In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reviews a new translation of Scandinavia’s founding literary works What connects the Jim Carrey film The Mask, the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Thor movie franchise? The answer is that they all owe a debt to […]
via Gods and Giants: The Poetic Edda — Interesting Literature
An opportunity for writers of short and short, short fiction.
Right now Fictive Dream has two submission opportunities. We’re open for submission of stories of between 500 – 2,500 words. As always, we’re interested in material with a contemporary feel on any subject. Your stories may be challenging, dramatic, playful, exhilarating or cryptic. Above all, they must be well-crafted and compelling.
Check out our standard submission guidelines here.
In addition, our submissions window for Flash Fiction February 2019 is open until December 31st. For this though we’ve put a squeeze on word count so, for this category, only stories of between 200 -750 please.
All the information you need for Flash Fiction February 2019 is here.
Check out the Fictive Dream website here.
We’re looking forward to receiving your best work!
Laura Black
Editor
For anyone able to get there, this sounds like a wonderful opportunity.
The “Kōka” teahouse, an Important Cultural Property, is beautifully situated within the garden of the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum.
Tea ceremony made approachable! Learn about the history and aesthetics of the Japanese tea ceremony, and how you can bring the tea ceremony into your own life. right now, without lessons or a teahouse or all the special utensils. At the same time you can experience an authentic tea ceremony in a historic teahouse within a beautiful Japanese garden, just as the fall colors are beginning to turn. Details and sign ups here on the museum website.
Location: “Kōka” Teahouse, in the garden of the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum
Hosts: tea masters from the Urasenke School of Tea, one of the three historical households directly descended from the 16th century tea master Sen no Rikyū. They are “the real deal” but their focus is on making tea ceremony something…
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A creepy competition! Ghost stories are enjoying a come-back.
For our inaugural horror and dark fiction anthology, Unlit Press is inviting short story submissions on the theme of darkness. That could be the absence of light, the presence of evil, or the deranged thoughts of the afflicted. However you choose to interpret the theme, just make sure you leave us afraid to turn out the lights.
At Unlit Press we don’t forsake character and story for the sake of gratuitous violence and gore. We’re looking for stories with strong original voices, compelling characters and sparkling dialogue. Send us stories that step off the well-trod paths into the unlit wilderness of the unusual, the interesting, and the provocative.
Visit our website for full submission guidelines and instructions.
I love success stories and hearing about winners. There are still a number of opportunities here.
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.
At the end of September we published the three winning stories from our Summer 2018 flash fiction competition as chosen by Sherrie Flick. Here are the winners and links to the stories:
First Place: Crowbar by Lyndsay Wheble
Second Place: Consanguinity by Fiona J Mackintosh
Third Place: Skin by Donna L Greenwood
You can read Sherrie’s thoughts on the winning stories here.
We’ve also just published the long-list for our Autumn 2018 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of December.
We’re also accepting entries for our Winter 2018 competition. Here are the important details:
Prizes:…
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These days poetry can be found anywhere and is given many uses. Today the BBC reports a passenger complaining in verse to Norwegian Airlines and getting a verse response.
I can’t reblog BBC reports but here is the link.
Two workshops that sound really interesting. And free, too, what could be better?
Thanks to Short Stops, a blog for the short story, for posting.
‘Cullopmton’s Wool Trade, Coldharbour Mill and the Walronds –
A Historical Fiction Romance and Adventure Creative Short Story Workshop’.
Thursday the 14th of September – Free Morning Workshop
(9.45am registration and a 10am start. Finish at 12 o’clock.)
To book contact: cullompton.library@librariesunlimited.org.uk
Your Workshop Facilitator will be Myfanwy (Vanni) Cook, who is currently the ‘New Voices’ Feature Editor for ‘The Historical Novel Society Review Magazine’ and an Associate Fellow at two Universities. She is the author of ‘Historical Fiction Writing – A practical guide and tool-kit’ and is passionate about bringing local history alive.
www.historicalnovelsociety.org
https://twitter.com/MyfanwyCook
Thursday the 14th of September – Free Afternoon Workshop
The “Golgotha” and St. Andrew’s Church –A Historical Crime Fiction Creative Short Story Workshop
for those who enjoy the writing of Ellis Peters and Umberto Eco
(1.45pm Registration and a 2pm start. Finish at 4pm.)
To book contact: cullompton.library@librariesunlimited.org.uk
Thanks to The Little Red Reviewer for interesting and insightful reviews. I haven’t read any of these books, but might be tempted – if I ever get the time.
June, where did you go? Last I checked it was June 2nd, how is it already July?? I didn’t post many reviews in June, but I did get a lot of reading done. Some of these I’ll write reviews for, some of them will get a capsule review in this post. Here’s what I was up to this month:
I finished this fun little gem:
Spock Must Die is the famous novel where thanks to a transporter malfunction, the Enterprise now has two Spocks. Which one is the “real” one? What will they do with the other one? When war breaks out at the Klingon border, the importance of solving the mystery ratchets up. Even when Kirk is sure which Spock is the true, original Spock, he insists on calling his friend “Spock Two”. When questioned why, Kirk responds that by saying “two” every time he says his friend’s name…
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This sounds like an interesting event. I regret that it’s too far for me but others may be closer. Thank you to ShortStops for publishing the details.
Come and listen to some tales of May madness, Mayans and a certain hairy rock star at Hand of Doom’s May-themed story nights in Kent.
They take place in Folkestone on Friday, May 19 at the Grand Hotel, The Leas, and the following evening, Saturday, May 20, in Faversham at The Guidhall, both from 7.45pm for an 8pm start.
For more information, please go to Facebook Hand of Doom Productions
I wish I was in Buxton to hear this talk. Thank you James Burt for reminding me that the ‘official’ history isn’t all there is.
The Odditorium: the tricksters, eccentrics, deviants and inventors whose obsessions changed the world (Hodder & Stoughton, 2016) includes some amazing characters. Some you’ll have heard of, some you probably won’t. All of them have changed the world, although in some cases the wider world hasn’t noticed yet. They include Joshua Norton, first Emperor of America, and Reginald Bray, who carried out strange experiments with the Royal Mail. I was delighted to be asked to write about Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who is by far my favourite explorer.
When I was at school, we were often told stories about adventurers and explorers as something to aspire to. Captain Robert Falcon Scott was held up as a great example, bravely sacrificing himself in an attempt to reach the South Pole. As Sara Wheeler once described Antarctica, our southernmost continent often seems to be “a testing-ground for men with frozen beards to see how dead…
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