London Writing Workshops

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The Bookseller reports that  Bloomsbury is to launch a new imprint called Bloomsbury Circus. The new  list  will be a mix of debuts and more established names:  ”mostly fiction, unashamedly literary, always fresh and sometimes surprising”. In the first year there will be  nine titles, and after that  they will build up to publishing four books a month.

Alexandra Pringle, Bloomsbury’s editor-in-chief, is quoted as saying: “With fiction, you can’t successfully publish more than four titles a month because, selling into the fiction buyer, you have to have your lead, second lead, dark horse and a crime title. If you do more, you lose the focus. If we are going to grow, we have to do it in an exciting, imaginative way. This is a way we can grow, and continue to offer the service we do.”

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The Bookseller reports that Good Housekeeping has launched a £25,000 competition for budding novelists in association with Orion and agent Luigi Bonomi.  The competition is announced in the magazine’s January issue, which goes on sale today (1st December).

Good Housekeeping is looking for previously unpublished writers in any genre apart from children’s, with first prize a £25,000 advance, help from the Orion editorial team and Bonomi, and the chance to have the winning book published with coverage in the magazine. Judges will include Kate Mosse, Bonomi, Orion fiction publishing director Kate Mills and Good Housekeeping editorial director Lindsay Nicholson.

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Throwaway Lines is a lovely idea – short stories inspired by discarded notes and messages. The  project was initiated by Andy Hayes, who attended last year’s short story workshop with me and Alexei Sayle. It’s produced in association with the writers’ collective 26 -  also a site worth investigating if you don’t know about them.

For 26 days this month, they’ll be publishing stories based on scraps of handwritten paper that Andy has been collecting from London’s streets over the past couple of years. There are three stories to read so far, including one by the Swedish playwright August Strindberg – an example of early 20th-century flash fiction: ‘Half a sheet of foolscap’.

It’s live right now at this link: Throwaway Lines. Take a look!

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The Short Review, a website devoted to the short story form, is currently celebrating its 3rd birthday. It’s a wonderful place to discover new stories and to read interviews with writers, including a recent one with the American author Lydia Davis. At the moment its Twitter feed focuses on ‘Story Sunday’, so it’s a rich source of recommendations for great  stories to read online.  Happy Birthday Short Review!

Hungarian composer György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments, takes some 40 fragments from Kafka’s diaries and letters as its text. Soprano Dawn Upshaw calls the work an ‘astounding experience’, a series of 12 second flashes that offer ‘an acknowledgement of how odd or difficult, painful, beautiful –  life is’.

Dawn Upshaw and violinist Geoff Nuttall perform, with images by David Michalek, in a production directed by the wonderfully inventive Peter Sellars at the Barbican on November 11th (one performance only).

More information from the Barbican website.

A weekend of lively literary events is on offer at Foyles Charing Cross on the 11th and 12th of September with talks from debut novelists, non-fiction writers and historians, as well debates on digital publishing, and advice on marketing and pitching ideas for publication.

The Independent Alliance includes Faber, Quercus (publishers of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Granta Books, Profile (Eats Shoots and Leaves) and Icon. Writers taking part include P.D. James, Geoff Dyer, Max Schaefer, Alex Preston, Rupert Thomson, Jenny Diski and many others

For tickets, email events@foyles.co.uk (Day tickets are £15 / Weekend tickets £25 / Concession prices available too).

More information about the weekend is available at  www.foyles.co.uk/events.asp

Top Left Corner is the name of a new non-profit artists’ centre based at Glencanisp Lodge (pictured), in Assynt, north-west Scotland. Assynt was a lifelong source of inspiration for the poet Norman MacCaig and on the 12 November this year Top Left Corner will be organising festivities to celebrate the 100th anniversary of MacCaig’s birth. Glencanisp Lodge also operates as a creative retreat  for selected weeks of the year. Contact Mandy Haggith via the Top Left Corner website for more details.