Winner Announced

We are pleased to announce the winner of the 2011 IGGY & Litro Young Person's International Short Story Competition - Layla Hendow for her story 'La Maison de Dieu'.

Layla has won £2,500 and her story will be published in the Sunday Times as well as on the London Underground.

More details, including a video of the prize-giving ceremony will be published here soon.

We had an exceptionally high standard of entries this year, and we would like to congratulate all of the shortlisted entrants on the quality of their short stories.

You can read Layla's award-winning story on the IGGY website as well as all of the other shortlisted entries.

Congratulations to this year's winner - Layla!

Joanna Thomas : 12 Oct 2011 23:27 |  Tags: 2011 Litro |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Boy Who Lost His Life Twice, Chester Pylkkanen

The fifth story from our shortlisted entrants is The Boy Who Lost His Life Twice by Chester Pylkkanen.

The Boy Who Lost His Life Twice

Chester Pylkkanen

ROBERT

I wait in the queue. With functional formica tables and a blue acrylic carpet dark enough to conceal stains, it is like the other adoption agencies: bleak, barren and inauspicious. ‘Robert Bale? Robert Bale?’ calls a receptionist. I rise, chair creaking in complaint, and am directed into an office. The silence, such a blatant contrast to the cacophonous children’s home, only adds to the wan, ashen setting, interrupted solely by the susurration of an aged air-conditioning unit. A woman with unnaturally black hair pinned into a pleat, wearing magenta lipstick to match her spectacles, a grey blouse, charcoal skirt and ‘flesh’-coloured tights on her fleshy legs, appears behind the desk. She passes me a sheaf of papers without comment, and the atmosphere oozes discomfort: yet another rejection. Even the paper sags in disappointment.

Mrs Jonson explains that on my sixteenth birthday I will no longer be legally eligible to stay at Honeytree Children’s Home. I am fifteen, my birthday just two months away in October. A sense of impending doom floods my system; my body visibly stiffens. Yet there is reassurance; the local Somerfield, she proffers, gives children from the Home work, and the agency will fund a rented room for me until I have experienced a year’s employment.

The caterwauling of monotonous machinery floods the checkout. In a scratchy, turquoise-green T-shirt and too-long, starch-stiffened apron, I stand, already weary of the discordant sounds, my arm aching mercilessly from scanning myriad barcodes. During the lunch hour, Andy and Garcia join me on the wooden park bench in front of the store. It being my first week, I ask questions, they answer, and by the end of our break Andy and myself have discovered a surprising amount in common: we are both partial to Marmite sandwiches, Top Gear and Jimmy Carr. After three more hours of barcode ordeal, I return to the bedsit above the betting shop, ravenously consume an insubstantial dinner, and, finally alone, ask myself the same unanswerable questions that dog my waking hours: Why was I abandoned? Might there have been a couple willing to take me in – if only I’d found them? Who were my parents and where are they now? Empty and exhausted, I sleep fitfully.

Over the months, I find family in colleagues. Andy moves to the till beside me with the permission of the manager, Mr Belson, and we develop a kind of friendship. We never discuss our upbringing. We spend breaks between laborious shifts together and on a whim sign up for the Somerfield Community Service Team, devoting the odd day off to walking dogs for arthritic old ladies and clearing litter from the adventure playground on the estate. Emboldened by our selfless endeavours, we decide to start a youth football club, and our shared devotion to the mighty West Ham, coupled with some rusty ball skills, further binds us together. Remembering my birthday, Andy organises a surprise party for staff to celebrate my seventeeth. I return home grinning with pride, full of cider and a growing sense of security.

The following morning brings a letter. Crisp, white, stamped first class – surely from the adoption agency. Mrs Jonson regrets to inform me that they have, in accordance with regulations, withdrawn their funding but wish me all the best.

Despite the agency’s eagerness for me to prosper, I cannot help but flounder without their financial assistance. Within weeks, my bank account is empty. I leave the flat and, that night, sleep rough in my bedding. The South Bank: a homeless ghetto. Grey concrete skyscrapers mirror the gaunt, sallow faces. Successful businessmen, well-fed in too-tight tailored suits, consulting ostentatious watches, stride purposefully past the poorest of the poor without sparing so much as a glance or the price of a cup of tea. As I prepare my makeshift bed in a tenebrous alley, I discover I have unwittingly encroached upon the territory of another homeless group; they gesticulate and swear, words asphyxiated by bedraggled beards, confiscate my envied pillow malevolently and banish me with all-too-believable threats. I flee, find shelter elsewhere and finally sleep. I wake without a sheet as it begins to drizzle and my nostrils flare in recognition of the pungent stench of urine.

I trudge to work, my uniform a little more creased than before. Customers seem unusually silent at my checkout and seize their bags impatiently; in the street during the lunch break, workers hurriedly divert their paths. These actions seem to me enigmatic, incomprehensible. Finally, a child loudly asks her harassed mother why I smell of ‘wee’, and all becomes clear. Andy, half in jest, offers me a bath at his; I accept, explaining that a pipe has burst at my bedsit. He proposes that I stay the night in the spare bedroom. Initially hesitant, I reason with myself and conclude that a bed and running water more than make up for any loss of dignity.

ANDY

I ponder Robert’s disquieting behaviour as my scum-surfaced mug of tea cools; the new odour that clings to him is unmistakable, his once-shiny hair is grimy with grease and his filthy clothes reek of neglect. Concerned and suspicious, I drink until the tea-stained, ceramic bottom is visible, then pour the stewed remains from the teapot into my now empty mug. It is a longstanding family joke that I am a glass-half-empty sort of person, but a powerful instinct is telling me that something is wrong. Something has happened to Robert. I clear away the china and make my way to bed, where I wait for sleep, trying to make sense of the day’s events.

I set the breakfast table for two, reminding myself that my parents are away in the Algarve. Glancing at the postcard they sent, with its vivid colours, smiling, tanned people and the glorious, too-good-to-be-true sun, I call Robert, wishing Mum and Dad were back. He seems refreshed, genuinely touched that I have washed and ironed his clothes – my friend seems to have travelled back two years, to the day I first saw him; a little more confident perhaps, a little less vulnerable. This morning’s stark contrast to the Robert who arrived last night only intensifies my confusion and anxiety, and I am suddenly compelled to ask him exactly where he lives. A pause engulfs the room; he asks if perhaps he could stay for two more days, until Saturday.

Saturday comes and Robert announces that he has a proposal: he will pay half the rent and bills if I will let him stay as my flatmate. With difficulty, I explain that the flat is owned by my parents, who I live with. There is no spare bed, just the room they have vacated in search of a little winter sun. He asks about the going rate for rent and I volunteer that the lowest is around £600 a month – too much for a Somerfield checkout assistant. His face contorted by disappointment and a suggestion of jealousy, he thanks me in a choked voice, opens the door and ambles, disheartened, down the stairs.

By the following Friday, Robert’s situation has clearly deteriorated and I decide I must go to see the store manager, Mr Belson. He is sitting at his desk, discussing sales figures with a sullen, spotty girl from Accounts. I wait at the door until he notices me, then knock.

‘Mr Wright?’

‘Good morning, Mr Belson.’ A hiatus ensues as I clear my throat.

‘Andrew?’

‘Mr Belson, I’m worried about Robert Bale. He’s not looking after himself; his uniform’s not been washed in weeks and he looks terrible. He stayed at my flat last week and all he would say is that a pipe had burst at his bedsit.’

‘And you don’t believe him?’ infers Mr Belson. I stutter, pause, then respond.

‘I don’t know why he’d lie, but it seems far more serious than that. Maybe he’s ill – depressed perhaps. Or something’s wrong at home.’

‘You may not be aware, Mr Wright, but Robert was placed here by Honeytree Children’s Home, who always withdraw funding of a charge’s accommodation after he or she has been employed by a local company for a year. Mr Bale must have been struggling with his rent for quite some time now. Do you think he could have been sleeping rough?’

At a loss for words, I nod, then walk to the door modelling an awkward smile.

‘Andrew, I would prefer it if you didn’t mention this conversation to Robert.’

‘Of course not, Mr Belson, I understand.’

I leave the room, closing the aluminium door soundlessly with a quivering left hand. Robert had seemed so stable, an ordinary boy who had left school without the qualifications necessary to get a better job. a sixteen-year-old who liked football, fast cars and going to the pub on Friday night. In fact, someone just like me. Except that he couldn’t be more different.

ROBERT

I had expected too much, been given too little in return.

Why had I been rejected by my parents, left to struggle alone, when Andy lived so easily, was loved, admired, destined one day to become manager with his charisma and calm capability?

As I wait outside Mr Belson’s office, with its unvarnished aluminium door, I sense finality. Promotion seems unlikely, yet surely appropriate – for everything I have been through that they haven’t, that Andy hasn’t. Babied by his parents, doted on, dependent. I deserve the flat, the bed, the pay rise. The Manager ushers me in and his blank expression suggests that the conversation is not to be positive. In a low, steady voice he explains.

‘Mr Bale, it has come to my attention that you may have been sleeping rough recently. Is this true?’

‘Well, sir -’

‘True or false, Robert?’ he asks sternly but with sympathy.

‘Mr Belson, the children’s home has withdrawn its funding. I have been thrown out onto the streets.’

He stares with curiosity rather than pity.

‘I am so sorry. The rules, however, are as follows: Somerfield employs no homeless people. I will double your final pay packet as a gesture of goodwill; there is nothing else I am legally able to do, unfortunately.’

My voice suddenly hoarse, I quiz: ‘Did Andy inform you?’

‘Robert, it would be unprofessional to answer that question. It was, however, in your best interests – and I respect the concern he has for you.’

I leave the supermarket in the driving rain, without a coat, a home or parents. A pair of pigeons roosts above an advertisement hoarding, calling softly and huddling together. As bruised, livid clouds unleash steely, frigid sorrow upon the city, I understand that there is nothing left in life for me.

Rain becomes sleet, and I sleep, unsheltered, from exhaustion, toes and fingers numb and senseless and a heart as frozen as the ice that falls insidiously around my slumbering form.

ANDY

Robert’s email, like all the others, reads:

How are Mummy and Daddy?
Safe and sound at home?
You live with your parents at almost 20 – what can I say?
From Robert

The Internet C@fe, South Bank

Since I had moved out, the letters had stopped coming but the online taunting was inescapable. The sense of calculated confrontation was unbearable, my feelings of regret overpowering. Robert refused to see that I had been trying to help him – that I could not have known how it would backfire. Had I foreseen the ominous future, I would have contacted Social Services rather than Mr Belson.

On an ill-timed visit to my parents’ house, I noticed among the double-glazing flyers and takeaway menus that arrive on the doormat daily in a steady, unwanted stream, a scrap of paper imitating an envelope, addressed to me. Robert’s note was full of the usual bile and bitterness. As so many had done before, it warned me of his suicidal mood, but this time it was alarmingly specific. He intended to end his miserable life by West Reservoir, a mile or so from my parents’ flat, at 3pm precisely.

Traffic halts all hope of saving Robert. Cars half-covered in flaking paint screech as they round the corner almost as loudly as their obese, skin-headed drivers, who, in obsolete anger, grope for every expletive that has ever been hurled at them. My watch reads 2:56; abandoning the car, I rush towards the bridge, the most likely – if clichéd- place to end a blighted life.

As the heavy rain darkens the industrial concrete, its texture and shade metamorphosing simultaneously, it appears that Robert has not carried out his threat. Exhaling, I return to my vehicle, then park on the pavement before sitting on a graffitied bench to wait for my troubled friend. Piercing the clouds is a single, burnished shaft, and as the clouds dissipate into the dazed atmosphere, there is a disturbed silence. It seems everything has paused to listen to the faint creak echoing in the cavernous space beneath the bridge. Fearing what must be, I retch involuntarily and, clutching my mobile, peer over the rail.

The roar of the rush hour and the pelting of the relentless rain had camouflaged his muffled cries, smothered a life unlived. I phone the police, battling the tide of emotion. In response to my shock and instinctive disgust, raindrops hurl themselves, like Robert, at the ground, leaving stains that will never truly dry. Almost without thinking, I drive to Somerfield, enter the manager’s office, inform him of the news, and with all my will focus on remaining conscious. I return to the flat silently and fall upon my old bed, smothering the sobs.

Why didn’t he tell me? Why did I never ask about his family? Why didn’t I let him share mine?

Robert Bale, the boy who lost his life twice. The most unfortunate 17-year-old I ever knew. The brother I never had.

Joanna Thomas : 21 Sep 2011 10:40 |  Tags: 2011 Litro Shortlist |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Black Hooks, Ruth Gervaise Ingamells

The fourth story from our shortlisted entrants is Black Hooks by Ruth Gervaise Ingamells.

Black Hooks

Ruth Gervaise Ingamells

The car was on the edge of the city when her waters broke, dusk was imminent.

“We need to find shelter,” said the man.

“Then find it!” she snapped.

They sped down a deserted street, searching through the fatigue to get somewhere safe. The car thudded over body and bone with ease, lining the streets with blood and mud. The girl, sickening with pale pain, writhed rigidly with little consciousness or sense. Bloody bubbles popped onto the seat fabric, soaking deeper into a stain. White panic was building, puckered and manic, knuckles bleached and bleeding. The car stopped.

“How close?” he said.

“I don’t know, I’m trying,” she said.

“Can you stand?”

“No.”

He parked the car near the house he had chosen, squat and suburban, got out and helped the woman out of the car, supporting her up the driveway before breaking inside. He had only a few minutes before darkness. Leaving her there he hurried to the boot of the car and pulled out several containers full of chemicals and splashed them over the top and onto the tyres and followed the tracks of blood up the road about a hundred metres spreading the fluid as he went, washing away their scent. He then sprinted back to the house, poured the remainder of the fluid onto the porch and then pushed the door closed.

It was dark now but he dared not light a fire. He hoped the house was empty.

He helped the woman up the stairs and into the bedroom, barring the door behind them and closing the shutters on the house. They did not speak. Bleak blurs of furniture scattered the room and the bed lay dusty. It would do.

“Is this a good idea?” she asked.

“We can’t move now,” he said.

“I know, but perhaps we should check the house?” she said.

“Best not to leave the room.”

“You’re right.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, the contractions aren’t as bad now, I should be able to sleep,” she lied, ignoring the pain that had spread from her abdomen to her lower back.

The silence outside was unsettling, it rendered the space vacuous and breathless. The woman lay awake in darkness until the pain exhausted her body and eventually sleep stole her. They were deaf to the scuttling rustles that only a keen listener would have heard. Few but distinct sounds in the road and around the car outside; little clicks barely audible.

In the early morning unwelcome consciousness forced them awake. Neither hurried to get up, they relished the rest but pushing noon they knew they had to move. The man pushed open the front door and waited. Nothing stirred, even with the hot sun reflecting off the broken windows in the house opposite, the feeling of darkness remained. They hurried to the car and got in, the seat was still wet with blood and the woman winced as it seeped into her but made no complaint. He put his seatbelt on.

“Where are we going? There’s no one here,” she asked.

“We need to find somewhere safe to get that thing out of you,” he said.

“Where?”

“I don’t know, away from here,” he said.

Passing through the moulding streets they watched for any sign of life. Nothing. Cinema signs dated films several months ago and the smell of rotting meat and vegetation permeated the air. The man negotiated the car around the debris but when he reached the road leading across the bridge they saw it was blocked. A children’s bus stretched across the gap and cars piled up behind it, a massive middle finger of metal directed at them. The car stopped, engine still running and a winded silence issued between them.

The woman got out of the car. “What are you doing?” demanded the man.

She ignored him and strode towards the pile, gritty with anger and kicked the bus screaming profanities, struggling around the swollen bulge that leeched off her. He waited. She returned eventually, wilted, and folded back into the car.

“Feel better?” he said.

“No,” she answered.

“Alright,” he said.

“Where do we go now?”

“There’s another way out across town.”

They returned back down the main street in blacker moods, bleakly aware of the swollen danger, gravely greyer. Meandering down shady streets, creeping to grasp the road that reached around the lip of the city. The car wheeled over curb and crust, deep and gritty, with little mindful direction. Nausea was the constant feeling, a bleary queasy sickness, not only from the smell but from the intense fear that held them. But after days of eating little more than scraps even the nausea was overcome.

Food was scarce but luckily not all the tins in the myriad of malls had been looted. It was pushing early evening when they found any worth opening but as he pierced the lid with his army knife they clustered around the meagre meal and etiquette abandoned them. They paid no heed to the settling sun.

“We need to move,” he said suddenly.

“Wait -” she hunched over.

“What? What’s wrong?” he said.

“Contractions,” she managed.

His chest tightened. Not now. Not here. He was stupid to bring her to this place, stupid and irresponsible.

“We need to move now!” He hauled her towards the car.

She was bleeding again, fumbling at her dress, weakly mumbling for water and comfort which he couldn’t provide. Somehow he got her to the car and put it in gear, ploughing through the traffic that stood static. They were close to the railway station frantically looking for somewhere to hide, craning to look into all the nooks. Without warning the car hit something unidentified, he turned his head to the windscreen to see a face stare back. She was pressed against the glass, face bleeding, splintered and splayed. Shades of reds misted the glass, her face printed in lipstick and blood. He had hit someone. Screaming he slammed on the brakes throwing the corpse off and the woman next to him forward. He heard her arm break. They halted, the engine gurned. The woman beside him was crumpled, cuts down her face and arms, whimpering stickily. She had been thrown about the car as it skidded and the blood was no longer localised to her thighs but all around her face and body. They had thought they were alone in the husk of a city. They had been wrong.

He pulled her from the wreckage and began stumbling towards the station. “It’s coming,” she choked.

He saw in his periphery a large metal container used to shift goods and with new hope he wrenched the door open and pushed her inside. As dusk swamped he managed to spread some chemicals before locking them inside.

There was no light, darkness diffused into their skin, sinking through their eyes, a dye that tainted. She was groaning deliriously by this point, squirming in the dirt, he pulled off his shirt and dabbed the blood dribbling. She was drained.

“It’s coming!” she sobbed. He took out his knife.

“I’m here,” he said quietly and felt around her inner thighs, he could feel it pushing through.

“I have to push! I’m sorry,” she said.

“I’ll get it ok? Do it now!” he hissed.

Something soft and slimy pressed into his hands and as he tightened them around it, it squirmed, smelling of low tide. He felt it thrash in his grip, six legs trying to fight but he held on. “Kill it!” she wailed.

Quickly he trapped it between his knees and stabbed downward into the thing, slashing and hatching until it ceased to move. He felt the warm fluid dribble, ripped skin ripple and shred. They sat in the tepid gunge, and he pressed his shirt in her thighs until the bleeding stopped and they could breathe again.

“How do we get away from here?” she said.

“There will be a way, there must be a way,” he said. “are you alright?”

“I don’t know,” she said, fading into unconsciousness.

“Sleep, we will do something tomorrow,” he said.

Only silence answered him.

Light diffused in through the many pin-prick holes in the side of the container. He shook her awake and opened the door. The sun was embracing. Her arm was clearly broken but he splinted and slung it as best he could.

“Can you walk?” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

They left the body of the thing mangled in the container, deflated and deformed. The box that had served as a safe house the night before now looked haunting in the light, a tomb left cold and skeletal, a brittle Kohl grave.

They walked through the city, heading to the coast where the second bridge would be. When the port was sighted they saw a ferry there waiting and small throng of people, huddled and hiding from the jigsaw buildings behind them. Perhaps the city was not forgotten. They ran towards the port, hopelessly happy for company. The crowd flinched from sight of more people and as the two joined them they wordlessly frisked them for food or water which neither could offer. Everyone had a wild wheezing mien. All the women were pregnant.

“Where is it going?” the man asked another.

“Mainland,” said the other shortly.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Where else? Both bridges are blocked.

“Both?”

“Last night,” he said.

He returned to the woman who was helping one of the more pregnant women move up the ramp and onto the boat.

“We should go,” he said. “With them?” she said. “Yes,” he answered.

She nodded, flocking with the others onto the ferry, leaving behind the city. A city wearied by the unwanted, riddled with danger and anger, soon to die from its parasite and remain a ruin. As the ferry left the city the people began to relax, lying down or resting dry eyes. They sat close in a cold corner.

“Are we going somewhere safe?” she asked tiredly.

“Yes,” he said.

“I would love a bed.”

“You’ll get one.”

They sat, mute.

“Do you think Mum and Dad are alive?” she asked. “I doubt it,” he said quietly.

They sat again. “My arm hurts.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

“For you.”

“Me too.”

It was dark inside the ferry, and as it moved further out to sea, clouds formed and cast shadows, draining the little warmth that the sun gave. The inside of the ferry was lines with wooden panels, storage space for luggage. They were nearly rotten, etched with scratch marks and freckled with holes. A rank stench began to rise, smelling like poisoned water and rotten salt grappling their senses. As the waters deepened the stench of low tide rose high. As the people rested these panels began to shake, not violently at first but as it exceeded the vibration of the engine people began to notice. As the wood began to split everyone huddled in the centre of the ferry, fraught limbs taut with frantic panic hitting and clawing. Out of the ferry poured hundreds of little black bodies armoured in black exoskeletons, skull-sized, four legs and two at the front with a hook on each designed to drag. Emaciated hollow faces ridged pulp. Black creatures that knew you were there.

Screams erupted in high pitched terror and every woman on seeing the things clutched their bellies going into early labour. In the panic no one noticed them collapse and moan, unable to run or fight. Out of them came more of the black organisms, shelless but animated and scuttled to join their kind. Placenta followed shortly after, creating a viscous film on the floor.

Brother and sister headed for the edge of the ferry, as did many others not paralysed with dry fear. The cold water was preferable.

“I can’t swim!” cried the woman, lifting her broken arm,

“You’ll have to try!” he yelled.

In their hesitation the dark crabs pierced their ankles, hooking and dragging through skin and tendon. The man fell forward and hit his head, hard, on the railing. He blacked out. Around him people were falling, their faces enveloped by a black body until knocked unconscious. The woman in her fatigue and exhaustion felt darkness dribble into her mind unbidden and unprovoked.

She woke up in a cell, surrounded by bodies piled on bodies, blood soaking the metal floor, ceiling high and dripping and iron walls that had bloody fingernails dug into the metal.

“How… where are we?” she mumbled.

There was a movement behind her and she flinched – it was her brother.

“You’re awake,” he said, “I don’t know where we are, but they caught us in the end. There was no crew on the ferry, did you notice?”

“No,” she answered.

The floor shifted.

“I think we’re on the sea,” he said.

“Still?”

“Yes, I think we’re on a boat or island or something. Something they made.”

“How? How could they make anything,” she said.

“We underestimated them,” he said.

Joanna Thomas : 20 Sep 2011 13:54 |  Tags: 2011 Litro Shortlist |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Bath, Lillian Fishman

The third story from our shortlisted entrants is The Bath by Lillian Fishman.

The Bath

Lillian Fishman

Mia’s arms are long and white, and her nails are trimmed short and round at the tips of her fingers. Elodie knows this because of the picture of her on the second shelf of the blue desk. She also knows that Mia has eyes that melt when people look at her to keep them from becoming windows.

Elodie learns this when she finds the first note. It is folded eight times, smudged with green crayon, a little torn, rolled carefully into the crevice where the knob of Mia’s reading lamp forms a tight niche with the frame. The paper is unbelievably thin when she pulls it out, almost transparent, and a tidy, perfected script meanders across it in what is, at close inspection, a ballpoint pen’s neat line. The words curl against her teeth as if they want to emerge in a murmur, sure but unassuming. I have eyes that melt when people look at me to keep them from becoming windows.

Elodie, because she is paid to do so, because the girl Mia is granted the unremarkable luxury of returning home to a pristine room, spreads a new set of sheets on Mia’s bed. The waves of the fabric are even as it settles onto the mattress. Elodie is used to the seething pattern and the strangeness of the sheets while she arranges them. She smoothes the elastic edges, tucks in the corners, straightens the hem, lets the stray cotton filaments drift up and settle on her clothes. She finishes dusting the lamp and curls the transparent paper back inside the niche.

Mia’s room is not unusual. It is wide, painted yellow with pale blue trim, and the closet doors open and close with a satisfying snap. She has two sets of drawers, a blue desk with photographs and postcards, tchotchkes made out of soda cans and pressed flowers, old homework assignments, magazine cutouts. When she burns candles there is a lingering trace of patchouli where the smoke clings to the blue baseboards. Elodie remembers this precise shade of blue when she sweeps along the thresholds: cornflower blue. She remembers the label and the tight happiness of new paint on her walls. She can see the shadow of a pink tree flowering on the patio, the white molding in the hallways like the frosting on a cake. She can still feel Mia’s beautiful reality under her fingers as she folds the quilts; she remembers the smell of vanilla soap, the silver gossiping of rings as her mother stirred a spoon, the thoughtless ease of running with linen skirts sighing around her ankles—the thoughtless ease of existence.

Elodie does not know this, but Mia’s favorite room in the house is the bathroom. She doesn’t spend very much time in it, but perhaps that is part of why she prefers it. There is something undeniably majestic about the bath: those strange, twisted feet. The curve of the basin. The faucets, exactly spaced and polished. Maybe it seems enduring to her, that hard, white body, the defiant sweep.

Between the parallel slots of an air-conditioning vent, the borders hooked so that it is wedded to the apertures: Elodie finds a flimsy square of Polaroid film, a little blurred, the colors glossy. She thumbs the corner and looks at it. In the picture, an orange skin lies curled on a wooden cutting board, two tapered rounds of peel blooming at the ends of a single winding strip. Elodie considers slipping the Polaroid into her pocket, but the borders are still creased to embrace the parallel slots of the vent, and she leaves it to wait between the apertures. She thinks about Mia while she drains the bath with blue soap, rinses the walls, listens to the gurgle of the drain. The pads of her fingers are wrinkled and pale with the wet. There is something august in the bath’s imperious claws, Elodie observes. She admires the plump walls and the bath’s white hips.

****

Cleaning Mia’s room feels like all of the times Elodie has fallen in love with someone she can’t have. The feeling of floating, the inevitability of her own familiar life is the same. Mia’s life, one that Elodie knew as a child, one that she can still recall perfectly when she steps into soft shoes—it is lost to her. Now there is only the great bath, Mia’s bath, like one Elodie remembers, and the sharp tongues of the blue soap.

In the afternoons, Elodie walks out to her car. The dogwood is beginning to bloom pink, and the rain sweeps a lacy afghan of petals across the car windows. The flowers are sticky, freckled orange, and they wrinkle against the glass. When Elodie turns on the windshield wipers the rain and the petals are swept to the fringes like a tide, and they glitter, gossamer, translucent in the corners of her eyes.

While she drives she thinks of the creamy yellow of Mia’s walls. She remembers the smooth skin of her own palms, the way gloves used to slip over them like water. She remembers lying in the grass on the patio, and how wide the sky looked from the ground.

Mia leaves a quote inside her pillowcase. Elodie reads it and thinks of the March damp in the soil, and the impossibility of everything beyond the edges of her tight world.
I would not think to touch the sky with two arms. Sappho

Elodie has never met Mia, but she finds her notes and photographs—the things she leaves behind, to mark this house, to mark something—and her mind is filled with Mia’s secrets tucked inside the everyday sundries of cleaning. She knows that Mia likes spicy food and that when she rolls something hot inside her tongue she doesn’t blush from the heat but from the weight of people’s eyes. She knows that carbonation makes Mia think of birds taking flight inside her cheeks and that she only drinks soda because everyone else does. She knows that Mia does not really like music, that her hair falls out sometimes and that it scares her, that raked leaves in elegant heaps on people’s lawns remind her of cemeteries. She knows that sometimes Mia sits in the bath while it drains and waits as the water leaves her skin cold so that she can feel the weight of gravity and the fast, warm throb of her own blood.

Spreading the sheets is a precise routine, exact, calculated, smooth. Elodie is tired of evening the bed with her palms and lining up the seams, of the strain and the meticulousness. Sometimes she does it with her eyes closed: she feels the pull and the weight of the cotton, the shape of the bed, and she finds the wrinkles with the pads of her fingers. When she makes Mia’s bed she sees the nebulous darkness behind her closed lids and she wonders if Mia has ever wished she could penetrate that dusk. She imagines entering into the halls of her eyelids, and the echo of her footsteps, and the flickering gate of her eyelashes at the edge.

We jump and we hope that the air catches us and that we will fly, frozen. But I relish the fall. It reminds me that I am mortal, and that I have survived this long.

Elodie finds these purple words and thinks of Mia’s white arms, and the lines around her own eyes. She thinks of how long she has survived. She does not feel mortal; she feels as though her years are limitless, enduring, as though she will bloom pink like the dogwood on the patio less vibrantly each year, as though she will always be alive to watch the world fade.

More often Elodie remembers being Mia’s age, a child in sprawling house, with yellow walls and pale blue trim. There was the patio and the vanilla soap; there were the magazine cutouts and the occasional candles, maybe. There were no notes or Polaroids hidden underneath the bath or inside the hot shells of desklights; there were secrets, but they were not hers, and she was the keeper of nothing that was hers—her life was deftly controlled, smooth, quiet, lace and linen. Elodie was not like Mia. But she wonders if she and Mia are more alike than she knows. Inside her skull, palpably, there are long winding thoughts and impatient ideas knocking against the noodle-labyrinth and the bones, and they build up behind her eyes (which unfortunately do not melt when people look at her) one by one because she never breathes them out, not even through her fingertips. One day, when she is sweeping Mia’s room, Elodie takes a scrap from the blue desk and carefully pens a message. I was never a keeper of secrets. I left no mark on my house, and I have left no mark on the world.

Elodie is dusting underneath the bath while the water runs, whistling. There is a wide window that opens above it, glittering a little, and it is newly spring. A lush quiet.

Between the curved claws of the bath’s feet is a twisted slip of paper, elegantly hidden, that reveals itself to Elodie’s sponge. Slowly she unfurls it, lets the momentum of the first letters roll out the corners.
Someone will remember us, I say, even in another time.

Elodie puts away the blue soap and the sponges and leaves the hot water running. She steps inside the bath, feels the burst of the jets at her ankles. It is oddly quiet. She steadies herself on the white hips of the bath, sinks into it, lets the eddies swirl and stroke the wasp-edge of her waist. She turns the tap off and listens to the drain swallow the water in long, greedy gulps. She is left thin, wet and cool, and she can feel her own weight in the great bath, and she can feel her own blood beating in her throat.

Joanna Thomas : 17 Sep 2011 06:00 |  Tags: 2011 Litro Shortlist |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

La Maison de Dieu, Layla Hendow

The second story from our shortlisted entrants is La Maison de Dieu by Layla Hendow.

La Maison de Dieu

By Layla Hendow

I

There walked the priest: through the stone archway of a watchtower in Roquebrune-sur-Argens, underneath the blood-red cliffs scorched by an ancient sun. He was close enough to the Argens River to have felt its cooling wind had there been one that day. He was alone. The rain had started early that morning and bounced upon the cobbled pavement like it was landing on a frozen lake. The old streets that ran between buildings themselves even older became narrow as he walked. They guided him to the entrance of l’eglise de Roquebrune-sur-Argens.

The old man sighed. He looked up at the sky, a gunmetal grey, and then at the godless world around him. He thought it bleaker than he ever thought possible. The building he was trying to open was more similar to a ruin than a church and he imagined the rain could dissolve the very foundations of the stone.

II

The priest shook off his cape when he entered the church; the sleeves of his fading cassock stained with rain. On the table, there was a handwritten notice on thick brown paper. It read:

Beinvenue!
Eglise de Roquebrune-sur-Argens
Diocese de Fréjus-Toulon
“La maison de Dieu”
Horaire des Messes:
Le dimanche: 10h30 (avec orgue)

The note lying beside it asked him to nail the sign to the door. He put down the piece of paper. He did not go.

Instead, he made his way down the church to the altar: two unlit candles lay on its smooth, white marbled surface. The wax that had melted down the sides of the candles some time ago, hardening into a strange new sculpture. A row of women undressing. The man frowned at this thought. He knew that time had forgotten this place, that time moved forward but the church was forgotten. The wax had hardened and no one had ever thought to remove it. God had been forgotten somewhere along the line.

The man began to speak, closing his eyes as though he could see the words resting beneath them. He held his hands in front of him, imagining the roughness of the paper-thin bread and the weight of the wine-cup.

‘Panis triticeus… vinum de vite…’

III

As the priest turned to lock the Eucharist behind its golden gates, he heard the wooden doors of the church swing open quickly. For a spilt second he heard again the world outside.

‘Je suis très désolé,’ he called out. ‘La masse commence à dix heures et demi.’

He heard the light click of a woman’s heels inside the shadows of the far end of the church.

‘Hello? Bonjour?’ She spoke in a textbook French accent. ‘L'anglais, s'il vous plait,’ she said meekly. She was seemingly lost in the vastness of the pews.

Suddenly she appeared from the shadows in the North Aisle. He stared at the girl in surprise. Her hair was parted centrally and fell in black waves over her petite shoulders. Sunglasses were placed upon her head like a crown despite the rain beyond those walls and a large, professional camera dangled from her neck. She wore little red gloves, which she took off carefully and placed on the table next to the door to dry.

‘L’anglais?’ she asked again, unsure what the man’s silence could otherwise mean.

‘Yes,’ the priest said slowly. ‘I said you were early. Mass does not begin until ten thirty. You weren’t to know.’

‘Oh no!’ she said, letting out a small, child-like giggle. ‘I’m not here for mass. I’m not even a Christian. I was wondering if I could take some photographs of your beautiful church.’

She stood and rocked on her feet before the priest nodded slowly.

‘Will you give me a tour?’ she paused. ‘S'il vous plait? I will be finished so much quicker,’ she added, sensing his agitation.

‘Of course…’ He found himself nodding again. ‘Mais ce n'est pas la Notre Dame de Paris…’ he said under his breath.

They began to walk to the back of the church, taking the route he had walked down so many times before.

‘Oh, I cannot stand Paris!’ she said, like she had just finished translating the words one by one in her head and was exceedingly pleased with herself. ‘Too busy! Too many people. I despise people… photography is my passion, but not of people. I love churches…’

She spoke quickly and seemed to be talking to herself. He could not help it. He cleared his throat and asked her why.

‘Why?’ She let out that same strange giggle, which distracted him. ‘Because they are beautiful! Especially the old ones. They represent a community that has existed for hundreds of years, and that without the church as its leader would not exist. It is somewhat inspiring, don’t you think? The church is like a womb… it is the last remains of true family in this world.’

‘But… I thought you said you weren’t a Christian?’

‘I’m not. But just because I don’t believe in God does not mean I can’t believe in the power of the church. The power it has to create hope. Just look at this window…’

The girl diverted, walking through a set of pews to the stain-glass window on the wall above. She was mesmerized by it and her mouth hung slightly open. The priest took this opportunity to look at her. He thought she was beautiful. The light from the stain-glass window cut shards of red across her face and shoulders, so when she smiled she looked like the image of the devil himself. He was taken aback: in all of the Cité Millénaire he did not think such beauty existed. As she spoke about the history of the figure of Jesus on the cross he realised it was not him leading the tour, but her.

So the church appeared new: like the first time he entered it as a child. How infinite the walls had seemed! And how, now that he was older, he had begun to feel part of the stone itself. The ornate paintings on the wall and roof were suddenly the pieces of art he had once fallen in love with. The structure of the pews and the stone archways, which led to the chambers, were striking and each curve was like that of a woman’s figure. He followed as the girl’s camera led them through the church.

IV

As the bells rang, the priest got up from the pew. When the girl left, he had knelt down and begun to pray. He prayed for God to forgive his sins. He prayed for the family and friends he had not seen in years. He prayed for the girl; that she might never believe in God.

He did not want her to change, but to stay exactly the way she was.

Walking to the doors, he passed the notice still on the table. He picked it up.

‘La maison de Dieu,’ he read aloud. The House of God.

Next to the notice, there lay two small, red gloves. The priest laughed. He grabbed the nail and hammer and opened the door.

Joanna Thomas : 16 Sep 2011 10:22 |  Tags: 2011 Litro Shortlist |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Gladys and the Birds, Kate Baguley

We will be publishing each story from the shortlisted entrants on this blog over the next week.

First up is Gladys and the Birds by Kate Baguley.

Gladys and the Birds

By Kate Baguley

‘Come on, then, let’s get you out of this chair, poppet.’

‘It was the zeppelin’. I tell you. ‘It flew right overhead and everyone from the terraces ran out to wave as it passed. It had come all the way from Germany, and we were so very excited to see it.’. At least, that is what I want to tell you but it doesn’t come out like that. I hear myself mumbling about the birds on the ceiling and I wonder why I bother. I really want to tell you about the zeppelin because I can remember it as clearly as if it were a cliché. But I can’t because Mouth and Brain don’t work together like they used to. Mouth only talks about the birds. I don’t even like birds.

‘Put one arm into this sleeve for me.’

Thing is, that’s the problem. People listen to mouths too much. If they looked at eyes, or understood hands, or even thought for a minute, they would know that I don’t want to talk about the birds. I’m fed up of talking about the birds, and I know that the birds aren’t on the ceiling, or indeed even outside most of the time. I want to tell you about the zeppelin, or tell you that I’m tired, or hungry or that I don’t want you to talk to me about the birds, or bring food to tempt the birds to the patio window so that I can see the birds, or tape endless nature documentaries so that I can learn more facts about the birds. After their inexhaustible efforts, I’m probably about as knowledgeable as an ornithologist. To be quite honest, I’m surprised that they haven’t given me a pair of binoculars and stuck me at the top of a mountain. At least the Evening Chronicle would be interested. I’d probably end up talking to them about the birds as well, knowing my luck. If I were having a really good day, I might even be able to tell them to ‘go away’, although mouth doesn’t phrase it quite like that. Mouth is much more daring. See, there are some perks to living with Mouth.

‘And the other arm.’

The cruel irony, of course, is that when you get to my age, my ‘great’ age, as I’m sure they call it, one looks rather bird-like. The dentureless mouth and the sunken, beady, black eyes don’t do any favours, and the fleshless, stick-like limbs don’t help, either. I keep expecting them to put me on a perch and rename my room ‘The Aviary’. It wouldn’t surprise me, but then nothing really surprises me anymore.

‘Do you need to spend a penny? No? Are you sure you don’t?’

What gets me is that you think I don’t care anymore. You take my clothes off, and you watch me whilst I’m sitting on the commode. ‘It’s just a body,’ you say, but you don’t seem to realise that I might have more inhibitions than you. Just because I’m old and you think that I don’t care. It’s alright you for; it’s not your body. I forgive you, though. Or, at least, sometimes I forgive you. Sometimes I give you a good kick and then look as innocent as I can manage. Being twitchy isn’t always a bad thing.

‘Let’s get these socks on, then.’

I know far more about you than you think, you know. Just because I look like I’m away with the fairies doesn’t mean I’m not listening to every word you say. And just because I can’t answer you with Mouth doesn’t mean I’m not taking part in the conversation. For what it’s worth, I’ve heard everything you’ve told me about your young man and I’d think really carefully about what you’re going to do; the perfect man doesn’t always come along; sometimes you just have to settle for second best. I wouldn’t get rid of him just yet; it’s not all about looks, or what happens in the bedroom. But, then, you’re young and you don’t understand that one day you’ll be too old to enjoy anything other than a gentle peck on the cheek and a bit of a cuddle. It’s the talking that really matters, then. Until even that’s gone.

‘Just shuffle over to the left for me and we’ll put this cream on.’

The thing is, I’m not even sure that perfection exists. I mean, take my Doug. He wasn’t much of a looker, and he most certainly wasn’t winning the race in the personality department. But he turned up when he said he was going to, which is always something in a man, and he did what he was told. Reliable. And he wore sensible ties. ‘Never trust a man in a cravatte’ was what my mother always said. But then she had a thing about the French in general, so I’m not sure how much of that was seasoned advice and how much of it was a natural Victorian francophobia. He wasn’t fond of surprises, either, Doug, so you knew that you could serve the same pie three days in a row and he would enjoy the predictability of it. I think, these days, you’d refer to it as a marriage of convenience. And so I cut my losses and made do. The very end was the worst: I couldn’t stand him because he turned into one of those moaning invalids you avoid in hospital waiting rooms. And so, my dear, I have to say that I wouldn’t touch marriage with a barge-pole.

‘And the other way. You’re doing really well.’

Oh, for goodness sake, I’m off about the birds again. I’m dreading my birthday. ‘We’ll take her outside to hear the dawn chorus,’, they’ll say, ‘she’ll enjoy that.’. Well, I’m telling you now that I won’t. I really can’t think of anything worse than being dragged out of bed at some awful hour just to listen to something which has been there every other morning for the past hundred thousand years at least. What they forget, I think, is that I’ve heard it all before. I didn’t want to hear it then, either, but we didn’t get much choice when we were on nights.

‘Brilliant. Fantastic. Now, can you stand up for me?’

‘Canary girls’. That’s what they used to call us. We had some fun, though. It was me and Jessie Fothergill most nights, packing TNT into bombs until we turned completely yellow. I can’t remember laughing so much either before or after I spent those nights in the factory. She’d had polio as a child, Jessie. I imagine the teasing about her legs had hardened her up a bit, but she could do impressions as well as anyone on the stage ever could. Move over Ella Shields, that’s what I say. Apart from that wouldn’t be much use now. Not unless Jess is going to come back from the dead and surprise us all. She didn’t even make it to the end of the war, poor old girl. And then the factory seemed very quiet, and I couldn’t stand it anymore and they put me on days. But it was never the same.

‘And we’ll just turn you round and then you’ll be all tucked up in bed.’

Oh, for goodness sake, there’s a robin outside the window. I’ll never get to bed now. I’m not sure I’ll even get to bed tomorrow at this rate. The thing about having other people to do everything for you is that you can’t do anything at your own speed. I can’t even have a leisurely wee anymore. I have to do everything at their pace, which is usually double-time. I roll my eyes at the robin, but they seem to take this as a sign that I’m enjoying it. Sometimes I wonder which of us is supposed to have the neurological problems. Can’t they read expressions? I’m very kind to them; I don’t make a lot of fuss, and I only wait until I’ve only just been put into bed to wee when they’re really annoying me, but I just can’t cope with much more of this. I mean, I know a lot of it’s my fault – Mouth just won’t do as it’s told a lot of the time, and the rest of the time it won’t do anything at all – but I do wish they’d talk about something else. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.

‘And one sock on…Oh, Gladdy, look at the robin! Isn’t his red breast lovely? Do you think he’ll sing for us?’

I think they think they’ve sussed me. They think it’s birds that interest me. And the thing is, there’s so much bird related this and that out there for them to interest me with. Just after Doug and I were married, and before he had to go back off to fight, our first dance as married couple was to ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’, but that’s because he proposed in Berkley Square – not the Berkeley Square - but the sentiment’s the same - , not because we were passionate about nightingales. First and last romantic moment of my life, that was. I imagine that if you told them that your favourite song was ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, they’d assume that it was because you had a passion for chalk rock-faces not because it reminded you of a stolen kiss behind the cricket pavilion. They played that at his funeral because he was always whistling it. Not properly, sort of through his teeth. Quite frankly, the lack of whistling since he died has been utter bliss.

**************************************************************

‘Bluebirds over there. Just you wait.’

She’s a sweetie, Gladys. Talking about her birds all the time. We have some fun, though. Always such a twinkle in her eye, and she listens ever so carefully, as though she understands every word you’re saying. I tell her all sorts of things. It’s nice to have someone to talk through your problems with. As they say, a problem shared is a problem halved. Sometimes I just have to look at her and I know the answer, or maybe it’s just because it helps to say things out loud? I’m not sure, but it really does help.

‘Look at him fly. He’s got big wings, that one.’

I tell her all about my boyfriend. I’m not sure what to do, but then who is when men are involved? I’m not sure whether he’s a keeper, as they say, or whether to get rid now, before it’s too late. That’s the problem with being my age. The sort of gentleman who’s good at lasting relationships got married a long time ago, and the only ones left are the closet homosexuals and the dysfunctional ones. The current boyfriend – partner, I’m too old for a boyfriend – I tell Gladys, is older than me. Not too much older but older enough for you to notice it. I met him at the Bingo. I don’t usually go, I don’t even like the game, but there’s precious little else to do round here on your night off, and a couple of the other girls from work were going so, I thought, Gloria, you’ve nothing better to do with your time, girl, go and enjoy yourself. He’d been sitting by the bar all night, so it was no surprise that he knew I was drinking rum and blackcurrant. I was a bit surprised when he brought it over for me, though. I don’t usually get much attention that way. I don’t usually get that much attention from men at all. It is, as my sister always says to me, because Jamaican girls have too much personality for the average man to handle.

‘Flying together. Look. Look!’

And the next thing I know, he’s sitting with me and the other girls have moved up to make space for him. He’s not bad looking, I suppose, if you can get past the stomach and the balding head. He’s pleasant enough as well. By the end of the night, I’ve learnt quite a lot about him. He’s got a job, which is always a bonus, especially in the ‘current climate’ and he’s called Vic. Short for Victor. Short for anyone. In fact, short is the problem. I’m taller than most men, and I can see I’m quite a lot taller than he is, but then he is quite short. He is, he tells me, what you’d call a dwarf, which explains why he’s on the small side of small. It doesn’t bother me, really, and before I know it, we’re arranging to meet again. Not at the bingo hall, but somewhere different. We do get some looks, though, especially in shopping centres, or cinemas, when you’re out together. We meet at a pub. His local, he says. I wonder whether it’s a bit early to be meeting his friends – I’d only met the man once -, and I’m not sure that I really want to go, but beggars can’t be choosers, as my sister reminds me.

‘Birds. In the tree. On the fence.’

It’s alright for her. She’s a good three inches smaller than I am, which is why she got married a good thirty years earlier. Ten years for every inch. And counting. They haven’t exactly had a blissful marriage, but then who has? I expect you did, Gladys, didn’t you? Your Doug was devoted right up until the day he died. Anyway, back to my Vic. We met for a drink; and then again for another; and then he came round for a bit of dinner; and then I went to his. And then he stayed over at mine. And we just carried on like that for a bit. I found that I liked him – like him – quite a lot. He’s kind, and he makes me laugh. But then he’s rather lacking in other areas. Even at my age, you need the passion, and it’s just not there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we have a good time, but there’s no spark. As soon as we’ve started, we’ve finished and he’s asleep

‘Have you ever seen such a lovely pair of dickie birds?’

And so I’m not sure what to do about it. Do I call it a day? Tell him that it’s not him; it’s me? Or do I carry on? It’s lonely by myself, I’m sure you understand, Gladdy, stuck in this room all day. If I stuck with him a bit longer, I expect that, eventually, he’d move in, and then I’d have someone there all the time to do the Sudoku and so on with. It’s no fun when you’re the only one left lying awake in the middle of the night with a snoring man you’re not quite sure about lying next to you. But then it’s no fun when there’s no-one to share the washing up with. You know, Gladdy, you’ve really helped me sort things out in my head; I think Vic and I do make a lovely pair of dickie birds, as you so nicely put it. I don’t know that I’m ever going to be quite as wise as you are, even if I get to twice your age. Anyway, there we are; you’re in bed now. All nicely tucked up. I’d better get on and put these clothes away, hadn’t I? I’ll see you in the morning, Gladdy, love. Sweet dreams.

‘Pair of love birds. Lovely pair of love birds.’

Joanna Thomas : 15 Sep 2011 19:18 |  Tags: 2011 Litro Shortlist |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Shortlist Announced

Writing about web page http://www.go.warwick.ac.uk/iggy/litro

We are pleased to announce the Shortlist for the Litro and IGGY 2011 Young Person's Short Story Award.

The 2011 Shortlist is as follows:

• Kate Baguley, Gladys and the Birds
• Layla Hendow, La Maison de Dieu
• Ruth Gervaise Ingamells, Black Hooks
• Charlotte Poulter, Shepherd
• Chester Pylkkanen, The Boy Who Lost His Life Twice
• Lillian Fishman, The Bath

Congratulations to all applicants who have made the Shortlist.

We will be publishing all the stories from the shortlisted entrants on this blog over the coming week.

The winner will be announced on the 12th October 2011 at an award ceremony in London.

Find out more about the Litro & IGGY Young Person's Short Story Competition 2011

Find out more about Litro Magazine

Joanna Thomas : 13 Sep 2011 08:42 |  Tags: 2011 Litro |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Longlist Announced

Writing about web page http://www.go.warwick.ac.uk/iggy/litro

Thank you to all who entered this year's Litro and IGGY Young Person's Short Story Award. We had a huge amount of entries from young people all around the world, doubling the entry intake from last year. The judges would like to commend the entrants on the exceptionally high standard of entries.

We are pleased to announce the Longlist for the Litro and IGGY 2011 Young Person's Short Story Award.

The 2011 Longlist is as follows:

• Georgie Smith, From My Window
• Kate Baguley, Gladys and the Birds
• Layla Hendow, La Maison de Dieu
• Daniel Cender, Dr Lune. E. Manny
• Ruth Gervaise Ingamells, Black Hooks
• Charlotte Poulter, Shepherd
• Chester Pylkkanen, The Boy Who Lost His Life Twice
• Lillian Fishman, The Bath
• Ify Okoli, A World of Disputes
  

Congratulations to all applicants who have made the Longlist. A Shortlist of six entrants will be announced on the 12th September 2011.

Find out more about the Litro & IGGY Young Person's Short Story Competition 2011

Find out more about Litro Magazine

Joanna Thomas : 07 Sep 2011 11:35 |  Tags: 2011 Litro |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Top Tips by Writers for Writers – No. 11 & 12

Collaborate

One reason why people value creative writing is that it either shows us new things or refreshes our way of seeing old things, by making them seem ‘strange’ again, the way they were the first time we saw them.

Writers use all sorts of tricks and techniques to make language itself seem strange or new again. One way is by collaborating with other writers. On the IGGY Inkubator you can collaborate with members from a range of other countries and cultures who are looking forward to collaborating with you.

Remember the "3 E's"

Entertain

What sort of thing do you find entertaining in a story or poem?

Do you like to be surprised or astonished?

Do you like suspense?

Do you like to feel emotion? Comedy? Tragedy? Anger? How about fear/horror?

It's all entertainment. It makes us feel more alive.

Educate

Would you think it worth reading something if you didn't learn anything from it? Some people are more emotional (they follow their heart) some are more intellectual (led by their head). But most of us are both.
We like writing that makes us feel, but we also like writing that makes us think.

Enchant

It has been said that the highest capacity we're capable of is awe or WONDER.
Poets are notoriously wonderstruck creatures — to be a poet suggests that everything is on some level strange to you. For example, you may be able

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

- William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

(Blake was an C18th English poet, one of the great romantics. A visionary who saw angels sitting in the trees in his garden.)

But, as Albert Einstein said, WONDER motivates scientists too. Someone incapable of wonder would probably not have come up with the Theory of Relativity, for instance.

Creative writers, like scientists, respond to the mystery of things.

by Peter Blegvad and George Ttoouli

Joanna Thomas : 20 Jul 2011 16:43 |  Tags: 2011 Tips |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Top Tips by Writers for Writers – No. 10

Be Crafty

Some of these tips emphasize the usefulness of letting the words flow freely without being too critical about what you’re writing. Suspending judgement is important as a first step, to enable you to create raw material to exercise judgement on. Once you’ve done that and have a story or poem going, then your critical faculty has to be brought to bear.

One of the pleasures of writing is that you can exercise your intelligence to the maximum. In conversation most of us don’t say quite what we want to say. Or, as soon as it’s said we regret it, wishing we’d said something else, or at least phrased it better.

“Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.” A tip from UK writer Geoff Dyer.

• Read more of his, plus tips by other UK writers on The Guardian website
  

The French have a saying, l’ésprit d’escalier, which means the wit of the stairway. It’s when the thing you should have said to the person you wanted to impress at a party (for instance) only occurs to you after the conversation is over, when you’re replaying it in your mind after you’ve left, as you’re going down the stairs.

Well, one of the pleasures of writing, is that you can say exactly what you want to say, exactly when and how you want to say it. Ever wanted to right a wrong? Who hasn’t? Write a wrong and make it right.

But remember, as much as you know (and you know a lot more than you know you know) you should imagine that you’re writing for a reader who knows even more. Surprising and delighting this intelligent reader will require craft and cunning! Respect your reader by avoiding the obvious. They’ll love you for it.

“Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they'll know it too.” — Esther Freud

by Peter Blegvad and George Ttoouli

Joanna Thomas : 12 Jul 2011 15:06 |  Tags: 2011 Tips |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem