Retreat West newsletters

 With details of competition deadlines and more:

Deadline for the Fourth Quarterly Flash Comp is upon us!   THEME: AFTER JUDGE: SHAUN LEVIN Shaun Levin is the author of Seven Sweet Things, A Year of Two Summers, and Snapshots of The Boy, amongst other books. His short stories have been anthologised alongside Nadine Gordimer, Ali Smith, and Edmund White. He has been teaching creative writing for over twenty years, and devised the series of guides, The Writing Notebooks, for writers taking on book-length projects. Visit shaunlevin.com and writingmaps.com Deadline: 30th December 2021 We're looking forward to reading your stories!   Find all the entry information here   Copyright © 2021 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom   Hi it's Gaynor, here with your writing newsletter. As usual, you'll find a mix of inspiration, quick prompts, news and opportunities. For me, with a young child off school during the holidays, December means less time to write! But I might find some time to read, and to make notes, and maybe those little scribblings in my notebook or emailed to myself in the middle of the night (yes, I really do that after losing one idea too many the next morning) might turn into something in 2022. However and whatever you celebrate, we hope you find some time to rest, read and write before the new year.      Flash Fiction: This month I have chosen Something Close to Happy by Emily Devane, published in Lost Balloon as I wanted to look at a story that deals with hope. Emily is a master at using really specific details to draw the reader into the story. It's not just candyfloss, it's "sky-blue candy floss", and there's the wonderfully unexpected description of the graveyard as "the picture-postcard cemetery, its tombstones rakish as ageing teeth." She describes the scene in such a way that I really feel I am there at the seaside with them, while other words give clues as to the importance of the event, the "body full of poison and hair loose in its sockets", the breathlessness of the narrator and that beautiful, poignant ending, "my scalp tingles with the losses to come and my life is too short to count, we are something like happy, and that is enough." Short Story: This month I have chosen Frankenstein's Monster is Drunk, and the Sheep Have All Jumped the Fences by Owen Booth, and I'm sure some of you will have heard me talking about this story already, but I honestly think it's one of the best short stories of the last few years, and a future classic! (please be aware this story deals with infertility and baby loss) Can you imagine the glee the judge must have felt on coming upon that title alone? This is really a love story, albeit a very strange one. But it's often funny too, as seen when the villagers try to put the monster off the woman,  "The monster shrugs. He’s been dead for over a hundred years, is constructed from the dismembered body parts of a number of different corpses. He has a sense of perspective." As the story moves on, it's sad in parts, quirky in others, but always interesting to read. It spans a lifetime and runs the gamut of every emotion contained in that lifetime. I love it.        Write a story that features an extreme political group. Write a story that takes place at a silent retreat. Write a story that features the sound of someone exercising. Write a story about someone who is about to disrupt a wedding.        If you subscribe to our newsletter , belong to our community, or follow us on social media, and have some writing news to share, then please let me know on gaynor@retreatwest.co.uk and I'll try to include it Kristina Thornton has a micro fiction ‘Holiday Visits to My Dad’ in Ellipsis Zine 10 - her first published print story. Anushree Nandi had a  debut novelette, Summer Melody  published  by Alien Buddha Press. Amanda Huggins had a novella, Crossing The Lines, published.  Laurie Marshall won the 2021 Lascaux Prize in Flash Fiction  Ali McGrane had a novella, The Listening Project, published. Tom O'Brien (who wrote our prize-winning novelette-in-flash Homemade Weather!) had a novella, One For the River, published.  Michelle Christophorou had a novella, Kipris, published. New imprint, Seventy2One, published its first book on 30th November. It's an anthology of climate fiction called SUNBURNT SAINTS, featuring writers such as Salena Godden, Billy O'Callaghan, Carmen Marcus, Antonia Honeywell, Astra Bloom, Victoria Richards and Rachael Smart. Available from some indie bookstores and exclusively online through Big Green Books. This book was conceived, written, produced and published in exactly 3 months. Find out more by following @massivoverheads on Twitter. Hannah Storm had a flash fiction collection, The Thin Line Between Everything and Nothing, published.  Kirsten Mosher has published a book Zero (minutes to) Home, with 300 copies, available for free for the asking. Please contact Achim Wollscheid in Frankfurt, wollscheid@a2w2.net  whose intention is that they be handed out from coat pockets (or can be mailed too!) Audrey Niven's Highly Commended Flash, On Rannoch Moor, has been Nominated for the Pushcart Prize.       El Rhodes is going to run an affordable synchronous five week CNF (creative non fiction) workshop over 5 Sundays in Jan and Feb as part of the Crow Collective. Details on electrarhodeswrites@gmail.com The Northern Writers Awards are open for entries until 17th February  The Centificitonist is open for stories of 100 words BBC Writers Room is open for drama and comedy scripts until early January  Happy writing! See you in the New Year, Gaynor    Copyright © 2021 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom   Welcome to our 2021 Retreat West Christmas gift guide    2022 Online Flash Fest   5-6 MARCH 2022 We had such a brilliant time at our first ever online flash fiction festival last year that we’re doing it all again! As you know, we’re mad about all things flash at Retreat West so we’ve put together a fantastic lineup of flash fiction writers, tutors and literary journal editors to bring you masterclasses, workshops, readings, panel discussions, Q&As and a whole lot of flash fun! An excellent gift for the flash reader or writer in your life.      Buy tickets now       2021 Book Releases    Light  -  Beautifully written, touching, irreverent and surprising, Light is a compelling exploration of the tangled lives of a group of young artists and their friends in the 1990s. A book for anyone who ever struggled to find their place in the world The Naming of Bones -  Set against the backdrop of the Norfolk coast, The Naming of Bones weaves a patchwork tale of redemption and recovery. Real-life memories intertwine with dreams and folklore in this deeply moving memoir. Homemade Weather - The human condition is laid bare in these spell-binding narratives that weave their way through dreams and reality, hope and regret, the past and the present. Book also includes What The Fox Brings In Its Jaw and The Impossibility of Wings. The Weight of Feathers - Wildness, wonder, freedom, family, the ways in which we are made and broken are all explored in this fascinating collection of short fiction.     Did you know? All of our books can be ordered in by your local independent bookstore using the ISBN.   Buy Light   Buy The Naming of Bones   Buy Homemade Weather   Buy The Weight of Feathers   Browse all of our books     Creative Writing Courses      We have a range of short fiction courses that are perfect for people at all levels of writing ability - from beginners looking for inspiration through to practising writers looking to generate lots of new work and discover new ways to find stories.   Join one of our creative writing courses     Memberships      A gift that keeps on giving! A whole year of writing support including advice, prompts, feedback and ebooks. Different membership levels are available to suit all budgets and start at just £25 for the year as we want to make learning about writing accessible to all. Plus it's a lively, friendly and supportive place to hang out online!     Join our writing community   Thanks for all of your support in 2021! We wish you the happiest of holidays. With love from all the Retreat West Team  x Copyright © 2021 Retreat West, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom Final micro comp winners of 2021!   Discover who won the final contest of 2021 and read all of the shortlisted stories in our flash fiction section of the website too. Many congrats to all who made it through to the final round and to our three winners of the top prizes!     Read the winners here   WEEKEND DEADLINES   We have not 1 but 2 deadlines this weekend! You have until 23.59 (UK time) to send your work for the following opportunities - both of which will get you published in a paperback anthology!  10th Birthday Anthology   Submit your 10-themed flashes (max 500 words) for our 10th birthday anthology, which is publishing in March 2022.     Get all the info here  2021 Novelette-in-Flash Prize   Submit your novelettes (max 8000 words) for our 2021 Novelette-in-Flash Prize for publication in the next winners' anthology.     Get all the info here   We have our final 10 stories in the ECHO themed flash contest and they are now with our judge, Vanessa Gebbie, for the final decision. Good luck to all!     Find out which stories were shortlisted here     Submission advice from literary agent, Nicola Barr Get Nicola's insights on how to make your novel openings stand out in the submission process and how to make sure the rest of the novel delivers on what the first 3 chapters promise. You could get your submission package reviewed by Nicola in our 2022 First Chapter Competition.     Read the interview with Nicola here     Last chance to join Amanda Saint for her Winter Monday Flash writing sessions! Starts Monday and just 2 spaces left!   Spend winter Mondays in Zoom workshops creating new flashes and getting feedback to show you how to take them to the next level. Each session will take place from 2pm to 4pm UK time on the following dates:   Monday 29th Nov Monday 6th Dec Monday 13th Dec Monday 10th Jan  Monday 17th Jan Monday 24th Jan Monday 31st Jan Monday 7th Feb Monday 14th Feb  Monday 21st Feb Cost is £199 for the 10 sessions and detailed editorial feedback on 2 stories submitted after the 10 sessions have finished.   Nab those last spaces here   Copyright © 2021 Retreat West, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email as you signed up via our website for news of our creative writing courses, competitions and retreats. Our mailing address is: Retreat West Apartment 3735 Chynoweth House Trevissome Park Truro, Cornwall TR4 8UN United Kingdom