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Do you have an opinion on literature?

The Literature Network is seeking literary bloggers. Blog posts are short (400 – 800 word) essays that articulate a clear opinion on literature and incite a debate  with readers. How can literature help people in the community? Should genre fiction win literary awards? What is the future of the library? Is ‘page’ poetry better written than ‘performance’ poetry? If you feel you have the answer to these or any other question in the wide world of literature, we would like to hear from you. Literary bloggers will represent specific interensts with literature i.e. poetry, fiction, facilitation, teaching etc etc.

Literary bloggers will be commissioned to write a minimum of 10 x 400-800 word blog posts over a 12 month period. They will receive a £200 fee.

To apply please send an e-mail outlining the area of literature you would like to blog about, a brief bio and a  50 word proposal for a sample blogpost, along with the titles of 5 other posts.

Email your application to: editor@literaturenetwork.org

Kevin Fegan in Sarajevo

Playwright and poet Kevin Fegan reports on his recent visit to Sarajevo supported by the European Cultural Foundation. Kevin has written over 40 plays for the stage, alogside a long career working in the community and in prisons to give people of all backgrounds access to literature

I am a playwright and poet based in the East Midlands. In November 2008, I visited Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina). I received a travel award from the European Cultural Foundation to develop my working relationship with a young theatre director, Elma Islamovic, who has translated one of my stage plays, “Totally Wired”, into Bosnian and is translating another, “The Forest”.

I timed my visit over 10 days to coincide with MESS, the international theatre festival in the city. I met several other theatre practitioners in Sarajevo, including international director, Haris Pasovic. I attended a production of his adaptation of Nigel Williams’ “Class Enemy” for his own Bosnian company East West.

I had a meeting with two young playwrights, Aida Pilav and Ornela Colic and discussed an exchange with playwrights in the UK. I am hoping to broker a collaboration between them and playwrights from our region to set up a new play festival in both countries. I also met established playwright, Almir Imserovic, and am hoping to include him in the project.
I gave a talk about my work at the Academy of Theatre & Film, on the invitation of Professor of Dramaturgy, Zehra Kreho. Zehra worked with Radavan Karadic on a play of his at the Bosnian National Theatre, in the days when Karadic was a psychiatrist and aspiring playwright. I have an idea for a new play based on these experiences, which I am hoping to develop with Zehra and Elma.

One of the students is hoping to stage one of my plays for young people at a High School in the city. I met with people from the Mozaik Foundation and discussed their Bosnian Kingdom Trail project, which is a heritage and tourism development project.

I spent hours with Elma Islamovic, talking about her forthcoming production of Sarah Kane’s “4:48 Psychosis”. I am hoping to bring Elma to the UK to work on one of my plays and to develop a new play with her. We also spent many happy hours in the bars and cafes and I found the people of Sarajevo to be amongst the friendliest I have encountered anywhere, despite the fact that they were besieged for three years during the Balkans War. I also visited the war museum and spoke to people about their experiences, including Elma whose father was killed during the conflict.

I hope to be able to take something to Bosnia in return for their hospitality.

Louis Ferrante – Tough Guy

Louis Ferrante served 8 1/2 years in various maximum security prisons after refusing to cooperate against former associates of the Gambino family. During his incarceration, he educated himself, becoming a writer.

In his remarkable memoir Tough Guy, a one-time mafia thug and federal prison inmate shares his journey from robbery to writing.

Louis Ferrante lived in a world in which fear and muscle ruled. As part of the Gambino crime family, he participated in some of the most lucrative robberies in American history – until the feds caught up with him and he became prisoner number 42365053.

Wednesday 4^th March, 12 noon, Nottingham Central Library.  £2.50/£1.50 concessions – redeemable as a £1 discount against books bought at the event.

Tickets availbale from  the reception desk at Nottingham Central Library: 0115 915 2828.  For further information, please contact kate.wilkinson@nottinghamcity.gov.uk or 0115 915 1170 (Wednesdays and Thursdays).

An evening with Manju Kapur

Manju Kapur is India’s number one bestselling author. Her first novel, Difficult Daughters, won the Commonwealth Prize for First Novels and was followed by A Married Woman and Home. She lives in New Delhi, where she is a teacher of English literature at Miranda House College, Delhi University.

Her new novel, The Immigrant, will be published on 2^nd April 2009 by Faber and is a moving exploration of compromise, identity, sex and nationality. At this special event at Wollaton Library, Manju will talk about her new novel and her work to date.

Friday 3^rd April, 7pm – 8.30pm, Wollaton Library, Nottingham.  Tickets £3/£2 concessions.

Tickets are available from Wollaton Library: 0115 915 5715.  For further information, contact kate.wilkinson@nottinghamcity.gov.uk / 0115 915 1170 (Wednesdays and Thursdays).

MA TV Annual Scriptwriter’s Day

De Montfort University will be hosting the third annual writers day for aspiring TV scriptwriters on Saturday 7th March 2009 at the Leicester City campus.

The one day event will give guests the opportunity to hear from industry professionals in the form of keynote speeches and question and answer panels. Previous speakers have included Jed Mercurio (Bodies, Cardiac Arrest, Frankenstein), Laurence Marks (Birds of a Feather), Tony Marchant (Mark of Cain, Recovery) and Kate Rowland (BBC Writersroom).

The theme for this year’s event will be Fantastic Writing – Science Fiction, Fantasy & Magic: Writing the future, the past and other worlds

Confirmed guests include Graham Joyce currently commissioned to work on the story line for the computer game DOOM 4, James Moran (Doctor Who, Torchwood and Spooks) and Steve Volk, creator and lead writer of the award-winning Afterlife.

Event organizer and course leader for the unique MA, Christopher Walker says “This is a rare opportunity for scriptwriters of all levels, from complete beginners through to those who have already had some success in the industry, to hear from industry professionals – there are keynote speakers and question and answer panels. Events like this are usually restricted to London so it’s a way of giving opportunities to writers from the East Midlands to meet with industry professionals, network and get inspired to boost their writing careers.”

To receive more information, please contact: Promotion & Recruitment Centre, telephone 0116 250 6470

www.dmu.ac.uk/faculties/humanities/

Contributions for new CCA publication

CCA Glasgow is launching a new quarterly publication named 2HB for which the editors are seeking contributions from writers, critics and artists.

CCA is launching 2HB, a new quarterly publication dedicated to creative writing. Edited by Louise Shelley and Francis McKee, each issue will feature new work. Submissions from interested writers are welcomed. The selection process will focus on creative writing or fiction with a critical awareness of issues. Subjects for future issues include eroticism, sci-fi, philosophical fiction, art as writing and detective fiction but work beyond these suggestions will be considered. Submissions for 2HB should be sent with a cover page detailing artist’s/writer’s name, address, telephone number and email address and a short CV. Submissions should be no more than 3000 words.

2009 2HB submission deadlines and launch dates:

7th March -Launch of 2HB vol.1 at the CCA Book fair

27th February -Submission deadline for 2HB vol.2

10th April -Launch of 2HB vol.2

17th April -Submission deadline for 2HB vol.3

30th May -Launch of 2HB vol.3 / CCA Book fair

14th August -Submission deadline for 2HB vol.4

25th September -Launch of 2HB vol.4

16th October -Submission deadline for 2HB vol.5

28th November -Launch of 2HB vol.5 / CCA Book fair

Read more about CCA Glasgow Launches New Publication at

http://nald.org.contentcurator.net/?location_id=167&news_id=524

Tom Perrota @ Broadway Cinema

American author & screenwriter Tom Perrotta comes to Broadway Cinema
The American author Tom Perrotta, whose work includes Election and Little Children, will be at Broadway Cinema on Tuesday 3rd February 8.30pm to discuss his writing and the process of having it adapted for screen.

As a satirist of American suburbia Tom Perrotta has won many fans with his balance of humour and pathos. His most famous works, Election and Little Children, have been adapted into Golden Globe-nominated films that successfully conveyed Perrotta’s style. Election, directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways) stars Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon in a political satire set during a high school election and Little Children won critical acclaim for exploring the psychological and romantic depths beneath the surface of suburbia. Perrotta’s latest book, The Abstinence Teacher, is to be turned into a film by Little Miss Sunshine directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris.

Tom Perrotta has himself adapted the screenplays for Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher and he will discuss this process, with the aid of film clips, during his talk at Broadway. Ruth Maxey from the American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham will interview him about his work and his latest film project.
This event is presented in conjunction with The Writer’s Studio and the Bookcase, Lowdham.

The event will take place on Tuesday 3rd February, 8.30pm
Tickets are £6.20/£4.50 students

Wind in the Willows Centenary

To celebrate the centenary of ‘The Wind in the Willows’, the River & Rowing Museum is launching a new £500 prize for a river-related short story for young people.

First Prize: £500 + Professional Appraisal
Entry deadline is 15th March 2009. Full details and entry form are available at www.rrm.co.uk. This is an adult writers’ competition (16 yrs and over).

Dream Up

We’re inviting East Midlands-based writers to submit dramatic monologues to a new regional writing competition on the subject of ARRIVALS / DEPARTURES, looking for stories that explore how and why people have entered, traversed, exited,been changed by and left their mark upon the East Midlands.

There are no limits on how writers can respond to this theme – monologues can be contemporary or historical in setting; explore key ‘moments’ in regional population change or focus on the details of personal stories; be set against a rural or urban backdrop; needn’t even be confined to the movements of people, as new roads, commodities, livestock, viruses etc. push their way across the region – the only stipulation is that monologues must be performable by a single actor and have a maximum reading time of 15 minutes.

In addition to cash prizes, winning entries will be performed live as part of a DREAM UP showcase event and receive professionally acted/directed studio recordings which will then be ‘broadcast’ on the New Perspectives website.

For further information on New Perspectives theatre projects please see:

The Winter Witch Competition

The first prize in this competition is to have your book published in full, plus prize monies of £100 and a complimentary copy of the finished book.

Welcome to our exciting new competition! Inspired by the sheer variety of submissions we receive, we would like to give you the opportunity to send us the First Chapter of your book. This may be a brilliant idea you have for a new book, or a much-loved past project. The chapter can belong to a planned but unfinished work, or an existing but unpublished gem.

So, what we would like from you is a complete, first chapter. We would appreciate the word count being below 10,000 words, but if the chapter belongs to an existing piece of work, please contact us before changing it to fit our competition. As with all good stories, please make us desperate to read the rest of the book. The style and content is your decision.

Five runners up will have their first chapters published in the same volume and a complimentary copy of the finished book. We reserve the right to offer the runners up further opportunities for publication. If we do not decide to publish the complete books from the runners up, they will be free to seek publication elsewhere with the same work. The closing date is February 28th, 2009. The winners will be announced on April 30th, 2009. For more information visit the website at http://www.winterwitch.co.uk/

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