“Monkey Creates”, a poem by Nick Beaumont.

Monkey Creates

The universe is an omelette.
An omelette, or maybe a quiche…
well anyway, the important thing is
it all started with an egg.

An egg with a bloody great crack
down the middle that fizzles
with dark energy. One day, it splinters
open from one too many bangs

on the celestial frying pan,
spattering globules of sticky blackness
across time and space.
The shell pirouettes away, leaving

a yolk that would have fallen if it wasn’t
for the lack of gravity, but instead
hangs in the gaping silence,
a black, undulating mass of chaos.

The mass is snoring.
But it doesn’t snore for long. Monkey wakes
and scratches his furry arse.
It’s pretty close in here he thinks,

so he lifts up his Monkey paws,
and pushes away the squishy black space yolk.
Above him he creates the great
celestial jungle, and below the waters

of the celestial rapids. He swipes
whole paw-fulls of oozing jelly
and skilfully fashions the
banana tree galaxy, the climbing frame

solar system, even the delicate
patterns of the tree vine constellations.
Exhausted, Monkey rests
on the great primordial rubber tyre,

ideally flicking fleas into the cosmos,
where they explode in soft plumes
of orange and purple, becoming
spiralling galaxies and unexplored nebulas.

By Nick Beaumont (alumnus 2010-2011).

The Black Path – MA students publish their first anthology.

blackpath1
Students on the 2012-2013 year of the MA in Creative Writing have published an impressive paperback anthology of their own work.

The Black Path 1 (a second collection is nearing completion) comprises poems, flash fiction, short stories and novel extracts written by the students during the course of their studies.

What’s special about the book is that the students took the publishing initiative themselves, building on what they had learned during the MA. All the writing, collation, editing, design, typesetting and marketing is student-driven. Overall Editor is Shirley Bell, already a well-published poet.

The Black Path 1 is 132 pages long and can be bought from Amazon at £6.58.

A reading by contributors to the anthology will take place in the University on Wednesday, 23 October, 12.00 – 1.00 in room MC0025. More details to follow.

Contributors: Shirley Bell, Cassandra Cash, Stephen Blessett, Laura Clipson, Tina Daley, Stewart Norvill, Muayyad Elwaheidi, Jennifer Fytelson, Joel Leverton, Ian Turner, Matt Ellis and Rosemary Temple.

Fay Weldon speaks up for creative writing.

patrick_welham_opinion_illustration_02051_450

I would like to see a new discipline, called simply Literacy, taught in our universities and schools, so that the current outpouring of muddy texts can be replaced by a flow of elegant, informative and crystal-clear information – to the benefit of our national pride and dignity. In the meanwhile employers should note that an employee with a qualification in creative writing can be trusted not just to write simply and well, but to be empathic (the fiction writer spends a lot of time pretending to be other people) so is less likely to write tactless emails and cause a scandal unless intentionally. Creative writing is a degree in the effective management of words and emotion and an understanding of how they relate, and yes, it can be taught. And if I might add, should be.

Source: Fay Weldon in Times Higher Education.

Although she should have struck “crystal-clear” out as soon as she’d written it.

Using Google+ for video/chat/online readings.

Signing up with Google+ for its chat and Skype-like facilities (“Hangouts”) is worth thinking about, especially as you can hold conversations with up to 9 people at a time. Hangout sessions can be recorded and posted to YouTube. There are definite possibilities there for online readings.

Google+ For Dummies.

Shirley’s ‘Jury Service’ story to be included in forthcoming anthology.

ShirleyBell

Congratulations to Shirley Bell, whose story, ‘Jury Service’, got an Honourable Mention in the recent Darker Times Fiction Competition. It will also be included in a forthcoming Darker Times Anthology.

More about Shirley on her blog.

W S Merwin named first recipient of Zbigniew Herbert Prize.

wsmerwin

W.S. Merwin has been named the first recipient of the International Herbert Award, which recognizes outstanding artistic and intellectual literary achievements on the world stage that relates to the values espoused in the work of  Zbigniew Herbert.  The first award will be presented during a ceremony on June 3 2013, at the Teatr Polski (Polish Theatre) in Warsaw, Poland.

Source: The Merwin Conservancy.

Flash fiction competition – closing date March 25.

Get your entries in for Bloomsbury’s Flash Fiction Challenge:

Can you write a story in 200 words or less?

To celebrate the continuing rise of the short story and following on from the huge success of last year’s competition, Writers & Artists andBloomsbury are delighted to announce another Flash Fiction challenge.

For this year’s competition, we’d simply like you to write a story of no more than 200 words based on the theme of ‘alienation’ and/or ‘the quest for belonging’.

And to tie in with this theme, we’ve asked Roshi Fernando, author of Homesick, to judge all of this year’s entries.

The lucky winner will receive not only a bundle of all our short story collections published from this year and 2012, but also two tickets to see George Saunders discussing his new collection Tenth of December.

Jon McGregor (IMPAC Award-winning author of Even the Dogs and If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things) will be chairing the event, which takes place on Wednesday 29 May.

Info here.