http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/foreign-flavours/18192264
You can use this link to buy the Foreign Flavours charity anthology on Lulu. It’s priced at just under a tenner and profits go to a developing world books charity. I have a very small piece in it.
My book, Leda, now has a proper page on the Troubador website – where, theoretically, people can buy it! Except it hasn’t been printed yet, of course. You can see its page here. (It’s not that exciting if you’re not me, admittedly.)
The publication date is given as May next year, but that’s just a necessary fiction to meet the needs of the books trade. I am not wise in the ways of wholesalers, so I will bow to the publisher’s superior wisdom. I’m hoping it will be a real book, and in my hands (and the shops), a lot sooner than that, though!
After a long absence I’m back writing for Suite101. In the time I’ve been away they seem to have relaxed the over-strict regulations regarding structure and keywords, which is great. I also got a lovely comment from the section editor within hours of posting a new article. A very nice welcome back.
My latest post is on the pitfalls of shared ownership, which may be a bit dry for most, but you can keep up to date with all my articles here.
I think it’s about time I sang the praises of my new netbook. It is an Elonex Webbook which I bought on Ebay for about £55. It’s tiny (7 inches!), it’s ancient (Windows CE 6.0 if that means anything to you) and it struggles to do much more than let me type, but I only got it so that I could write on the go without having to type it up, and it fulfills that purpose admirably.
Someone commented that it’s too small to be of any use, but I must have particularly nimble fingers, because it’s not giving me any serious problems – a few more typos than usual, that’s all. It fits in my handbag, which is not large, and means I can take it with me on the train to work. It takes about 15 minutes each way. Allowing for time to sort myself out, turn it on, save my work, turn it off etc. it give me another twenty minutes of writing time for every day I travel to the office. That may not sound like much, but when you struggle to find time to write (lack of discipline, really, rather than lack of time) it makes a huge difference. I’ve written an entire short story (A Recipe for Summer) and a few chapters of my novel Vermin on it. Well worth £55 – especially since it’s tax deductable 😉
It’s been a very slow year as far as getting published goes, but finally there is some positive news to report – the Imagining Scotland website has finally published the stories that were long-listed in its competition. I’ve been waiting for this for a while, since mine is among them. It’s a collection of stories about the future of Scotland. You can read mind, “The Scottish Dream”, here.
She wants to scream. She wants to scream so often that she doesn’t notice when, finally, she does. She is asked to speak to the HR Manager.
“It was just a scream. Screaming’s not against company policy, is it?”
It turns out that it is.
“What about sighing?” she enquires, carefully holding it in.
This piece of flash fiction is available to download as part of my collection of short stories, Office Life (and Death).
I discovered something funny while googling myself the other day. I know googling used to be seen as vain, done only by people who wanted to point and shout “Look, that’s me, ME!” but I think that’s an idea that’s out of date, like the idea that a man isn’t properly dressed without a hat, or that using olive oil is pretentious. If you have an online presence, it’s a good idea to type your name into a search engine once in a while to check if you are being misrepresented or plagiarised (and of course so that you can go “That’s me, me!”).
The funny thing I discovered is that one of my article for Suite 101, “Aristotle’s Golden Mean“, is required reading for the Art Institute of California’s Ethics course! It’s not the first time someone’s used one of my articles (usually as content on other websites), and it’s freely available, so there’s no problem there, but this is first time I’m aware of that students have been forced to read something I’ve written. It’s only about 500 words so it’s no great hardship for them (compare that to the Nicomachean Ethics the article is based on), and this in itself may be an indication that it’s not the most in-depth ethics course on the market, but I’m not going to criticise the Institute, because I’m very flattered!
On Monday (4th April) the new edition of People’s Friend will hit the shops. Well, being the kind of magazine it is it won’t so much hit them as pat them gently, but the point is that my story, “Turning the Corner”, will be in it! Hooray! They bought it ages ago and I’ve been wondering when it would actually appear. This is the highest circulation magazine that I’ve had anything published in, and it gives me a nice buzz.
This year has been a bit light on acceptances so far – just one! That was from Flash (University of Chester) for a piece of flash fiction, unsurprisingly. It’s a bit of an odd piece, and not one that I thought would be easily accepted, but it was taken by the first publication I sent it to.
It’s funny how that happens – the ones you think will do well get rejection after rejection, and the awkward wee pieces surprise you by being accepted. I have a few of what I consider my most saleable (and best) stories still looking for a home. Oh well, I’ll keep trying and probably keep being surprised.
I am seriously thinking about trying to write something (“book” might be a bit ambitious at this stage) about the interesting bits of Ancient History. It will be less an academic work and more an outpouring of idiosyncratic opinion. I’ve already got a few suggestions from people: gladiators, Pompeii erruption, Christians and lions, Roman aristocracy, Salamis, and the Trojan horse. And obviously, me being me, Alexander is going to feature A LOT. However, I am still looking for more suggestions, which will be taken into consideration (no promises!).
This post is where I would like to collect them, because the ones I have at the moment are on a post-it note and are likely to get lost. Please use the comment facility below. Ta!
Hooray! Delayed by the credit crunch, issue 8 of Ruthless Peoples Magazine had just come out – and it features my story “In the Forest”. This is especially cool as it is a bit of an odd story that I didn’t think I would find a home for. Click here to download it.
Issue 8
K C Murdarasi 