The Long List is out Shelagh Delaney Competiton

The following titles will be appearing in the collection. In no particular order:



One More Cup of sugar
The Rains of Salford
Everything’s Best in the dark
Three in Four Out 
Buried Voices
The Salford Manifesto  
The Trajectory of Patrick Brown  
Murray Mints 

Even Dead Fish Swim Down the River
Stones
Fresh out of the Pond
Battenberg
A hui hou kakou’
Kaviri
Shee
Parasomnia 
The Last Storyteller
Donut
Little Red   
Retrospective

We're publishing titles only at the moment, so that the shortlisting judges won't know who the authors are.  

Well done to all!    

The Shelagh Delaney Collection

I feel very privileged at the moment to be included in the first second of judging the entries for this collection. We had 51 entries and we’re selecting the best twenty to go into an anthology. We were looking for strong character-driven stories that show acute observation of human life similar to that found in Delaney’s works. As I’ve been the person collecting the entries I did have a little peek at some of them as they came in. I’ve certainly seen some strong writing and some fantastic characterisation.

Our first round judges tell me they’re almost there – deadline is 22 October.

I’m looking forward to the next round when a colleague and I will reduce the long list to a short list of six from which the final winner will be selected.

It’s all so exciting.     

Anthologies of short stories – the finances

You’ve probably read a lot about the young adult novel on this blog. My other love is the short story anthology. They’re reasonably quick to edit. Usually we’ve found the ones with a strong structure so the first edit is minimal. It’s just a matter of getting the writing right.

I also love reading and writing short stories and have several published myself. But it doesn’t make me rich.

Even big names earn little 

I’m published alongside Richard Adams, Anthony Browne, Alan Gibbons, Virginia McKenna, Michael Morpurgo and Lauren St John. Yet I couldn’t live on my earnings from my short stories. I also note an anthology full of big names has rarely been taken out of our local library. I do get royalties every year but earn far more from my novels and teaching resources. Also, I get a good ALCS payment for my academic work and good PLR on some of my educational resources. Yet the short stories bring in very little.  

Some strategies

There are a couple of things you can do to increase your returns.

1. Get more stories published. Obvious really? Perhaps target certain publishers with certain types of stories. For instance, I sell all of my near future ones to one publisher, human interested to another and ones that resemble this you have in women’s’ magazines to a third.
2. Purchase author copies from your publisher. They’ll often offer a huge discount.  Then sell them on at full price. Offer to do readings with a friend. Find a venue that will hire you a free space as you’re creating footfall.  

Short stories are fun and deserve to be out there. And you deserve to earn a little more from them.          

The Shelagh Delaney Collection

In commemoration of the annual Shelagh Delaney Day, 25 November, we are putting together a collection of short stories. The winning story will be read out loud by a professional actor. The best twenty will appear in an anthology.

There is no charge for entry to the competition.

Eligibility

You must have a connection with Salford.

This can be:

·         You have lived, worked or studied in Salford.

·         You currently live, work or study in Salford.  

·         You were born in Salford.

·         You participate or have participated in leisure activities in Salford.  

·         You know Salford well enough to set your story there.   

Theme

Shelagh Delaney was a great observer of ordinary people. So, we want stories of everyday people, the sort of people who perhaps live in Salford. You can set your story elsewhere as long as you meet one of the other eligibility criteria. You may interpret the theme of “ordinary” in any way you like.

What we’re looking for

Strong character-driven stories that show acute observation of human life similar to that found in Delaney’s works.

Stories should be between 1,000 and 3,000 words.

How to enter

Your manuscript should be double spaced, in a 12 point common font, with paragraphs indented. Please use single quotes for speech and italics for thought.

Nowhere on the manuscript should you have contact details.

Please email your work as a Word attachment to editor@bridgehousepublishing.co.uk. In the subject of the email please include Shelagh Delaney + The title of your story e.g.  Shelagh Delaney Shopping in the City. In the body of the email please include full contact details and a 50 - 100 word bio that also confirms your eligibility for the competition.

Deadlines

Last entry: 7 October 2015

Longlist (20 stories for anthology): 22 October 2015

Shortlist (the six best: 2 November  2015

Winner:  9 November 2015

Staff and students at the University of Salford will be involved in judging the stories. Those involved in judging are not eligible to enter the contest.                    

  

  

Team work – editors and authors

The editing process can sometimes be quite demanding for both editor and writer. The author has made the text as good as they can – perhaps having edited it several times already, and she may have also used a critique group and beta readers. Now we’re asking her to make even more changes.

The editor usually sees things the author has not noticed. Even so, there is still the possibility that she may be stuck in a rut or cramped by a house style that has become formulaic.

A new anthology.

So, now we have made all of our selections for the new Bridge House anthology, Snowflakes. Next comes the editing. This is usually quite an enjoyable process. We rarely have to do anything in the first stage of editing as we've chosen the texts because we like them. We're usually  more into copy editing, checking for house style and making sure that expression is clear  and logical.  

In the final edit we tend to  use 'track changes.' I generally tell people to switch it off and just switch it back on when the text seems clunky.

One of the main things we need to do then is a proof read. We normally do this after we've made the text 'camera ready'. The four pairs of eyes look at it: the writer, both editors and our designer. We're looking for odd formatting, the typos we didn't spot before and any strange page throws.

At this stage we sometimes update bios - maybe someone has had a major success elsewhere since they wrote the story for us.

Designing the book and its cover is something quite technical and a little time-consuming and tedious.  It's incredibly important that this is done well. We usually do, I'm glad to say.

Cover design is fun and technical at the same time. Choosing the stock image is creative but some technical know-how has to be applied as well.

We have mixed feelings when we release the book. It's good to get it out here.  But is there something we've overlooked? How well will it be received? Will we get kind reviews? Will even all of the contributors like what we've done? In our business,  we just have to accept that we can't please everyone all of the time. 

Nevertheless, creating a book remains rewarding.