Pilots log Wednesday the Thirty-first of August, 2016.

Pilots log Wednesday the Thirty-first of August, 2016.

This morning, I climbed aboard my shiny craft, the Mark I Ego, and flew into what I thought would be a warm welcome at the Wordsmiths. Little did I know. Warm? Warm indeed.

As I entered the controlled space of the library, a dark shadow flitted above my craft and opened fire. The rat-a-tat-tat of cannon and bursts of, ‘More like homework – More life homework – More like homework’ exploded around my ears as it tore holes in the Mark I Ego.

In a sweat of panic, I took evasive action and escaped, only to fly into heavy artillery fire from below. ‘Not fun - Not fun - Not fun’ burst around my intrepid craft, ripping into the Mark I Ego’s fuselage and sending it into a death spiral.

As the flames crackled and blinding smoke billowed from the doomed craft, I bailed out.

Landing in front of my attackers, I held my hands high in surrender and cried out, ‘Don’t hurt me, I’ll do better next time. I promise I’ll make it fun.’

I was let off with a dire warning of extreme punishment if I mucked up again. ‘Next time, it will be fun.’

It was a full crew today, except for Kristen who is on a temporary sabbatical.

Everyone put the two pieces together (except for Terry who was away and didn’t get a chance to put pen to paper this time).  We all read out our stories and there were some cracking yarns, most of which would make good competition entries.

If you would like your story put up on our blog, please send it direct to Terry. However, if you want to send it into a competition, don’t put it onto the blog.

After that, we tried a progressive story, based on a picture of a bride in a tractor with the groom running behind. With each person, in turn, adding a few lines to the yarn, the story stumbled ahead, weaving and jerking its progress. Chaos reigned and it sounded like a chicken pen at feed time.

At the start, before anyone else could move, Joleen grabbed the best job – scribe. She scrawled away furiously on the white board. In constant motion, she wrote comments, rubbed them out, changed them as the crowd roared their advice, until at last we had a rather good, totally disjointed story about a failed wedding, death, and mayhem.

After that, it was general chit chat time until, one by one, we limped away ready to re-charge our batteries ready for next week’s session at the Wordsmiths.   

See you all next week

Les

FUN DAY EXERCISE - - JUDY RIGBY

WORDSMITHS EXERCISE FOR OUR FUN DAY WEDNESDAY THE 31 AUGUST

JUDY RIGBY

͠

My heart soars when I see his face. I have him.

He stands as if frozen in my open doorway. His lips are parted and his eyes are blinking as if dazed in the headlights.

I resist the urge to reach out and smooth the furrow that has formed between his eyebrows. I allow a smile and the skin tightens and moves around my eyes. He registers the movement and, with a tiny shake of his head, rearranges his face. He drops his eyebrows and tries to return my smile, but only manages something between a grimace and a grin.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘where are my manners? You surprised me. I didn’t expect—’

‘You didn’t expect me to dress up?’

‘No, well, yes. I did expect you to dress up, but not like this.’

‘You don’t like what I’m wearing?’

‘I love what you’re wearing, but I—’

‘It’s too showy?’

‘Oh, no, it’s…’ he pauses and colour begins to rise in his cheeks. ‘I’ve only seen you in black before, and—

‘You think I’m immodest for abandoning black?’

He opens his mouth as if to protest and I allow myself to laugh. His eyes widen and now he smiles a smile that transforms his face and dances in his eyes.

Yes, I have him, I tell myself as I step towards him and shut the door behind me.

‘Shall we go?’ I say to him, ‘You lead the way.’

͠

I feel her presence behind me as I walk down the corridor. The fabric of her dress sighs and beads clink with each step she takes. I confess that the sight of her, backlit by lamplight in the open door of her luxury penthouse suite, did startle me. She looked otherworldly, a diaphanous being, and for a moment I wavered under her spell, drawn into those brown, languid eyes and aware of her siren call in the deep recesses of my brain.

Don’t be a chump, I tell myself, now. Remember who she is and why you’re here. Don’t let yourself get side-tracked.

I mentally check my pocket with its holstered Glock 27 and ignore the itch in my fingers to touch it. I try to focus on my breathing. Too fast and too shallow.

Breathe in, one, out two, in three, out four—

‘You haven’t said where we’re going,’ her voice sounds breathily close to my ear.

My heart skips a beat and the vision of her in the doorway rises into view. I gulp in more air and turn my head towards her voice. 

She’s almost at my shoulder. I catch a waft of her perfume and recognise it, Hypnotic Poison. She laughs, a melody of dancing notes that seem to swirl around my head. Sweat prickles on my brow, my mouth feels dry and my tongue won’t move.

‘Are you all right?’ her voice is barely a whisper.

No, I think, I don’t think I am.

The Victorian Writer, October-November Submissions

Check out the pitch page of Writers Victoria, for all details of their upcoming themes.

For the next edition, the theme is:             Popular / Genre Fiction

For December - January the theme is:       Beyond the Page.

More details can be found on their website: https://writersvictoria.org.au/node/311

Publishing opportunities and competitions for September:

As more competition notices come to hand the site will be updated and included on our Opportunities & Competitions page.

• Glen Phillips Poetry Prize 

          http://pcwc.org.au/competitions/glen-phillips-poetry-prize/

          CLOSES: October 21st 2016

Josephine Rowe wins the 2016 Jolley Prize

Date:  27 August 2016

From: Progressive PR and Publicity on behalf of Australian Book Review
(03) 9696 6417
arabella@progressivepr.com.au




At a ceremony during the Melbourne Writers Festival, Australian author Josephine Rowe was named the overall winner of the 2016 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize for her story ‘Glisk’. She receives $7,000.
Josephine Rowe is the author of two short story collections and the novel A Loving, Faithful Animal (2016). Her fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Best Australian Stories, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, and elsewhere. She was a recent recipient of a Stegner Fellowship in fiction from Stanford University. Her story ‘Suitable for a Lampshade’ won the Reader’s Choice Award in the 2010 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize.

www.australianbookreview.com.au

Anthony Lawrence, a New South Wales-based writer, was placed second and receives $2,000 for his story ‘Ash’.

Jonathan Tel, a UK-based writer, was placed third and receives $1,000 for his story ‘The Water Calligrapher’s Women’.

All three stories appear in the August 2016 Fiction issue of Australian Book Review. Three other stories were commended: ‘Help Me Harden My Heart’ by Dom Amerena, ‘Window’ by Cate  Kennedy, and ‘Slut Trouble’ by Beejay Silcox. The commended authors each receive $750 and their stories will  be published by ABR.

This year the prestigious ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize (now worth a total of $12,500) attracted  almost 1,400 entries from thirty-eight countries. The judges were Amy Baillieu (Deputy Editor of ABR) and  authors Maxine Beneba Clarke and David Whish-Wilson.

Further information More information about the Jolley Prize and Australian Book Review can be found on the ABR website.

Jolley Prize winner Josephine Rowe is available for interview and comment. Please contact Progressive PR and Publicity on (03) 9696 6417 or arabella@progressivepr.com.au

ABR gratefully acknowledges Mr Ian Dickson’s generous support for the Jolley Prize.

New Pages

Check out our new pages.

We have included a calendar, another page where our monthly facilitator Matthew Naqvi will offer his writing tips. To get away from critiquing every week, we wanted to include a challenge or exercise that would stretch every member's ability and improve our spontaneity to be creative. Click over and check out this coming week's challenge on our Writing Exercises page.

SD Harvey Short Story Award

The Australian Crime Writers Association has announced the final shortlist for the 2016 S.D. Harvey Short Story Award. The following list that includes a celebrated novelist a prize-winning essayist, and a trio of outstanding writers.  The Adjustment by Honey Brown Sisters in Red by Joshua Kemp The Caretaker by Jemma Tyley-Miller The Hall Chimp by Robbie Arnott Flesh by Sharon O'Brien These five stories will fight it out for this year’s first prize of $1500 and second prize of $500. The winning story will be published in the upcoming issue of online arts magazine Kill Your Darlings and all the shortlisted authors will receive a year’s online subscription to KYD. The S.D. Harvey Short Story Award is an annual competition organised by the Australian Crime Writers Association (ACWA). It is part of the prestigious Ned Kelly Awards, celebrating the very best in Australian crime writing. The award is named after the late writer, journalist and producer Sandra Harvey, who along with her partner in crime writing, Lindsay Simpson, blazed a trail not only for investigative, true crime writing in Australia, but also for women writers in the industry. The winner will be announced on Sunday August 28 at the Ned Kelly Awards ceremony in Melbourne.

Go across to their website for more information, While you're at it, click on the membership site and fill out to join, or just receive their newsletter.

http://www.austcrimewriters.com/content/announcing-2016-sd-harvey-shortlists