Reading & Q&A with NZ writer Frankie McMillan

 I'm so excited about my first event as Arvon's writer-in-residence: hosting an online reading and Q&A on Wed Nov 23 at 7.15pm UK time with brilliant NZ flash writer & poet Frankie McMillan - one of my new favourite writers! Here's the beginning of one of her flash stories, published in Cleaver magazine, to whet your appetite:

 

SEVEN STARTS TO THE WOMAN WHO WENT OVER THE FALLS IN A BARREL
Annie Edson Taylor, 1901
by Frankie McMillan

1

Picture the cold dark inside of the barrel. Annie feeling her way over the padded mattress to a harness hanging from the side. The barrel sways in the water. Picture her fastening herself upright into the harness, pulling the leather strap tight across her chest. Picture Annie flailing about, she can’t find her lucky heart-shaped pillow. Now picture the barrel picking up speed, with the current, heading straight towards the falls.

2

It’s not as if falling was something new. Early on, I fell from my crib, I fell through haystacks, I fell from grace, I fell behind the church to kiss the bridesmaids, I fell between heaven and hell then into marriage

 ...

 

Read the full story here https://cleavermagazine.com/seven-starts-to-the-woman-who-went-over-the-falls-in-a-barrel-by-frankie-mcmillan - book your ticket here https://www.arvon.org/writing-courses/courses-retreats/how-i-write-frankie-mcmillan/. See you there!

Blagging your way into a writing residency

I've been writer-in-residence in a biochemistry lab... and I am now writer-in-residence in a cemetery. How did these things come about? I'm glad you asked, because I've written about it over at RLF Collected! Here's a snippet:

I used to be a journalist and the joy of that job was the access it gave me. You say, ‘Hello, I’d like to write an article about you/your company’, and, most of the time, the door is opened wide. I met fascinating people and learned about worlds hidden to everyone except those who work there. When I moved to writing fiction, it seemed as though my life would involve a lot of alone time, which was fine: I like solitude. But I have a science background, and after my first story collection was published – which contains stories inspired by science articles – and I moved to Bristol, I decided I wanted to spend time with the scientists themselves. I had an undergraduate degree in science but I had no idea what it was like to do science on a daily basis. I didn’t wait for an invitation, or for a position to be advertised. I approached the Dean of the Faculty of Science and said, ‘Can I be your writer-in-residence?’...

Read the rest of the article here >>

Thought lab life was dull and boring? Think again!

One of the scientists at the lab I am writer-in-residence in sent this around yesterday and I think it's wonderful! It's for all of you who think science is about hard fact, about right and wrong, about automatons in lab coats who reveal the truth of existence on a daily basis. Umm, no, not quite...

Lovely pre-birthday present

Yesterday, J was telling me he'd heard the head of the Arts Council being interviewed about the huge reductions in their budget, and I said to him: Ok, I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm not going to get a grant.

Famous last words.

This morning, 24 hours before my birthday, I get a large envelope from the Arts Council and... whoo-hoo, they've awarded me a grant to work on a biology-inspired short story collection!!

This is not just an amazing boost financially, it is a real validation to me that they think I'm doing something worth funding. And it is a vote of confidence both in short story collections and in science-inspired fiction. Yay! And.. now I feel like what I'm doing's a "proper job". Amazing.

My project is for a collection of short stories inspired both by current research in several biology-related labs in Bristol University and a fictional response to a 100-year-old biology text book. I won't go into more details about that now, but over the next 18 months, I'll reveal more, as I get going. I have been in a kind of limbo ever since I submitted the application 5 1/2 weeks ago, not feeling I can really get stuck into anything. And now I can, which is the best part. I have the "next thing" I've been waiting for, really since my book came out, which is almost two years ago. Ok, got to get to it!

Stolen Laptop & Live Lab Blogging

So, on Monday I wandered around our flat looking for my laptop. I couldn't find it. I thought I was going insane. Had I hidden it somewhere? Then J discovered the marks of a crowbar outside my study window and we realised we'd been broken into - they only took my laptop and iPod. Only. That laptop felt like an extension of my hands, my brain. I had backed up mostly, and thank goodness from Gmail, the majority of my stories are in the ether, accessible. But passwords and things... I had a real panic, and one sleepless night. Such a violation. And of my study, my safe space - now it's my unsafe space.

I have no computer now. I do need to get one. Luckily I had a wonderful day planned yesterday, going to the recording studio and listening to my flash stories being recorded by 2 amazing actors for broadcast on Radio 4 on June 29th & 30th and July 1st. It was very emotional for me, and I was pretty emotional already!

So today I thought of something else to cheer me up. I'm in the biochem lab, where I "embed" one day a week as writer-in-residence, and today I am blogging LIVE from the lab... So, if you ever wanted to know what it is that scientist actually do all day, check out Bristol University Science Faculty's brand new blog. (I am blogging from my mobile phone, forgive any odd spelling. ) Comments welcome!


Coming up tomorrow: I an delighted to be hosting Elizabeth Baines as she jets around the virtual world on her blog book tour for Too Many Magpies! Won't be doing that from my phone, Elizabeth's wonderful book deserves better than that. Stay tuned.

A good week.. and a judge's BIG competition tip

I am in a good mood today. This has nothing to do with post-election euphoria, that's certainly not it - the politics here right now are rather too closely resembling Israel's political system for my liking and the results were not what I would want. But that aside, it's been a great week - I've come up with a Big Idea, as I mentioned in the previous post, and - while a little nervous about how to do it, and worried that maybe someone else has already done it - I seem to have found no evidence that it's been done. And, as several lovely Twitter pals assured me, I'll do it in my own unique way so not to worry. I also mentioned it to the researchers in the lab and they didn't think it was lame - and then I spent a fascinating afternoon watching a scanning electron microscope in use, just amazing!

I am also in a good mood because yesterday we had one of our 24-hour flash writing "blastettes" on the online writing group I belong to. Someone compiles 24 sets of prompts and posts one set every hour. Whenever you have time, you open a set of prompts, write for 20 minutes or so, then post up your first draft anonymously. I hadn't written anything for weeks. (Well, I did write together with the students I did a reading for at Bath Spa University last week - nearly scuppered by a sore throat but thankfully all was well -  but that was it.) I wrote 5 stories yesterday. Or 5 somethings. And I felt - as I have said here before - much, much better. Healthier. Saner. More energetic. I had been having very colourful dreams, and I think perhaps that was because I hadn't been giving my imagination its regular outlet, in fiction!

I went in to the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre, my base of operations for my writer-in-residence, and for the first time I used my desk and wrote there. It was great. No infiltration of nanoscience into what I wrote, but it is nice to have somewhere else to go. And... on my way out I noticed a poster advertising an upcoming event, in July, with a visiting speaker from Harvard, which is directly related to my Big Idea. Made me feel, once again, that something mystical is happening, that this is definitely the right thing to be doing.

This morning was thrilling too, despite having to get up at  - gasp! - 7.30am. I went to an induction day for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) Ambassadors scheme, which sends scientists into schools to get students excited about science. I was the only writer there and I hope I might be able to do something combining English class with science! Many, many ideas whirring around my mind...

Ok, now on to the second part of the blog post. We had our first Bristol Short Story Prize judges'** meeting a week ago, it was lovely to meet the other judges. And we are now in possession of the longlisted stories. All is strictly anonymous, I am not going to say anything at all about specific stories, of course. I am enjoying quite a number of them, some have even made me laugh out loud, which is a rare thing for me. But.

But. Since I am judging another comp, the Sean O'Faolain, which is still open to submissions, then it might be worth your while to take heed of this next bit. I am sure all those in the same position as me would stress this.

CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION!

I am going to repeat this just to hammer it home.

CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION!

If you don't know what this means - 

ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO READ YOUR STORY AND CHECK FOR YOU.

There is nothing, nothing, that puts me off more than a spelling mistake in the first line of a story. And if there are then mistakes all the way through: 

YOUR instead of YOU'RE

THERE instead of THEIR

do you think I will be focussing on how imaginative your plot is, how compelling your characters? No, I will be gnashing my teeth. Pulling my hair out. Shouting at the cat.

The odd missing comma, I can forgive that. A paragraph not indented bugs me a little but if I am swept away by everything else, I can get past that too. But when it is constant - commas not where they should be, and many of them in places they don't belong, spelling mistakes far too often - then you've missed your chance with me, I'm afraid. A literary magazine editor would not be so patient either, I imagine. A good editor will spot a few typos, glitches. But anything more than that and this is just sloppy, this gives the impression that you didn't care enough to check.

I have just realised that I sound like the worst kind of English teacher. I'm sorry, but I don't care. I pick up every story and what I say as I begin is: "Wow me." You cannot go wrong by asking several friends to read your story, checking and re-checking. Don't lose the chance of your otherwise fabulous story not even being read just because you didn't bother. I am waiting to be wowed. Don't let me down.


**ADDENDUM: I just want to make it clear that this is in no way a comment on those fabulous folk who read and compiled the Bristol Short Story Prize longlist. This is just me venting about something that has struck me from all the reading of short stories I've been doing over the last few months, for Southword and others. I am one of those very picky punctuation people, an "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" kind of nerd, and this is what gets in the way of my particular reading experience!

Bristol: Stories, Books and Science!

Bristol is a really great city for things writing-related. First, you have SEVEN hours to get your entry in for this year's Bristol Short Story prize - deadline midnight tonight, UK time (British Summer Time, we just turned the clocks forward). Stories 3000 words maximum or much shorter (wow us in 1000 words, or even 300). Anonymously judged, of course. Open to any writer anywhere in the world!

To entice you, the prizes are: 1st-£500 plus £150 Waterstone’s Gift Card, 2nd -£350 plus £100 Waterstone’s Gift Card, 3rd -£200 plus £100 Waterstone’s Gift Card. Each of the 17 remaining shortlisted finalists will receive a cheque for £50. Not to be sniffed at! Enter now!


Second, 18 months after the book came out, I finally got to be a guest at a book club! Here is the wonderful Brislington Library Book Group, with my book (nicely plasticized in that way libraries do):

 
That was already a thrill, it really made me feel like a proper Author all over again. The book group, half of whose members are also in the library's writing group, were delightful, they were interested and interesting, asking questions and also sharing their thoughts about my stories, about writing in general, about books. They made me think about a lot of things - am I a romantic? Why do I go in for short story competitions? What is my next goal? And then, the biggest compliment - when they gave the library copies back, they bought 5 copies of my book to take home.

Chris from Bristol Libraries whisked my books off to the next library, where I'll be chatting in a few weeks, a few days after I read at the 40th birthday celebrations for another of Bristol's libraries, in Henleaze, a great honour. I love libraries, I can't quite get over the idea of free books. Not having that for the past 15 years, it's like walking into a sweet shop! Not that many short story collections on the shelves, but I recommended some other books to this book group and said I'd be happy to let them know about even more, and maybe a short story shelf?

Third, today was Science Day. I spent the afternoon with the members of a fascinating biochemistry lab at the University, being shown around the lab, with me asking silly questions about cells and microscopes, and also about how the life of a scientist works. It was so interesting, and I am going back at 10am tomorrow (yes, bit early for me) to watch an experiment. This is the start of my "embedding" and I will be blogging about it on the Science Faculty website shortly, will link from here. 3 1/2 hours was so much stimulation, my brain was whirring with ideas. I can't wait to see what comes out of it!

Roller-coaster ride

It's all ups and downs, 2010, so far. The hugely exciting news is from a writer friend that I am not allowed to share yet.. but congratulations, you know who you are!

My good news is that my story, Mugs, has been accepted for the wonderful 100 Stories for Haiti charity anthology, alongside many writer friends and familiar names - Claudia Boers, Katy Darby, Lauri Kubuitsile, Sylvia Petter, Julia Bohanna, Dan Powell, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Martin Reed, Joel Willans, Teresa Stenson, Vanessa Gebbie, Patti Jazanoski, Alex irvine, Steve Moran, Charlie Berridge and others. The full list is here, more information soon on how to get hold of a copy.

The bad news today is that my application for an Arts Council grant for my writer-in-residence position at the University's Science Faculty was rejected. I am pretty upset about that - I moved to England with some dream of readily available funding for all sorts of Arts - but that was a fantasy, I know. It's a recession, everyone's struggling. I will try not to be too down and think of new ways to fund my residency. I did go to an excellent event last night run by Spread the Word about writers-in-residence which was very inspiring - and made some great contacts, so will ask for advice.

To end on a more positive note, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association asked me to contribute to their Top Tips for Writing a Story for Radio to help anyone thinking of entering their 600-word short story competition. There are some great ideas in there, click on the link to open the PDF, then enter the comp. Entries will be accepted between Feb 15th- March 31st. Good luck!

Science, science, science...mmmm

I spent a day at a physics conference last week, had a great meeting today with the head of Bristol University's experimental psychology department, which involved discussions about caffeine and optical illusions, and tomorrow I am going in to the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre - ooh, I just love saying it! - where my short-story-writer-in-residence position will be based, to get signed up so that I get a swipe card and can actually get into the building. So: all systems go for the preparatory phase of my position. I'm applying for an Arts Council grant and can't begin until that has been processed, so will be spending the 6 weeks or so after the holidays finding my way around, meeting people, trying to determine the structure of what I will be doing. I have a lot of ideas, and am meeting the head of the University's Centre for Public Engagement in Jan too, to see if there is something I can do there. It is not just inspiring - it's over-stimulating. I have so many ideas whirling around in my head and am dying to get the time and space to set something down on paper. I am sure it will happen soon!

In the meantime, Bristol is snow covered, which was a lovely novelty this morning and is now rather slippy and slushy. Happy holidays to you all, see you on the other side!