Sunday, 29 October 2017

Polish That Prose - Countdown to Deadline!


Countdown to Deadline for entries is midnight on 15th November!  There are 17 days to get your entries in...


Words and Women's Short Prose Competition is unique in that it offers the opportunity to submit not just short fiction but creative non-fiction, life-writing and memoir too.

Win the national prize for women over 40 of £1,000 and a month’s writing residency provided by Hosking Houses Trust and/or a regional prize (East of England) of £600 and a mentoring session with Jill Dawson of Gold Dust.

The winning entries will be published online and in a Compendium of Words and Women’s best entries from the last 4 prize-winning anthologies.  
Entries can be fiction, memoir, creative non-fiction and life-writing on any theme.
2,200 words
Guest judges: Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney, authors of A Secret Sisterhood: The hidden friendship of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Woolf.  
National prize open to women writers over the age of 40. Regional prize open to women writers over the age of 16 living or working in the East of England.
For more details email wordsandwomencomp@gmail.com or visit our blog at www.wordsandwomennorwich.blogspot.co.uk

Saturday, 9 September 2017

WORDS AND WOMEN OPEN FOR ENTRIES!


WORDS AND WOMEN ANNUAL NEW WRITING COMPETITION IS OPEN FOR ENTRIES


Deadline Midnight, 15th November 2017

Offers a national prize for women over 40 of £1,000 and a month’s writing residency provided by Hosking Houses Trust and a regional prize (East of England) of £600 and a mentoring session with Jill Dawson of Gold Dust.

The winning entries will be published online and in a Compendium of Words and Women’s best entries from the last 4 prize-winning anthologies. 

Entries can be fiction, memoir, creative non-fiction and life-writing on any theme.

2,200 words

Guest judges: Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney, authors of A Secret Sisterhood: The hidden friendship of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Woolf. 

National prize open to women writers over the age of 40. Regional prize open to women writers over the age of 16 living or working in the East of England.

For more details email wordsandwomencomp@gmail.com or visit our blog. 


Sunday, 20 August 2017

Writing Sundays - What Could Be Better? And It's All In A Good Cause!


Words and Women is launching a series of Writing Sundays in the community to support their bid to raise funds for a virtual office and website.



The series of exciting writing workouts designed to be an energizing dip into creativity and held on 3 Sundays in September and one on the first of October are led by professional writers in prose, poetry, scriptwriting, and devised theatre. Learn how to kickstart your first novel with Sarah Ridgard, join poet Julia Webb on the theme of family and childhood in poetry, devise theatre with Hannah Walker and transform a Suffragette text into a contemporary script with Belona Greenwood. Book up for all four or fix on one that sparks your imagination. 

The workshops take place in The Old Hospital Chapel, Fellowes Plain, Norwich, NR1 4DL all between 10 and 12 a.m (except for week 3 which will run between 9.45 – 12.15).

The workshops are just £20 each. They are open to all levels of women writers – there really is something for everyone. Book all four and get a 10% discount. Bookings open from August 19th at www.wordsandwomennorwich.blogspot.co.uk



If a workshop doesn’t appeal then Words and Women are asking supporters to dip into their pockets and support their crowd-funding appeal.



The voluntary organisation run by Lynne Bryan and Belona Greenwood are seeking to raise £3,500 by the end of September 2017 by asking people to become supporters offering donations of £5 and £25.



In return for their generosity, £5 supporters will receive advance notice of events and competitions planned for 2018.  The supporter’s name will also appear on the sponsors’ page of a new 2018 publication, the Words & Women compendium.

Become a Super Supporter for £25 and receive all of the above and a free copy of the compendium which will be published on the 8th March, International Women’s Day. Their name will also be entered in a prize draw for a bumper selection of books by women writers, published in the UK.


For more information and to donate go to: www.wordsandwomennorwich.blogspot.co.uk

Monday, 31 July 2017

It's still summer but listen to the whisper of autumn on the other side of the hill...





Our Lady Autumnus

A vision of radiance is she, under the rage-red canopy,
her arms spread wide to embrace natures matricide.
Sparks fly from her golden crown in the fading sunlight 
dappling down, into amber eyes flecked with umber-brown.

Her laughter, a rich and rapturous sound, echoes through
forests, fields and towns; branches swirl and grasses sway,
leaves dance to her song before breaking away,
to join our lady in her moment, her day. 

Copper, bronze and gold adorn her flowing gown, 
enchanted is she who reaps the ground.
Her tresses fall in waves aflame to lick voluptuous hips, 
and kiss her bosom of milky-white, iridescent as the moon,
in the crackling bonfire light. 

Tangerine, claret and coffee leaves, rustle and tumble 
in the cool northern breeze, cascading from the trees 
they gather in her wake, a resplendent bridal train 
they make - as they rake - upturning her perfume; 

it ravishes the air in a synthesis of all she forebears:  
toadstool musk wafts from the wet soil’s must;
tart-sweet apples ferment in ruddy husks;
beds of pine burn as wood-smoke churns;

chestnuts, pumpkin and pecan pies, fruits, berries 
and spiced wines, indulgent cinnamon, nutmeg and 
clove, marinate with maple, elm and oak.

Our hostess of harvest lays down her shrine,
a woodland table, a banquet fresh from the vine.
A bouquet of poppies, the flower of her time,
sits reverent at the centre of her feast so sublime.

Her ambient splendour, her harmony, her life-time, 
she gives to us by omniscient design.
Nature’s ripe essence in her prime, she is 
incandescent, our dear lady Autumnus, divine. 

©Nichola Lovell  October 29, 2016

Friday, 14 July 2017

WARDROBES...are darkly surprising places




Image result for images of victorian wardrobes illustrations




Surprise in the Wardrobe

By ©M.C. Gardner


Adults say that Genevieve is a mischievous little girl, as they ignore the secrets of an inquisitive young girl in the making. Nosy as nature has made her, she wants to learn everything about their new home where they moved at the beginning of last month.

   She had attentively combed the ground floor and now she is into the first floor. Knee socks at the ankle, fresh stains on her bespoke blue dress from the raspberry bushes and hair ribbon at an angle, she is checking the pieces of furniture the previous owners had left behind.

   She is mostly attracted by a grand and ornate triple door mahogany wardrobe. She had planned to tackle it the previous day, but her grandmamma called her for luncheon. In her family, she is referred to as ‘that nosy and feisty child’, who likes to annoy the adults, her five sisters and the heir, who is, admittedly, an ugly looking specimen, lacking the personality of his siblings.

   Unintimidated and super eager, Genevieve is face to face with the wardrobe. She checks its three doors. They are locked. No problem, mechanically inclined, Genevieve has a skeleton key that she bought from her cousin Elgin, who is a very greedy boy. He had stolen it from the gardener and sold it to Genevieve for a small bag of pistachio nuts.

   In goes the key.

   In the kitchen, grandmamma is supervising the cherry preserves. Their kitchen maid is a clumsy young lass still in training and unaccomplished after a year.

   Ah!’ A deep piercing scream, the level of the decibels of a cannon blast, shakes the Victorian kitchen, disturbs the alignment of the jars on the oak table and rattles the open windows. The sky goes a lead colour as the park ravens nesting in the oak trees take off.

   What is happening?’ asks grandmamma assertively. The kitchen maid drops the jar with cherry preserve all over the kitchen floor, and burst into tears.

   Genevieve! Where are you? I said and I say it again, the sooner she goes to school, the better for everyone!’

   The scream intensifies and grandmamma and kitchen maid are going up the grand stairway, two steps at a time. There they bump into the gardener, muddy boots and a geranium flowerpot in hand.

   The three of them reach the open door from where the decibels keep erupting.

   There you are, Genevieve. Stop screaming and pull up your socks!’ Grandmamma checks Genevieve’s appearance and finds her intact.

   Genevieve’s screaming is making the Murano chandelier rotate anticlockwise. The young girl is pointing to the wardrobe.

   How did you manage to open the door?’

   Genevieve is gasping and points to the door of the wardrobe which is slightly ajar.

   Grandmamma opens it widely. Several corpses, in various degrees of decay, slide from the bowels of the furniture on the well-polished oak boards.

   Next door neighbour, Mrs Gregson, the newly retired superintendent’s mother-in-law, is having elevenses with Mrs Barnard, and for the time being, one of her best friends.

   What’s going on with the new neighbours? It sounds like a matter of life and death!’ utters Mrs Gregson and both ladies rush to find out what they can. They open the wrought iron gate and run up the path towards the front door. They do not bother to ring the bell as the front door is wide open. Like hounds, they follow the screams and climb up the stairs.

   They enter the room. A little girl is screaming with her eyes shut, an elderly woman is also screaming red face like a volcano in full eruption and a young lass is shedding tears the size of freshly harvested peas. A middle age man covered in mud looks stunned and is squashing the geraniums from a flower pot tight at his chest. Mrs Gregson, who has been blessed with full comprehensive initiative, takes a look and identifies the cause of the distress as being in front of the wardrobe.

   Oh, here they are! My son-in-law, the former superintendent and his team had been looking for them for over 15 years. The case remains unsolved and it is still open. It made the front page of all the broad sheets and the tabloids at the time. A whole family wiped out, except the youngest son, a child of three at the time, who was found with a key round his neck and who kept repeating the word <sardines>.



Tuesday, 27 June 2017

THE PLAYGROUND


The women there formed groups faster than their children did. Today they huddle together under a cracked plastic shelter. Rivers of water sheet down the sides and obscure their features. Rain coats in primary colours are distorted smudges, a shattered rainbow where the women hide.

The rain is relentless, driving sideways and flooding the grey tarmac. The clouds roll, purple edged and thick with the threat of snow. Saplings along the top of the field bend precariously, infant leaves drooping wetly.

Abandoned playground equipment is a curious mix of sodden wood and dull metal and fat beads of rain plop into the puddles in between.  The deluge down the slide skids into the divot at its end, dug there from the idle skid of polished shoes.
Those who don't fit under the shelter stay close to the wall, heads bowed and hoods pulled low. Their shoulders are hunched and they look up only to squint briefly at the still locked door, waiting.

In the middle of the playground though, far from shelter, it is thunderous. The rain beats down and bounces back up like little soldiers across the tarmac. Forgoing a coat, my top is sodden and heavy, my hair plastered darkly across my cheeks. My head is held high, water running into my eyes where it stings. I watch the door too, waiting. Waiting for her to burst through and chase across the swollen ground where I will brace myself, ready. Waiting for the sun to come out.


Rhonda


Monday, 8 May 2017

Wells Next The Sea





Lips smack, shovelling grease with greedy fingers.

Squelch-rip of beady-eyed prawns; wooden stab of curled beige

Whelks in squeaky polystyrene. All under the wide, full gaze of a

Tired child, the day smeared across them. Grit of sand and
Tide mark of synthetic vanilla.

On tiptoes, peering through a window of fudge and toffee, coveting
Fat sticks of rock, striped and sticky beneath yellowed cellophane.
Dodging the violent paroxysm of a reeking dog and the smarting spray
Of saltwater on bare legs. A bowl of gun-metal grey, invaded

By a blunt nose and lolling tongue, skidding across the floor, blossoming
Dark stain on red concrete.
 
Later, tomato juice with unpleasant bite squashed beside
The one armed bandit and the reek of stale beer.
A packet of ready salted crisps to share while you
Sit still. Just the one. Then just one more as the cue ball thuds dully
And bumps against frayed green.

Exhausted, insatiable grind of mechanical jaws on copper, feeding
Ambition and futility through one tarnished slot. Stumbling
Inside, air sharp with rapid staccato bleeps and electronic pop,
Harsh light spilling across the quay

Waiting buckets, for the folly of creatures tricked
By flabby bacon dangled on taut lines
Hauled up from inky water with the stench of fish
And panicked pincers grasping at air. Stolen from



The sea, vast and unknowable, its silent depths stretching
Out, out where the buoys are

by Rhonda Peak