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Friday 4 January 2013

New Year and New Opportunities


Happy New Year to you all and here we go again into 2013.

After my pitiful performance for most of last year I kicked myself into action and worked more on my writing and submissions in the last couple of months. Here's my review of what I've done so far.

November 2012. I entered three poetry competitions and one short story competition. I was runner up in the short story competition, had no luck with two of the poems so far but not expecting to hear until the end of this month, and the third poem, well, just wait and hear about that one in my next post Should  You Ever Argue with Editors?. In any case, one out of three ain’t bad. 

December 2012 I entered three more short story competitions, which I am still waiting to hear about.

I also found an excellent opportunity for a short radio play I wrote as part of the Open University Advanced Creative Writing course (A363). The play, Turners Never Turn, is the one loosely based on my runner up story The Pit, and while my tutor loved it, sadly there seemed to be zero market for fifteen minute plays.
So I was very excited to find this opportunity via the BBC Writers Room site with Slung Low, an award winning theatre company, in their Fifteen Minutes Live Project. 

In their own words:
“Original new short plays for radio that are performed live in front of an audience with on-stage sound effects and live music … Each 15 Minutes Live will be produced and performed in a different venue and location with original scores for each event played live by the band. A permanent legacy will be created online of new audio work and a body of new stories that look to speak to an audience both digitally and live.”

Each session has a theme and while my play did not fit the current submission requirements, I contacted them and they were happy to look at my play on-spec.  As well as accepting themed submissions they also commission work, so fingers crossed on that (not heard a dicky bird yet, mind).

This is a fantastic opportunity for A363 students who may be sitting on something we felt could never be used. Find out more at http://dramaanddance.britishcouncil.org/artists-and-companies/profiles/slung-low/

2013. So far this year? One entry to the Flash 500 Humour poetry competition, and two brand new pieces of flash fiction written for the Darker Times website monthly competition. I’m hoping lightning can strike twice…

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