Hard Times and Great Expectations-the film

One of my crime fic faves, Paul D. Brazill, has started up a new column on Out of the Gutter called Brit Grit Alley and that is why I am able to offer you this lovely, moving short film, based on the work of Nick Quantrill, which is part of Hull's celebration of Charles Dickens festival.

Gotta Killer Submission? Be Thankful.

I got an email today from Jay Hartman, the editor of Untreed Reads, which is the publisher responsible for putting together the most recent anthology I've been in, Grimm Tales. It's an open call for submissions for a crime anthology centered around Thanksgiving. If you think you might be able to come up with a good, funny crime story centered around Thanksgiving, read on. I've been involved in a  couple of Jay's projects now, and it has been a lot of fun!

"The Killer is back!

We had so much fun with The Killer Wore Cranberry back in 2010, that we felt it was time to revisit the anthology. So, we're happy to present The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Second Helping.

As in the previous anthology, all the stories contained within must be about murder and mayhem happening at Thanksgiving, and must feature a typical Thanksgiving dish as a vital part of the story (i.e.: turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie). Most importantly...it must be funny! This anthology is all about making people laugh while enjoying a great mystery short at the same time. The anthology will be edited by Editor-in-Chief Jay Hartman.

And now, the rules:

1. All stories must be between 1500-5000 words.

2. Deadline for submission for consideration is September 1st, 2012. This is a firm date; no submissions after this date will be considered.

3. All submissions should be sent to Jay Hartman at jhartman@untreedreads with the word THANKSGIVING in the subject line.

4. Submissions must be in DOC, RTF or ODT format.

5. Unlike the previous anthology, we will not be publishing the stories individually. Only the anthology will be available.

6. Authors will receive royalty, but not upfront payment. Authors will each receive a share of royalties of 50% of net (net = cover price - vendor commission) based on the number of authors in the final anthology.

7. Characters appearing in other Untreed Reads series or other series not published by us are strongly encouraged (i.e.: Wade J. McMahan's Richard Dick, Beth Mathison's Mobsters or Young at Heart or Albert Tucher's Diana Andrews)

8. Your story MUST have humor in it, feature a Thanksgiving dish and have a great mystery or crime at the heart of the story.

9. Stories not accepted for the anthology may be still be considered for other publication.

10. Previously published works are fine providing that electronic rights have reverted to the author and the story is not currently offered for free anywhere on the Internet or currently published through a self-publishing venue (i.e.: Smashwords, Amazon KDP, etc.).

11. There are no restrictions whatsoever on age, race, sex, sexual orientation, etc in the work.. Just tell us a great story!

Please direct any questions to Jay Hartman at jhartman@untreedreads.com. We recommend looking at the original The Killer Wore Cranberry for an idea of the types of stories we're looking for.

All decisions on material will be made by September 15th, 2012. Every attempt will be made to notify all authors of the status of their submission at that time. Please do not inquire about status prior to September 15th, 2012.

This anthology has an expected publication date of October 15th.

This is an open call, and may be reposted anywhere and everywhere.

Best,

Jay Hartman

Editor-in-Chief

Untreed Reads Publishing

http://www.untreedreads.com

http://store.untreedreads.com "

Narrative Magazine Contest

I got an email for this the other day, and as I am considering entering it, I thought I'd give you the link too. Price of submission is a bit steep, ($22) but Narrative is a pretty ambitious enterprise, and you get some freebies thrown in, so don't dismiss the possibility out of hand.

Narrative Magazine Spring 2012 Story Contest

Deadline, July 31, 2012

A dribble of drabbles

Patti Abbott has posted the entrants to the drabble challange over at her blog Pattinase . Reading them is a fun, fast Sunday kind of thing to do. Or any day, really.

The Highwayman--a drabble

He was the illegitimate son of a defrocked minister who had once set the ladies’ hearts aflutter with his physical beauty and convincing talk of hellfire and damnation. Or so Trace had heard—he’d never had the pleasure of meeting that fine gentleman. He’d inherited his daddy’s looks, but not his calling. Now, as he fled the scene of his last, botched robbery, dragging his bullet-shattered leg behind him, Trace finally came within sight of his father’s abandoned church. Though only a husk of its former self, it seemed as good a place to make his last stand as any.

(c) 2012 Seana Graham

June's bonus prompt

Just in case anyone is still reading along here and going through withdrawal for those prompts, I've just learned that Patti Abbott has put up a drabble challenge. A drabble is a story of exactly one hundred words. As she notes in her post, Rob Kitchen frequently has one up and Paul D. Brazill has just posted one as well, if you need examples.

Try one and you could win a book of your choice by her daughter Megan Abbott, who is an acclaimed mystery writer herself. Details HERE. Deadline is June 16th.

Short Story Month, Day 31. The wrap up.

I have kind of drifted away from putting up this logo on each post, mainly because it takes a little extra time, but let's start by crediting Steven Seighman for the banner, and Dan Wickett's Emerging Writers Network for coming up with the idea.

Although it was an irrational, mostly quixotic ambition to post something every day relating to stories, I'm glad I did it. I know a couple of people have checked in here, and I hope that is or will be useful to them. But of course the main audience has been myself and I'm sure I've gotten much more out of doing this than anyone else will. I've gotten a couple of stories out of this, which is two more than the previous six or eight or twelve months gave me, and I've marshalled my resources, which will come in handy later. Probably the best thing is that I have had the idea of stories up in my face for 31 days, and that's a good thing.

I'll leave you with a couple of story listening links. One is to a really fine reading of Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Leonard Nimoy. I'm a bit hesitant about this, because for me it ran out before I had quite gotten to the end, but you should listen to Nimoy's rendition, even if you have to go out and read the rest of the story for yourself. You can find it HERE.  And public radio has many more stories to listen to HERE.

The other is Colum McCann's "Transatlantic", which was published in the New Yorker in April, and which McCann read for the blog at the same time. You can find this HERE. They have podcasts of many famous stories HERE.

But you were waiting for a prompt, weren't you? Sure you were.

Once upon a time... Now describe the main character. Make the main character you.