“”The César Egido Serrano Foundation was created to propose that the word be the tool of coexistence between cultures and religions and against all violence.”

With a first prize of 20,000 dollars up for grabs, the César Egido Serrano Foundation has launched the VI Edition of their International Flash Fiction Competition, under the slogan ”Faced with COVID; Solidarity and Resilience”.

The competition is open to writers from anywhere in the world over the age of 14 years. Two entries are allowed per author, maximum 100 words per entry (not including an optional title) in either Spanish, English, Arabic or Hebrew. Closing date 30 September 2021. More details, including information on previous editions of the competition, can be found here. Contest rules here. Find a participation form here. The language of the page can be changed to Spanish, Arabic or Hebrew from the list at the top-right.

I…

The venue for this concert was a fairly new space in suburban Melbourne, The Button Factory. A pleasant place to be on a hot day with a bar at the back, plenty of indoor plants and an interesting gallery. https://thebuttonfactory.com.au/

I had heard nearly all of the performers in pre-Covid days – often in concerts associated with the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM). I had assumed that all were fully professional and was surprised to read that some of them have ‘day jobs’ such as pharmacist and physiotherapist – a sign of the hard lot of the professional musician.

The theme of this concert: ‘Music, She Wrote’ was an admirable exploration of the work of women composers of the 19^th and early 20^th century. The only composer I’d heard of was the most recent, Margaret Sutherland (1897 – 1984).

As I sat listening to engrossing substantial pieces…

Back in September I said of Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain: ‘This is a debut novel and it’s made it onto the Booker long list — and of the three books from that list that I’ve read so far, it is by far the best.’ Well — last night, London time, Douglas Stuart was announced as the winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. https://thebookerprizes.com/fiction/2020

Congratulations — what an achievement!

Maybe Douglas Stuart will now give up his work as a fashion designer? I am pleased to hear that he is working on a second novel, set in Glasgow in the 1990s.. I look forward to reading it. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/nov/19/douglas-stuart-wins-booker-prize-for-debut-shuggie-bain

Real Life and The New Wilderness may be the last two shortlisted books I read before the winner of the Booker is announced on 19th November. The only book on the shortlist that I haven’t read is The Shadow King, by Maaza Mengiste. Overall, I’ve found the books rather disappointing — possibly a result of my own short-comings, as I tread cautiously, for example, when I, a middleclass caucasian, try to immerse myself in the world of an Afro American gay man.

Brandon Taylor’s Real Life is a debut novel, so he must be congratulated on making it to the shortlist in this prestigious competition. The whole story takes place over one weekend in a university town in the US Midwest. It is a slab of life — a slab of a particular kind of life, where Wallace, a gay Afro American postgraduate biochemist, tries to exist in a…

Barry Lee Thompson, member of Elwood Writers, has a guest interview in relation to his newly released book, Broken Rules and Other Stories. The interview features on the website, ‘In Their Own Write’.

Barry talks about his writing process. For him there is no such thing as writer’s block. If he gets stuck, he works on something different for a while, dipping in and out of stories.

‘I don’t sit down for lengthy periods in front of a page, but dip in and out through the day. Writing is a series of problems. I walk a lot, and think a lot, and sit and daydream, and ideas and solutions arrive in those moments.’ 

Barry addresses other topics pertinent to writers, but today let’s just look at what to do if we get stuck on something. Dabble with another piece, for instance, try something new, go for a walk. Let…

The sun’s shining. I saw a seal or dolphin splashing about in the Maribyrnong River this morning. It’s the first day of spring and I’ve been smelling jasmine in the local laneways for days now, even through the fabric of my facemask. And it’s publication day. Yippee! Broken Rules is officially released.

‘But if a book has brought you from one place to another, so that you see something you didn’t see before, you’ve arrived at another point.’ James Baldwin, The Paris Review 1984.

My writing group, Elwood Writers, is to release its anthology in November of this year. Every Second Tuesday is a collection of fiction, memoir and poetry drawn from work we have produced, published and recorded over the last ten years. You’ll learn more about it in the coming months here, and at the Elwood Writers website.

In editing my stories for the collection, I started thinking about James Baldwin’s quote. When you write, you might start off at one place – with one idea in mind – and by the end find yourself in a completely different spot – often unexpectedly.

Writing helps me refine my thinking. I make connections that I hadn’t seen before…

Some early reviews of the book have appeared. There’s a write-up in Westerly, here, and one from The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, here.

The book’s release date is now 1 September, owing to the COVID-19 reschedule. There’s a chance it might come out a bit earlier, possibly late August. But the main thing is it’s printed and waiting to meet the world. For more info, visit Transit Lounge at their website, below.

Broken Rules and Other Stories