Bren

Thank you one and all. I’ve had a good feeling about this story ever since I knocked out the original version for last winter’s challenge in three days flat, but never in my wildest dreams did I envision it would do this well. Well, in my wildest dreams maybe, but not anywhere else.

The result has bolstered my faith in my writing ability, though…[Read more]

Brilliant news Richard – a fantastic story that absolutely deserves the recognition, and that goes for the writer too

That’s “pleaseD” of course.

So please, Richard. A brilliant and moving story, written with an intensity but also a subtlety that really marks it out.

Thank you, Kate. Yes, it is. Once again I seem to have missed the boat to be the first to announce it, but hey, who cares? After writing and submitting two novels and getting 60% form rejections and 40% no reply at all, it does feel rather good to have got some validation at last.

Bitter, moi? Not just at the moment.

Oh, it’s gone live all on its little ownsome.

For a start, you could try Jericho Writers, which is what the Writers’ Workshop, sponsors of the old Word Cloud, morphed into a few years back.

Editorial Services

Sorry, I can’t make the kink go live without the entire post vanishing. You’ll have to copy and paste.

Ah. Forgot to check for new posts (not often necessary here, sad to say), hence the duplication with Ath’s post.

That’s four Denizens now on the longlist, a 20% hit rate. Impressive. Or is anyone else going to come out of the woodwork?

Wot I said to Ath, Daeds: making the longlist is an achievement, so congrats on that.

Not bad at all!

4 longlisted and 2 shortlisted. I call that impressive for a small site like this.

Congrats to the long and shortlistees! I’ve only just noticed that my story was on the longlist – as I’d already resigned myself to not being listed, missing out on the shortlist does not come as a blow, but I’m delighted for Richard and Kate, best of luck to both of you!

Well yes, obviously. But making the longlist is quite an achievement too.

I didn’t make the shortlist but I tell myself it was obviously a moment of madness by whoever made the choice 😀

Sorry for delay in replying to your very interesting thoughts @libby, but I’ve been neck deep in work lately.

Re modernists etc using the techniques and ideas of psychic distance before Gardner codified it. Yes, absolutely, a large measure of what he was doing was identifying techniques that were already out there. I would suggest that his…[Read more]

Congratulations to you too, Kate. We may be a small group of people here on the Den, but we’re talented…

Well done, Sandra. Another great competition. And well done to my co-competitors. Two top-notch entries. Congratulations, Alex. A nice twisty yarn!

Only three entries depicting Andrew’s possible future, but each of a quality and breadth of imagination that makes the judging, the choosing of a “winner” extremely difficult.
Knicks opening sentence an instant hook, her choice of verbs ¬– “breathing hitched”, corner of mouth “kicked up” – is inspirational, and Andrew initially appears to have co…[Read more]