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Secret Attic Blog

Weekly Write #11

30/12/2020

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The Weekly Write #11 is now open over at the Secret Attic Forum...

CLICK HERE TO GO TO WEEK 11
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Weekly Write #10

23/12/2020

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The Weekly Write #10 is now open over at the Secret Attic Forum...

CLICK HERE TO GO TO WEEK 10
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To Hull And Back

17/12/2020

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Christopher Fielden’s Biennial Short Story Competition:
A Humorous Writing Contest
The 2021 To Hull And Back Competition
The 7th To Hull And Back humorous short story contest is OPEN
Submissions close on 31st July 2021
1st Prize: £1,200
2nd Prize: £600
3rd Prize: £300
3 x Highly Commended: £150
14 x Shortlisted: £50
That's a total prize pot of £3,250
All winners and short listed entries will be published in the To Hull And Back Short Story Anthology. This will be available as a professionally published, printed book and as a Kindle download. The book will have an ISBN number.
If you’re published in the book, a writer’s profile will appear alongside your story and on my website. This will consist of a delightful picture of you, a short bio telling readers all about how amazing you are and details of your website, if you have one.
In addition to this, an author interview with the winner will be published alongside their story.
The winner’s face will appear on the front cover of the To Hull And Back Anthology. They will be depicted riding a flaming motorcycle and holding a quill of wrath. The covers from previous competitions can be seen below. Each year, the cover will be unique and created by a different artist.
Entry Fees
1 entry - £13.00
2 entries - £21.00
3 entries - £26.00

Schedule for future competitions:
To Hull And Back 2023 (opens 1st August 2022, closes 31st July 2023)
To Hull And Back 2025 (opens 1st August 2024, closes 31st July 2025)
To Hull And Back 2027 (opens 1st August 2026, closes 31st July 2027)
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Weekly Write #9

16/12/2020

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The Weekly Write #9 is now open over at the Secret Attic Forum...

CLICK HERE TO GO TO WEEK 9
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Booker Prize 2021 - Judges

16/12/2020

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Maya Jasanoff Chair
Horatia Harrod
Natascha McElhone
Chigozie Obioma
Rowan Williams
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Mark Twain's Set of Rules

15/12/2020

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​A tale shall accomplish something.

The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.

The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.

The personages of the tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit sufficient excuse for being there.

When the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighbourhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say.

When the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description.

When a personage talks like an uneducated loser, he shall not act like an Oxford graduate.

Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

The personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable.

The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people and hate the bad ones.

The characters in a tale should be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency.

A tale can be interesting, the characters believable - but the reader won't read enough of it to find out if the language of the story is awkward or unclear. To prevent this, Twain's Rules require that the author shall: SAY what he is proposing to say, not merely come near. USE the right word, not its second cousin. Eschew surplus matters. NOT omit necessary details. AVOID slovenliness of form. USE good grammar. EMPLOY a simple, straightforward style.
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Costa Novel Award - Shortlist

15/12/2020

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2020
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Peace Talks by Tim Finch
The Less Dead by Denise Mina
The Mermaid of Black Conch: A Love Story by Monique Roffey

​Winner announced 4th January 2021
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Costa Novel Award Winners

15/12/2020

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2020 - The Mermaid of Black Conch: A Love Story by Monique Roffey
2019 Jonathan Coe - Middle England
2018 Sally Rooney - Normal People
2017 Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13
2016 Sebastian Barry - Days Without End
2015 Kate Atkinson - A God in Ruins
2014 Ali Smith - How to Be Both
2013 Kate Atkinson - Life after Life
2012 Hilary Mantel - Bring up the Bodies
2011 Andrew Miller - Pure Blue ribbon
2010 Maggie O'Farrell - The Hand That First Held Mine
2009 Colm Tóibin - Brooklyn
2008 Sebastian Barry - The Secret Scripture
2007 A.L. Kennedy - Day Blue ribbon
2006 William Boyd - Restless
2005 Ali Smith - The Accidental
2004 Andrea Levy - Small Island
2003 Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
2002 Michael Frayn - Spies
2001 Patrick Neate - Twelve Bar Blues
2000 Matthew Kneale - English Passengers
1999 Rose Tremain - Music and Silence
1998 Justin Cartwright - Leading the Cheers
1997 Jim Crace - Quarantine
1996 Beryl Bainbridge - Every Man for Himself
1995 Salman Rushdie - The Moor's Last Sigh
1994 William Trevor - Felicia's Journey
1993 Joan Brady - Theory of War
1992 Alasdair Gray - Poor Things
1991 Jane Gardam - The Queen of the Tambourine
1990 Nicholas Mosley Hopeful Monsters
1989 Lindsay Clarke - The Chymical Wedding
1988 Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses
1987 Ian McEwan - The Child in Time
1986 Kazuo Ishiguro - An Artist of the Floating World
1985 Peter Ackroyd - Hawksmoor
1984 Christopher Hope - Kruger's Alp
1983 William Trevor - Fools of Fortune
1982 John Wain - Young Shoulders
1981 Maurice Leitch - Silver's City
1980 David Lodge How Far Can You Go
1979 Jennifer Johnston - The Old Jest
1978 Paul Theroux - Picture Palace
1977 Beryl Bainbridge - Injury Time
1976 William Trevor - The Children of Dynmouth
1975 William McIlvanney - Docherty
1974 Iris Murdoch - The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
1973 Shiva Naipaul - The Chip-Chip Gatherers
1972 Susan Hill - The Bird of Night
1971 Gerda Charles - The Destiny Waltz
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Booker Prize Winner 2020

15/12/2020

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Booker Prize Winner 2020Booker Prize Winner 2020
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
1981. Glasgow. The city is dying. Poverty is on the rise. People watch the lives they had hoped for disappear from view. Agnes Bain had always expected more. She dreamed of greater things: a house with its own front door, a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect – but false – teeth). When her philandering husband leaves, she and her three children find themselves trapped in a mining town decimated by Thatcherism. As Agnes increasingly turns to alcohol for comfort, her children try their best to save her. Yet one by one they have to abandon her in order to save themselves.
It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest. But Shuggie has problems of his own: despite all his efforts to pass as a ‘normal boy’, everyone has decided that Shuggie is ‘no right’. Agnes wants to support and protect her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her, including her beloved Shuggie.
Laying bare the ruthlessness of poverty, the limits of love, and the hollowness of pride, Shuggie Bain is a blistering and heartbreaking debut, and an exploration of the unsinkable love that only children can have for their damaged parents.

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Booker Prize - Previous Winners

15/12/2020

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Previous Winners
2019
Tie:
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
2018
The Milkman by Anna Burns
2017
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
2016
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
2015
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
2014
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
2013
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
2012
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
2011
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
2010
The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
2009
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2008
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
2007
The Gathering by Anne Enright
2006
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2005
The Sea by John Banville
2004
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
2003
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
2002
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
2001
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
2000
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
1999
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
1998
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
1997
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
1996
Last Orders by Graham Swift
1995
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
1994
How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman
1993
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
1992
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
1991
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
1990
Possession by A.S. Byatt
1989
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1988
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
1987
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
1986
The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
1985
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
1984
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
1983
Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee
1982
Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally
1981
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
1980
Rites of Passage by William Golding
1979
Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
1978
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
1977
Staying On by Paul Scott
1976
Saville by David Storey
1975
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1974
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
Holiday by Stanley Middleton
1973
The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G.Farrell
1972
G. by John Berger
1971
In a Free State by V.S.Naipaul
1970
Troubles by J.G.Farrell
1969
Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby
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