HappenStance

Hot off the press ...

Gill McEvoy, whose chapbook collection Uncertain Days is published by HappenStance, has been appointed Artistic Director for the Chester Literature Festival's weekend of celebration of the Spoken Word, Oct. 18th-19th 2008.

Andrew Philip, whose chapbook collection Tonguefire is published by HappenStance, will have his first full length collection published by Salt. More from the Salt website.

HappenStance poets at the Troubadour

Nine HappenStance poets will read in the famous Troubadour basement (www.troubadour.co.uk), London's liveliest & best-loved poetry venue, on Monday May 26th from 8 to 10pm.

The reading is one of a series organised by Ann-Marie Fyfe of Coffee-House Poetry, and you can contact her on CoffPoetry@aol.com for more information or to book tickets (£6; £5 concessions). The line up for the evening is: Tom Duddy, Martin Cook, Rob A Mackenzie, Eleanor Livingstone, Gregory Leadbetter, Michael Mackmin, D A Prince, Andrew Philip and HappenStance publisher Helena Nelson.

30/04/08

First full-length collection from HappenStance

Up to now, HappenStance has been primarily a poetry chapbook publisher. D.A. Prince's Nearly the Happy Hour is the first full-length collection to break the mould and burst into book form. So this is a debut for both poet and publisher. For further details, click here...

The National Library of Scotland has announced the shortlist for the 2008 Callum Macdonald Memorial Award (CMMA) for poetry pamphlet publishing in Scotland.  The short listed entries are: 

• If Ah Could Talk Tae The Artists by Hugh Bryden, published in Dumfries by Roncadora Press.
• Treeds by Laureen Johnson, published in Edinburgh by Hansel Cooperative Press.
• One Light Burning by Donny O’Rourke, published in Glasgow by Bonny Day Books.
• The Currying Shop by Hazel Cameron, published in Yorkshire by Imago Media.
• The Oboist’s Bedside Book by Margaret Christie, published in Glenrothes by Happenstance .
• Edinburgh Poems by Duncan Glen, published in Kirkcaldy by Akros Publications

The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held at the National Library of Scotland’s Causewayside building on Wednesday 7 May at 6pm, when all the entries will be on display.

Susie Maguire has been named as judge of this year's HappenStance short story competition, which is now open for entry.

Susie is the author of short story collections, The Short Hello (2000) and Furthemore (2005), and editor of four story anthologies including Little Black Dress (2006). More than twenty of Susie's stories have been broadcast on Radio Scotland and Radio 4. A former actor and comedy performer, she lives in Edinburgh.

The Story competition returns after a very successful first year in 2006, the winners of which can be read in the chapbook anthology Story. Entries of up to 2,500 words are invited, there is no set theme, and the three winners receive cash prizes and publication. More details here.

Rob A McKenzie's 'The Clown of Natural Sorrow' has been warmly reviewed in the quarterly poetry, short fiction, art and review magazine Ambit.

Jim Burns says: 

'I’ll always think of his poem, ‘The Man Who Filled Cans in the Fruit Cocktail Factory’, each time I open a can, and I open them regularly. The poem makes the ordinary seem strange. And ‘The Haunting’ manages to be eerie within a framework that sounds very contemporary and understandable. The ending turns the terror back on the narrator. 

Mackenzie can also write effectively about social matters, as in ‘Taxi’, where some unspoken racism is noted and, perhaps, almost accepted out of a need not to rock the boat... It’s gritty stuff and elsewhere the narrator in the poems doesn’t mind admitting that he’s downed eight bottles of lager or that he’s curious about the babysitter’s breasts. These are honest poems with a humane touch that takes them beyond their surface familiarities. A small book but it’s consistently interesting.'

Become a HappenStance subscriber

• advance notice of each new publication, by post or by email with at least one sample extract;

• warm and appreciative invitations to launches;

• 15% off the cover price of each publication;

• the chance to pre-order a signed copy of new publications;

• a chapter of The HappenStance Story each year;

• one free copy per year of a HappenStance chapbook (Book-length collections excluded from this offer though eligible for subscriber discount later) ;

• courteous and (I hope) helpful feedback on your own work if submitted (though chances of publication remain exactly the same as everybody else’s).

Subscribe through the HappenStance shop here

Gill McEvoy's 'Uncertain Days' gets a mention in the latest Poetry Book Society bulletin

Patricia Ace competition success