|
|
comments (0)
|
This isn't a blog really, just a record of all rejections I receive with editorial comment (when there is one) and my comment. Might not be a good idea but useful for my records and maybe of interest to others. I also put occasional entries on what I'm reading, my PLR statement etc..
|
|
comments (0)
|
I had my Public Lending Right statement yesterday and I am now £1.45 richer. Nobody took 'Doreen' out, but a few took 'Going th Distance' out. My PLR gets less and less each year. To be expected I suppose.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: man in the pub
Mag: Flashshot
Editorial comment:
Alan, Loved the imagery in this one but I needed something to happen. Sorry. GW Editor/Publisher: G. W. Thomas RAGE m a c h i n e Magazine http://www.gwthomas.org/ragemagindex.htm
My comment:
sometimes in stories nothing happens, or not much, and I don't mind. Especially 100 word or less stories (this was 97 words). I suppose I'm unusual.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: Separate Things
Mag: Glimmertrain Family Matters Competition
Editorial comment: zilch
My comment:
Rejection by default. Wasn't even on the shortlist. Give it another going over over Christmas and send it out again. (rolls up sleeves).
|
|
comments (2)
|
As before I have put all the books I've read this year, usually with star rating and reviews on Goodreads.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/698826-alan?shelf=read-in-2009
Many of the books this year were recommended by fellow goodreadians, and it's been a fantastic year of new discoveries.
My top ten - a diifficult choice with so many good books are as follows:
Number one easily is How I Came to Know Fish by Ota Pavel. Utterly fantastic collection of stories, subtle and full of character.
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/57342097
The runners-up:
George & Rue by George Elliot Clarke (novel): http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1193672.George_Rue
Going Native by Richard Wright (novel): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/62313001
Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan (stories): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/53936937
Heartland by Anthony Cartwright (novel): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/53325478
The Civilized Tribes: New & Selected Stories by Jerry Bumpus: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45939383
Country of the Grand by Gerard Donovan (stories): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45539298
Not a Chance by Jessica Treat (stories): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45118233
Night Train by Lise Erdrich (stories): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/40748810
The Witnesses are Gone by Joel Lane (novel); http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/55666892
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: River Walk
Mag: grasslimb
Editorial comment:
Thank you for submitting your work to Grasslimb Journal.
Although your work came close in selection, we have decided not to use it in Grasslimb. As usual with such 'rejections', it's not intended as a message that your work is poorly written; on the contrary, this is well-written work, under challenging competition. I wish you the best of luck placing your work elsewhere. We hope you'll consider submitting work to Grasslimb again in the future.
Valerie Polichar
Editor, Grasslimb
My comment:
forgot I sent it there - sent it in May.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: Hook to Tinkerbell
Mag: Word Riot
Editorial comment:
Alan,
Thank you for sending your work to Word Riot. We've read it carefully. Unfortunately, we didn't feel it was quite right for us.
If you have something else you think is right for our magazine, please feel free to try us again in the future.
My best,
Jackie Corley
Publisher, Word Riot
My comment:
One of the fastest replies ever - less than a day! Althought the story is under 300 words.
|
|
comments (2)
|
a change from rejections. Had a nice review on amazon, which balances out the crap one I had in September (see below):
5.0 out of 5 stars
Street Opera, 3 Nov 2009
By Abailart "Chris" (Liverpool, UK) - See all my reviews
Taking Doreen Out of the Sky
I can't imagine this remaining out of print. I am lucky enough to have procured a secondhand copy on amazon. Count yourself lucky if you get to own a copy too.
All the stories in this collection focus on lives the shape of roads and council estates in the English Midlands. One story, Cheer Up Lucky Lips Forever, involves the narrator's train journey interrupted: he leans from a window to stare through a fog into his memories made physically real by coincidence, the same house that centres his train of thoughts. The same device of Larkin in I remember, I remember and the resonance of that poem's last line, its realisation that `Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.'
The memories and desires of nowhere people (nowhere because everywhere) are embodied in superbly crafted short `short stories', sparing, stripped to the bone language - most difficult to achieve the rhythms, cadences and imagery of theme and mood using the simplest vocabulary. The composer Schoenberg once remarked that there are `still many good tunes to be written in C major': Beard has gone further than good tunes to create something like street opera, bare skeletal structures to hold great passions. It's another mark of the craftsmanship that the stories are deftly controlled by accidentals and transpositions from major to minor.
On;y a purblind reader could fail to see that Beard's characters are people first, and that from the bare sketching of their essential outlines how immediate is the recognition of the basic foibles, contradictions, passions and moralities of all classes of people. Outwardly `Shameless' territtory or of some award-winning television documentary looking down on the lives of the ghettoised and exotically awful, the stories in this collection are generous in spirit and guide the view upwards. A generous writer, of course, includes humour and playfulness, and these are evident throughout.
There is one motif that weaves through the stories, a theme almost. It is about the secret places behind the weary urban greyness. Often, some woods or hills or trees, some hint of a border beyond towards which in memory or presence confused desire gropes; then there are somewheres/nowheres like where "they stashed the dustbins, a corner of multi-drainpipes and clogged drain and nicked into the building like a wound." (in Dad, Mum, Paula and Tom). These wonderful stories are doubly rewarding in the pleasure they give and the startle into our own time and memories.
You can read the first story in the collection, Saturday in the `Sac, on Alan Beard's website (www.alanbeard.net/). Then go and buy the book.
...thanks Abailart! Lovely review.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: Separate Things
Mag: Bridport Competition
Editorial comment: nil
My comment:
Rejection by default, would have heard by now had i won/been placed.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Not a rejection. On facebook I was tagged to name 15 books that would always stick with me in fifteenminutes. Interesting exercise and of course you miss out so many. But here's what I put down:
Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose.
James Joyce - Ulysses
Beckett - the Trilogy
Nabokov - Lolita
Henry Green - Living
Henry Green - Concluding
Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We talk About Love
Richard Ford - Rock Springs
Babel - Red Cavalry
Doris Lessing - To Room Nineteen
Grace Paley - Enormous Changes at the Last Minute
Alice Munro - Lives of Girls and Women
Otto Pavel - How I Came to Know Fish
Chekov - Lady with the Lapdog
Diane Williams - Excitability
Uwem Akpan - Say You're One of Them.
10 books of stories of course. The last two are current faves and not sure they'll stand the test of time.
|
|
comments (4)
|
Story: Background Noise
Mag: The Collagist
Editorial comment:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for your interest in The Collagist and for the opportunity to read your work. Unfortunately, we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. We wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere and hope you’ll consider us again in the future.
Sincerely,
Matt Bell
Editor
The Collagist http://www.thecollagist.com/
My comment:
Although I would have liked to get into The Collagist (a new mag from Dzanc Books), this story and 'The Heebie-Jeebies' have been accepted by East of the Web. I even have my own page!
|
|
comments (1)
|
As a change from rejection slips, (but also a kind of rejection) I thought I would share with my two readers this review from amazon:
One star:
Yet Another Piece Of Written Depression ., 3 Sep 2009
By Borella - See all my reviews
This review is from: Taking Doreen Out of the Sky (Paperback)
Why do people write this stuff ? Alan Beard certainly has some " modernistic" writing skill but to choose such a litany of miserable situations has me asking "Why ?" . It's a collection of situations which lead you swiftly to a depressed state of mind . I couldn't wait to finish it but only because I couldn't wait to get rid of the damn thing and move on to something rather more uplifting . A visit to the local crematorium maybe . If it's a sunny day this book will ruin it . If it's a rainy day you too will be tempted to go to the crematorium - in order to hop in . Go and read Birdsong instead.
I love it. Thanks Borella.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: River Walk
Mag: Barrelhouse
Editorial comment:
Thanks for letting us read your work. Unfortunately, we've decided this one's not quite right for us, so we're going to pass. We wish you the best of luck in finding a home for your work elsewhere, and in your continued writing.
All the best,
Dave, Joe, Aaron, Matt, Mike and Dan
Team Barrelhouse
My comment:
Shit with sugar on it.
|
|
comments (0)
|
Story: Cheer Up Lucky Lips Forever
Mag: Sniplits
Editorial Comment:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for submitting "Cheer Up Lucky Lips Forever" to Sniplits, and I apologize for taking such a ridiculously long time to respond. Your story made it to our "perhaps" file, but sadly we can't publish them all and in the end we decided against publishing this one. I really do appreciate that you considered Sniplits.
Best regards,
Anne
Anne Stuessy
publisher & editor
Sniplits
www.sniplits.com
www.sniplits.com/authorsroom.jsp
My comment:
This was in 'Taking Doreenout of the Sky' so it has seen the light of day. The mag is an audio one. I sent the story so long ago I'd forgotten.. sent it in Feb 08, now Sept 09...
|
|
comments (0)
|
Stories: Hook to Tinkerbell; Little Chef
Mag: Quick Fiction
Editorial Comment:
Dear Alan,
Thank you for submitting:
Little Chef
Hook to Tinkerbell
With hundreds of literary magazines to choose from, we're truly honored that you selected Quick Fiction! We're sorry to say, however, that we were not able to place your work in this issue. We wish you the best in placing it elsewhere and hope you will submit again.
Regards,
Jennifer Pieroni
Editor in Chief
Quick Fiction
My Comment:
one day my prince will come.