Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 3, Season XII.
It always takes a while to hoist all the Alpha sails and get the entire crew into position at their stations, ready to take off towards new horizons. We’ve had a very favourable wind so far and we’re already cruising along at full speed. In other words: we’ve got a complete menu for this Alphaday and I hope you’ll enjoy the many treats supplied by our willing and efficient crew.
(I’m afraid the sailing metaphor sort of imposed itself; if you think it’s a bit of a naff cliché that’s all right with me.)
Today’s agenda is as follows (but not necessarily in that order):
- This bulletin from me
- Marks and comments for the boat challenge from Sue (Ch.1)
- The collated entries for the dialogue challenge from Olaf (Ch.2)
- The brief for Challenge 3 from Morgen
- The Log from Sally
- The Writers’ Reads from Morgen
- Perhaps even a showcase item from Suzanne. Suzanne’s schedule is independent of Alphadays as the number of Showcase items will exceed the number of Alphadays because every member is supposed to contribute one piece of writing. It does, however, rely on you sending Suzanne your entries at the earliest opportunity so that she has a supply to use at regular intervals rather than none now and a huge stack towards the end of the season.
As far as I can see there’s plenty there to keep you glued to your PC for hours. I’m sure you’ll want to comment on some of what’s on offer and we look forward to that.
Will we have another batch of seventeen entries for Challenge 2? Perhaps not. Seventeen entries is in fact an all-time Alpha record (according to Olaf who masters statistics and suchlike). But we have had sixteen entries before.
Alpha news:
Leslie has decided to leave the group in order to focus on writing his next novel. We wish you well, Leslie, and thank you for your input while you were with us.
The Alpha Decade Book is coming on nicely. The Final Versions of the ten stories that will be the main focus of the book are being prepared by the ten writers. I’m busy writing the sections that introduce each season and arranging the ten chapters as in the opening part.
I’ve had excellent cooperation from all those involved and that’s certainly helped the progress of our project.
Alpha books.
The Decade Book will bring the number of Alpha books up to five. Rosemary reports that recent sales of Alpha books have been one of each of the three books co-authored by Alpha members. That’s good news and gives a little boost to the writers’ morale. It’s also good news for our chosen charity: The Macmillan Cancer Support as all profits go to them.
General news.
I enjoy the buzz surrounding the Man Booker Prize. The judges read 150 novels in a year and re-read those short-listed. How can they keep them separate in their heads?
This year they chose a Jamaican writer, Marlon James, whose 688-page novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, is about the situation in Jamaica when Bob Marley was the victim of an assassination attack. There’s Jamaican politics and patois, low life – warts and all, Rastafarians, reggae, ghosts and a host of characters.
The amazing thing about the Man Booker Prize is the width and range of literature that it brings into the limelight. As long as it’s written in English and published in the UK it’s eligible. That makes it truly cosmopolitan and impressive for that reason.