Find out what's new on our websites, where we've been, what's on our minds and the things we're doing.
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Abracadeathra - the last word...
Posted Thursday June 18th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaA few weeks ago, we launched a competition on Twitter, Facebook and this here blog
We asked people to either Tweet or blog or comment on our Facebook page with the last line to the fictional fiction book Abracadeathra. We had some hilarious responses, which we have collated here for you. Bear in mind that some of the responses from Facebook and the blog were a little naughty and didn't stick to just one sentence, but then, we weren't hugely prescriptive- it's still been loads of fun sifting through them!
Twitter entries:
@EllieLevenson: #booktrust He'd learnt his lesson; never trust a fellow magician.
@rebeccawoodhead 'Magda did horror flicks. Them two tricked him good' said Inspector Dex. 'Ma's face? Rubber. Fortune? Vanished. Worked like magic'#booktrust
@josie_henley He thought she’d be dead. As she burned the money, Radford saw he’d cut Magda’s windscreenwiper leads by mistake, not the brake #booktrust
@chaletfan #booktrust "My real name?" said Magda. "My real interest in you? I will never reveal it in less than 140 characters - so you'll never know!"
@Renmeleon #booktrust "Magda herself wasn't even sure." I posted the entire ending on both your blog on and Facebook. I couldn't leave…
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The poetry I'm reading
Posted Monday June 15th 2009
by Anna McKerrowIt is with great pleasure that I am currently reading two of Salt Publishing’s poetry titles – Folklore by Tim Atkins and The Grimoire of Grimalkin by Sascha Aurora Akhtar. I saw both of these authors reading from their work at Openned, a London-based poetry reading event that features excellent and thought-provoking experimental and avant-garde poets. I was mightily impressed by each.
The brain is a delicate wind that surrounds hinge – 'Folklore', Tim Atkins
Folklore is a stunningly beautiful, in-the-moment treatment and enactment of countryside and the rural, an oft-explored theme in traditional and modern poetry. However, unlike many contemporary poets, Atkins’ style refuses to reflect on nature as a scene to be comfortably described in hindsight; he prefers to be inside the reality of the rural experience (rureality?).
This may have some relationship to Atkins’ own Buddhist philosophy; I wonder whether, like Leslie Scalapino, Atkins is trying to capture that Zen sense of being perfectly in the moment with his language. There are many things that just are in Folklore: Beauty is. But the owl is. – as seen in the extract below.
'Where we were climbed there and her skin was all off & the…
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What are your Desert Island Books?
Posted Friday June 12th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaWhat books would you choose to take with you to a desert island idyll? Books for eternity, books for prosperity, books for frivolity? Would you risk taking something new to get your teeth into? What if you didn't like it after twenty pages? Would you take an old favourite- a comfortable old favourite that you felt you could return to over the years? So many choices... Would you want to challenge yourself with a genre you’d never tried before? Maybe it is time to try that country and western fantasy romance novel languishing at the bottom of the book pile, bought from a charity shop because you quite liked the cover. Or maybe some self-help books to help you get through the difficult time of... being... stuck... on a desert island?
In any case, here are my choices and reasons why:
The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
This Pulitzer-winning collection of short stories is among my favourite books of all time. It’s delicate and fresh and textured with so much detail that I know dipping into it again and again will reveal more hidden beauties and nuances. Dealing with love and loss and the American Asian (being South Asian-…
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BBC National Short Story Award deadline
Posted Wednesday June 10th 2009
by James SmithWriters! The deadline for submission of entries to the 2009 BBC National Short Story looms. If you would like to enter (please read the terms and conditions carefully), you have until 5pm on 15 June to do so.
The Award is worth a storming £15,000 to the winner and a not-to-be-sniffed-at £3,000 to the runner-up; the three other shortlisted entries each receive £500.
Previous winners are James Lasdun (whose latest collection It's Beginning to Hurt contains 'An Anxious Man', his winning story), the extraordinarily exuberant, pig-stealing Julian Gough (it's a long story), and last year's wonderful Clare Wigfall, whose story was taken from her widely-reviewed and astonishing debut collection The Loudest Sound and Nothing.
If you need only one reason for entering the Award, read what Clare said about winning:
'How can I measure the impact the BBC National Short Story Award has had on my life? Of course, most obvious might be the attention my work has since received – what a gift for a writer so early in their career, especially when you've chosen a literary form so often neglected!
'My collection, for example, was one of Faber's most-reviewed paperbacks last year, and I'm certain…
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Interview with Patrick Neate
Posted Wednesday June 10th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaPatrick Neate is the acclaimed author of novels like Jerusalem and Twelve Bar Blues, and the co-creator of superlative literary monthly shindig, Book Slam, which recently heralded such luminaries as David Simon (creator of The Wire), up and coming female rapper Speech Debelle and superior spoken word auteur Charlie Dark. His books are brilliant deconstructions of folk tales from around the world, of Britishness and of urban culture. Neate's sardonic and slick writing style has won him plaudits for all his published works. On the eve of the release of his new book Jerusalem, we thought he'd be the ideal candidate to talk about his writing process and about what he's been reading.
>What is your process as a writer?
Process? I write. And then, when it doesn't work, I keep writing. And then I write some more. After that, I mostly write...
When I'm in the the middle of a book, I'll insist on 1000 words a day (even if I bin them all immediately thereafter). Otherwise, I'm not so strict, but I do always try and write something creative. A typical day sees a lot of work in the morning. Mornings are good. Most afternoons I'll go for…
