The Manchester Children's Book Festival...save the date!

A date for your diaries...the Manchester Children's Book Festival will take place from 26th June to 6th July 2014. The festival is held every two years and run by Carol Ann Duffy's team at the Manchester Writing School, Manchester Metropolitan University. The programme will be announced in January. I also just discovered the festival blog here. Apologies for the generous advanced warning, I realise we haven't even had Christmas 2013 yet, but would hate anyone to miss out on what I am sure will be a superb festival.

Man With A Movie Camera - an outdoor showing at Ebrington Barracks, Derry

Some things are just super cool, and you'll go and see even in the cold and damp Derry air. So, this Saturday I headed into the big smoke (North West style) to see a showing of Man With A Movie Camera as part of Cinema City.

Two new websites devoted to the short story in Ireland and the UK

I've come across two new websites recently that have just started up and are devoted to the short story. They have comment, resources, interviews, news etc... all around the wonderful form of short story.

Francis MacManus Short Story Competition 2014 open for submissions

Gee, I've entered this competition so many times! And no, I've never got anywhere in it. I'm not giving up though - try, try, try again. The shortlisted stories are all broadcast on RTE, so there are lots of opportunities from it. And podcasts of past winning and shortlisted stories are available  here  They're well worth listening to.

Rules for submission are available here (to enter you need to be born or resident in Ireland).  It seeks hardcopy posted submissions only with a strict word limit of 1,800 - 2,000 words. The deadline is 31st January 2014, and results are not published until June 2014, so it does take a long while before hearing any news.

National Short Story Week 11th - 17th 2013

This looks good, a national short story week designed to promote that lovely form. There's a website of resources here  a blog here  with tweets @ShortStoryWeek

At The Story Player here  you can even listen to a range of short stories online.

Cinema City in Derry throughout November

This film event is ongoing in Derry with film showings at Ebrington,  some of which are outdoors, and also at the Nerve Centre. A lot of the showings are free, but even those with an entrance fee are at a very good rate. There's lots of great film on, and other cinema related events, and it continues throughout the month. Programme available here   

Some upcoming deadlines in November and December

Wow, the winter seems to be here now in Donegal, heavy rain tonight. Wait a minute, don't we get that in summer too. I shouldn't complain really, we'd a great Donegal summer this year.

Well, to cheer ourselves up, what about a few approaching deadlines, and ideas for submitting over the rainy season (no snow, please!). Here are some upcoming submission dates.

My story Fallout is in Number Eleven

I'm very pleased to say that I've a story included in issue 3 of Number Eleven, an online literary journal. It's available here For further details of the journal see its Facebook site  and its website 

Number Eleven is edited by Graham Connors and publishes short story, flash, graphic novel artwork and illustraion, all quarterly. Submission details from the website here

Storytelling in Ramelton (8th - 10th November)

There's a very interesting looking storytelling festival upcoming soon in Ramelton, Co. Donegal (8th-10th November). The details are below, and there's a facebook page for updates here

Halloween musing

Some Halloween fun over at the website of  'The Penny Dreadful', that literary magazine of repute, who have announced the winners of their competition to tweet a seasonal horror story. You can read the top ten here  (including one from yours truly) and many congratulations to the worthy winner, Laura Jane Cassidy.
I was travelling back from a trip to England today, so I'm not joining the fun at tonight's North West Words event in Letterkenny. Instead, I indulge a Halloween habit and re-read the prologue of John Burnside's stunning memoir, 'A Lie About My Father'.
Burnside is a staggeringly gifted writer of poetry, short stories and novels. His first volume of memoir opens with a haunting reflection on Halloween:
'I was brought up, not necessarily to believe, but to allow for the possibility that the dead come back at Halloween; or rather, not the dead, but their souls: whether as individual wisps of fading consciousness or some single aggregated mass, it didn't matter. All I knew was that soul was there, in one of its many guises: ghost or revenant, breath of wind, figment of light or fire, or just some inexplicable memory, some snapshot filed away at the back of my mind, a picture I didn't even know I possessed until that moment.'
This is perfect prose for the season, and I never tire of reading Burnside, and then reading again more slowly and with appropriate attention. It is always a rewarding experience. If you would like to know more, the Scottish Poetry Society have some background and poetry on their website.
Happy Halloween...