Tony Lyttle

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.

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!

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]

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

My One and Only Love. That’s from the Cloud and all the way back to 2014/2015.

Congratulations, Richard. It’s a powerful story that deserves recognition.

I see from the website that my entry has been longlisted, too, which feels rather good. I didn’t recognise any of the other titles.

Andrew, 1975

It’s February, and evening is upon us. Andrew goes unnoticed. Pedestrians streaming by the Palace Theatre barely even see a youth leaning against the wall. Some look towards him, but they are peering through the glass doors. Maybe they are wondering whether Jesus Christ Superstar is worth the ticket price. The traffic sweeping a…[Read more]

There’s a lot to be said for Discord. There are a number of pages I visit regularly. I don’t imagine it would suit some of our members, but there may be no alternative in a year’s time.

No preference.

My WIP is first person, present tense. I didn’t choose or plan this; it just happened when I started writing. I think it fits the voice of the MC.

I suppose that many people who are mainly familiar with a narrator, often omnipotent, addressing the reader in past tense, assume that present tense (especially first person) is likely…[Read more]

Very true. There are precious few lighter moments. Mind you, he’s not quite the worst author I know for that. Not exactly fantasy (although he did write a collaborative series with Terry Pratchett), Stephen Baxter has the habit of making you identify with and root for particular characters, and then watch as their responses to ever tougher…[Read more]

@woolleybeans wrote: “For me, that aspect [the defining factor of PD] was/is the level to which the POV character’s thoughts, feelings etc influence/become part of the writing style itself.

As for how that correlates to film/TV…

The saturation of colours? Whether the shot angles up through something? The somewhat cliché blurry/wobbly scen…[Read more]

You’re probably right re urban fantasy, I have a rather vague grasp on the various subgenres, and that’s when authors oblige and ensure that their work falls squarely within one category. I have no idea where to put China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels, and I suspect he likes it that way. They have the epic sweep and complex magical systems of high…[Read more]

There’s something awe-inspiring about coming into contact with truly large insects and similar bugs, and your blog reminded me of an incident on holiday in Spain, years ago. We’d rented a cottage and on the last day we were cleaning up and I’d put a bin-bag by the door. I reached down to retrieve what looked like a piece of vegetation poking out…[Read more]

We had one of those alight on the edge of our utility room door a little while ago. Huge, and very striking. Almost big enough to have the same sort of presence as a bird rather than an insect. Can’t find pics of it now, but we fairly often see them out and about, along with different types of dragonfly and damsonfly.