At Worcester University city centre campus 4 – 6 pm

Hear the winning entries from the competition

Book a slot to read your flash

2012 WLF Flash Competition is now open!

Closing Date Monday 21 May 2012

Send us your flash fiction maximum 300 words

For rules click here

Judges: Calum Kerr, Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

Flash Fiction Competition Entry

One Entry £2.00 GBP Three Entries £5.00 GBP

 
Book a slot to read your flash

First prize £25 (plus possible publication)

Competition Rules

• The maximum word limit is 300, not including the title (no minimum).
• There is no theme. All styles and genres are welcome.
• You may send up to three entries. Entry fee is £2 per story or £5 for three. Make cheque payable to Worcestershire Literary Festival or use Paypal (see www.worcslitfest.com)
• Submitted pieces must not have been published or accepted for publication elsewhere and must be the entrant’s own original work. Entries must be in English.
• Closing date is 21st May 2012
• Submit entries by email to info@worcslitfest.com
• The subject line of the e-mail must say Worcestershire Flash Fiction Submission.
• Entries should be attached as Word or RTF documents. In the body of the email please give your name, phone number, email address and telephone number, as well as the title and word count of your submission(s). Please don’t put your name or email address on the entry itself. All judging will be anonymous.
• Entries should be single spaced, in Times New Roman, 12pt.
• The winners and runners-up will be announced at the Flash Fiction event in Worcester on 23rd June 2012 where the winning entries will be read.
• No correspondence will be entered into regarding the outcome of this competition.
• All entries must follow the rules above.

The Judges

Your work will be looked at, enjoyed and judged by:

• Calum Kerr.  Calum is an associate lecturer at the University of Winchester.  He has a PhD in creative writing from Manchester Metropolitan University.  His collection of flashes ’31′, thirty-one stories written during January 2011, has just been published as an ebook. He is now involved in ‘flash 365′ a project to publish a new flash every day between May 2011 and May 2012. In December 2011 his flashes featured on BBC Radio 4′s PM programme.
• Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn.  Lindsay’s novel ‘Unravelling’ was published in 2010. It won the Wishing Shelf Independent Book Award and Chapter One Promotions Book Award and came second in the International Rubery Book Award. Her next novel ‘The Piano Player’s Son’ will be published by Cinnamon Press in 2013. Her short stories have been published in various anthologies and have been short and longlisted in competitions such as Fish Publishing and the Asham Award for women writers. Lindsay has an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University and teaches creative writing.

Get your writing fingers flashing!       Good luck!

http://www.worcslitfest.com/worcestershire-bard/

You can find out more information and pick up a hard copy of our entry form for the competition from tonight’s “Parole Parlate: The Spoken Wor”  at Little Venice Restaurant in Worcester, 7.30pm.  There will be a headline performance on the night by our current Worcestershire Poet Laureate Theo Theobald – this event will be a great opportunity to find out how you can enter “A Bard For Worcestershire”.

In the meantime you can download our information flyer here:

A Bard For Worcestershire – Competition Information

Postal Entry Form For “A Bard For Worcestershire”

The closing date for all entries to be received in the Worcestershire Literary Festival office will be 5.00pm on Monday 30th April 2012.

We look forward to receiving your entries and good luck!

The Worcestershire Literary Festival in association with Apples and Snakes is proud to announce the latest in our series of Learn: Eat: Perform workshops, taking place at the Arts Workshop in Worcester on the third Sunday of every month.

This workshop will be led by Rob Gee.

Poet, comic, and reformed psychiatric nurse, Rob has performed over 2000 shows around the UK, Europe, Australia and North America. He’s performed with Harold Pinter, Jo Brand, Alan Carr, Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr, and won numerous poetry slams, including The Arts Council’s Lit Up Slam and BBC2’s Why Poetry Matters Slam. He leads poetry and comedy workshops with mental health service users, and is sometimes sent into schools as a warning to children.

www.robgee.co.uk

Take part in a workshop in the morning – have a wonderful lunch – then put into practise what you have learnt at the morning workshop.  So you simply Learn: Eat: Perform.

Eat at lunchtime in Cafe Bliss, who have a wide range of different cuisines available.

Book your tickets via Paypal belowor visit our Facebook shop

Learn Eat Perform Workshop

Full Price £6.00 Concessions £5.00

 

 

“Parole Parlate : The Spoken Word” is back on Thursday 5th January 2012 and is a dedicated spoken word and “music that tells a story” platform. If you would like the chance to read your short stories, poems, prose, try out your performance poetry or music that tells a story, this evening is for you!

Hosted by Little Venice in Worcester, there will be a full bar service, cakes/snacks and you can of course take advantage of their full menu and enjoy their delicious pizzas, pastas or salads. Try out their £7.95 menu which includes a main course and a drink.

Already confirmed to perform on January 5th:

Suz Winspear
Nathan Williams
Edward Unique
Shabz Ahmed
Tony Judge
Ruth Stacey
David Calcutt

Plus a very special performance by The Decadent Divas, which is the creation of Charlie Jordan (past Birmingham Poet Laureate), Maggie Doyle (Birmingham Poet Laureate finalist and Bard of Worcestershire finalist), Lorna Meehan (poet and actor) and Laura Yates. They launched themselves on an unsuspecting public at The Mac Theatre, Birmingham during the Birmingham Arts Festival this year, where they received an extremely warm welcome. Further performances in Birmingham have included the Highlight Comedy Club, Rhymes and The Road House. This foursome wittily, nostalgically and, on occasions, poignantly, take you through their various decades from twenties to sixties via chatty conversation on a “girls night in”. Skillfully crafted in their personal styles there is something for all, even men!

ENTRY FEE AND HOW TO PAY

The entry fee for this event is £3.00 on the door, but if you pay in advance using Paypal the entry fee is reduced to £2.00.

Please visit our facebook shop – www.facebook.com/worcslitfest to pay via paypal or pay via paypal below:

Parole Parlate Tickets: 5th January 2012

Advance Price £2.00 GBP

 

We will then email you an entry ticket on receipt of payment via paypal. NB – if you are purchasing more than one ticket, please enter the amount you need in the quantity section on the paypal page.

Please note that all money raised will go towards funding these events and future Worcestershire Literary Festival events.

TAKING PART AND PERFORMING

If would like a slot to perform on one of these dates please let us know by emailing info@worcslitfest.com, leave a post on the wall of this event or visit www.facebook.com/worcslitfest and leave a post on the wall.

Performers get free entry, a choice of an alcoholic or soft drink and cake for taking part.

ADVANCE INFORMATION

“Parole Parlate : The Spoken Word” is on the first Thursday of every month, so advance dates for your diary will be:

Thursday 2nd February 2012
Thursday 1st March 2012
Thursday 5th April 2012
Thursday 3rd May 2012
Thursday 7th June 2012
Thursday 21st June 2012 – Worcestershire Literary Festival “Parole Parlate” Special.

Hosted by Little Venice in Worcester, there will be a full bar service, cakes/snacks and you can of course take advantage of their full menu and enjoy their delicious pizzas, pastas or salads. Try out their £7.95 menu which includes a main course and a drink.

Already confirmed to perform on February 2nd:

Michael R Brush
Catherine Crosswell
Michelle Crosby
Amanda Bonnick

Plus a very special performance by Richard Tyrone Jones

ENTRY FEE AND HOW TO PAY

The entry fee for this event is £3.00 on the door, but if you pay in advance using Paypal the entry fee is reduced to £2.00.

Please visit our facebook shop – www.facebook.com/worcslitfest or pay below using paypal:

Parole Parlate Tickets:2nd February 2012

Advance Price £2.00 GBP

 

We will then email you an entry ticket on receipt of payment via paypal. NB – if you are purchasing more than one ticket, please enter the amount you need in the quantity section on the paypal page.

Please note that all money raised will go towards funding these events and future Worcestershire Literary Festival events.

TAKING PART AND PERFORMING

If would like a slot to perform on one of these dates please let us know by emailing info@worcslitfest.com, leave a post on the wall of this event or visit www.facebook.com/worcslitfest and leave a post on the wall.

Performers get free entry, a choice of an alcoholic or soft drink and cake for taking part.

ADVANCE INFORMATION

“Parole Parlate : The Spoken Word” is on the first Thursday of every month, so advance dates for your diary will be:

Thursday 1st March 2012
Thursday 5th April 2012
Thursday 3rd May 2012
Thursday 7th June 2012
Thursday 21st June 2012 – Worcestershire Literary Festival “Parole Parlate” Special

Young people will expand their range of genre and develop their critical thinking skills and above all have fun. Worcestershire is ahead of the Government in announcing our policies to promote reading for pleasure, as mentioned by Nick Gibb last week.

Titles on shortlist:

Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson Diary of a lottery winner’s daughter by Penelope Bush An act of love by Alan Gibbons

Wish me dead by Helen Grant

Forgotten by Cat Patrick

There is no dog by Meg Rosoff

For more information, contact:

Dawn WoodsManager:SLS
dwoods@worcestershire.gov.uk
01905 420273

Worcestershire journalist’s stirring tale of soldier relative’s ordeal in the fateful summer of 1914

THE chance discovery of an old coin has led to a First World War hero’s incredible story being published on the internet.

Journalist John Phillpott became curious after finding a Boer War Kruger shilling while tidying a drawer at his home in Worcester.

He remembered a family story that the coin had been carried as a talisman by his late great-uncle, a soldier who fought with the Northamptonshire Regiment during the opening battles of the war in France and Flanders.

Armed with information supplied by the regimental museum in Northampton and Kew public records office, London, Mr Phillpott  embarked on a personal pilgrimage.

He traced the journey of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) after its arrival at French ports in August, 1914, and followed the army’s route as it advanced to stem the German invasion of Belgium.

Mr Phillpott, aged 62, said: “I discovered that colour sergeant Ernest Phillpott was the first man to be commissioned in the field during the First World War, eventually rising to the rank of captain. This was quite an achievement for a working class man who had left school at the age of 13.

“The German Kaiser called the BEF ‘England’s insignificant little army’ and this somehow became translated as ‘contemptible.’

However, the soldiers wore the intended slur with ironic pride and that was how the legend of the Old Contemptibles was born.

“I tried to be as faithful as possible to the original route taken by the BEF. From Le Havre, where the Northamptonshires landed, I went to Mons in Belgium, the site of the first battle involving the British Army.

“I then traced the line of its withdrawal – the legendary Retreat from Mons – crossing the rivers Aisne and Marne where the German flank had been finally turned.

“That action brought about the so-called ‘race to the sea’ and this was why my journey ended at Ypres.”

With the help of the War Research Society, a Birmingham-based organisation, Mr Phillpott was able to locate the actual field near the Menin Road outside Ypres where his relative had been wounded attempting to carry a seriously injured fellow officer and friend to safety.

Mr Phillpott said: “The British soldiers were outnumbered seven-to-one at the First Battle of Ypres. For more than two weeks, they held the Germans at bay.

“Then at midday on October 31, 1914, the thinned ranks of exhausted men buckled and broke. The line would be restored two hours later by the heroic action of the Worcestershires at Gheluvelt.

“Despite the mortal danger, my great-uncle stayed behind to help his friend and was shot through the shoulder dragging him to safety.

“After the war, the wounded man – his commanding officer, Major Harold Cartwright – presented my great-uncle with a silver teapot as an expression of his gratitude.

“This is a story of great fortitude, steadfast loyalty and remarkable courage in the face of overwhelming odds. The sacrifice of the small army that left Britain in the hot summer of that fateful year has largely been forgotten now. But my account will hopefully help to put that right.”

The Shilling is published as an e-book by Graficas Books, Cwmbach, Glasbury-on-Wye, Powys HR3 5LU phone 01497 847894 e-mail studio@graficas.co.uk and can be downloaded by visiting Amazon.co.uk using a Kindle or similar device.

John Phillpott’s contact details: 28 The Hill Avenue, Worcester WR5 2AW phone 01905 358212 e-mail c.philpott480@btinternet.com

Dr. Mikel Koven is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Humanities and Creative Arts at Worcester University, as well as the director of ‘The Splendid Cinema’. This is a film-lovers group that meets at the Worcester Arts Workshop every other Sunday to screen a variety of arthouse, film noir, underground movies, cult classics, independent cinema, and World Cinema . Details of ‘The Splendid Cinema’ can be found by following the link below:

http://www.worcesterartsworkshop.org.uk/whatson.asp?menuID=Splendid%20Cinema&menuGroup=Events

He had this to say about the talk this Wednesday:

“The HBO television series, True Blood, has been thrilling TV viewers on both sides of the Atlantic for a few years now with its sexy and gruesome storytelling. This paper explores the folktale elements within the series, and suggests that, as a fantasy series, True Blood is very much rooted within the fairy tale tradition. Furthermore, Koven continues, is a surprising connection between the vampire of popular culture and the dark fairy of the oral tradition.”

For details on his talk, have a look at the address and details below:

Woodbury Building

University of Worcester

Henwick Grove

Worcester

WR2 6AJ

Wednesday 9^th 2011

5pm, Woodbury 137

EVERYONE WELCOME – no tickets necessary!