Alpha Bulletin 3, Season XIII.<\/p>\n
Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n
Welcome to Alphaday 3. I\u2019m pleased to announce that we\u2019ve now got the Alpha machinery in full swing and every part of it is running ever so smoothly. This time you\u2019ll be treated to the full Alpha agenda provided by our inspired and efficient editorial team, our columnists and our contributors. In other words (as the more perspicacious amongst you have already sussed out) this includes every one of us. We\u2019re an interactive group and all the writerly goodies are penned by Alphas\u2026 which is why they\u2019re so interesting.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s agenda is as follows:<\/p>\n
That should be plenty to stimulate your writerly minds and make you want to share some of your thoughts with the rest of us.<\/p>\n
No special Alpha news<\/u> has come to my ears of late; the Log will bring us up to date. I will mention, however, that Morgen has just moved house. Some of us may consider that one of the most chaotic, unsettling experiences to go through, but Morgen is on the ball with all her Alpha tasks in spite of the house move; and she\u2019s taken quite a lot on this time. Take a round of applause, Morgen!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
General news.<\/u> I don\u2019t enjoy watching football and similar team games; the only sport I watch with enthusiasm is tennis. I think that\u2019s because the player\u2019s personality is so much a part of their game, that the unforced error that should never have happened upsets me. In fact I tend to root for the underdog. I love it when my favourite rising star beats the top player, and I\u2019m full of admiration for the winners. As for my own tennis, well, the less said\u2026<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same with literary prizes. The winner\u2019s personality determines to a large degree whether I cheer for them or not\u2026 and I love the underdog factor.<\/p>\n
Three major prizes have been dished out recently, and I\u2019ve cheered for them all. Margaret Atwood won the Pen Pinter Prize, Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize, and Paul Beatty the Booker Prize. This, to me, is almost as exciting as Alpha successes!<\/p>\n
Now Margaret Atwood and Bob Dylan have been world famous for about half a century each and they\u2019re probably richer than they\u2019d like to boast about in public. But the underdog factor is definitely there. The Pen Pinter Prize was awarded to Margaret Atwood for her \u201cfierce intellectual determination \u2026 to define the real truths of our lives and our societies\u201d (Pinter\u2019s words) and she\u2019s received praise for defending causes like feminism, the environment, repression of artists. It\u2019s all there in her literary output, and also in her public appearances as an activist.<\/p>\n
The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded to somebody for their \u201ccommitment and vision\u201d. Apparently, giving it to Bob Dylan has \u201credefined the boundaries of literature\u201d. (A former winner was TS Eliot.) Bob Dylan has published six volumes of his songs plus part one of his memoirs and a book of prose poetry. His career started with a strong commitment to the cause of the underdog and he took part in marches and demonstrations for what he believed in. He also expressed it in his poetry \u2013 and whatever genre you care to assign it to takes nothing away from its poignancy and beauty. The delay before he accepted the prize reminded me of an incident I used in last year\u2019s music article challenge. It looks like he hasn\u2019t changed one bit!<\/p>\n
Paul Beatty who won the Booker Prize is an African-American whose book The Sellout <\/em>is a satirical take on racism and discrimination in the US. Apparently it\u2019s hilariously funny. He\u2019s already won a prize for it over there and his other novels (2 more) have had good reviews. He won his first prize as a slam poet. The underdog factor is in his theme: racism. And good luck with that; I\u2019ll cheer him on and I\u2019ve put The Sellout <\/em>on my must-read list.<\/p>\n Christine<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alpha Bulletin 3, Season XIII. Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 3. I\u2019m pleased to announce that we\u2019ve now got the Alpha machinery in full swing and every part of it is running…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-467","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\/467","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=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}