04.04.14 Story, Poem and Inspiration Point of the Week

Before I get in to this week’s picks I wanted to let you all know that the Wasafiri New Writing Prize 2014 is now open for submissions in three categories: poetry, fiction and life writing. Wasafiri is a fantastic magazine with an international bent, and the competition is open to anyone worldwide who has not published a complete book in their chosen category. The deadline is July 2014, word limit is 3000 for fiction and life writing entries and a maximum of 5 poems. The prize is £300 and publication in the magazine. This year’s judges are Susheila Nasta, Editor of Wasafiri, Bidisha, Inua Ellams and Monique Roffey. For more details see http://www.wasafiri.org/wasafiri-new-writing-prize.asp - it’s a great publication and I’d heartily recommend submitting if you have something on the back-burner!

Many of you know that Celticman’s School Photos series has been running on the site since last August. Over the course of the past eight months Celt’s shown time and again the depth of his narrative voice, his adroit way with description, and a spectacular talent for observing character and relationship and place. This week, the series has come full circle – so our pick of the week is that chapter – number 72, and along with it the opening chapter for those of you who might like to start from the beginning. Bringing the novel around like this is a massive achievement, and is something I’m incredibly proud to have seen develop on ABC during my tenure. This work has very long legs – so don’t be surprised if you run into it in book stores a few months down the line:

http://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/school-photos

http://www.abctales.com/story/celticman/school-photos-72

Our poem of the week is MJG’s Mynydd Carningli (for TP's parents) – an elegy written for a family who’ve recently lost a child. This is poem is deeply moving, elegant and subtle, a masterful mixture of naturalism and nostalgia. Context imbues each step of the journey MJG describes, each plant and blossom and crush of earth come back to absence:

http://www.abctales.com/story/mjg/mynydd-carningli-tps-parents

And we’ve also got a great inspiration point for you this week - Skeuemorphism –or the process in which obsolete materials get reincorporated into modern technology - like when the sound of a camera's shutter clicking is incorporated into an iphone camera or when you have to delete files on your computer by dragging them into a digital 'recycling bin' and emptying it. It got my mind whirring, at least (and it’s a good new piece of vocabulary for the other collectors out there).