of those. I got a bit obsessed by them in my teens, answering ads all over the place. At first - Smash Hits and (specialist) Take That fan magazines. Then later - a music magazine - I forget the name of it, it was monthly, with 'classifieds' in the back. I'd scan them looking for  mentions of bands I liked. Then I'd write to their PO Box and hope for the best. Most didn't reply.

I remember a girl who did, the same age as me (15). She wrote dark poetry (I did too, well - I dabbled) and she decorated her letters with glitter and pen drawings and told me how her and her friends would just go to the train station and catch a train anywhere. Just to, y'know, see where the day would take them. Oh my word I thought she was so cool. I wanted her to come and stay with us in the summer holidays. She didn't. I can't remember when/how we stopped writing. Maybe she was weirded out by my suggestion she come and stay at my house. I'd always wanted a sister. That's my excuse.

Before then, another girl. I was 13, she was older - 17ish. She was one I picked up from the (specialist) Take That fan magazine. She'd write really long letters, all about Take That. At some point she must have asked for my phone number because then she'd call me too, from a phone box, and we'd talk after school, maybe just once a month, but always all about Take That. Again, I'm not sure why we stopped writing / chatting. Maybe it was when I made the transition from being Take That's number one fan to Nirvana's. It was like I just flipped, changed, overnight. Hm, yeah, that is how it happened, and for totally superficial reasons. But she was nice. I wonder what happened to her.

And somewhere between 13 and 15 there was a man - who I hadn't expected to be a man when I replied to his classified in that music magazine. He was supposed to be my age, but he said the magazine had misprinted his ad, and actually he was 26. But he seemed ok, and he liked the bands I liked, so I wrote back. Then within a letter or two he was asking me very personal questions, and instead of just not writing back I wrote back and tried to avoid the questions by answering 'quirkily'. I see through it all now. Wish I had then.

And there were the letters I'd get from friends who I saw everyday at school. And my cousin, who I also saw everyday. We even had our own code to disguise the very secret things we must have been writing. These letters were not sent through the post but passed to each other at the start of the school day. And if you fell out with your friends, or they fell out with you, feelings were best articulated by a long and dramatic letter.

But my Letter's Page submission isn't about any of these pen pal experiences. It's about my very first pen pal, kind of, when I was 8, in 1989, when I behaved like a weirdo for a bit. That's all I'll say, because I might be lucky enough to have my letter selected for publication. If it isn't, I'll post the letter here. ('post')

The perils of writing by hand - you etch your words onto your desk

 


Here's the link where you can find Issue One of The Letter's Page. It's available to read as a PDF, and has some great pieces of letter writing. I was particularly moved by the one from Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer.

Things Found and Made - by Mario Gregoriou

Witness the rejection of hierarchies!
Smell the equality of expression!
Taste the freedom to question!


Mario Gregoriou's exhibition

in the upstairs gallery of City Screen, York

until Sunday October 13th

If you go there, you will find:

subliminal meanings within The Goonies
lost linguistics

the Wicker Man face off
fringe science that challenges norms and meat sweats 

what Kojak really smelt between his fingers on that fateful day 

If you go there, you will hear (from the speakers above you):

the music of Dunmada - songs and sounds from industrial rooftops, vocals that fly

If you go there, you will sit before a TV/DVD combi, and it will play:

a David Bowie rarity - the moment he fused China Girl with the theme tune from Steptoe and Son

'Tight Jeans' - the trailblazin tune from hip hop's very own Pussy Coal

the time Kings of Leon dueted with the Medulla Oblongata

audio clip of exchange between (sexy) Mother Hubbard and hungry dogs at dinnertime 

If you cannot go there, you can look at these photos

and you can have a go on this footage 

that David Bowie rarity - China Girl/Steptoe mash up

that (sexy) Mother Hubbard singin' with dogs at dinnertime

that duet with Kings of Leon and the Medulla Oblongata

For more information:

Click here to see the online version of Things Found and Made

Click here to listen to the sounds of Dunmada





And finally
here we have the artist on the right, and this writer on the left

I keep waiting for the right time to write a new blog post

and this is not it, but I'm doing it anyway.

Hello - hello - so - I'm roasting a chicken and have about 10 minutes til I have to do something to it, like take it out of the oven. The light is dimming in the room I'm in and I can hear things boiling on the stove in the kitchen and I hope they don't boil over while I'm here. My other half is on the other side of the room working on some things for an exhibition of his work he's having in a few days - words and music and visuals all in one space, which is pretty exciting. We're both hunkered down over laptops, rushing to get words in before it's Chicken Time.

I've been in a sending and subbing work mode for the last few weeks, and stories have gone off to The Sunday Times, Flash 500, The Short Story Net and Literature Works. I've had a few days of stepping back from writing and replenishing a bit (and getting on with day-job type work) and now I'm setting my sights on the next few months, considering how I want to spend my writing time and the few places I want to send work to. In particular there is this - which looks fab - I've been drafting out a letter for it this afternoon, explaining a year in my long-ago past when I behaved like a weirdo for a while. I was very young. I will tell you about it another time.

I was runner-up in a competition to win a day at York Writing Festival a few weeks ago - didn't get the ticket but I made the short list and you can read my entry here. It's about a woman watching a man in a coffee shop. She is a bit weird, but she's not me, honest.


CHICKEN TIME!

overheard

(in the interim between posts I'll just tell you some fun things I overheard recently...)


11.30pm, two guys sat in a doorway, drinking strong lager. I walk past and hear them talking about someone they know.
"She's got links to the mafia, her. Proper mafia. I'm telling you."

-----
 
Two girls, talking about their exam results:
"I mean, I got an A star and there was absolutely nothing exceptional about what I did."

-----

In a coffee shop, there's a woman with purple hair, alone, with a pack of cards. A man sitting nearby has been watching her. When he gets up to leave, he says to her:
"You can't read the future - no one can - and I don't want you to read my future - you can't even read your own future!"
She smiles and says, "Actually I was just playing a game"
He's already walking away, he shouts behind him, "I can't hear you!"

------

Man on his phone, on a night out:
"It's not looking good. I mean, it's just not a good night if it starts with you accidentally hitting a female work colleague in the face."

Agent Hunter - a review

One of the perils of having your email address on your blog is you get spam. There's the usual stuff from people like (the-very-real-sounding-they-just-must-exist) Mrs Fatima Hamilton or Mr Aubrey Smithe or (simply) Mrs Stella, all taking the time to email ME! from their various deathbeds because they like the look of my profile and want to give me a couple of million dollars. Soz guys, but I just couldn't take it from you.

Occasionally you got a more tailored bit of spam - someone who wants to advertise you or to be advertised by you - they've noticed your blog has a good amount of followers and they want in, they want to write a guest post about something, but that something would be totally out of place on your blog, like 'Higher Education' (had that one recently). Anyway you obviously don't go for these offers, they're not in-keeping with the spirit of the blog.

So when I received an email recently from a place called 'Agent Hunter', asking me to write a blog about their site and services, I scanned it expecting it to be sent to Junk any minute. Only there were a few signs that this wasn't spammy, making me read it with a bit more attention.

Firstly, the sender (I didn't know at this point but he's Harry Bingham, an established and best-selling writer, as well as one of the folks behind the Writers' Workshop) referred to the fact that I'm a short story writer, and mentioned my placings at Bridport and The Guardian. He reckoned I'm in an okay position, if I had the material ready, to be approaching agents myself. The crux of the email was if I wanted to, he'd give me a year's free subscription to Agent Hunter, in return for me writing an honest blog post about the site. He also shortened 'because' to 'cos', so he felt extra human.

So, realising this was a good email, I replied and took Harry up on the offer. He signed me up for Agent Hunter, and I've been getting to know the site for the last week or so, and here's what I've found.

The premise is pretty simple - Agent Hunter is a database of all UK literary agents, agencies, and publishers. Think of it as a digitised version of The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook but with more detailed information - agent biographies, their likes/dislikes, along with the important stuff like how long they've been an agent, how many clients they have and who they are, if they're looking to expand their list, and how to contact them.

As well as comprehensive listings, there's a search facility which is very good, allowing you to narrow the hundreds of listed agents down to your preferences - by genre, experience, number of clients, keywords. Or you can search by agent name if you have someone in mind, or by writer to find out who represents them. You can then save and name any searches you run for whenever you need to come back to them. 

The database has been compiled along with the assistance of agents/publishers, all invited to give information about themselves and advice on how to approach them. Some have given more info than others, but even the basic details are comprehensive. The site is run by people who really know the industry so that's reassuring, and because it's online it should be up to date (though, sensibly, if you're submitting to a particular agent check their own website/agency guidelines too).

The only thing I think it's missing, and it's not a biggie cos it's get-round-able, is a button which lets you 'bookmark' a single agent. (It's get-round-able by running a search on that agent and saving the search with their name. So, yeah, no biggie.)

It costs £12 for a year's subscription to Agent Hunter. Really worth the money. AND - when you sign up, you're not charged for 7 days - meaning you can have a look and see if it's worth the fee, and if you don't think it is, you can cancel your subscription without being charged.

If you're looking for an agent now it makes complete sense to sign up, or if, like me - you'd like to be looking for an agent soon - it's a great window in to that world, a way of having a snoop around, and it's there - ready when you are - to help you get to grips with everything, all in one place.

Shortlisted

How lovely to be able to share some result-y type news with you - my story After the cat has made it down to the last 20 in this competition, though the final results aren't ready yet. But it's really good to be there, on that list (AT THE TOP! BECAUSE OF THE ALPHABET!). I'll know by the end of September if I get any further.

Interesting to see the 'note' at the bottom of the shortlist - out of the 209 entries 92 had to be disqualified for not sticking to the rules. They were pretty basic rules - Arial 12pt, keep yer name off of your entry, don't go over the word count. I think that was it. It was free-to-enter, so maybe a few un-seasoned writers entered, not clear on how easy it is to have your entry cast out.

But there were 117 qualifying stories so I'm feeling good about being on the shortlist. And this story is a bit of a shortlist queen. And, ironically (though it might not actually be ironic because ever since someone realised Alanis got it wrong I never feel confident about calling things 'ironic') the story made it onto a shortlist at Writers' Forum last year, and it wasn't until months later that I noticed that I, yes me - oh seasoned writer - had disobyed the rules because the story was UNDER the minimum word count they ask for. So I was lucky to get shortlisted, really.

Another interesting thing (tolerant smile, thank you) is that every so often, someone finds my blog by Googling 'Teresa Stenson After the cat' and they have an ISP address at the BBC London. I've never sent it to the Beeb, but I like to imagine there is a top talent writing executive (they exist) desperately seeking news about me and that story. So, friend at the Beeb - hello - and yes, okay, you can make it into a mini series starring Jason Isaacs or Paddy Considine or Keifer Sutherland, whichever one is available, even though the only male part is in his twenties. Sigh.

  

It's been a while, and in that while -

In no particular order, some of the things that have been happening:

- I submitted my mini-book idea about working in customer service to indie publishers MIEL Books and got a rejection 10 days later. Oh well, better than waiting months and months

- I have said the phrase 'I live in an attic' far too many times to complete strangers

- I've been working on a story that's been festering away in me for years, and when it's finished I'm sending it to the Costa Prize (closes Aug 2nd)

- I've been working various shift patterns at my bar job and trying to get some kind of routine for writing around that, with a little bit of success but also a fair bit of tiredness

- I started watching season 7 of Dexter and season 3 of The Walking Dead and both are brilliant

- I read 'Room' by Emma Donoghue and got what all the fuss is about, loved it

- I used the word 'season' twice when I should have said 'series'

- My wardrobe/closet rail collapsed and it sent me funny

- I've been enjoying my friend Anna's new blog - it's honest and funny, like she is

- I sent a short piece of memoir writing to the Lightship Awards, it's probably the most personal thing I've ever submitted

- I've watched loads of Italian horror films from the 70s

- I dreamt that Jack Bauer was coming round for tea

- I also dreamt that I had a race with Steve Coogan, and I won


So you can see I've just been busy busy busy, especially in my sleep.

A small collection of things overheard and observed

Part of my day job recently has involved sitting alone behind a table of flyers in front of a building that's being refurbished. As well as the building being a really popular place to visit, to the left and right of me are two very popular bars, and there is a church just ahead. This has made for some interesting overhearings.

Two young guys, on their way into a bar:
"... the thing about her is she's incredibly disrespectful and also really hard to penetrate..."
(please be talking about her mind)


A man approaches me. He asks "Which way is wist?"
Me: "I'm not sure, is it is a bar or a -"
Him: "No, wist, which way is it?"
(I'm baffled. He's holding a camera and squinting.)
Him: "There's a sign over there says the wist church windows are impressive."
Me: "Ah! West. Okay. Er, I don't know, where's the sun...?"
I look up and consider where the sun sets and how you should never eat shredded wheat but he's walked away.


Man in a cagoule asks, "Are you having a bit of a refurby?"
He chats for a while about films, mostly Wolverine. When another customer approaches he says: "They're closed! They open in 2 weeks!" Which is handy, though a little shouty.


A couple stop a metre away from me and start snogging. When they break away, she asks:
"Do you have any mints?"

----------


I have more but will leave it there for now. I must add there have also been some really lovely visitors to the leaflet table, people interested in what's going on in the building behind me and what kind of a day I have been having, and if I should be sitting that close to the all the building dust, and if I have some earplugs for when it gets really loud (I did).

How do you decide what to read next, when you don't know what to read next?

I'm just wondering, in the interest of nothing much apart from curiosity, when you get that feeling - that need - for a good book - how do you choose what you'll read next?

You might have a list, mental or otherwise, of books you're interested in. But those times when you don't, when you just want something good to read, how do decide what to buy or borrow next?

I'll tell you what I do, then you tell me what you do in the comments. Or on Twitter if you're not the commenting-on-blogs kinda gal or guy.

So, if I don't have my 'things I'd like to read' list, or it's empty, or whatever, I text a friend. I have one great friend who reads more than anyone else I know. She read English at Goldsmith's, she's one of those folks who seems to have 'read EVERYTHING!', we talk about books over wine when we meet, we text each other if we're enjoying a book, we give each other books we don't want to keep but have really liked (neither of us is precious about hanging onto books), she loves thrillers, horror, classics, 'literature'. She keeps up with what's going on in the publishing world. She reads reads reads. All kinds of books, she's no snob.

Because I see her often I usually have a few titles we might have talked about, but if not, I text her. 'What have you read lately that's good?' She tells me.

So, those occasions when I'm seeking a recommendation, that's where I go.

What about you?

Do you go with instincts, perusing the shelves (I like that too), big award lists, word of mouth, other?