WRITEALOT: charity

Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 May 2014

Short story competition – any subject

WORDS Magazine short story competition, open to all writers throughout the world. Any subject.

Closes on June 30, 2014.

The prizes are: 1st - £50, 2nd - £25. Entry is FREE and all entries will be considered for publication in future issues of the quarterly magazine Words Magazine sold in aid of UK's Royal National Lifeboat Institute – the charity that saves lives at sea! [In fact, the RNLI has saved over 140,000 lives at sea since 1824.]

Shaun Peare – Editor, Words Magazine

Website: www.wordsmag.com

Email: admin@wordsmag.com

You can order a free PDF copy at http://www.wordsmag.com/freecopy.htm
For help with your writing see: http://www.wordsmag.com/guides.htm
To purchase the magazine on Amazon Kindle go to: http://www.wordsmag.com/amazon.htm

Authors’ Guidelines

Work should be typed, in double spacing, on A4 paper. E-mailed entries, as attachments, are acceptable providing this format is followed.

Entries must be the writer's own work, not currently entered into any other competition and should not exceed 2,000 words.

Author's name (or nom-de-plume) together with an approximate word count, must appear on the cover sheet. Manuscripts cannot be returned so we advise you to keep a copy for your records.

The winners will be notified by post and announced in the next available issue of WORDS Magazine and on their website. Unsuccessful entries may be submitted to other publications two months after the closing date.

Entries should reach Wordsmag on or before the closing date advertised.

Authors may submit as many entries as they wish.

All entries, whether successful or not, will be considered for publication in either a future issue of Words Magazine, in the library pages of their website or in a compilation of stories sold as an e-book. In all instances the authors will be contacted prior to any such publication.

Email entries should be sent as single files and ideally saved as either .doc, .docx or .txt files. Note that .pdf files are not acceptable.

A worthy cause, too. Good luck!

Monday, 15 April 2013

On perfection - flat notes and writing typos

Last evening my wife Jennifer sang as part of the combined choirs of Vivace and Chorale Mendelssohn’s Elijah in a gorgeous Spanish theatre. Jen was one of seven soloists. The choirs acquitted themselves well; it’s a difficult and rather long work. Needless to say, while the audience was very enthusiastic and impressed with the performance, a few perfectionists in the choirs beat themselves up over the occasional sour or flat note. This is only natural, as artists should always strive for perfection, and it reflects on their professionalism that they try to attain it.

Still, in the real world, perhaps perfectionists should gain perspective.

This choral work was sung by a combination of British, Russian, Dutch and Scandinavian men and women, accompanied by a Spanish pianist, singing in English to a Spanish, British, Scandinavian, Dutch and German audience. The ticket money from the performance goes towards a project to construct a rural school in Southern India, for 575 children aged five to eleven. The project’s target is 65,492 euros and they already have in excess of 40,000. That, alone, is pretty amazing, the coming together of different nationalities to give pleasure and work towards a good cause.

There may be a few off notes, but the entire performance impressed, and that’s what’s important.

The same applies to writers and their critics. Yes, there may be a few typos missed by author, editor, and proof-reader – and the author is often the first to beat herself up when these are found, after the book goes to print, rarely at the galley/proof stage. That’s good, striving for perfection. Self-edit, self-edit, self-edit is a good mantra to follow, but there comes a time when you have to let it go – and that applies to the publisher as well as the author.

Again, a little perspective is required.

Maybe 80,000 or more words are strung together to create characters and a fictional world for the reader, and there’s nothing wrong with over 99.9999% of those words! Fine, if the book has clearly not been adequately edited, fair criticism – usually reserved for self-published work, I suspect. But complaining about the occasional glitch is simply petty and uncharitable. If the story does what is intended, then judge it on those merits, not on a few typos.

Monday, 24 December 2012

Wishing you a happy and peaceful Christmas!

Dateline Friday, December 14 – Town Hall square, Torrevieja, Costa Blanca, Spain

This was the tenth annual Christmas Carols in the Square event.

My wife Jennifer and I, along with many members of her choir, Cantabile (above), joined other choirs and citizens from the area to sing thirteen carols in front of the floodlit church and next to the splendid Belen diorama. Included were two Spanish carols, ‘Campana Sobre Campana’ and ‘Fum, fum, fum’. The music was provided by The Phoenix Concert Band.

Lots of Christmas hats and antlers were in evidence! A census wasn’t taken, but we reckon there were Spanish, English, Welsh, Scottish, Belgian, German, Dutch, Ukranian, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian in attendance to celebrate the nativity. Also present, representatives from the town hall and the Salt Queen and her Dama, Nuria Zaragoza and Elsa Martinez respectively (below).

The collection amassed €985 for the local charity Alimentos Solidarios, which provides meals for those in need.

There was no religious message, save that implicit in the nativity; Mass followed for those who wished to attend.

The international community of Torrevieja and environs is a beacon for co-existence among all peoples. Yet again it was wonderful to be a part of this event. The world is a better place than we sometimes wonder when we learn about the horrors and destruction, natural and man-made.

Friday, 6 May 2011

When the Flowers are in Bloom

I've taken a leaf out of Charles Whipple's book (see A Matter of Tea below) and will be donating all my royalties from this e-book to the survivors of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. As will the publisher, Solstice Publishing.

My Foreword says, ‘Reading about the cataclysmic devastation that hit Japan in March, I was greatly moved by the attitude of the survivors. People of all ages went out of their way to help each other. Looting seemed a rare event. There was a determination to overcome this terrible adversity. Lives and towns would be rebuilt, eventually, even if it would take years. The people would endure.

‘It is this theme, the strength of the human spirit that I have attempted to capture over the years in many of my short stories. Some of these tales may seem sad or traumatic but, despite that, I trust that hope, love, honor and integrity shine through, transcending the blight of evildoers, disability and natural disaster.

‘As writers, we strive to walk in the shoes of our characters. Fiction writers lie in order to grasp the truth. In some small way, I hope these stories reveal truths about the human condition.’

Blurb

These twelve diverse stories travel far and wide, over the globe and through history, to examine the human condition. Whether a quest for atonement decades after the Second World War, or to repay a debt of honor, Japanese characters reveal their fragility. In Sarajevo, Bosnia or the grim projects of New York, life must go on.

Characters show us that disability is not a handicap. Forgiveness and redemption are human qualities the world is short of today, perhaps. They’re needed by those who disinter the past and graves from an old war in Spain. Birth and death – they’re here. So is honor, duty, courage and love.

All royalties which would normally go to the author and the publisher will go directly to help the Earthquake and tsunami victims.

The e-book can be ordered from the Solstice Publishing site (http://www.solsticepublishing.com/) or other online outlets, including Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/When-Flowers-are-Bloom-ebook/dp/B004ZG6IXS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=A317O7WZ1CN6AQ&s=books&qid=1304685711&sr=8-1