Congratulations to Graham Bruce Fletcher and Clare Finnimore for their success in the Graffiti Magazine travel writing competition: ‘Travelling in Heaven and Hell’. Graham was Highly Commended for ‘Begging for it’ and Clare was runner up with ‘Strawberry Road’.

The short story section was judged by Jan Turk Petrie. Jan is the author of the future world thriller: ‘Until the Ice Cracks’; the first of her Eldisvik trilogy set in 2068 in a fictional state just below the Arctic circle. Volume two of the trilogy ‘No God for a Warrior’ has just been released.

Both stories, along with judges comments will be published in the next edition.

Enjoy listening to Clare Finnimore interviewing another founder member of Somewhere Else Writers; Gill Garrett, in our latest In Focus programme now available on our website and on Corinium Radio this Sunday 24/2/19. In this moving programme you will learn about the life of this prize winning poet/writer, educator and health professional who now lives in Wales, some of her adventures and why she is a much missed member of the SE writing group.

The Swindon Poetry Film Collective were invited to present their show ‘Adventures in Poetry Film’ at a fringe event at the third Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival. The Arts Bank, situated in the heart of the town and the home of the Rubbish Arts Project, proved a convivial venue for the screening. Surrounded by works of art made entirely from recycled material, and well supplied with tea, coffee and Somerset cider, the audience enjoyed an evening of poetry films made by the Collective, including ‘Matryoshka’ by Somewhere Else member, Iris Anne Lewis.

The Snowdrop Festival was established by the Shepton Mallet Horticultural Society in to celebrate the work of James Allan, the first person to propagate new varieties from wild snowdrops. He undertook this work at his home in Shepton Mallet. The aim of the Festival is to plant Shepton Mallet with hundreds and thousands of snowdrop bulbs and to restore the Allen family memorial in the town’s cemetery, in order to celebrate James Allen’s and the town’s place in gardening history.

Poetry and photography have been an important part of the Festival from its inauguration and the collective were delighted to add the further dimension of poetry film to the Festival.

Clare Finnimore attended Southwest Scriptwriters at Bristol Old Vic this month to hear actors take part in Briony Pope’s play ‘Detached’, which made the top 10% of scripts submitted to Bristol Old Vic open sessions 2018. Also performed was Matt Sander’s 12 minute, comic two-hander ‘#Me Neither’ about the unknown victims of #Me Too.

Following the very successful Scratch Nights 1 in October, Southwest Scriptwriters are staging Scratch Nights 2 aboard the Lightship Theatre in Bathurst Basin, BS1 6SG. Four professional actors (two male and two female) will give script-in-hand performances of the selected work to a paying audience in the evening of 13 March after rehearsing it with an established director during the day.

The submission deadline for Scratch Nights II is midnight on Monday, 4 February. Find out the upload address for script submissions at one of the forthcoming meetings.

Frank McMahon’s poem ‘Nightshift’ has had a second outing after a shortened version was published by the literary magazine Brittle Star in November.

The poem, about the way mind sifts information in our sleep, appears in the December edition of the Frogmore Press’s online magazine:
“. ..dreck, scattered seeds, inconsequential dust, slivers of precious stones, the objects now
of noctural sift, pannage and salvage.”

The full poem can be read here

Frank’s short story ‘Grace Notes’ appears in Scribble, the short story magazine. He is also presenting an anthology of work by members of Somewhere Else on the theme of ‘Disposals’ on Corinium Radio this Sunday ( 27th January) between 4.30pm and 5pm. The programme will be repeated for the next three Sundays or listen again on the Broadcasts page.

Stephen Connolly’s short radio play ‘The Destiny of Shoes’, recorded by Off the Rock Productions of York Back in 2018 as part of their Soundwaves project, is now available on Youtube.

The script was inspired by an exercise given to the group by Paul Dodgson during the radio drama workshop he ran for us in 2017, which involved writing a script about the shoes people were wearing.

The exercise inspired a complete story, in which a pair of mismatched desert boots contemplate the end of their working lives and the possibility of an afterlife.

Stephen Connolly’s short story ‘Cargo’ has been accepted by Fictive Dream for Flash Fiction February.

During Flash Fiction February, Fictive Dream will feature a new piece of flash fiction throughout February 2019. That’s a new story, every day, starting on 1 February for the entire month.

Cargo was recently read by its author at the 17th Stroud Short Stories event ‘What makes a Monster & Other Stories’.

When Iris Anne Lewis embarked on making her own poetry film as part of the Swindon Poetry Film Collective, she did not imagine that her film Matryoshka would be shown in events across the globe. Starting off with an show  in Chippenham, the Poetry Film Collective decided to arrange showings of all their work around the South West of England, including Swindon, Bristol and Shepton Mallet. That seemed exciting!

But then the Collective decided to submit their work to the Athens International Video Poetry Festival. All the films were accepted for the Athens Festival. This led to a further invitation to send the films to the Renaissance Festival in Australia. Poetry film certainly has an international reach.