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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Watch some animated trailers for the BBC National Short Story Award 2009 shortlist
Posted Monday November 30th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaAs you know, we have now announced the shortlist for the BBC National Short Story Award 2009
The shortlist was announced on BBC Radio 4's Front Row programme on Friday 27 November and to coincide with the announcement, we collaborated with Radio 4 to create some video trails for each story, read on Radio 4 every day this week between 3.30pm and 4.00pm.
You can find the video trails here alongside a blog from judge Di Speirs about the stories.
You can also download each short story as a podcast as soon as it has been broadcast from the Radio 4 site.
Monday's story was 'Other People's Gods' by Naomi Alderman.
Naomi Alderman's first novel, Disobedience was released in 2006 and won the Orange Award for New Writers. It was broadcast as a Book at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4.
In 2007 Naomi was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, and one of Waterstones' 25 Writers for the Future. Naomi also writes online computer games, including writing for Penguin's award-winning We Tell Stories project. She has written commissioned short stories for BBC Radio 4. Penguin will publish her new novel, The Lessons, in… -
An interview with Richard Herring
Posted Monday November 23rd 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaComedian Richard Herring, famed for... how long have you got? (Fist of Fun, This Morning with Richard Not Judy, Talking Cock, Hitler Moustache), is a funny man, referred to by many as the 'comedian's comedian.' Keeper of a hilarious daily diary of funny incidents (Warming Up), curator of the finest free podcasts iTunes has to offer (sketch-based As It Occurs to Me and talk-based Collings and Herrin) and writer of some of the finest stand-up in the country, he has written a new book, out next year called How Not to Grow Up mostly about turning forty and wondering whether it's time to grow up.
Having just announced our top ten funny books and announced the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, we thought it'd be apt to talk to a well-respected comedian such as Richard about writing his new book and the funniest things he's read.
>You have just finished writing a new memoir for next year, How Not to Grow Up. Tell us about it.
I’ve been writing a blog for 7 years and I was looking to do something with that and about turning forty and about giving up drinking and Ebury suggested…
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Why I love… Margaret Atwood
Posted Monday November 23rd 2009
by Anna McKerrowAnna thinks of love and curls her thoughts around it, trying to mesh her bluish logical mind into her pinkly emotional one without too much suturing or rainbow striping. She wonders idly, do I really love Atwood that much? Why? Is it her style, with its frequent use of reported speech, interior monologue, single person narration and word play? She wonders, how would Margaret explain her own phenomenon? She has no answer to that. She wonders. She wanders. She knows she has witnessed wonders.
Is it the deft examination of character psyche in Margaret Atwood’s many novels and short story collections that leave me breathless and, like the Victorian Constant Reader, always wanting more? Is it her humour? Her examination of the dark, spiked motivations that nestle in the backs of all our brains? Her depictions of nature, growing up, girlhood and womanhood, or cautionary tales for the future? There’s too much to like, but too much, as they say, is never enough.
My first Atwood book was, perhaps like many readers, The Handmaid’s Tale, which I studied at A Level. I remember liking it, but perhaps because of having to study it, I didn’t leech right on to the…
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It's never too late...
Posted Friday November 20th 2009
by Mary BrownWe’re excited to be able to announce a new project aimed at people over 60 that encourages reading and writing for pleasure. The Bookbite website is launching in February next year and will be accompanied by a supporting booklet featuring short stories, poetry, creative writing hints and tips, features on tracing your ancestry, writing memoirs and letters.
Run in partnership with WRVS and UK online centres we are confident that Bookbite will engage a new audience of web users to get online and try something new. With the underlying themes of reading and writing this informal learning site will provide access to writing tools and templates, and book lists of recommended titles, including those available in large print or audio formats.
We hope to inspire the many thousands of older people across England to take up reading and creative writing. Whether that’s to participate in reading a bedtime story to grandchildren, to write a novel, set up a blog, or create a personal memoir for future generations- to read is part of the pleasure.
Everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours?
For those of you who have a story to tell and can’t wait until next year, the BBC…
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Chris Higgins’ A Perfect Ten scoops YoungMinds Book Award
Posted Monday November 16th 2009
by Elaine BielbyChris Higgins' A Perfect Ten was crowned winner of the YoungMinds Book Award 2009 at the Unicorn Theatre in London on Wednesday 11 November.
The £2000 prize sponsored by Booktrust was presented by Observer columnist and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster, Mariella Frostrup and awarded to the book which most helps young people aged 12+ cope with the stresses and challenges of growing up.
A Perfect Ten tells the tale of Eva, a popular and successful gymnast who a faces a series of crisis when a new girl joins her class. With her life quickly unraveling Eva clings to the one thing she can control, her weight. But no matter how strong her willpower is, the dark secret that Eva has worked so hard to conceal seems determined to reveal itself.
Chris Higgins said: 'I was absolutely thrilled to win the YoungMinds Book Award for A Perfect Ten. I set out to explore the issue of bullying from the perspective of the bully. Following her sister's death, Eva has to deal with survivor's guilt, anorexia and a grieving mother. I hope that A Perfect Ten will provide insight and understanding into both bullies and their victims, and show that these two…
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Faber New Poets
Posted Monday November 16th 2009
by Anna McKerrowFaber New Poets 1-4: Fiona Benson, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Heather Phillipson, Jack Underwood
1.
Funded by Arts Council England, the Faber New Poets scheme aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage of their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four young poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Fiona Benson’s poems are haunting me. That’s OK – I like to be haunted. Hiking through her bucolic depictions of the amorally harsh beauty of nature I was enjoyably shocked by the uncompromising Prayer and Sheep, whose viscous, visceral imagery took me right into the moment along with Benson, feeling her ripe biology:
'and now the hen
that’s been circling all morning
tugs at a string of birth-meat
like she’s pulling a worm in the yard.'Similarly, Landscape with Harm and Yellow Room at Arles both storm ahead with a fantastic urgency and use tremendously graceful language to frame (and seamlessly integrate into) less-than-graceful events.
Benson’s collection also features a number of sonnets that cry out with a deep love of the beauty of…
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Funny Ha Ha
Posted Wednesday November 11th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaYesterday I attended the second Roald Dahl Funny Prize Award ceremony at the Unicorn Theatre, just by the mayor's office. The glass-fronted theatre, dedicated to children's performance and education, was full of bonhomie and, well... was just full. How did a prize, only in its second year, generate such goodwill? It's partly due to the nation's affection for Roald Dahl and his work and this leading on to his foundation's participation in the prize; it's also due to the indefatigable and funny Michael Rosen's tireless quest to promote books to make children's laugh. Mostly, because the books... are... funny.
So the theatre's heaving, there are two schools in attendance (Lonesome Primary and Wivelsfield school) and it's nearly standing room only. I head upstairs to the auditorium to catch my breath, except there's horseplay going on. Buoyed by the calls of the photographers, judge Bill Bailey has jumped on chair Michael Rosen's back for the photos and they're both mugging hilariously for the camera while last year's winners/this year's judges, Mini Grey and Andy Stanton are in fits of giggles nearby. It's full of joy, this theatre.
I talk to Mini Grey and she tells me about plans for the Bookstart…
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In praise of... Dave Eggers
Posted Monday November 9th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaDave Eggers should be the king of the 'misery memoir.' His books, largely lightly fictionalised memoirs and oral histories, show a real triumph over adversity, the pain and suffering and eventual perserverance of the human spirit but somehow he manages to elevate himself to something beyond the We Need to Talk about Kevin's and A Child Called It's of the bookshelf. It's his quirky storytelling manner, his self-referential prose and his ability to be warm and funny even when talking about the pit of human suffering.
I was gifted his first book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius from an ex-girlfriend who didn't know what to get me. I'd never heard of it or of him but the title of the book was enough of a tongue-in-cheek statement for me to give it a go. She hadn't read it so I wasn't sure if this was a recommendation as something I might like or felt its statement of intent title would appeal to my sense of bluster and ego.
The first thirty pages were hard, really heart-wrenching descriptions of Eggers' mother's final breaths and his attempts to protect his younger brother from her demise. It's painful honest stuff and death…
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An interview with Booktrust writer-in-residence, Nii Ayikwei Parkes [1]
Posted Friday November 6th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaIn part 1 of our interview with writer-in-residence Nii Aykwei Parkes, we ask him about good poetry, performing and his early gigs.
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Perform a Poem website is launched
Posted Wednesday November 4th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaPerform-a-Poem is a brand new website for sharing children’s poetry performances
Launched this week at a reception at the National Theatre, this unique poetry performance website for primary school children encourages children to write, choose, perform, film and edit poems. It's a secure site for teachers and pupils who enjoy performing and watching performance poetry, developed in line with national standards on e-safety and child protection.
Perform-a-Poem, initially piloting for London schools, is a joint project between Michael Rosen, Booktrust and the London Grid for Learning (LGfL). It developed from an idea by Michael Rosen during his highly successful term as Children’s Laureate (2007-9): 'I’m hoping that Perform-a-Poem will give an opportunity for children and teachers to experiment and play with poetry in an exciting way. All poems have a voice; sometimes this voice is best heard silently, but most poems enjoy being spoken and performed, because this is how we get to feel a poem.'
As well as the video upload and browse features, Perform-a-Poem contains comprehensive resources for teachers to help their pupils write, choose, perform, film, edit and upload their poems.
