Saturday 30 June 2007

Arts Council Bursaries

The Arts Council of Ireland have announced the first round of the 2007 bursaries.

For Literature

Multi Annual awards to Peter Sirr (poetry) Sean O'Reilly (literature) Conor O'Callaghan (poetry) and Claire Keegan (short stories mainly)

and annual awards to
Dermot Bolgers (lots of stuff) Alice Lyons (Poems and visual art) Anthony Glavin (poetry) Leanne O'Sullivan (poetry) Mike McCormack (novels mainly)

That's it. Total 105K
another 30K for irish language. (It has to be said, it's hard to make a living writing in Irish without grants.)
They are all well known names. No snifters for emerging writers such as myself. I didn't apply, thank goodness. It would have been a complete waste of time and effort.

Music gets 86K
Performing arts gets 80K
Visual Arts gets 265K

Very uneven if you ask me, which they didn't. Wonder how themomney for New Projects and One Offs will be spread out.

Monday 25 June 2007

Books for Writers





A really good, classic book for writers is From Pitch to Publication, written by Carole Blake, a well known UK agent. She also writes a great column in Mslexia magazine. http://www.mslexia.co.uk




I also own The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner. An Editor's Advice to Writers.



and every writer should read the very readable On Writing by Stephen King.




and the annual bible The Writers and Artists Yearbook



which I find more comprehensive than The Writers Handbook, although there's not a lot to choose between them.

Nanotales

Eventually I thought to check up on the nanotales in association with the Guardian. Most of the links are dead (strange) but here is what I found. (Not me anyway)

The Winners
Manners by manners-nanotale
Sweet Mother
Tree People
Cataract
Walk a Pavement Once
Export Only
Regrets by
Your grandads horse by
The Freedom Zone by
No Milk by
The Human Species by
alone by
BlacKnack by
A Pencil With Ideas Above It's Station by
Me by
Forget-me-nots by
The Lonely Death of Gloria Alvarez by
Charade by
The half empty glass by
The Orchard by
Ed by
Everybody Wants More by
The Roller Coaster Ride by
Time by
A Year by

And a link to the Guardian as it was going on
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/03/short_stuff.html with some favourites. There seems to have been some mix up with the Guardian entered entries. No idea what the standard was like but they are said to have had more than 2,000 entries. Some multiple I guess.

Friday 22 June 2007

Contracts

I have a contract with an agent. Yay!
But it's six or seven pages long and I don't really understand it. Is it a good contract, fair, unusual? I don't know.
There is a lot of advice on the web but mainly of the sort saying do not sign with an agent who asks for up front 'fees.' OK. Fair enough but after that?

Here is a great blog about the business of writing with a US slant. It has lots of advice and stories of what to do and what not to do. http://www.annemini.com/