Catching up

I haven't blogged for a while because - entirely due to my own stupidity - my repetitive strain injury has flared up again, and my right arm is very sore. So will keep this brief. Nice news: my new flash story, That Small Small Inch, is a finalist in the PANK 1001 Awesome Words contest and will be published in March. My story, Vegetable, Mineral, was a finalist last year, I feel like I'm approaching awesomeness, slowly, slowly!

Also, if you're in Bristol, come to the launch of the ShedFest Anthology tomorrow night, Wed nov 3rd, 8pm, at the Thunderbolt - this is the follow-up to the excellent ShedFest in September, the first ever literary festival in a shed! Organiser Mike Manson has compiled everything we read that night into an anthology, and £3 from every copy sold goes to the Pakistan Flood Appeal. Buy it here.

On that note, Greg McQueen's done it again: the man behind 100 Stories for Haiti has now produced 50 Stories for Pakistan, all of whose proceeds also go to the Pakistan Flood Appeal. The book features stories by Robert J. McCarter, Joanne Fox, Erik Svehaug, Susan Lanigan, Anne Mullane, Lisa Ricard Claro, R.J. Newlyn, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Martin Webster, Jonathan Pinnock, Trevor Belshaw, Julia Bohanna, Iain Pattison, Laura Eno, Dave Clark, Pam Howes, Alun Williams, Annie Evett, Jennifer Stakes, Rebecca Emin, Marjorie Tolchard, Marit Meredith, Paul Malone, Ewan Lawrie, Jarred McGinnis, Alex Tomlin, Gail Richards, Benjamin Solah, Ruchira Mandal, Alyson Hilbourne, Ramon Collins, Darren Lee, Riaz Ali, Nasim Marie Jafry, Heather Parker, Shazia Bibi, Andrew Parrott, Brigid O’Connor, Rob Innis, Tony Williams, Annemarie Neary, Emma Newman, Robert Long, Beryl Brown, Vanessa Couchman, Joanna Campbell, Sylvia Petter, Rosemary Hayes, Paul Anderson, and Alice Turner. Get yourself a copy now.

I'm off to 2 book launches this week of two great friends: Susannah Rickards' Hot Kitchen Snow and Vanessa Gebbie's 2nd collection, Storm Warning. And greatly enjoyed two launches in the past few weeks, of Sue Guiney's Clash of Innocents and Elizabeth Baines' The Birth Machine. Nothing better than celebrating the birth of friends' books!