John Dean's Blog – November 2013 Archive (3)

Northern Writers’ Awards

New Writing North has announced that the Northern Writers’ Awards are now open for submissions.

The Awards were established in 2000 as a pioneering programme that aimed to support both new and established writers in the pursuit of their creative ambitions. Since then, they have supported more than 150 writers, many of whom have gone on to achieve publication of their work in the UK and internationally.

Originally open only to writers in the North East, the awards,…

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Added by John Dean on November 13, 2013 at 11:43am — 2 Comments

Writers keep it in the family

Novelists Claire Moss and Bud Craig will remember November 2013 for a very long time. It’s unusual enough for a father and daughter to have novels published; even more so when it’s in the same month.

“I’m sure this has never happened before,” says Bud.

Married with two children, Claire Moss lives in Thirsk. She was brought up and went to school in the village of Hurworth near Darlington, where her parents still live.

Bud’s crime thriller, Tackling Death, was…

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Added by John Dean on November 11, 2013 at 8:31am — No Comments

Tackling Death

Author Bud Craig, a member of Darlington-based Inkerman Writers, has had his first book published by No So Noble Books.

Tackling Death, available as an ebook, is about Salford-based ex-rugby league player turned social worker Gus Keane, who is closing up his case files in preparation for retirement, but a bruising encounter with a client sets off a chain of events in which he finds his boss murdered. Now turning private eye to uncover the truth, as more murders occur Keane himself…

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Added by John Dean on November 8, 2013 at 12:49pm — No Comments

DfC

The Inkerman Writers are members of Darlington for Culture (DfC), which was set up  in 2010 to help save Darlington Arts Centre from closure.

Its members include representatives of arts and community groups.

DfC was established after the centre’s owner, Darlington Borough Council, announced that budget cuts meant that it would have to withdraw its subsidy from the Arts Centre.

Although the centre closed, the organisation remains active - more at www.darlingtonforculture.org

 

Publications

Welcome to the site created by the Inkerman Writers to showcase our work.

Based in Darlington, North East England, and having celebrated their tenth anniversary in 2013, members have enjoyed success in a variety of arenas, including winning, and being shortlisted and highly commended, in short story competitions, having novels published and publishing the short story anthology A Strawberry in Winter, which can be obtained by visiting the website www.blurb.com

The group's second anthology of short stories, Christophe's Farewell and Other Stories, can be obtained, cost £4.95 plus postage and packing, from

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2173759/4a79a32f5cf205f6bfd37b6f1df30e33900a5ab0?utm_source=TellAFriend&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2692827

The Inkerman Writers latest book, Out of the Shadows, which was launched as part of the 2013 Darlington Arts Festival, is on sale. The book can be ordered direct from

http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/4204019-out-of-the-shadows

The group also produced The Last Waltz, a double CD of short stories, available by contacting deangriss@btinternet.com, cost £5 plus p and p.

Several of our writers wrote original one-act plays in a collaboration with the Green Theatre company, which were performed at Darlington Arts Centre early in February, 2012.

 

Darlington-based Inkerman Writers have produced their latest anthology of short stories, Inkerman  Street, based on the demolition of a fictional northern street and the stories of the people who lived in it.

The book, which features a variety of stories ranging from horror to comedy, was launched to a large audience at the Darlington Arts Festival Literary Day on Saturday May 26 and begins like this:

Inkerman Street is still and graveyard-hushed tonight, the terraced houses cold behind boarded-up windows, silent sentinels among a sea of wasteland. No one lives here now and tomorrow the bulldozers will move in to flatten the houses to make way for the Council’s Grand Plan.

“Although the people are long gone, the houses still have life. Peek into one of the bedrooms and see on the wall a painting of a seaside scene, brightly-coloured boats bobbing in the harbour, fishermen pipe-smoking in the noonday sun and seagulls wheeling high above the choppy waters. In the roaring silence of the night, you can hear the screeching of the birds and taste the salt air, acrid and herring-sharp at the back of your throat. It is an illusion; the bedroom is empty and the blooms on the faded wallpaper have long since wilted.

“The air in the houses is musty with neglect yet but a few months before, these were bustling homes filled with frying bacon and steaming irons, whistling kettles and playing children. The houses witnessed all these scenes for more than 150 years. Behind their curtains were enacted a thousand stories but tomorrow they will be destroyed because Inkerman Street is the last of its ilk.

“Now, on the eve of the street’s death, the people who once lived here have returned, gathering solemn and silent in the mist, the ghosts of the past come to pay final tribute….”

The anthology can be purchased at http://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/7524452/bae89c993c98ec8c8b37b12d6b9b37ecced5dec3

 

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