Flash in the Pen New Welsh Review launch Microfiction Competition

In celebration of the forthcoming 100th edition of Wales’ foremost literary magazine, NWR is launching a mircroficiton competition which will be judged by writer Cynan Jones. The competition welcomes very short stories of only 100 words and the first prize includes £100, kindly donated by Granta Books, plus a packed hamper of books from Welsh publishers and writers worth over £200. The winning entry will also be published in NWR 101 in the autumn. Entries are welcome from writers across the UK.
Cynan Jones will announce the winners on Tuesday 28th May at a NWR 100 party on the Hay Festival site, sponsored by the Rendel Chair at the Department of English and Creative Writing, Aberystwyth University.

Publishers who have donated to the prize hamper are as follows: Granta Books, Seren Books, Cinnamon Press, Honno Press, University of Wales Press, Alcemi, Parthian Books, Bloodaxe and NWR.
Closing date for entries: Friday 10th May 2013.


You can find more out about the competition here.

Invite to Tender from Literature Wales - Writing Workshops themed on Dylan Thomas

Literature Wales is the national organisation for developing literature in Wales, and part of its vision is to develop the creativity and literacy skills of children and young people. To mark Dylan Thomas’s centenary in 2014, Literature Wales, funded by Welsh Government will launch a new project called Dylanwad / Developing Dylan which will form part of the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations taking place in 2014.
Commission to develop workshops and teaching pack

Literature Wales is looking for a contractor to devise six new one-hour creative writing workshops (for Key Stages 2, 3 & 4, in Welsh and in English) themed on Dylan Thomas’ work.
Literature Wales invites applications for tender to devise six one-hour workshops (for Key Stages 2, 3 & 4, in English and in Welsh) that will reflect current curriculum requirements in Wales, including those of the National Literacy and Numeracy Framework. Each workshop will be specifically tailored to the relevant Key Stage, ensuring proper provision for differentiated learning and allowing children and young people the freedom to explore. All six workshops will introduce Thomas’ characters, anecdotes, themes, poetry and prose.
Applicants (or sub-contractors) must be fully bilingual as the workshops will need to be devised in Welsh and in English. Workshops cannot be translated like-for-like – Welsh and English language content should reflect contrasting cultural and linguistic traditions.
This commission can be applied for alongside the complementary commission to develop cross art-form day workshops (see below), or it can be applied for in isolation.

Deadline for applications: 5.00 pm on Friday 3rd May 2013
Click here for more information on the application process and requirements of the tender.


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Commission to develop a new cross art-form day workshop

Literature Wales is also looking to commission a contractor to develop a new cross art-form day workshop for disaffected and disadvantaged children and young people.
Literature Wales invites applications for tender to devise a new cross art-form day workshop themed on Dylan Thomas. The day workshop will target disaffected and disadvantaged children in Key Stages 3 & 4 (i.e. suitable for ages 11-16). In order to increase the accessibility of Dylan Thomas for disadvantaged and disaffected young people, the day workshop will focus on the development of literary ideas rather than the practice of creative writing. The workshop could focus on Thomas’ love of cinema, his documentary propaganda film scripts during the Second World War, his screenplays, his characters, anecdotes, themes, poetry and prose.
Applicants (or sub-contractors) must be fully bilingual as the day session will need to be devised separately in Welsh and in English. The day workshop outline cannot be translated like-for-like, although the general perameters for the two can be the same.
This commission can be applied for alongside the complementary commission to develop one-hour workshops and teaching packs, or it can be applied for in isolation.

Deadline for applications: 5.00 pm on Friday 3rd May 2013
Click here for more information on the application process and requirements of the tender.

PRESS RELEASE – YOUNG PEOPLE’S MUSEUM BOOKLET PROJECT

ART AND HISTORY COLLIDE AT THE WISBECH AND FENLAND MUSEUM

To launch the call for submissions for their latest project, the Young Curators’ Forum is proud to present a free creative workshop with Fenland Poet Laureate Leanne Moden and Lead Young Curator Brandon Mattless.

The project has been made possible with support from local arts organisation Atelier East and the Cambridgeshire based charity, Young Lives.

The workshop is suitable for adults and children over 11, and participants will be invited to use museum artifacts as a creative springboard, writing short stories, drawing pictures and composing poems based on their response to the objects and displays.

Leanne and Brandon will lead a series of activities designed to help get the creativity flowing, and there’ll also be plenty of time to look around the museum for inspiration.

The workshop runs from 10:00am to 12:00pm on Saturday 11th May at the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Museum Square, Wisbech. Participation is free, but places are allocated on a first come, first serve basis, so please call the museum on 01945 583817, or email info@karen-harvey.co.uk to book your place.

The Young Curator’s Forum will also be putting together a booklet of creative work celebrating the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, and they’d like to hear from you.

Submissions can be in the form of poems, short stories or drawings, but all must be based on or inspired by the collections at the Wisbech and Fenland Museum. Adults and children of all ages are welcome to enter. Please send your submission to infor@karen-harvey.co.uk with your name, contact telephone number, and the name of the museum artifact that inspired you. The closing date for submissions is Friday 31st May 2013.

Guest Post by children's poetry blogger Sylvia Vardell "Blast from the Poetry Past:1974"

Blast from the Poetry Past: 1974

Shel Silverstein published his first of several irreverent works, 'Where the Sidewalk Ends' in 1974. It would become the bestselling children’s poetry book ever. (There's also a CD of selected poems performed by Shel himself and a 30th anniversary edition with additional poems.) When I taught sixth grade (back in 1976!), this was THE ONE book I always said I would want to have with me if I were stranded on a desert island with my students!

This same year, scholar Ann Terry conducted a touchstone study of the poetry preferences of elementary school students finding a predilection for rhyme, narrative, and humor. Her study is still cited as the baseline for where to start in sharing poetry with children.

Contemporary Connections
Even though he passed away, Silverstein’s poetry continues with this posthumous collection:

Silverstein, Shel. 2011. 'Every Thing On It'. New York: HarperCollins.

And for more humor and outrageousness, check out Katz, Katz, and Katz:

Image credit: JohnLund.com

Katz, Alan. 2008. Oops. McElderry.
Katz, Alan. 2011. Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking. Simon & Schuster.
Katz, Bobbi. 2001. A Rumpus of Rhymes:  A Book of Noisy Poems.  Dutton.
Katz, Bobbi. 2004. Pocket Poems. Dutton.
Katz, Bobbi. 2009. More Pocket Poems. Dutton.
Katz, Bobbi. 2009. The Monsterologist; A Memoir in Rhyme. Sterling.
Katz, Susan. 2002. Mrs. Brown on Exhibit: And Other Museum Poems. Simon & Schuster.
Katz, Susan. 2004. A Revolutionary Field Trip: Poems of Colonial America.  Simon & Schuster.
Katz, Susan. 2007. Oh, Theodore! Guinea Pig Poems.  Clarion.
Katz, Susan. 2011. The President’s Stuck in the Bathtub: Poems About U.S. Presidents.

What’s up with those funny Katzes?!


A huge thank you to Sylvia for letting us use this post from her blog as a guest post on ours. Sylvia has a range of posts at http://poetryforchildren.blogspot.co.uk looking at poetry from the 19th Century to the present day - great reading, we recommend you go over and take a look yourself! 

You can find out more about Shel Silverstein here.

You can read a selection of Shel Silverstein's poetry here - 'Whatif' being a favourite of ours!  

Piers Secunda - "A Retrospective" at the Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, 21st June - 27th July 2013

“Making a record of the time in which you are alive is, I believe, the most important thing an artist can do.” Piers Secunda
Ten years of work presented in a unique retrospective of artwork by compulsive risk-taker and groundbreaking artist Piers Secunda

Updown Gallery is delighted to present a major solo exhibition by pioneering artist Piers Secunda, featuring important works made across a period of ten years. Piers Secunda – A Retrospective runs 21st June – 27th July 2013 at Updown Gallery, Ramsgate. This large new commercial gallery counts a major Bridget Riley retrospective and '60 Years of Peter Blake Prints’ amongst its first exhibitions.

Since 2009, when Secunda and his interpreter encouraged soldiers from the Chinese Army (PLA) to shoot some works for him on a firing range near Shanghai, the artist has travelled around the world to gather bullet holes, both cast and shot. The China works started an ongoing series which continues to run, and which in 2010 took him to Kabul, Afghanistan, to mould Taliban bullet holes from suicide bomb sites. The resulting works have been described by art book publishers Phaidon as “the most compelling works to have come out of the Taliban conflict.”

This wide-ranging exhibition will cover Secunda’s renowned “Bullet Hole” series – in which his practice incorporates bullet holes shot and cast in some of the world’s most notorious danger zones, including Afghanistan and the no-go neighbourhoods of Kingston, Jamaica – to his most recent assemblages and crude oil silk screens.

The comprehensive showcase provides an insight into an extraordinary and stunning studio practice, which records some of the most important social and political practice conversations of our time.

The works in the retrospective range from simple moulded forms to intricately detailed, hand-held objects with multiple moving parts, such as the Chinese Puzzle Balls – the common theme across the exhibition being that all the works are made out of paint.

Over 17 years Secunda’s artistic practice has evolved around the use of paint as a sculptural medium, and has resulted in highly complex structures created from paint alone. It is the combination of innovative techniques within a powerfully symbolic setting that sets this method apart. Secunda’s work is often steeped in forgotten histories and laced with geo-political references, such as printing with crude oil, ultimately producing work full of rich narratives – while simultaneously pushing paint to its absolute limits.

“I have always been bothered by the physical restraints of the canvas. For me it limits what a painting can be, so I've disposed of it and I handle the paint on its own – by default the paint behaves like a sculptural material.” Piers Secunda
In June 2012, Secunda went to Jamaica to mould bullet holes made by the Jamaican police and army during the drug wars which erupted in Kingston in 2010 at the cost of some 200 lives. With unprecedented access to cartel heads, gang leaders and local hit men, Secunda was able to record the recent violence in his art - and even persuade the criminals to shoot surfaces from which to create his work.

Secunda’s work in both Afghanistan and Jamaica can be seen in his extraordinary short films:
Afghanistan:          http://www.pierssecunda.com/film-01.html
Jamaica:                 http://www.pierssecunda.com/film-03.html

Increasingly aware of how contemporary lives are entirely facilitated by oil, and setting out to record the petro-chemical age with the oil itself, Secunda was able to make crude oil behave like paint and began to screen print images in 2009. The works portray the defining moments of the petro-chemical age – using oils from the locations portrayed in his prints.
The crude oil project will span Secunda’s lifetime – and will cover the key moments in the defining material of our age. His project reveals little-known world-changing moments such as the first discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1937 (Dammam No. 7, left), an event which dramatically changed the balance of both politics and economics.
Piers Secunda – A Retrospective also features several assemblage works and editions. Secunda’s assemblages are unique works in paint. They have been part of the practice as it has evolved over a decade and a half. Varying in size from an 8cm ball to a 1m cube consisting of every rejected work from his studio over a period of a decade, the works push the limits of his practice and show us the potential for paint’s diversity. 

You can find out more about Piers' work here.

Emily Wilding Davison Centenary: writing competition

A national writing competition has just been launched as part of the Emily Inspires! programme of events to mark 100 years since the death of Suffragette Emily Wilding Davison from injuries sustained when struck by the King’s racehorse at Epsom Derby and to commemorate her Northumberland roots. The writing competition is run by audio entertainment site listenupnorth.com in partnership with Northumberland Libraries.

Judges include writers Wendy Robertson, Michael Chaplin and Janet MacLeod Trotter. There will be first, second & third prizes for both national and best of Northumberland entries and the winning entries will be read out over the Emily Inspires! Centennial weekend in Morpeth (13-15 June) and recorded for listenupnorth.com. For more information go to www.emilyinspires.net.

London Literature Festival Event - Sylvia Plath's 'Ariel' - Sunday 26th May 2013, Southbank Centre

Sylvia Plath died 50 years ago leaving a black binder of poems that was to become her final, posthumously published collection, Ariel.

Now 40 leading female poets and performers read one poem each from the restored edition of the final unedited manuscript in an evening introduced by Plath's daughter, Frieda Hughes.

The readers are - Maureen Beattie, Emily Berry, Lily Bevan, Samantha Bond, Emily Bruni, Kirsty Bushell, Anna Chancellor, Gillian Clarke, Julia Copus, Claire-Louise Cordwell, Imtiaz Dharker, Amanda Drew, Noma Dumezweni, Ruth Fainlight, Kate Fahy, Vicki Feaver, Deborah Findlay, Stella Gonet, Haydn Gwynne, Victoria Hamilton, Anastasia Hille, Joan Iyiola, Phyllis Logan, Amy McAllister, Lizzy McInnerny, Pamela Miles, Amy Morgan, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Siobhan Redmond, Miranda Richardson, Jo Shapcott, Jean Sprackland, Gerda Stevenson, Juliet Stevenson, Harriet Walter, and Susan Wooldridge.

'In these poems… Sylvia Plath becomes herself, becomes something imaginary, newly, wildly and subtly created.' (Robert Lowell)

You can book your tickets here.