2010 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize now open for submissions
The Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2010 is now open for submissions from publishers and individual poets. As the first serious ‘First Collection’ award, Aldeburgh’s is now one of the most prestigious and highly valued poetry prizes in the UK. Previous recipients include Robin Robertson, Colette Bryce and Nick Laird. The winner receives £3,000, plus a fee-paying invitation to read at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival 2011 and a weeks ‘protected’ writing time on the East Suffolk coast. Plans are afoot to extend the scope and benefits of the prize to offer mentoring for the winner and shortlisted poets and increased opportunities at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. The poet-judges this year are Michael Laskey (Chair), Neil Rollinson and Jo Shapcott. Closing date for entries is 31 July 2010.
The inaugural Sunday Times Short Story Award, administered by Booktrust (the world’s largest short story award with a first prize of £25,000) has just announced it’s longlist. Judges for the prize include authors A S Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Lynn Barber, Nick Hornby and the literary editor of the Sunday Times, Andrew Holgate.
The shortlist will be announced on 7th March and the winner revealed at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on 26th March.
In the office we were please to see several litfest past guests and friends on the list… Jackie Kay, A.L. Kennedy, Adam Marek and Gerard Woodward.
The longlist in full, and a reminder that at Poetry Bookcase we can order any book in print for you for collection in shop or posting to you (p&p £1 per book).
· Richard Beard – James Joyce, EFL Teacher
· Nicholas Best – Souvenir
· Sylvia Brownrigg – Jocasta
· John Burnside – Slut’s Hair
· Will Cohu – Nothing But Grass
· Joe Dunthorne – Critical Responses to My Last Relationship
· Petina Gappah – An Elegy for Easterly
· Jackie Kay – Reality, Reality
· A.L. Kennedy – Saturday Teatime
· Adam Marek – Fewer Things
· Charles Mosley – Constraint
· Chris Paling – The Red Car
· Ron Rash – Burning Bright
· Simon Robson – Will There Be Lions?
· Kay Sexton – Anubis and the Volcano
· Helen Simpson – Diary of an Interesting Year
· C.K. Stead – Last Season’s Man
· Rose Tremain – The Jester of Astapovo
· Gerard Woodward – Legoland
· David Vann – It’s Not Yours
Grab your three minutes at the mic’ and perform
your way to audience acclaim and a £50 Cash Prize.
You’ve got just 180 seconds to make an impact as a performer!
Perform Poetry, Prose, Comedy or Song, anything -
As long as it’s original and all your own work
Grab the mic’, wave your ego and charge!
2nd Prize £25 – 3rd Prize £15
Places are limited to book a slot email:
spotlightclub@btinternet.com
PLUS MUSIC FROM MIKEY KENNEY
Simon Baker – Compere
John Freeman – Chair of Judges & Scorer
Lancaster Spotlight is funded by Arts Council England and supported by Lancashire County Council and
Lancaster City Council.
Spotlight works in association with litfest.
We have just received notice of an event which may interest all lovers of foreign literature in the area. Taking place at Bowland College, Lancaster University next Wednesday (Feb 24th) from 2.15pm, is an afternoon of foreign literature as students and staff alike read from their favourite pieces both in the original and translated texts.
The Wordsworth Trust is now accepting applications for the next residency.
Poet in Residence 2010 – 2011
The Wordsworth Trust
The Wordsworth Trust is seeking a new Poet in Residence, to run for 9 months from July 2010 to end March 2011.
(The residency may be extended to a year pending confirmation of further funding from Arts Council England.)
The Wordsworth Trust was founded in 1891 to maintain Dove Cottage, in Grasmere, Cumbria, home of William Wordsworth when he wrote much of his greatest poetry. Dove Cottage is now an internationally famous visitor attraction, and the Trust’s collection is now home to 90% of Wordsworth’s known manuscripts, one of the largest archive collections of a writer in the world. The Trust is keen to maintain the tradition of creativity associated with Dove Cottage, and is striving to be the centre of poetry activity in North West England. In support of this aim it runs a growing contemporary literature programme, which includes a season of poetry readings, renowned as one of the best in the country, and a range of workshops and other events, often presented in partnership with national organisations such as The Poetry School and the Poetry Translation Centre. The programme is funded by Arts Council England.
This Residency offers an invaluable opportunity for a published poet, from any cultural background and writing within any literary tradition, to spend time in Grasmere, Cumbria, in the heart of the Lake District, an area of outstanding natural beauty that so much inspired William Wordsworth. The poet will be given space to develop their own work and will also take part in the Wordsworth Trust Literature Programme and the wider cultural life of Cumbria.
The Poet in Residence will be paid a monthly stipend of £1000.00 and provided with a cottage for which they will be charged a subsidised rent.
For full details, and application procedure contact Andrew Forster on A.Forster@wordsworth.org.uk or 015394 35544
Closing date for applications 5.00pm Friday 5th March 2010.
Glamorgan University Professor Philip Gross was announced last night as the winner of the £15,000 2009 T S Eliot Prize for poetry.
Gross’ collection The Water Table, published by Bloodaxe, beat a strong shortlist including Fred D’Aguiar and George Szirtes.
The T S Eliot Prize for Poetry was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday and honour its founding poet.
Chair of the Judges, Simon Armitage said: “Gross takes us from Great Flood to subtly invoked concerns for our watery planet; this is a mature and determined book, dream-like in places, but dealing ultimately with real questions of human existence.”
The shortlist in full:
Eiléan Ní Chuilleánain The Sun-fish (Gallery)
Fred D’Aguiar Continental Shelf (Carcanet)
Jane Draycott Over (Carcanet)
Philip Gross The Water Table (Bloodaxe)
Sinéad Morrissey Through the Square Window (Carcanet)
Sharon Olds One Secret Thing (Cape)
Alice Oswald Weeds & Wild Flowers (Faber)
Christopher Reid A Scattering (Areté)
George Szirtes The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (Bloodaxe)
Hugo Williams West End Final (Faber)
Every now and again, we come across something that just delights our book-loving heads, and this incredible video from the New Zealand Book Council (”Where Books Come To Life”), blew us away.
Sit back, and enjoy the wonderful transportive world of books…
The latest issue of Shadowtrain is now online, and features new poetry and reviews.
POETRY:
Jaime Robles steps onto molecules of air; Robert Sheppard observes a house of opportunity; Nathan Thompson searches for strangers; Ben Smith finds the plaza empty; Ashley Chantler creeps out of the spare bedroom; Nigel Pickard leaves on the music overnight; Peter Gillies and Rupert M Loydell visit Claude Monet and Dan Flavin, who are not your friends.
REVIEWS:
Ian Seed watches three oystercatchers: Peter Riley, Carrie Etter and Lisa Samuels.
Preston is My Paris publishing launch night at the New Continental, 28th January.
Originally started as a zine about Preston, the project features photography, writing, film, exhibitions and now a not-for-profit publishing house.
As well as continuing with the free monthly zine, they will also be releasing a series of side projects all bearing the PPP logo. A PPP DJ will also be on hand to furnish your ears with the sounds of funk, soul, psyche, French pop, garage, freakbeat and Motown. Visual pleasures will be provided through Super 8, images from the project and a chance to see the latest publications for the first time.
In addition, a special message for writers – January is fading fast and there’s still chance to get your prose or poetry submissions in for the special Febrary issue, which will be launched at Febrary’s Word Soup (16th fom 8pm)
1000 words or under of poetry or prose. The theme is ‘Preston’ and the deadline is the 9th February for inclusion in their February issue.
Contributors to the issue will be offered the opportuntity to read at the Preston is my Paris showcase slot.
Litfest
The T S Eliot Prize for Poetry was inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society’s 40th birthday and honour its founding poet.
