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LEAF BOOKS NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2010
In this newsletter:
- New and Ongoing Competitions, including new Poetry Competition;
- Leaf Writing Magazine – details of first edition, free listings, q&a page;
- All the Way Home and Other Poems – now available for purchase;
- From the Left and More Micro-Fiction – coming soon;
- Note about authors’ pages on the Leaf Books website.
New and Ongoing Competitions
*NEW* Poetry Competition
Leaf Books invites you to submit poems (max 35 lines) on any subject.
Winning and commended entries will be published in an anthology and very outstanding poems in the Leaf Writing magazine.
First Prize: Winner receives £200 and a free copy of the anthology.
Runner up receives a free copy of the anthology and 10 free mini-books.
All published authors will be able to pre-order the book and the magazine at a significantly reduced rate.
To enter:
£3 per entry, 4 entries for £10
Enter by post or online.
Closing Date: 31st May 2010
Nano-Fiction Competition
Can you tell a story in 100 words or fewer? Leaf Books invites you to write a piece of Nano Fiction on any subject. This is our second Nano competition - and with the success of our first collection of nano-fiction, Ada, hitting record sales we thought it was about time we put further writers of outstanding short sharp storywriting into print.
Winning and outstanding entries will be published in the Leaf Writing magazine,
These, and further commended entries will also be published in an anthology.
First prize: Winner receives £150 and a free copy of the Leaf Writing magazine and the anthology
One runner up will receive a free copy of the magazine / anthology.
Further successful entrants published in the magazine will get a free copy, and commended authors for the anthology will be able to pre- order the book at a reduced rate.
To enter:
£3 per entry, 4 entries for £10.
Enter by post or online.
Closing Date: 30th April 2010
*CLOSING THIS MONTH* Drawing Competition (SPRING)
Following the success of our cover design competition, we’ve decided to branch out toward art publishing. Leaf Books therefore invites you to take part in a Drawing Competition, and the theme is ‘SPRING’. All types of drawing welcome - charcoal, pen, pencil, stitch etc.
Size: A4 or smaller
Winner receives £150 and publication in the Leaf Books magazine. Runners up will be published in the magazine, and will receive a free copy. All selected entries will also be published on the Leaf Books showcase site.
This will be a great opportunity for arts students, graduates and everyone else who dabbles in design and drawing to get your work seen by our audiences.
To enter: £3.50 per design, 4 for £10
Enter online or by post
For online entries please send them as jpeg or gif files.
If you’d like your submission returned by post, please include a SAE with your entry.
Closing date: 28th February 2010
*CLOSING NEXT WEEK* Wales Themed Competition
Leaf Books invites you to submit writing on the theme of Wales. Perhaps a retelling of the Mabinogion, a comment on climate, a political satire, a landscape poem – as long as your entry is connected to Wales in some way then the genre is your choice.
You can submit poetry (up to 40 lines), short stories (up to 1000 words), micro-fiction (up to 300 words) and illustrations.
The winning and outstanding entries will be published in a forthcoming Leaf Writing magazine. These, and further commended entries, will also be published in an anthology.
First prize: Winner receives £150 and a free copy of the Leaf Books magazine / anthology
One runner up will receive a free copy of the magazine / anthology
Further successful entrants published in the magazine will get a free copy, and commended authors for the anthology will be able to pre- order the book at a reduced rate.
To enter: £3 per entry, 4 for £10.
Enter online or by post. If sending entries by post, please note that we are unable to return submissions. If entering online, please pay via PayPal (see the competitions page on the website) and send your work as an attachment to contact@leafbooks.co.uk as a .doc or .rtf file (please don’t send .docx or .wps documents because we can’t open them). Send illustrations as a .jpg file.
Closing date – 15th February 2010
The Write About Writing Competition has now closed. Judging is in progress and results will be announced shortly. One winner will receive £100 and publication in the pilot edition of the Leaf Books Magazine. Further selected entries may also be published in the magazine: successful entrants will receive a free copy.
The Memoir Competition has now closed. Judging is in progress – we are currently concentrating our efforts on edition one of the Leaf Writing Magazine, but we hope to announce the results of this competition by the end of March. Response to this competition was immense. The winner will receive £200 and a free copy of the anthology. The runner-up will receive a free copy of the anthology and a full set of Leaf mini-books. All selected pieces will be published in the anthology.
Note: Relevant to all competitions that result in the production of an anthology. We always used to send every author featured in the anthology a free copy of the book, but due to general funding crises we will only be sending free copies to the winner and runners up and then all the other selected authors will be able to buy the book at a discounted price. We’re deeply sorry about that: rest assured, we would if we could.
Leaf Writing Magazine – details of first edition
Special Features
- A selection of half-a-dozen winning and commended poems and micro-fiction featured in various Leaf Books anthologies over the past few years, with top tips and commentaries from the authors on how they came to write the pieces.
- Petina Strohmer, author of Truly Blue, talks about her experience of self-publishing a novel.
- A workshop on the subject of narrative by poet, author and creative writing tutor, Sheenagh Pugh.
- Roselle Angwin on making one’s words and ideas be – or at least seem – fresh, original and untamed.
- Marie-Claire Menary on flash fiction as a writing tool and cure for the writer’s block.
- Paul Cooper reviews the creative writing programme at the University of Warwick.
- Bumper guide to writing festivals around the country.
Regular Features
- Top Writing Tips
- Publisher Profiles
- How to Win Competitions
- Tips for Getting published
- IT Advice Centre
- Best Writers’ Websites
- Creative Ideas Generator
- Ten-minute Writing Exercises
- Common Mistakes and how to avoid them
- Diary of a Publisher
- Readers’ Letters and Questions
- Diary of a Total Amateur
- Listings of Writing Events, Courses and Opportunities
- All the Winners from Recent Competitions
- Ongoing Comps
- News from Leaf Books
- Top tips and commentaries from prize winning authors
Issue 1 is available for pre-order from 1st March 2010. A single issue costs £6; a year’s subscription (three issues) costs £15 (within the UK and Europe: international prices available on the website).
Reminder *FREE LISTINGS* Everyone on our mailing list (that’s you) has been offered free listings space in the first issue. If you’re running or know about a writing course, literary event, festival, workshop or competition in your local area that’ll be current from April 2010 to August 2010, we want to hear about it. Send us up to 50 words of black and white text (no images) per listing by February 15th at the latest and we’ll print it for free in Issue 1.
See the website for detailed advertising rates.
Q&A page
We’d like to include a Question and Answer page in our new magazine, so if you have any questions you’d like to ask us, in our capacities as writers, publishers and judges, on any writing-related topic, please email them to us at contact@leafbooks.co.uk.
All the Way Home and Other Poems –available for purchase
All the Way Home and Other Poems is now available for general purchase. The full price of the anthology is £9.99 plus £1 p&p per copy: you can buy it from the Leaf Books website and pay via PayPal, or you can send us a cheque (authors featured in the anthology can buy copies at a discounted price).
Slope your mind with my furnishings
High to the floored mass
Of ceiling space so that the world
Is upside-down.
Paint the walls a cheerful jet-black,
Put my portrait up at an angle
Just right for a window
And look out.
Extract from winning poem ‘Grief’ by Elaine Amos.
Brimful with grief-tilted worldviews, kettle-bound cavemen, stick-on nipples and memory-laden anoraks, All the Way Home and Other Poems contains the winning entries from Leaf Books’ 2009 poetry competition.
From the Left and More Micro-Fiction – coming soon
Extract from winning entry ‘From the Left’ by Olivia Rana.
OCD, a fish that blows bubbles, a woman who might lick your shoulder on the evening train and various other bite-sized gobbets of life. From the Left and More Micro-Fiction contains the winning entries from our 2009 micro-fiction competition.
This anthology is in the final stages of production and will be available within the next month or two. Keep an eye on the website for further details.
Note on Authors’ Pages on the Leaf Books website
Unfortunately, due to time and cost constraints, we are unable to continue adding new authors’ pages to our website (you probably noticed that some time ago, but we’re just getting around to admitting it to ourselves). Those already there will stand, of course, but if you’re not already there and you’d like a page on our website we will create one for you for £2.50.
Contacting Leaf Books
Email: contact@leafbooks.co.uk
Telephone: 029 20810726
Post: Leaf Books Limited, GTi Suite, Valleys Innovation Centre, Abercynon, Rhondda Cynon Taff CF45 4SN http://www.leafbooks.co.uk
A member of the GTi Business Network.