Photos of the Writing Shed

Very interesting discussion on revising short stories going on in the last blog post - and I am going to write more about that, I think it's a vital topic. But while I mull and gather opinions, here are the shed pics I've been promising this for a while! The writing shed is finally ready - and it is bliss! Here is a pictorial journey from start to finish:

Existing shed in the garden when we moved in...

 ...was a little cluttered...

We moved all the clutter out, and our wonderful builder, Simon, started work on the insulation...

...until it looked a little like a sauna.

 

Then I started moving my things in, including my crucial Einstein "Imagination is more important than knowledge" poster...

  

and all my short story collections on the shelves above and below the window...

Look at all those lovely books!

 

Simon even made me a special inner door for extra privacy. And a corner nook where I can work standing up (like Hemingway).

and also a desk.

 

Now all that remains is for me to spend lots of time in there and produce work worthy of such a shed!

Coming to you live from...

... my new writing shed! This is my first time in here, and although I had the most virtuous plans for it to be Internet-free, what do you know? The wifi actually gets all the way down the end of the garden! I might try and do something about that at some point, but while I am connected, i wanted to blog and say

WHOO-HOO!


So this is a bit of a Valentine's Day love post. A shed love post.

I've wanted a writing shed for years and years and years... and now, finally, I'm in it. There was a shed here when we bought this house, that was definitely one of the main attractions, but it needed to be insulated, so now it looks a little sauna-like, all pale pine, floor to ceiling. (Check out these amazing sheds in the meantime.)

Right now it just has electricity and a desk in, nothing else, because we're going to decorate, so no pics for the moment. It will have a single bed because I have come to understand the creative importance of being horizontal and thinking with one's eyes shut. (And napping). And our wonderful builder, Simon, is going to build me shelves including one that will allow me to work standing up when I need to. Seems a good idea for the back.

Anyway, that will happen soonish. But...here I am already! And I can hear the birds. And I can't hear much else except my fingers banging the keyboard. Any tips from you writers-in-sheds? Are you all web-less? Should I? Really...? Yes, yes, I know.

Ok, it's a bit chilly now. I couldn't manage to carry the radiator down the garden myself, but really need to, since it's February in England. I will sign off now. From the shed. The writing shed. Wheee!

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!

My September

September started as it meant to go on, with a reading at Bristol's Thunderbolt pub on Sept 1st, sharing the bill with musician Richard Burley, as part of the monthly Word of Mouth event run by the inimitable Bertel Martin - thanks Bertel for the fantastic (and perhaps fantastical!) introduction! That was my first event in our new home town, which felt great. No pics of that event, but news to report is that it was divided into two sets, and in the first set I read some pieces from my book. In the interval I realised that I didn't really want to do that any more, after 2 years it's hard to read those stories fresh - fresh for me and for an audience. So in the 2nd half I read newer stories and a few I'd never read out before, and that really gave me an energy boost, showed me that I need to read something different each time I read, take risks, walk that short story writer's tightrope!

Event No 2 was ShedFest, on Sept 11th, in this glorious structure above! Bristol's - and perhaps the UK's - first lit fest in a shed, we all had 5 minutes to read, which for me meant reading 3 flash stories including Drizzling, my shed story, which is fairly unfathomable on paper so who knows how it went down?! Thank you to Mike Manson for a wonderful evening, not just of great writing but of great food and socializing in between.

Then I headed out of the city to Birmingham on September 15th for the "There's Science in My Fiction... and Poetry" open mic night I'd organised at the British Science Festival, with my co-judges, science-loving writers and bloggers Sue Guiney and Brian Clegg. The event was free, no tickets needed, and held at the amazingly-gorgeous Old Joint Stock Pub function room, so we really had no idea who would show up. We had prizes at the ready:

(photo credit: B. Clegg)

and we waited... 

Wonderful to meet Alan Beard and get a copy of his brand-new short story collection, You Don't Have to Say, from Tindal Street Press, being launched this Thursday (more about Alan soon). And then the science-inspired writers flocked in! Well, ok, it was a small and intimate crowd, but that lend itself really well to discussions about using science in different ways, and to great readings. All those who came read poems - from the tale of the first forensic scientist to a quark love story, and poetry explaining the origins of the moon. They were all wonderful, many were magical, such a variety, we were delighted! I was a little sad that there were no other short story writers, so next time we'll get you out of the woodwork! Congrats to our winner, Heather Wastie, and to everyone who came, readers and audience, and my esteemed fellow judges, it was a really fun event!

The White Road and Other Stories in the Frank O'Connor Fest window display in the wonderful Cork Waterstone's, who were so welcoming when I went in and signed a couple.

 The next day I flew to Cork to one of the biggest annual treats for a short story writer: The Frank O'Connor Festival. I had last been here 2 years ago, the week after The White Road and Other Stories was published, so had been in a state of mild hysteria the whole time. It was like short story summer camp that year, I met so many writers who have become great friends, from Alison McLeod and Adam Marek to Wena Poon and Nuala Ní Chonchúir. This year, it was the American contingent, as 5 of the 6 shortlistees for the 35,000 euro Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award were Americans: Belle Boggs, Robin Black, Laura van den Berg, Ron Rash and TC Boyle (who didn't come due to injury), alongside David Constantine from the UK. 

Robin Black and I had been online friends, it was lovely to finally meet her, and to meet Laura van den Berg, whose collection we'd recently reviewed on the Short Review. I read on the Thursday night with Belle Boggs, whose stories I hadn't read and whose writing enchanted me! She read the first half of her story, Jonas, from her collection, Mattaponi Queen. Here we both are, relieved, after the reading.

(Photo: C Hershman)

As well as that event, I took part in a flash fiction reading in downtown Cork in support of Irish support of the arts, and in a panel discussion about the short story and new media, which both excited and terrified me! I have no pictures from the rest of the 4-day extravaganza, but the festival's photographer, the legendary John Minihan, will have done a far better job anyway, will link to those when they're online. Suffice it to say, it was non-stop readings, so many excellent writers, including Karen Russell, author of St Lucy's School for Girls Raised by Wolves, and Nyk de Vries, a writer from Holland whose ultra-short stories and prose poems and ultra-dry delivery just delighted us all. Every night the festivities moved to the local tapas bar where writers and readers mingled, ate and listened to more readings. Read Nuala's blog post about Tess Gallagher and Belle Boggs' blog here.Madeline D'Arcy reading her short story with props was a wonderful experience!

The highlight for me was listening to Nikita Nelin read his story, Eddie, I had chosen from 849 stories as the winner of 2010 Sean O'Faolain short story prize (full list of winners here). His story has a unique rhythm and poetry and I wanted to hear him read it. It brought tears to my eyes again and I heard things I'd never heard before, the mark of a great story. It will be published in Southword shortly, and Nikita wrote about his festival experiences on the Electric Literature blog. And huge congratulations to Ron Rash, winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award! 

Bleary-eyed and exhausted, I flew back to Bristol on Monday (was that just over a week ago? Really?) to rest up for the last few events. Then on Thursday, heavily medicated to decongest, I ran a workshop on research-inspired fiction at Bristol University's Engage conference on public engagement. I was pretty nervous, I'd never done anything like this before, but it was just talking about what I am passionate about so I hoped it would be ok. 13 of us - mostly scientists - discussed examples of fiction which uses science in different ways (see my web page here for examples) and then, after a tea break, we picked prompts from a recent copy of New Scientist and did some writing ourselves. The energy in the room was palpable, a flash-writing session always creates a wonderful buzz, and then most people read out what they'd written, a great variety of short shorts! I will write more about this in a guest blog post I've been asked to write for the Wellcome Collection blog shortly. 


If you're feeling exhausted by all this then perhaps stop here and don't read about how the next morning, sneezing and coughing, I headed off to Lewes, Sussex, to the Small Wonder festival! It's held in Charleston, the glorious house that was home to Virginia Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant:

(photo: Axel Hesslenberg)

If you are anywhere near, you must go and visit, it's as if they just stepped out and might be back any minute, a house whose air is filled with creativity and experimentation.

After attending the Small Wonder short story festival for several years as an audience member, I felt incredibly lucky to be invited to do a session on Flash Fiction, with my great friend and writing colleague Vanessa Gebbie. V and I met through flash fiction in 2006 and so it was lovely to be up there on stage with her, talking about what flash fiction is and might be and reading 10 short short stories between us. Here we are in full flow:

(photo: Axel Hesslenberg)

We did a book signing afterwards and then repaired back to the very special Authors' "Green Room", which is the main house's kitchen, for dinner before the Short Story Slam. What a fantastic evening it was, and the whole weekend's events were a continuation of the literary delights from Cork, more talk of short stories and writing, more amazing writers... Here are Adam Marek and David Vann talking about their Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award shortlisted stories:

It was wonderful to see Robin Black, Karen Russell and David Constantine again, as well as so many other familiar faces. Enormous thanks to Small Wonder artistic director Diana Reich and her fantastic team, and to Colin McKenzie, Charleston Trust Director, for a wonderful introduction and summing up, running with my metaphor about flash fiction and very short flights ("the Easyjet of the short story world")!

I'm sure I've missed some people out here, my brain still isn't working properly, apologies if I've made any omissions. I came back home on Sunday night, missing my train in London due to appalling traffic, but even that couldn't diminish my elation at the weekend's events. Yes, I'm still sneezing and coughing, but would I have missed any of it? Most certainly not! Vanessa and I already have another invite to do our Flash Double Act next year, more on that nearer the time... I'm going to eat a load of oranges now and wend my way back to doing some writing, slowly slowly.

Updates - and The Short Review July Issue

First, apologies for my silence, it's been several weeks of no Internet or - gulp - dial-up, and not much time while we travelled to sit down and focus on writing a blog post. I had also hoped to be able to announce that nice news I keep blathering on about, but.... nothing yet!

I had a very promising second meeting with an agent yesterday, the upshot of which is that I need to keep writing but she likes what I've done so far. Good news, more work ahead. And we've found a lovely place to live in Bristol, which will be our new home from end August, with the ideal studio workroom for me already set up and separate. Even better than a shed - if I am allowed to say that!

Also:

The July Issue of the Short Review is out. First, congratulations to the six short story collections shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. See the Short Review blog for the shortlist.

With this month's issue, we bring you the most authors we have ever reviewed - with anthologies containing stories from up to 50 authors outnumbering single-author collections. There is a plethora of criminal behaviour, nostalgia for the era of punk, tales of those in waiting, a little erotica and more. Interviews with Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose collection we reviewed in last month's issue, Mary Akers, Jason Allan Cole, Mark Illis and Alex Keegan. Find something to read.

Also on the blog: Ailsa Cox takes us behind the scenes of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, whose winner will be announced on July 4th. Read more.

Happy weekend of short stories! More from me when we get back home on Sunday.

A Room of My Own!

Yay, I finally have a place to write in, a room with a door I can (almost) shut! Yup, I'm in our cellar. (The shed idea didn't pan out, many boring reasons why not. Mainly because Israel ain't really a shed culture.)

Here is the illustrious entrance to my domain:


Bend your head a little, it's a low space...


We've cleared out enough for me to sit in here, but am testing it out before we do the final blitz and really get rid of those old suitcases, boxes of who-the-hell-knows-why-we-need-this and someone else's microphone stand.


I have created a teeny oasis in the midst of all this. I've run a power cord out of the kitchen window and down, not the ideal solution, just temporary.

The one window, which looks out onto the side of the house, just above ground level. The white thing is an oil burner, diffusing rose scent to try and mask the slighty-damp-and-musty fragrance, and doing a great job.


Ok, I'm here now. Guess I should write something. Yup. No more excuses. Ok.

Writing shed update No. 1 & some competition news

Well, this is more of a pre-shed update. Here is the area of our tiny garden that my writing shed is destined for:


This is after several weeks of digging and redistribution of soil around the flower beds. J is out there digging as we speak (I am cooking dinner, we are fitting into gender stereotypes for once).

The aim is to remove the whole "rockery" (for rockery read "pile of earth filled with many annoying small stones"), level the ground, and cut down that (small) tree you see to the right of the picture. Then the shed should fit nicely in here and actually be a larger working space then my current study area - with a Door. Yay! I can't wait! Although when it is there, then what will my excuse for not writing be?

Competition news:

The news is that I didn't win: neither the Fish One Page short story prize - though I did make the shortlist of 24 stories chosen from over 900 - nor the StoryQuarterly Love Story contest. Congrats to the winners of both - the StoryQuarterly contest winner, Elizabeth Stuckey-French, had a special resonance for me. She taught me on my first writing course at the Iowa Summer Writers Workshop ten or so years ago. She basically led me through the process of writing my first ever story, complete with dialogue, flashbacks, beginningmiddleend. That changed everything for me. So, congratulations Elizabeth, I owe you a lot. I hope you do something nice with the $2500!