wordlegs is currently seeking submissions for our Spring '13 issue.

wordlegs is currently seeking submissions for our Spring '13 issue. 

Submission Guidelines

* Due to the volume of submissions we receive for each issue, work which deviates from our guidelines may be looked upon unfavourably. * 
1. Writers should be from or living in the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland.

2. All manuscripts must be previously unpublished and sent via email to editor@wordlegs.com. Please use 12point double spaced layout and ensure spelling and grammar is correct before submitting.

3. Work should be submitted as an attached document and also within the body of the email.

4. There is a strict submission limit of 500 words in flash fiction or 2500 words in short stories or other category.

5. All submissions must include an up-to-date picture, age and biographical note in the email and as an attachment. Picture format: image must be attached as a seperate file in JPEG, PNG, BMP or TIFF format; no larger than 2MB, no smaller than 150 x 150px.
6. We will accept up to 2 short stories or pieces in other category, or 3 poems per writer per issue. 
7. If you have been featured in wordlegs already, we ask you to wait at least two issues before resubmitting.
8. This magazine emphasizes its relevance and youth whilst maintaining the literary tradition of Irish writers, please keep your submissions in line with this.

Closing Dates
Issue 13: Spring '13 - 31st December 2012
Issue 14: Summer '14 - 31st March 2012

New competition from Narrative

This is one of the best web sites for short stories I have come across.

Narrative.

Read their past winners section on line-well worth a visit!

Winter 2013 Story Contest now open.

Our winter contest is open to all fiction and nonfiction writers. We’re looking for short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, all forms of literary nonfiction, and excerpts from longer works of both fiction and nonfiction. Entries must be previously unpublished, no longer than 15,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.

Prior winners and finalists in Narrative contests have gone on to receive other awards, and to be published in prize collections, including the Pushcart Prize, the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Atlantic prize, and others.

As always, we are looking for works with a strong narrative drive, with characters we can respond to as human beings, and with effects of language, situation, and insight that are intense and total. We look for works that have the ambition of enlarging our view of ourselves and the world.

Awards: First Prize is $2,500, Second Prize is $1,000, Third Prize is $500, and ten finalists will receive $100 each. All entries will be considered for publication.Submission Fee: There is a $22 fee for each entry. And with your entry, you’ll receive three months of complimentary access to Narrative Backstage.

Timing: The contest deadline is March 31, 2013, at midnight, Pacific daylight time.
Judging: The contest will be judged by the editors of the magazine. Winners and finalists will be announced to the public by April 30, 2012. All writers who enter will be notified by email of the judges’ decisions. The judges reserve the option to declare a tie in the selection of winners and to award only as many winners and finalists as are appropriate to the quality of work represented in the magazine.

A New Year Gift that will last.

A New Year's gift  from  Anam Cara.

Whatever you got for Christmas -this promises to be the gift that will top it.
Every Monday you will recieve a gift, a combination of poetry and art.
What a great way to start the week, the month , and a creative new year.

MAY YOUR NEW YEAR DAWN JOYOUS AND BRIGHT!

Beara Sunrise                                              Matthew Higgins     Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat Eyeries, Beara, Co. Cork, Ireland       Beginning on 1 January 2013, a different combination of poetry and art from Ireland will be delivered free to your inbox, each Monday until July.  Called The Poetry Project, twenty-six poems and twenty-six video shorts will offer you a unique insight into the creativity of contemporary Ireland.  Each poem is a taste of the best of Irish poetry now, while the videos (none are longer than three minutes) offer a parallel way of looking at things. Brought together, the results will intrigue you, move you, and maybe make you look at the world in a different way.  The Poetry Project was set up by the Kinsale Arts Festival in partnership with Poetry Ireland and the Royal Hibernian Academy and is supported by Culture Ireland.    To sign up to receive this unique gift, go to  www.thepoetryproject.ie

Christmas Wishes 2012

Happy Christmas to you all.May you have peace and contentment in your heart and home.

Mary

 

A Christmas Childhood Patrick Kavanagh

My father played the melodion
Outside at our gate;
There were stars in the morning east;
And they danced to his music.
Across the wild bogs his melodion called
To Lennons and Callans.
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.
Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking;
The light of her stable-lamp was a star
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.
A water-hen screeched in the bog,
Mass-going feet
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.
My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.
Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy's hanging hill,
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon - the Three Wise Kings.
An old man passing said:
"Can't he make it talk" -
The melodion, I hid in the doorway
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.
I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife's big blade -
There was a little one for cutting tobacco.
And I was six Christmases of age.
My father played the melodion,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary's blouse.

Poem: First Snow by Mary Oliver

The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fileds
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain - not a single
answer has been found -
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one

Anne Lamott on writers block

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker and writing teacher. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, her nonfiction works are largely autobiographical.

Born: April 10, 1954 (age 58), San Francisco Education: Goucher College

Books

Bird by Bird

Help, Thanks, Wow

Traveling Mercies

Operating Instructions

1993

Some Assembly Required

2012

“I encourage my students at times like these to get one page of anything written, three hundred words of memories or dreams or stream of consciousness on how much they hate writing — just for the hell of it, just to keep their fingers from becoming too arthritic, just because they have made a commitment to try to write three hundred words every day. Then, on bad days and weeks, let things go at that… Your unconscious can’t work when you are breathing down its neck. You’ll sit there going, ‘Are you done in there yet, are you done in there yet?’ But it is trying to tell you nicely, ‘Shut up and go away.’” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Christmas is contagious

Quotes of the Week from Phil Humbert.Written for writers

Quotes of the Week from Phil Humbert

"The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."
     --  Linus Pauling

"Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to avoid
changing it."
     --  Elaine St. James

"Don't worry about whether or not I am now happy. Today is
only Chapter One. We have yet to write the book."
     --  Lois Wyse

"It only takes one person to change your life -- you."
     --  Ruth Casey

Barbara Kingsolver.Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood.

Born: April 8, 1955 (age 57), Annapolis Spouse: Joseph Hoffmann Awards: New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction, Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Adult NonfictionMore Education: University of Arizona, DePauw University Music group: Rock Bottom Remainders

“I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.” — Barbara Kingsolver

Doire Press Fiction competition

Doire Press 2013 International Fiction Chapbook Competition.

Winners will each receive 75 copies of their own professionally edited and printed chapbook published by Doire Press. Chapbooks will be perfect-bound, contain up to 40 pages, feature colour front and back covers, as well as their own isbn and barcode. Ten shortlisted entries will be included in an anthology.

Entries: one short story (3,000 words max). Deadline: January 9th, 2013.

Judge: Celeste Augé is an Irish-Canadian writer who received her MA in Writing from NUIG. She won the 2011 Cúirt Festival of Literature New Writing Prize for Fiction and is a two-time winner of the Lonely Voice competition run by the Irish Writers’ Centre. She’s been shortlisted for a Hennessy Literary Award and was highly commended in the 2011 Seán ÓFaoláin Short Story Competition. Fireproof and other Stories was published by Doire Press in 2012. Visit her website at www.celesteauge.com.

Submission Guidelines:
€10 for first entry, €8 for each additional entry. Cheques or money orders to be made payable to Doire Press. Entry fees can also be paid via Paypal through the Doire Press website.

Email submissions will also be accepted with an additional €1 printing fee per entry. Send entries via postal mail to: Doire Press, Aille, Inverin, County Galway, Ireland. Entries must include cover page with full contact information and title of story. Entrant’s name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript.

To read the full list of contest guidelines, submit via email or to pay by Paypal, please visit the website at www.doirepress.com. For any questions, email doirepress@gmail.com.

The Cover Sells the book.How many times have you bought a book simply because the cover appeals?

Inspiration by Paul Roden and Valerie Lueth enlarge and enjoy

This is a wood cut print done by Paul Roden & Valerie Lueth. 

Philip Pullman.No excuses and no nonsense.Writers Block

“Writer’s block…a lot of howling nonsense would be avoided if, in every sentence containing the word WRITER, that word was taken out and the word PLUMBER substituted; and the result examined for the sense it makes. Do plumbers get plumber’s block? What would you think of a plumber who used that as an excuse not to do any work that day?
The fact is that writing is hard work, and sometimes you don’t want to do it, and you can’t think of what to write next, and you’re fed up with the whole damn business. Do you think plumbers don’t feel like that about their work from time to time? Of course there will be days when the stuff is not flowing freely. What you do then is MAKE IT UP. I like the reply of the composer Shostakovich to a student who complained that he couldn’t find a theme for his second movement. “Never mind the theme! Just write the movement!” he said.
Writer’s block is a condition that affects amateurs and people who aren’t serious about writing. So is the opposite, namely inspiration, which amateurs are also very fond of. Putting it another way: a professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they’re not inspired as when they are.” — Philip Pullman

A Lady Writing Vermeer @1665

Ernest Hemingway on writers block

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.” — Ernest Hemingway

Launch of INFUSIONS anthology by Java Writers Galway

Writers block.famous writers solutions.Norman Mailer

“Over the years, I’ve found one rule. It is the only one I give on those occasions when I talk about writing. A simple rule. If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your unconscious to prepare the material. You are, in effect, contracting to pick up such valuables at a given time. Count on me, you are saying to a few forces below: I will be there to write.” — Norman Mailer in The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing

Famous writers on writers block.Mark Twain

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain

The 2013 Eludia Award Guidelines

The 2013 Eludia Award Guidelines

Hidden River Publishing announces the opening of our second Eludia Award, for a first book-length unpublished novel or collection of stories. The prize is open to women writers age 40 and older, who do not yet have a book-length publication of fiction. (Book length publications in other genres are fine.) The winning manuscript will be published on our imprint, Sowilo Press, and will receive $1000 plus ten copies of the book. Manuscripts accepted from November 1, 2012. Deadline March 15, 2013. Winner will be announced October 8, 2013. Entry fee $25.
All submissions must include name, address, telephone number, email, website (if you have one), a biography (including birthday) and resume, full synopsis and full manuscript. Online submissions strongly encouraged. Please note that, when submitting online, all materials must be combined into ONE document before uploading. Be sure to upload all required materials, including the synopsis BEFORE the manuscript, which should be uploaded last. To submit online please go to Submittable. and submit to the category “Eludia Award”.
All awards are decided by Hidden River staff, and decisions are final.
Deadline: March 15, 2013. Winning manuscript will be announced October 8, 2013.

NUIG MA literary journal seeking submissions

Ropes

ROPES is a literary journal published every year by the students of the MA in Literature and Publishing in NUI Galway. It is open for submissions on the theme, 'Coming of Age' - deadline the 14th of January 2013.  All proceeds from the journal go to the youth mental health charity JIGSAW. Email ropes.submissions@gmail.com

NUIM anthology launch by New Irish Writers

You are invited to the launch of

Moths Against Glass

     New Irish Writers

Edited by Suzanne Power Foreword by John MacKenna

St. Kieran’s College, Kilkenny.

On Friday 14th December at 8pm

Come along to hear readings. 

  The book is priced at e10.

John Millington Synge, Aran Islands

Ian Rankin profile.Ten rules for writing

Ian Rankin
1 Read lots.
2 Write lots.
3 Learn to be self-critical.
4 Learn what criticism to accept.
5 Be persistent.
6 Have a story worth telling.
7 Don't give up.
8 Know the market.
9 Get lucky.
10 Stay lucky.

Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into twenty-two languages and are bestsellers on several continents.
Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for 'Resurrection Men'. He has also been shortlisted for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis.
Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews and Edinburgh.
A contributor to BBC2's 'Newsnight Review', he also presented his own TV series, 'Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts'. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

Background Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into twenty-two languages and are bestsellers on several continents. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for 'Resurrection Men'. He has also been shortlisted for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews and Edinburgh. A contributor to BBC2's 'Newsnight Review', he also presented his own TV series, 'Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts'. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

Launch of Skylight 47 at Galway City Library.

SKYLIGHT 47 - possibly Ireland's most interesting poetry publication

SKYLIGHT 47

The new bi-annual poetry paper

from Skylight Poets

to be launched at the 10th Anniversary

Over the Edge Reading in Galway City Library

6.30pm, Thursday 24th January, 2013

Featuring

POETRY

INTERVIEW with Harry Clifton,

Ireland Professor of Poetry

POETRY MASTERCLASS with Paul Maddern

REVIEWS

Pre-Christmas subscriptions now available:

Winter issue €4.50

Annual Subscripton (two issues, incl postage Ireland) €9.99 Annual Subscripton (two issues, incl postage abroad) €10.99
(or equivalent in whatever your currency is)
See currency converter here http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Pre-Christmas orders now available:

here on overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.ie
& at Over the Edge Events

Cheques or postal orders payable to Over The Edge.

Send payment with subscription details to

Over The Edge, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway.

For further details: skylightpoets47@gmail.com

You expect this to end badly ......dont you !!!

Deep in the Costa Rican jungle, a fisherman named Chito discovered a crocodile that had been shot in the eye and left for dead. Chito was able to drag the massive reptile into his boat and brought him to his home, where he stayed by his side for months, nursing him back to health.

...

He named the croc Pocho. “I stayed by Pocho’s side while he was ill, sleeping next to him at night. I just wanted him to feel that somebody loved him, that not all humans are bad.” said Chito, ““It meant a lot of sacrifice. I had to be there every day. I love all animals – especially ones that have suffered.”

The day finally came when Pocho was strong enough to go back into the wild. Chito took him to a lake near his house and released him, but the animal simply got back out of the water and followed him home.

“Then I found out that when I called his name he would come over to me.” says Chito. The fisherman has been hesitant to tell his story, even though 20 years have passed since he first rescued Pocho.

Pocho is roughly 5.18 meters (17 feet) long. He and Chito play, wrestle and hug on a daily basis. That bond, Chito said, took years to forge.

“After a decade I started to work with him.”, says Chito casually, “At first it was slow, slow. I played with him a bit, slowly doing more.”

Chito has told his story now only to raise awareness of the cruelty that can be done to animals, and the difference that affection and treating other rightly can make.

“He’s my friend, I don’t want to treat him like a slave or exploit him.” said Chito, “I am happy because I rescued him and he is happy with me because he has everything he needs.”

 

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=375048485917939&set=a.349644761791645.81859.349640275125427&type=1&ref=nf

Inspiration on Monday.

Hungry Hillshort Story competition

Short Short Story Competition 2013

Hungry Hill Short Short Story competition 2013. The judge will be the novelist Alex Barclay.

Conditions of entry
1. The closing date for entry is 1 February 2013.
2. There will be one cash prize of €250. All shortlisted stories will be featured at a reading in March or April 2013 (details to be announced), and published in an anthology on the Hungry Hill Writing website and/or in print form.
3. Each story may be on any theme, and must not exceed 500 words; it should be typed single-spaced.
4. You may submit as many entries as you wish.
5. A fee of €5 per story is payable.
6. Each entry should be submitted via the Contact page of the website or in an email to hungryhillwriting@gmail.com —

“The best poems are the ones that hit you, that leave you breathless...Leonard Cohen

Ash Wednesday Poetry Series – Kerrie O’Brien: Untitled

“The best poems are the ones that hit you, that leave you breathless

and make you want to stand on a roof and shout them at strangers”.

*

The Ash Wednesday Series takes its name from the following Leonard Cohen quotation:  “Poetry is just the evidence of life.  If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash”.  As a writer, does this ring true for you?
Poetry is the flame that gets my life burning in the first place. I go with what Anne Sexton says – “Poetry is my life, my postmark, my hands, my kitchen, my face.”
What makes a poem?
By writing a poem I think you’re exposing a bit of your soul to the world – your essence. The more truthful the better. The best poems are the ones that hit you, that leave you breathless and make you want to stand on a roof and shout them at strangers. The Promise by Sharon Olds did that for me when I was 16 – it knocked me sideways and made me want to start writing.


Describe your writing ritual.
It usually involves me sitting on my own somewhere staring blankly into space for hours. You need a lot of time to think. Ideas, images, last lines – they come into my head all the time – but I really have to sit and focus – then I might write three poems together. The best writing is done in the morning when your head is clear, drinking gigantic lattes. In general I find that poems are mysterious elusive beasts that don’t want to be tamed.
Is writing a compulsion, obsession or something else?
It just happens. The poems have to be written. For me, poetry is as natural and as necessary as dreaming.



What makes being a writer in Dublin unique (to being a writer anywhere else)?
The support you get from other writers is unbelievable. There are so many events and open mic nights providing opportunities that I think it’s one of the best cities for an emerging writer, regardless of where you’re from. There’s a real creative atmosphere in Dublin at the moment and it’s full of inspirational ideas and people. And the Guinness is fabulous.
The nose provides a way for understanding the world and its first impressions.  The first smells of people and places, for whatever the nose chooses to capture can become a strong memory for the mind.  Smells have a way of lingering, taking up space as though they were bodies.  What does Dublin smell like to you?
Rain. Hops. The sea. That weird bleachy smell on Grafton Street in the morning. Lush. Bewleys. That donut place on O’ Connell Street. Junkies.



Whose poems are you reading now?
I’m reading all the incredibly stunning poems in the Bare Hands Anthology and everyone needs to buy a copy immediately.
Describe your coffee ceremony (i.e. everything that goes into a perfect coffee experience)
I have a full on spiritual relationship with coffee. Morning coffees are the best. Sit outside with a strong hot latte in a paper cup and think about life. That’s how I get my kicks.
Kerrie O’Brien reciting her poem can be found here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph3N6CdB-6U&feature=youtu.be

*

Kerrie O’ Brien is a Dublin poet. In February 2012 she was the first poet to read as part of the New Writers Series in Shakespeare & Co. Paris. Her book Out of the Blueness is available on her website www.kerrieobrien.com. She is also the Founder and Editor of Bare Hands, an international journal of poetry and photography. The Bare Hands Anthology will be launching in Dublin on 19^th December at 7pm in the Winding Stair Bookshop and you all have to come because there will be gin and roses.

← Ash Wednesday Poetry Series – Patrick Chapman: The National Style O Resonator

Words with Jam a universe of fiction on line.

Third anniversary issue! Storyworlds: Sir Richard Taylor of WETA workshop (The Hobbit, LOTR, Avatar),
 THREE agent insights, Joe Abercrombie, competitions, Emma Darwin,
 a Masterclass, Ben Elton,
a festival, Howard Jacobson,
 the small press scene,
Jane Austen,
scripts and screens, questions, answers, rumours and a crossword.
 More than a world, December’s Words with JAM is a universe.

See what can happen when you write a story! The Stinging Fly Night Out in the Grand Social Dublin

Hello everyone, Please join us for a Fly Night Out this coming Tuesday (Dec 11th) upstairs in the Grand Social. Doors open at 8pm, admission is free and everyone is welcome. We will have music from Larry Beau, short stories from Mary Costello and Claire-Louise Bennett plus poetry from Dave Lordan and Karl Parkinson. We will also have the premiere screening of a short film by Daragh McCarthy. Underground is adapted from and inspired by an extract from a new novel by Emer Martin, which we published in our New York issue last year. I hope to see some of you on Tuesday - and if you know anyone who might be interested, do bring them along or send them our way. Best for now, Declan A NOTE ON UNDERGROUNDDaragh McCarthy is a Dublin filmmaker & musician. His most recent film, Joujouka, a documentary about the Moroccan Master Musicians of Joujouka premiered in London in November. This is the premiere of Underground, words by Emer Martin, music, performance and film by Daragh McCarthy. ‘I was handed a copy of issue 20 of the Stinging Fly, the winter issue, in early 2012. In the contents my eyes were drawn to “Going Underground” an extract from Emer Martin’s forthcoming novel The Affection of a Hag. I made a film about punks some years back called The Stars Are Underground and have an affection for the word. And then there are the connotations the expression had in the 70s & 80s. I’m not sure if it is possible to go underground anymore. As I read the piece,  it felt like both excoriation and homage. It echoed what I have been feeling about Ireland myself lately and I found myself automatically speaking the words out loud. The piece felt like it was made to be performed and as a musician I figured it should be to be set to music. I had previously mentioned the idea of writers from The Stinging Fly and musicians collaborating to Declan Meade and thought this might be the perfect opportunity to explore that concept.’

Specsavers National Book Awards results tonight

Writers go head-to-head tonight as the Specsavers National Book Awards  recognising the most popular books of the year, is announced.These Awards are special because they recognise and reward the authors the public are actually reading and buying.Whilst the awards primarily recognise British writers, the talent of the international literary world is acknowledged by the award for International Author of the Year in partnership with Google Play™.

Full details for the Specsavers National Book Awards as follows:
Autobiography/Biography of the YearMy Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding (Viking Adult)
Specsavers Popular Fiction Book of the YearFifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (Arrow)
Crime Book of the Year available on iBookstoreA Wanted Man by Lee Child (Bantam Press)
Outstanding Achievement AwardIan Rankin
WHSmith Food & Drink Book of the YearThe Hairy Dieters by Si King & Dave Myers (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
International Author of the Year in partnership with Google Play™
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Headline Review)
Magic FM Non-fiction Book of the YearIs It Just Me by Miranda Hart (Hodder and Stoughton)
Waterstones UK Author of the YearBring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel (4th Estate)
National Book Tokens Children’s Book of the YearRatburger by David Walliams (HarperCollins Children’s)
Audible.co.uk Audiobook of the YearThe Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend, read by Caroline Quentin (Whole Story Audiobooks)
New Writer of the YearThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday)

Rules for writing Roddy Doyle. Man Booker Prize winner

Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. Doyle is the author of nine adult novels, seven books for children, seven plays and screenplays, and dozens of short stories.

Born: May 8, 1958 (age 54), Kilbarrack Education: University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin Movies: The Commitments, The Van, The Snapper, When Brendan Met Trudy, Family Awards: Man Booker Prize, New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year, BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay, Adapted, Bisto Merit AwardsMore Nominations: Man Booker Prize, BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay, Adapted, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayMore

 

1 Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.2 Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph ­–
3 Until you get to Page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety – it's the job.
4 Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy.
5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.
6 Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg "horse", "ran", "said".
7 Do, occasionally, give in to temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out the washing. It's research.
8 Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments.
9 Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet.
10 Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work.