December 2017 – some results

As well as sending a lot of my writing off to literary publications and publishers, I also enter competitions. It’s a tough gig with huge numbers of submission/entries being the norm. So the common advice for writers, as you will get lots of rejections, is to be thick-skinned and not to take it personally. Certainly, don’t interpret not winning as a sign that your writing is not good enough.

In two recent competitions I had some success.

My story, BUSTING A RHYME OR TWO ON A LOVELY SPRING MORNING, gained Highly Commended in the Michael Terrence Publishing 2017 Short Story Competition, and was published in e-book and print. AVAILABLE HERE.

And my flash fiction story, ROCKET SCIENCE, was shortlisted in the TSS Flash Fiction Competition (winter, 2017).

Desk currently located somewhere down by the coast

Writing by the coast

After six years in the hinterland, I have returned to coastal living. I can walk to the beach and the lake. I smell saltwater and feel cool coastal breezes. It feels like home.

 

An excerpt from my story The Track:

With the raciness gone, life began to fill with the simplest of things and moments.

I collected stuff from along our track and from off the beach. The beach was different everyday and you never knew what the sea would offer up. When he’d see me stoop and pick up something, Davis would say, “He’s a goodun,” or, “She’ll work well on that necklace you’re stringing.”

Who needs raciness?

After two years our track to the beach was bare dirt in some places. The chocolate coloured patches in the green and yellow grass were cool in the mornings and warm on the sunny afternoons.

“She feels good, this earth,” said Davis.

Read the full story HERE

Werzy comes home

This story was first published at Verity La back in October 2016. I would like to thank Michele Seminara and Laura McPhee-Browne for making that happen.

I now bring it directly to you.

Here is an excerpt (because that is what you do, I believe):

“Out of sheer frustration, Brad the bully, trying to ingratiate himself with the master of the lexicon and the swift kicker to the testicles, had popped out a nickname that stuck like the proverbial mud. Like wildfire the name Willy Wordsworth swept through Sunnybank State Primary School.”

READ THE REST HERE