Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n
Welcome to Alphaday 3, Season XI.<\/p>\n
This is it \u2013 at long last! We\u2019ve finally set everything in motion, we\u2019ve hoisted all the sails, and the Alpha season is about to show off its full potential.<\/p>\n
Everything that\u2019s on offer is provided by courtesy of Alpha members. Your input makes up all the treats we enjoy on Alphadays and in between.<\/p>\n
Make the most of it!<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s agenda is as follows:<\/p>\n
This bulletin from me<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a rich agenda that I\u2019m sure will give you plenty of writerly stimulation.<\/p>\n
The more you contribute, the more there is for us to enjoy, to discuss, to share.<\/p>\n
Anything that has a bearing on your writing outside the challenges will be welcome as an entry for the Log.<\/p>\n
Suzanne still needs more contributions for the showcasing. She\u2019d like to know what everybody intends to share with the group even if it isn\u2019t quite ready yet.<\/p>\n
I need to know what you\u2019d like to contribute to the Alpha 10-year celebration book. I\u2019m happy to discuss ideas with anyone who\u2019s undecided.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lot of contributions you\u2019ll 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 \u2013 even bliss \u2013 when we\u2019ve prepared a piece of writing, checked it through, decided it\u2019s the best we can do\u2026 and press \u2018send\u2019.<\/p>\n
Whoever is on the receiving end will automatically and immediately send off an acknowledgement of receipt<\/strong> (unless they forget, but how could they?). That\u2019s Alpha etiquette and it makes everything flow smoothly and pleasantly.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve had no animated discussions after the forays into car vocabulary.<\/p>\n I did smile at the three synonymous phrases that started with \u2018adsum\u2019, which was neatly translated into \u2018online\u2019 and finally with \u2018Er, I\u2019m over \u2018ere!\u2019<\/p>\n I like it!<\/p>\n There has been one big literary event since our last Alphaday. I mean the Man Booker Prize, of course.<\/p>\n I find that quite exciting, especially the polemics that arise around it.<\/p>\n This time they\u2019d changed the rules and allowed entries from all writers whose books were written in English and published in the UK.<\/p>\n Apparently only writers from The Commonwealth of Nations, The Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe used to be eligible.<\/p>\n That change seems to me to represent a huge leap \u2013 surely long overdue \u2013 from the 19th<\/sup> century to modern times. Others feared an influx of American literature.<\/p>\n The winner is Australian. Well done Richard Flanagan\u2026 who is actually mostly described as Tasmanian, but that\u2019s still Australian as far as I can see. His novel is set in WW2. That is presently a very popular theme. I\u2019ll have to read it, I suppose, to make up my own mind.<\/p>\n Checking through a list of previous winners I came upon some strange genres: \u2018historiographic metafiction\u2019 was one (my spell-check doesn\u2019t like that one either!); \u2018misery lit\u2019 was another. Perhaps we should familiarise ourselves with these by using them as challenge themes.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve read one of the shortlisted novels: \u201cWe Are All Completely Beside Ourselves\u201d by Karen Joy Fowler; an American writer: Unusual, fascinating.<\/p>\n One of the judges described the experience of reading one novel per day for five months to get through the 156 entries.<\/p>\n I think I\u2019d quite like to work my way through the shortlist over the next year or so\u2026 if I can manage it!<\/p>\n Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 3, Season XI. This is it \u2013 at long last! We\u2019ve finally set everything in motion, we\u2019ve hoisted all the sails, and the Alpha season is about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}