A brief commercial break

Mes Amis

Last year I wrote a short story for the yearly anthology, NEW WRITING DUNDEE, a modestly price £5 collection edited by those fine folks at Literary Dundee. The story itself was probably the pulpiest in the collection, concerning an aging hitman, a sackload of guilt and a morally ambiguous favour for a friend.

Now, it seems, the floodgates are open once more more and the the brilliantly talented editors are looking for more submissions. Quoth the submission monkeys:

New Writing Dundee

New Writing Dundee is a literary anthology featuring both new authors and invited published artists. Celebrating its fifth year, this book is a Dundee community based project with an international reputation. The last two issues have gone through two print runs and have held its own event at the Dundee Literary Festival.

For the 2010 issue we are seeking submissions from the general public. The book is open to all styles, genres, themes and nationalities. Send in your prose, poetry, essays, drama and creative non-fiction by 1 November, 2009. For more information go to http://www.literarydundee.co.uk/newwriting.htm.

Not only that, but I'm also told that the submissions for the Dundee Book Award are open again. Won this year by the lovely Chris Longmuir for her crime debut, DEAD WOOD. Quoth the prize monkeys:

Dundee International Book Prize

Submissions of a full-length unpublished novels are now being accepted for The Dundee International Book Prize. Running into its 6th year, its £10,000 cash award together with publication, make The Dundee International Book Prize highly valued by tomorrow's great new writers seeking to break into the publishing world.

The first four Dundee Book Prize winning novels have all gone on to have success. The authors have also gone on to produce further works of fiction and non-fiction. Andrew Murray Scott's book Tumulus detailed bohemian Dundee through the 60s and 70s to the present day. The winning novel in 2002, Claire-Marie Watson's The Curewife drew on the tale of Dundee's last execution of a witch - Grissel Jaffray in 1669 and the winner in 2005 was Malcolm Archibald's adventure on a whaling ship Whales for a Wizard. 2007 saw French resident Fiona Dunscombe scoop the accolade with her gritty, dark and full of life novel The Triple Point of Water .

The novel must be in English but can be of any theme or genre, and the competition is open to the general public of any nationality. For submissions guidelines please go to: www.dundeebookprize.com or contact literarydundee@gmail.com for more information.
The Dundee International Book Prize is a joint venture between the City of Discovery Campaign, the University of Dundee and Birlinn Ltd, publishers of the Polygon imprint.

The same people behind both projects also run the excellent Dundee Literary Festival who, for some reason, allowed your humble blogger to run amok this year in the company of the excellent GJ Moffat.

We now return to the usual ramblings...

Au revoir

Russel