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LEAF BOOKS NEWSLETTER JUNE 2010
In this newsletter:
- Leaf Writers’ Magazine – now available online
- Rhys Davies Competition anthology
- New and Ongoing Competitions
- Memoir Printing Offer
Leaf Writers’ Magazine – now available online
Edition One of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine is now available to buy as an online publication. It’s a full colour PDF: you receive it immediately, you save a load of paper, you can copy and paste articles that interest you ... and what’s more, it’s half the price of the printed version: just £3. (There’s also a ‘£3 off’ competition entry voucher inside, so if you use that to enter a competition you basically get the magazine for free!)
Buy now from our website: pay online via PayPal (it takes credit cards if you don’t have an account). You can also subscribe to the online version of the magazine: £7.50 for three editions. If you want to change your one year hardcopy subscription to a two-year online subscription, please let us know.
Production of Edition 2 is currently underway: as you’ll know if you received our newsletter about it a couple of months ago, we’re going to be focusing on different points of view and narrative perspectives, and this edition also features interviews with Joanne Harris, bestselling author of Chocolat, and National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke. There’s also a whole section dedicated to Writers’ Groups– what they do, how they support creative writers and also some advice for starting up your very own gathering for writers, readers and like-minded souls. Remember to get your Writers’ Group’s profile to us for inclusion if you haven’t done so already.
Alongside all of the above, the magazine will include the regular goodies: the Write About Writing Showcase, writing and commentary from Leaf authors, course reviews, listings and opportunities for creative writers. We're extending our offer of Free Listings to our Autumn Issue. This issue of the magazine will be current from early September 2010 until January 2011, so please send us details of any literary events, courses, holidays, magazines, competitions and opportunities for writers that are taking place this Autumn. Listings should not exceed 50 words – please email them to us by 01 July 2010, quoting Magazine listings in the subject line.
We’re also looking for illustrations on the subject of Writing. Whether you want to interpret that as ideas, as writer's block, books, text, reading, the writing process - as long as it's relevant in some way to writing then the rest is up to you. This will be a great opportunity for budding illustrators, graphic designers and artists to be published and promote their work to a wide readership.
Our favourite pieces will be published in Issue 2 of the magazine, available early Autumn and published illustrators will receive a free copy. Images will be printed in monochrome and should not exceed 176mm high x 250mm wide
If you're submitting online, please send your images as jpegs or pdfs to contact@leafbooks.co.uk, with all your details including the titles of the pieces. If you're submitting by post, please enclose your entry, your details or submission form plus a S.A.E. if you'd like your work returned.
Address: Leaf Books Ltd, GTi Suite, Valleys Innovation Centre, Navigation Park, Abercynon, RCT,Wales, U.K. CF45 4SN
Submission deadline: July 1st 2010
Rhys Davies Competion anthology
Getting Up: An anthology of winning stories from the Academi Rhys Davies Short Story Competition.
Selected by Stevie Davies and Niall Griffiths.
“What impresses us most vividly as we stand back to consider the tales we have pondered as judges of this year’s competition is the sheer diversity and vitality of the short story: an open, improvisational form which, to judge by this year’s submissions, is going from strength to strength in Wales.”
Stevie Davies and Niall Griffiths
Leaf Books is publishing the anthology of winning entries from the 2010 Academi Rhys Davies Short Story Competition. Details about the availability of this publication will be available on our website in due course. Visit http://www.academi.org/rhysdavies/ for further information about the winning stories.
New and Ongoing Competitions
Note: You’re entitled to one free competition entry if you buy edition one of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine: just send us the enclosed voucher with your entry.
*NEW* Tiny Weeny Writing and Drawing Competition
Back by popular demand (we enjoyed it anyway): the tiniest of our competitions. We invite you to send us EITHER writing that is no longer than 140 characters, which includes letters, spaces and punctuation (the title is not included in the character count, but please don’t make it more than 30 characters) OR a piece of black and white art no bigger than half a postcard. Obviously you can send both, but as separate entries.
You can use any form - a petit poem, a short short short story, a playlet, your best ever tweet: anything you like. For the drawings: remember, black and white only. If you send them online they should be attached to your email as a .jpeg or a .gif.
First prize: Winner receives £75 and a free subscription to the Leaf Writers’ Magazine (valid for one year).
Selected entries will be published in the second edition of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine.
To enter: £2 per entry, 6 entries for £10. (If you have a ‘£3 off’ competition entry voucher from the Leaf Writers’ Magazine, that will entitle you to a very bargainous two entries to the Tiny Weeny Competition.)
Enter by post or online.
Competition closes: October 31st 2010
Micro-Fiction Competition
Leaf Books invites you to submit micro-fiction (max 300 words) on any subject imaginable. Winning and outstanding entries will be published in the Leaf Writers’ 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 Writers’ 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.
Competition closes: September 30th 2010
Postcard and Short Travel Writing Competition
Visiting new places can be very inspiring for writers. Leaf Books invites you to submit a short piece of Travel Writing (up to 300 words) or a postcard from an interesting destination (you don’t have to send us an actual postcard, but feel free to if you like – if you’re not using an actual postcard, your piece should be no longer than 300 words; if you are, you can write on both the back and front of the postcard). Your writing can be a journalistic piece, a diary entry or a piece of micro-fiction – as long as your piece evokes a clear sense of place then you’re welcome to use a form of your choice.
Winning and outstanding entries will be published in the second edition of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine. These, and further commended entries, will also be published on the Leaf Books showcase site.
First prize: Winner receives £150 and a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine.
Further published entrants will receive a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine.
Further published entrants will receive a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine.
To enter: £3 per entry, 4 entries for £10.
Enter by post or online.
Competition closes: August 31st 2010
Ten minute writing exercise competition
A tantalising extract from the first edition of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine. Send us a short poem (20 lines or fewer) or up to 300 words of prose inspired by this writing exercise:
This is a good way to get into the habit of conveying information by showing rather than telling. Think of a person you know well and write a brief piece (a paragraph or two; maybe a short poem) that tells the reader something about that person’s character … but without using adjectives, adverbs or abstract nouns. So if your chosen person is kind, for example, you cannot simply say ‘She is kind’, ‘She acts kindly’ or ‘She shows kindness’: you have to demonstrate her kindness through her actions, for example through laying the table, folding clothes or through the way this person interacts with others. You could also try describing a person’s room in a way that reveals something about their character – a slew of biscuit crumbs in the bed is as informative as any abstract noun.
The winning entry will be published in the next edition of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine, and the winner will receive £150 and a free copy of the magazine.
To enter: £3 per entry, 4 entries for £10.
Competition opens: April 2010
Competition closes: July 15th 2010
Write about Writing Competition *CLOSES THIS MONTH*
Leaf Books invites you to send us up to 300 words on one of the following themes:
Where you write
Fitting writing into a busy schedule
Writing resources (the web, books, writing groups etc.)
Editing
Publishing successes and failure
The winning entries will be published in the second edition of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine. One winning entry will receive £100 and a free copy of the Leaf Writers’ Magazine in which they are published. Further successful entrants may also be published in the magazine and will receive a free copy.
To enter: £2.50 per submission, 5 submissions for £10.
Enter by post or online.
Competition closes: June 30th 2010
The Poetry Competition has now closed and judging is in progress. We expect to announce the winners of this competition in September 2010.
Judging is ongoing for the Nano-Fiction Competition. We expect to announce the winners of this competition in August/September 2010.
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.
See website for full details of all competitions. Click here for Competition Entry Guidelines
Memoir Printing Service
Our recent Mini-Memoir competition was a resounding success, and we’re sorry we weren’t able to fit more of your entries into the anthology. If you have a memoir you’d like to see in print, Leaf Books’ printing service can help you achieve that for as little as £5 per copy (£6 for the first 25 copies). You can have a minimum print run of only 25 copies – ideal for friends and family – or as many as you like to sell to the wider world.
The service includes layout, typesetting, a proof pdf, free ISBN and free Barcode.
Word documents supplied to us should be print-ready and fully proofed. If you would like us to proof them we can, but we do charge for that service.
Please see the website for full details of our private printing service.
(The Mini-Memoir Competition anthology – Foresight with Hindsight and More Memoirs – is in production. Keep checking the website for further information about when this anthology will be available for purchase.)
Contacting Leaf Books
Email: contact@leafbooks.co.uk
Post: Leaf Books Ltd, GTi Suite, Valleys Innovation Centre, Abercynon, Rhondda Cynon Taff CF45 4SN
http://www.leafbooks.co.uk
A member of the GTi Business Network.