Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 7. We’re now exactly half way through Season XIII with six Alphadays on either side of this one, and five of our ten challenges dusted off. In other words: we’re at the summit of this season. That, to my mind, is a very desirable place to be, whether we’re talking about our career, our skills or Season XIII.
I hope this Alphaday will live up to the expectations I’ve just raised. The Alpha team has been busy as usual to ensure just that, and we have prepared an agenda for this Alphaday that we’re fairly certain you’ll enjoy.
Here’s today’s agenda:
This bulletin from me
- The results of the Troobell Prize acceptance speech from Christine
- The collated entries for the 2018 current affairs interview from Sally
- The brief for Challenge 6 from Chris
- The latest edition of the Log from Sally
- A Writers’ Reads prompt from Morgen
- A Showcase piece presented by Suzanne (if we’re lucky!)
All the above-mentioned items should find their way to your in-box some time today in no particular order. We’re grateful to the special Alpha team who’ve been busy preparing all these goodies, but we mustn’t forget that they’re merely processing input from all Alpha members. So we’ll thank every one of us for our generous and illuminating writerly contributions to the success of this Alphaday.
Alpha news:
Manish contacted Olaf to enquire about membership. He lives in Leicester and is a keen writer of short stories and interested in ‘meeting’ other writers and taking part in writing related activities. Admittedly it is a bit late for Manish to take full part in this season, but we welcome him to the group as an observer. He’ll join in as much as he can, and he’ll be ready for full membership next season, if he likes what he sees – as we hope he will.
Manish will be on the address list for this Bulletin. Could you please include him in group emails from now on.
General news:
Poor old Plato would turn in his grave if he knew what was happening to the ideas of democracy that he so carefully set out for us in De Re Publica (380 BC).
So let’s turn to literature. I do enjoy seeing who is crowned with glory and the latest is the 2016 Costa Book of the Year Award for Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. It’s the second time he’s won the prize, and as we’ve just dabbled in acceptance speeches I expect many of our clichés might have come in useful. I toyed with the idea of “Oh gosh, so unexpected! I never thought a speech would be needed. But here’s one I prepared eight years ago.” (I’m still laughing so much at my own joke that I can’t see the keyboard for tears.)
Seriously, though, writing doesn’t go stale like cakes even after eight years have gone by. I expect Sebastian Barry’s 8-year-old speech was full of gems. Our writing from many years ago was written with enthusiasm for our subject and a commitment to getting as close to perfection as possible. So don’t throw anything away. (You should see my attic!) I think it’s useful sometimes to read through half-forgotten work from the past and feel good about it. There are stories she wrote when she was about 11 years old in Jane Austen’s Juvenilia. (Oh, dear! I’m afraid I’ve lost the stuff I wrote when I was that age, so nobody will ever dig that out.)
Christine