Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 3, Season XI.
This is it – at long last! We’ve finally set everything in motion, we’ve hoisted all the sails, and the Alpha season is about to show off its full potential.
Everything that’s on offer is provided by courtesy of Alpha members. Your input makes up all the treats we enjoy on Alphadays and in between.
Make the most of it!
Today’s agenda is as follows:
This bulletin from me
- The Log from Fran
- The results of Challenge 1 (the photo challenge) from Sue
- The collated entries for Challenge 2 (thinking outside the box) from Chris
- The brief for Challenge 3 from Olaf
- Possible showcasing news (independent schedule) from Suzanne
That’s a rich agenda that I’m sure will give you plenty of writerly stimulation.
The more you contribute, the more there is for us to enjoy, to discuss, to share.
Anything that has a bearing on your writing outside the challenges will be welcome as an entry for the Log.
Suzanne still needs more contributions for the showcasing. She’d like to know what everybody intends to share with the group even if it isn’t quite ready yet.
I need to know what you’d like to contribute to the Alpha 10-year celebration book. I’m happy to discuss ideas with anyone who’s undecided.
That’s a lot of contributions you’ll be sending off in different directions. Of course there are also the challenge entries and votes and comments. We all know that feeling of righteous satisfaction – even bliss – when we’ve prepared a piece of writing, checked it through, decided it’s the best we can do… and press ‘send’.
Whoever is on the receiving end will automatically and immediately send off an acknowledgement of receipt (unless they forget, but how could they?). That’s Alpha etiquette and it makes everything flow smoothly and pleasantly.
We’ve had no animated discussions after the forays into car vocabulary.
I did smile at the three synonymous phrases that started with ‘adsum’, which was neatly translated into ‘online’ and finally with ‘Er, I’m over ‘ere!’
I like it!
There has been one big literary event since our last Alphaday. I mean the Man Booker Prize, of course.
I find that quite exciting, especially the polemics that arise around it.
This time they’d changed the rules and allowed entries from all writers whose books were written in English and published in the UK.
Apparently only writers from The Commonwealth of Nations, The Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe used to be eligible.
That change seems to me to represent a huge leap – surely long overdue – from the 19th century to modern times. Others feared an influx of American literature.
The winner is Australian. Well done Richard Flanagan… who is actually mostly described as Tasmanian, but that’s still Australian as far as I can see. His novel is set in WW2. That is presently a very popular theme. I’ll have to read it, I suppose, to make up my own mind.
Checking through a list of previous winners I came upon some strange genres: ‘historiographic metafiction’ was one (my spell-check doesn’t like that one either!); ‘misery lit’ was another. Perhaps we should familiarise ourselves with these by using them as challenge themes.
I’ve read one of the shortlisted novels: “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by Karen Joy Fowler; an American writer: Unusual, fascinating.
One of the judges described the experience of reading one novel per day for five months to get through the 156 entries.
I think I’d quite like to work my way through the shortlist over the next year or so… if I can manage it!
Christine