British Urban film Festival 2011

(16-18 Sept in London)

 

Photo of film "David is Dying"

 

British Urban film Festival 2011 (BUFF), 16, 17 and 18 September. All screenings take place at Congress House 23-28 Great Russell Street, London WC1.

The British Urban Film Festival (BUFF) was formed in July 2005 to showcase urban independent cinema in the absence of any such state-sponsored activity in the UK.

The 2011 festival is being headlined by the UK premiere of 'David is Dying' at London's Trade Union Congress headquarters and stars Lonyo Engele, a former UK garage music artist in his debut acting role.

The London-based organisation BUFF was initially created in partnership with organisations like The Screen.Biz (UK) and The Hip-Hop Association (USA) to mobilise & develop young, up and coming homegrown British urban talent in the independent film & TV sector

Website http://britishurbanfilmfestival.co.uk

 

BUFF PROGRAMME

All screenings take place at TUC Congress House 23-28 Great Russell Street London WC1B 3LS 

Due to the explicit use of language in some films, viewer discretion is advised.

Friday September 16 Doors 6.30pm - 11pm

7.50pm: Special Delivery (dir Geoff Searle, UK, 7 mins)
8.00pm: David is Dying UK Premiere (dir Stephen Lloyd Jackson, UK, 91 mins)
9:30pm: Live Q&A with Henry Bonsu, Stephen Lloyd Jackson, Lonyo Engele & Isaura Barbe-Brown

Saturday September 17 Doors 5pm - 11pm

5.45pm - 8.30pm: BUFF SHORTS UK Showcase back-to-back screenings
Juana (The Slave) (dir Yves Brodsky, UK/France, 3 mins)
The Pond (dir Sonja Phillips, UK, 16 mins)
Hitler & Henry VIII (dir Jane Gull, UK, 6 mins) 
Drink, Drugs & KFC (dir Aml Ameen, UK, 27 mins) 
The Entropic of Cancer - a trilogy of short films:
Holler (dir Cassius Matthias, UK, 11 mins) 
The Public Benefits (dir Cassius Matthias, UK, 13 mins)
It’s a Serendipitous Thing (dir Cassius Matthias, UK, 11 mins)
Delphine the Baker’s Assistant (dir Lyndon Ives, UK, 12 mins) 
Invisible (dir Harold Chapman, UK, 15 mins) 
The Holiday (dir Ida Akesson, UK, 11 mins) 
Special Delivery (dir Geoff Searle, UK, 7 mins)
Followed by live Q&A with the directors and Festival Director Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe

9.00pm: Damilola: Death of a 10 year old (dir Beth Parkes, UK, 60 mins)
Followed by live Q&A with panellists including Richard Taylor OBE & Gary Trowsdale (Damilola Taylor Trust) hosted by Henry Bonsu

Sunday September 18 Doors 3pm - 11pm

3.30pm: Tupac Assassination - part 1: Conspiracy or Revenge (dir Richard Bond, USA, 93 mins) introduced by Festival Director Emmanuel Anyiam-Osigwe

5.30pm: Huge - The Movie (dir Ben Miller, UK, 78 mins) introduced by the Comedian Lateef Lovejoy

8.30pm: Mercenaries UK Premiere (dir Paris Leonti, UK, 93 mins) introduced by Buff Board member Anjela Lauren Smith
Followed by live Q&A with Paris Leonti (dir) Luc Chaudhary (prod) lead actor Robert Fucilla andVas Blackwood

 

 

 

 

Smart women

should watch porn

I probably should not title a blog post like this. After all, both my parents and maybe even some of my friends parents and who knows, maybe their parents parents read my blog.

However, with the news of Laurence Fishburne’s daughter, Montana Fishburne (aka Chippy D), deciding to go into the porn industry at 19yrs, I felt I wanted to write this post.

For those of you that don’t know, Montana Fishburne, who wishes to become an actress has decided to follow the footsteps of Kim Kardashian and become a porn star to boost her career.

Now Laurence Fishburne is a role model. If one could look up ‘proud black man’ in an encyclopedia, his image might pop up. He is wealthy, good looking (enough), smart and outspoken. Not the kind of man whose daughter one might think would end up a porn star, especially given that he himself was a virgin when he started his acting career. Yet any man’s daughter can end up a porn star, and many do every day.

Basically, I’m concerned by the overbearing online reaction being that because Montana is who she is it’s somehow worse. Every young girl going into porn is a sad story.

Smart women should watch porn, and by watch I mean observe

 One reason it’s always a sad story is because violent and abusive porn is becoming so popular that even the porn industry is shocked over the demand for it. As a smart woman it’s important to be aware of porn trends to understand where intimacy problems and violence can stem from. The average age a boy starts watching porn at nowadays is 11, and researchers in the sex arena agree that the earlier a man starts watching abusive porn the more difficult it will be for him to be in an intimate relationship with a woman who does not like extreme porn type of sex.

Did you know there are sites where men can rate the violence in porn tapes, and sites where prostitutes too are rated based on how obscene they are willing to act? Smart women should observe that we are now bringing up a generation of boys on cruel porn, and that whilst porn is becoming more mainstream, with even pop stars getting naked in videos, it is simultaneously becoming more savage with videos of women being dragged on their faces, having their mouths clamped for penetration etc. easily accessible.

We need for our brothers and fathers to take a stand against this kind of porn, because otherwise we cannot blame anyone but ourselves for our daughters going into the industry.

Beware though, if you oppose violent porn, many will wrongly label you as a woman who doesn’t like sex, or men, or both combined. Re-educate them, let them know that there is a porn industry which is more ‘ethical’, whether or not you oppose that one as well, it does exist.

Porn in Africa

Africans have not gravitated towards violently pornographic websites the way other continents have. There could be many reasons for this; cultural values as well as bandwidth issues seem to play a role. Some statistics say that extreme porn is more largely a white problem than a hispanic or black one in general.  Could this be true and why?

If it is, then I really and truly hope that we can maybe even lead by example in this particular area. Violence towards young girls is not OK on TV, online or in real life.

______________________________________________________________________________

MsAfropolitan is the blog of Minna Salami, Writer and Commentator on Africa & Diaspora Art & Culture, Feminism & Race. Subscribe to MsAfropolitan by Email or RSS . Keep up to date with MsAfropolitan on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter and the MsAfropolitan Boutique

Book Review:

Lynch's Road

by D.D. Armstrong

 

I was pleased to be asked to take a look at Lynch’s Road the first book of the new publishers Smash & Grab press. It is their ambition to focus on promoting work of ‘popular and urban literature prints,’ and so their striking website reclaims the well known late 19^th/early 20^th century magazine genre, restyling it PULP. 

DD Armstrong is an ambitious writer, who certainly knows how to unpack a gripping story, has written Lynch’s Road. The first, of a three-book deal that he has with Smash & Grab press.

This is an exciting debut and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Well, that is except for the most violent of scenes, where I had to skip a few pages.

Set in west London, it describes the lives of a range of characters operating in a world where drugs are viewed as the most valuable of commodities. Everyone is affected by the search and consumption of it, whether to make money, to be king of the road, to get rid of the woes of the everyday or just to escape when life deals to many hurts. The most affected, are those who are not involved in the trade, but refuse to give up on those loved ones who are.

There are two interacting narratives, one is current and immediate, the second is reflective and advisory, a warning on how things must change. The link is that three of the main characters in the first narrative are reading the second narrative in a book that through the twists of the story they’ve been handed by another character.

I think that D.D. Armstrong is strongest when writing dialogue, from the middle class ladies’ row over dinner, through to conversations between mother and daughter, between sisters, and most particularly between the friends – whether male or female, that is when Lynch’s Road is really alive with the energy and variety of London life. He flicks between the London argot, and Jamaican inflected expressions, in a completely genuine way.

The ‘preachy and ranty’ sections of ‘The Journey of a Slave’ the title of the book within the book, did not convince me. It seemed less well written, though I am left wondering if that was the point. I enjoyed the ‘walk-on’ parts given to the heroes - Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Gil Scott Heron, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey and explorations of their theories/ideologies.  

There are some brilliantly depicted villains in ‘both’ books, Bains, the white BNP nemesis of Ivan; the slave owner, and the contemporary Fagin-like boss drug dealer Sparks. All are conjured up in a horribly believable way. Even though that is a list of men, I do also think that the women (all good people or idolised as such), Jade - Ivan’s girlfriend; and her friend Tania, Alicia, Anita and Mrs Godfrey are excellent characterisations, people you can recognise.

I am encouraged to see that D.D. Armstrong is being supported and mentored by the actor, film director and screenwriter Noel Clarke of Kidulthood and Adulthood fame, they knew one another as youngsters and have kept in touch randomly over the years. Noel has written a wonderful foreword that explains the commitment of D.D. Armstrong to achieving his goals and his potential to carve out a valuable writing career for himself. 

I am happy to recommend this book, because it gives credible insight into both the prison experience and the drug dealing world, the latter particularly early on in the book, is described in the kind of style that was depicted in the TV programme The Wire – that is as a commercial business, rather than pure criminal activity. It’s a stressful anxious life for all involved, and that D.D. realises this honestly, and much like The Wire, certainly does not glorify, or make it glamorous in anyway. 

The one proviso to my recommendation, and I think that it is an important one, is that what lets Lynch’s Road down, is the editing and sub-editing. It really needed to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb, not to change the story structure or the characters, the pace or the dialogue; these are all strong and clear. It is just that I believe that some of the grammatical and typographical errors throughout the book are un-forgiveable. This extra work would have meant better sentence construction, and clarity around meaning and the right words being used in the correct way. The most surprising was Innocents (the fruit smoothie company) instead of innocence.  Capital letters seem to appear, disappear and reappear from phrase to phrase in connecting sentences. Also, the point of the Oxford Dictionary is that it does not use Americanised spellings. How could the appearance of 'z' in a such a definition have happened?

It is clear to me that money and effort has going into the production, distribution and promotion, so why scrimp on the editing side of things? I pretty much came across all the commonly confused words and grammar mistakes, and this really is not my area at all. (I look forward to the comments pointing out my own errors.) I recognise that some mistakes are easily made, particularly with computers that think they know what you mean before you’ve barely typed it. However a professional re-reading by someone who really knows about these things - you can get that done relatively easily, or get to grips with the issues yourself – it’s your business. I still have an ancient copy of Bill Bryson’s Troublesome Words, that we were made to buy when I started PR training many years ago, and I refer to even now. And there are many other style guides that cover these wordsmith principles.

Sort it out guys, it is the boring stuff of the publishing world, but it’s what really sorts out those who know what they are doing. Especially since everything else you are doing is so fantastic.

Use this link to buy a copy of Lynch's Road, D.D. Armstrong. 

 

Posted by Tricia

++++++++++++

My name is Tricia. I live in London. I like beautiful things, particularly books.

 

Banning All Religion?

 

09.07.2011

 

Australian TV gameshow The Gruen Transfer brings together competing advertising agencies and pits them against each other in an almost American Idol-type scenario. A segment called “The Pitch” gives them a subject like “Child labor should come back” or a similarly controversial topic and asks them to come up with a 30-second spot meant to promote it. A panel of advertising industry experts judges the ads.

In the four years of the program, the only subject they had agencies actually decline to compete on was “Banning religion is a good idea.”

However, two agencies took the challenge and the results were pretty amazing (especially the first one, IMHO). Can you imagine something like this on American TV???

 

 

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It’s the Electric Grid, Stupid

Sep 9, 2011 

Just as President Obama discussed America’s aging infrastructure, a major power outage in San Diego showed the strain on the nation’s aging energy grid.

 

Right around the time when President Obama started talking about ways to revive the economy, nearly five million televisions across Southern California and Arizona went black. It was ironic that while the president lamented the state of American infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and schools, that the U.S. electric grid gave out, an equally aging piece of American infrastructure that analysts have said is also in need of a major upgrade.

The Great Blackout of 2011 gridlocked traffic, closed schools and canceled flights. Electricity wasn’t fully restored until Friday morning, when the problem had appeared to be caused by a maintenance project gone awry near Yuma, Ariz.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) launched a joint inquiry into the lapse, which is common for major energy outages. Spokespeople for both agencies declined to speak for this article, but in a report released last month, the two agencies noted that a major power outage in the Southwest in February was caused by two main factors: unpredictable weather and the unreliability of the grid.

The early assessment of the latest blackout faults a major power line network connecting Arizona and California. When the maintenance project went bad, the network of power lines, which connect power plants to substations that allocate energy to different areas, caused a feedback loop of decreasing energy that essentially knocked much of the region off line.

Most power blackouts are initially caused by human error, like the iconic 2003 outage in New York when a maintenance project (and a falling tree) kneecapped much of the Northeast and parts of Canada—and left about 55 million people powerless—for about a day. But the resulting cascade is often a symptom of inadequate infrastructure and antiquated recovery measures. Learning from mistakes, regulators have mandated some new measures to ensure higher reliability, like trimming trees along busy transmission routes and better training for plant operators.

Traffic and pedestrians move through a powerless intersection following a power outage in Cardiff, Calif., Sept. 8, 2011. , Mike Blake / Reuters

 

The most fundamental fix, however, has hardly been addressed. Last year, the Electric Power Research Institute studied America’s aging grid infrastructure. Most large transformers that regulate power transmission were designed with lifespans of 40 to 50 years to maximize reliability and efficiency. Yet the average age of transformers is 42 years old, and many are plagued by cosmetic breakdowns, like loosening screws and fraying wiring, which utilities have been unable to fix without finding new funding through rate increases.

Bill Richardson, former secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, said that America was “a superpower with a third-world grid.”

“The one thing that hasn’t changed is the technology that’s deployed,” says Clark Gellings, a research fellow with EPRI. “The advanced technology is only modestly deployed. Until we get a greater recognition of their value, we’re pretty much in the same place.”

Everyone from energy analysts to engineers have agreed. In 2008, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave America’s grid infrastructure a “D” grade and said in a report that “the U.S. power transmission system is in urgent need of modernization.” Several years prior, Bill Richardson, former energy secretary in the Clinton administration, said that America was “a superpower with a third-world grid.”

Grid infrastructure is generally older in the East, mirroring the nation’s early origins. But the geography in California and the Southwest poses unique challenges. Greater distance between cities requires more reliable transmission. And higher landownership closes off corridors for new building. The issue of homeowners opposing any new transmission lines once known as NIMBY—“not in my back yard”—has now been replaced in energy circles by a hardened acronym, BANANA: “Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.”

“It’s been very difficult to site and build new lines out West,” says Erich Gunther, chief technology officer with EnerNex, an energy research and consulting firm. “So all those factors make it particularly challenging to keep up with things.”

One potential solution has long been a national smart grid, a revitalized network that would better allow cities and local communities to monitor power use and forecast usage peaks. Unused power or electricity generated by homeowners could more easily go back into the grid and be shuttled elsewhere. Next week, scores of policymakers, regulators, and technologists will meet in Washington at the nation’s biggest Smart Grid conference, known as GridWeek, to continue the effort to make it happen.

If it happens on a large scale, it’s likely to be mostly a private industry effort. “We have not been able to keep up with construction over the past decade,” admits Chris Hickman, CEO of energy research firm Innovari. “Because of the absolute lack of direction from fed government, it’s created a dramatic level of uncertainty.”

 

The Legendary:

A Film About The Roots 

February 17, 2011 by I Am Ayo  

During The Legendary Roots Crew’s acclaimed Hennessey Artistry Tour, where they were joined on different dates by the likes of  Ron Isley , Eve, Mary J. Blige and  Erykah Badu, film maker Can Be and journalist/presenter Jeff Baraka came together to film and document the Grammy award winning band.

During the latter part of 2010 Jeff Baraka and I had the opportunity to cover a number of concerts on the Hennessey Artistry Tour with the Legendary Roots Crew. I have always been a huge fan of the music created by the best band to ever grace the Hip-Hop genre. In this film I wanted to not only highlight the versatility of a group that has played with most everyone in the industry. But also capture candid moments of real human beings just trying to share the gifts they have been given to the best of their abilities. In addition to the Hennessey Tour, we got an chance to sit down with drummer ?uestlove at the House of Blues in Chicago as the Roots gave the audience a glimpse of why they are considered by many the hardest working band in show biz. All and all the Roots have proven time again that they are indeed Legendary.

During the latter part of 2010 Jeff Baraka and I had the opportunity to cover a number of concerts on the Hennessey Artistry Tour with the Legendary Roots Crew. I have always been a huge fan of the music created by the best band to ever grace the Hip-Hop genre. In this film I wanted to not only highlight the versatility of a group that has played with most everyone in the industry. But also capture candid moments of real human beings just trying to share the gifts they have been given to the best of their abilities. In addition to the Hennessey Tour, we got an chance to sit down with drummer ?uestlove at the House of Blues in Chicago as the Roots gave the audience a glimpse of why they are considered by many the hardest working band in show biz. All and all the Roots have proven time again that they are indeed Legendary.

 

marie-claire fuses

opera and reggae

at “the dreamland project”

EP launch in Kingston JA

Download rastaman_chant.mp3

Italian-trained Dominican opera singer marie-claire follows her successful listening party in Dominica with an impressive performance at her recent launch of the dreamland project EP in Kingston Jamaica. The event took place Tuesday August 30^th at the firelight gourmet vegan restaurant and was attended by colleagues in music and other well-wishers.

As with her listening party, marie-claire briefly introduced each of the EP’s 5 songs before showing of her vocal range to the delight of the captive audience. On “rastaman chant”, made famous by the late Bob Marley, marie-claire was accompanied by Nyabingi drummers Tony Cole and Ras Thunder.  Drezion (who produced 4 of the 5 songs) joined her on the hip-hop influenced remake of George Gershwin’s “summertime”. “dreamland” another reggae classic she performed, this time of Bunny Wailer and Marcia Griffith fame; started off with a classical orchestral sound before rolling into a bouncy reggae groove.  The song was produced by Paul Daley and recorded at Tuff Gong Studio.  “constellation” was written by legendary singer/songwriter Bob Andy especially for marie-claire and was a favorite of many, including the night’s MC Denise ‘Isis’ Miller of Roots FM. The night’s final song “charcoal” was an original written by the artist herself.

Though notably absent from the event, both Spragga Benz (who is featured on “rastaman chant”) and Bob Andy gave their endorsement to the dreamland project via interview days later. Benz who spoke at and performed alongside marie-claire at the Fort Young Hotel listening party initially compared the blend of opera and reggae to “mixing egg and orange juice.” Within days of his first listen however, Spragga Benz not only embraced the song, he presented it to Marley’s son Stephen for approval before recording his version at Salaam Remi’s NY studio.

For her part, marie-claire is “eternally” grateful to Bob Andy for penning this original song; something he has done for no other artist since writing for Marcia Griffith decades ago.  She also extends many thanks to chef Ben Tsedek Ben Yehuda who’s restaurant provided the perfect ambience for the night. The musical offerings were complimented by servings from his ‘living’ menu comprising cheese cauliflower, curried plantain and pear, dehydrated plantains, curried mushroom , barbecue mushroom, couscous, ackee pok choi, sushi (made of walnut) sorrel mint, cantaloupe star fruit juice, pizza and mustard green salad.

Guests dining on the vegan course included TV personality and social activist Emprezz Mullings, legendary producer Steve Golding, notable reggae crooner Alaine, Edna Manley professor and head of Music Unites Jamaica Rosina Moder, JARIA (Jamaica Reggae Industry Association) Vice-chairman Charles Campbell, and internationally acclaimed bass-baritone Curtis Watson, with whom marie-claire has been training for the past month.

The EP is available for free download for a limited time. Please click HERE to download

Please visit www.reverbnation.com/marieclairemusic to learn more about marie-claire.

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards

Betty Trask left a bequest to the Society of Authors in 1983 to fund a prize for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 in a romantic or traditional, but not experimental, style. The prize money, which totals £20,000, must be used for foreign travel. The prize is open to published and unpublished novels.

• The annual deadline for entries is 30th November.
• Download the entry form here.

The 2011 Prize

• Anjali Joseph won the £10,000 prize for her novel, Saraswati Park (Fourth Estate).

The 2011 Awards

• Laura Barton received £6,000 for Twenty-One Locks (Quercus).
• Simon Lelic received £2,500 for Rupture (Picador).
• Robert Williams received £2,500 for Luke and Jon (Faber).

Judges: Paul Bailey, Frances Fyfield, Shena Mackay.

Children's Story Competition

We are delighted to announce that Eve White from Eve White: Literary Agent will judge this year's Children's Story Competition.

Eve White has an impressive list of authors at her agency, including Andy Stanton, writer of the wonderful Mr Gum series and Tracey Corderoy, author of many works including 'Frog and Mouse', 'Brave Little Penguin' and 'The Grunt and The Grunch' series.

Take a peak at Eve's website to view her current list of authors, their  latest books and much, much more.

Here's a chance to enter our Children's Story Competition and win cash prizes with your short stories. Send us your original and unpublished writing in no more than 1000 words using one of the five titles below:  

• The Enchanted Rainforest
• The Accident
• Finders Keepers
• The Family Next Door
• Mission to the Moon

You can create your own title and story or you can use a story you've written before that matches these titles above.

The best stories, in each of the four age categories, will win these top prizes, plus see their work in print in our Children's Story Book. 

£150 1^st Prize

£75 2^nd Prize

£50 3^rd Prize

 Plus the school, college or youth club which submits the best overall entries receives a trophy and £200 worth of books.

The winning stories will feature alongside the winning drawings and sketches from the Young Illustrator's Competition in the Children's Story Book.    

   The entry fee is £5 per story and you can enter as many times as you like along with the correct entry fee for each story.  All entries must be in English and can be either hand written or typed. 

Schools, colleges and youth clubs can submit group entries of up to 20 stories for £60. 

Here are the four age categories:

 

Category 1	- 7 to 9 year olds
Category 2	- 10 to 12 year olds
Category 3	- 13 to 15 year olds
Category 4	- 16 to 18 year olds

 

The last day for stories to be sent in to us is at midnight on

Monday 31 October 2011 

All entries must include your contact details and story title(s) on a separate sheet.  Your name must not appear anywhere on your story. 

Stories and payment can also be sent to us online.  You will first need permission.  Ask a parent or guardian to do this bit for you. 

To pay online click the button below  

Send your entry online by clicking here

For schools, colleges or youth clubs, please click here to download the school's submission form.  All group entries and payment must be sent to us by post only.  Our postal address is Chapter One Promotions, Canterbury Court, 1-3 Brixton Road, London, SW9 6DE, England.

More Information: 

The competition is open to schools, colleges, youth clubs and children in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the Channel Isles. We also accept entries from individuals, including English Nationals living abroad, and English speakers residing within the Commonwealth and from around the world.  If English is not your first language, and you would like to enter, then please note that all entries must be in English.

Entries are also accepted from individuals who are home educated.

Tips: 

• Choose a story title that fires your imagination;
• Plot out how the story begins, what happens in the middle and how your story will end; 
• Be descriptive and create interesting characters and intriguing situations for them to be in;
• Always re-read your story before submitting it to make sure there are no spelling mistakes; 
• If you are hand writing your story do make it as neat as possible. 

Remember:

On a separate sheet tell us your name, address, e-mail address (if you have one), name of your school/college/youth club and story title(s). 

Your name must not be on your story. 

You may enter as many times as you like as long as you include the correct entry fee with each story. 

Important bit:  

The last day to send your stories in by is Monday 31 October 2011 . All entries must be in our offices before or on this date.  If you would like to know if we have received your story, then please include a 2nd class stamped addressed postcard with your story title and name on it and we will sign it and send it back to you. 

The winners will be announced at the end of January 2012 on our website and we will publish the winners, the top ten excellent stories and some really good ones in the Children's Story Book which you can purchase from us.  Only the winner's first name, age and area that they live in will be displayed on the website.  For example: Angel, aged 14, Bristol.

If you would like a list of the winners and the winning school then please send a 2nd class stamped addressed envelope marked, ‘Kid's Korner Children's Story Competition Winners 2011'. 

Send your entries and payment to Kid's Korner Children's Story Competition, Chapter One Promotions, Canterbury Court, 1-3 Brixton Road, London, SW9 6DE, England.  Please make your cheque or postal order out to Chapter One Promotions.

If you have any questions then you can call us on 0845 456 5364   or e-mail us with your query.

Please read the competition guidelines for the rules before entering the competition. 

We look forward to reading your stories. 

Good Luck!

Miami University Press Novella Contest

About the novella and our contest

The novella form has had a long and distinguished place in American literature, and has triumphed in the hands of Herman Melville, Henry James, Katherine Anne Porter, Stanley Elkin, Cynthia Ozick, Jane Smiley, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, William Gass, John Gardner, Andrea Barrett and Tobias Wolff, to name just a few.

As commercial publishers are driven more and more by marketplace concerns, novellas, by nature of their length, often fall between the cracks of short story collections and novels and wind up being published—if at all—not as individual volumes but as part of a collection of stories. Because the form is such a pleasure for readers and writers alike—short enough to be read at a single sustained sitting, but long enough to allow the writer greater freedom in character and plot development than does the short story—we are happy to present a rare venue for publishing individual novellas as stand-alone volumes.

Manuscripts submitted for the award will be read and evaluated by our creative writing faculty, all of whom are active publishing writers. The manuscripts will be read “blind;” in other words, all identifiers will be stripped from the pages before the manuscripts are read, and the author’s history of previous publication will not be available to readers. Each year a different member of our faculty will serve as the final judge and will decide from among the list of finalists submitted by the other readers.

Students, former students, faculty, former faculty, or anyone connected to Miami University will not be considered for the award. Though we believe strongly in the talent of those we have worked with and taught, we will do everything we can to assure that this prize is administered impartially, fairly, and without regard to association.

Miami University Press is a non-profit organization. Though we are requiring a reading fee (currently $25), we wish to make it clear that this money will be used to pay for the administrative costs of the contest, to help with the costs of publishing a book of high quality, and to allow each entrant to receive a copy of the winning volume. We want that book to be a pleasure to hold in the hands and to read. The winning volume will be distributed nationwide.

Submission rules and guidelines

Entries must be accompanied by:

 
(1) a completed Entry Form

(2) a title page with only the entry title and word count (do not include your name on the title page), and

(3) the required reading fee of $25 U.S. Dollars (check or money order made payable to Miami University Press). We are unable to accept credit cards or cash.

• Winning entry receives book publication and a $750 advance against royalties.

• Entries must be postmarked by October 1, 2011.

• If you are entering more than one manuscript, you may mail all entries in the same package and include one check or money order for the total reading fee ($25 per manuscript); however, each manuscript must be accompanied by a separate entry form and title page.

• The reading fee is non-refundable.

• Our contest is open to residents of any country, but please note that the reading fee must be paid in U.S. dollars.

• Manuscripts must be 18,000–40,000 words—exceptions cannot be made. Include the exact word count (counting every single word, except the title and contact information) on the cover page.

• Manuscripts should be typed, double-spaced, in a legible font on white 8½" x 11" or A4 paper. Loose pages, held together with a binder clip or rubber band, are acceptable.

• Previously published works are not eligible.

• Simultaneous submissions are welcomed; please notify us if your submission is accepted for publication elsewhere; your entry will be pulled from our pool. We regret that we cannot refund the entry fee.

• We cannot return submitted manuscripts.

• To receive notification of receipt of your manuscript, send a self-addressed stamped postcard along with your entry.

• All entrants receive a copy of the winning book.

• Results will be announced on our website by early February 2012.

Mail to:
MU Press Novella Prize
English Department
356 Bachelor Hall
Miami University,
Oxford, OH 45056