“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”

 “She’s a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud and if she has washed her hair since Coolidge’s second term, I’ll eat my spare tyre, rim and all.”

When trying to recommend Chandler it feels like your own words will never do him justice, you have no choice but to quote some of the slick, sublime descriptions. Evidently as a female character in the world of private detective Philip Marlowe you can go one of two ways, but women often end up being the key to the story – not in the typical damsel in distress way, more the conniving vixen out to destroy everyone around her.

I was drawn to this as the second Marlowe novel, and I had read the supremely cool The Big Sleep at A-Level, where I have to say, my teacher read it brilliantly. I was engrossed by the seedy, dark, corrupt, mysterious worlds Marlowe operated in, and the ending was captivating to the point that despite being regarded as a classic, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall could not do it justice in the film adaptation.

I’d argue Marlowe is the greatest literary detective, and yes, I’m including Sherlock Holmes in that one. Marlowe operates as a lone wolf, is a womaniser and in Farewell, My Lovely he takes on jobs for the sheer thrill of the ride.

The story of Farewell, My Lovely is thrown at the reader from the start; Marlowe observes Moose Malloy, a physically intriguing character, he has – oh what’s the point? I’ll quote Chandler again:

“He was a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck…Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a piece of angel food.”

Malloy is out of prison after a stitch-up and is on the lookout for Velma, his former fiancée. Marlowe tries to find Velma, and uncover the framing of Malloy, but to say he gets more than he bargained for doesn’t really cut it. Marlowe witnesses robberies, murders and is on the receiving end of some tough treatment himself.

Marlowe as a detective is completely relentless, and there is a perpetual sense of peril that his intrigue will be his downfall, and that’s what makes this so exciting. There are so many threads of the plot, and you know that they will come together at the end, but the endless contemplation of how that will happen is a real treat.

If you’re a fan of The Great Gatsby read Farewell, My Lovely or The Big Sleep. In my opinion you will soon realise that when it comes down to it, the supposed literary king of American cool does not hold up to the descriptive delights of Raymond Chandler.

Oh, go on then, have another quote:

 “You can crab over the morning paper and kick the shins of the guy in the next seat at the movies and feel mean and discouraged and sneer at politicians, but there are a lot of nice people just the same. Take the guy that left that half bottle of whisky there. He had a heart as big as one of Mae West’s hips.”

Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler, Penguin (1940/2005)

You can read his insightful piece on watching Dickens in the act of writing David Copperfield here.

The Competition has been going since 1991 and is open to all ages, offering prizes totalling £1000 across three categories of adult poetry, adult other writing (stories, essays, lyrics etc) and a children’s section.

Entry to the competition is £2 per item but under-14s can enter for free. The deadline for entries is Monday 28 November.

This years winners will be announced at a special awards event at the Royal Clifton Hotel on Wednesday 7 December (6.30pm –8.30pm). The event is to be hosted by David Lonsdale (Heartbeat, The Royal) with entertainment from poet Kei Miller.

Emma Lloyd, Marketing & Programme Manager says:

The Sefton Writing Competition is an annual event that receives hundreds of entries. Past winners have gone on to write their own material and becomes published authors and poets.

We want to support writing initiatives and will publish the winning entries in the new SEFTON magazine and online.

Tickets are available to those who have entered the competition and can be booked over the phone on 0151 928 1919 and picked up from The Civic, Crosby.

Entry forms can be downloaded from the Sefton Arts website but can also be picked up from Southport Tourist Information Centre, libraries, leisure centres and council outlets across Sefton.

Tickets for all Sefton Celebrates Writing Festival events and workshops are on sale now, just call 0151 928 1919 or go online and book your tickets at www.seftonarts.co.uk.

But in reality we live in a world peopled entirely by round characters presented to us from the outside. Trapped as we are in our own perspective, there is a constant temptation to flatten those around us, to see types as opposed to individuals. But fiction forces on us the dizzying reality that inside every human being is a world as unique as our own.

Read it in full here.

Since taking on the reading group at Arch Initiatives (an aftercare support centre for drug rehabilitation) I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr Stephen Potter. Stephen contacted TRO here at The Lauries, Birkenhead about the possibilities of starting a Get into Reading group at Arch. Stephen was attending the centre, and as a writer himself, has always been aware of the healing power of words.

After a tepid start, the GIR group at Arch is well underway, and although Stephen has completed his time there, he still continues to drop by The Lauries for a catch up, or perhaps for the odd cup of tea at Arch- post group.

Being a Wirral lad himself, and currently a non-driver, it was whilst scooting along on yet another double decker that Stephen began to wonder how far said bus could actually take him. It turns out (as many a reader may know) that Arriva buses can take you as far as Wigan to the east and into the depths of North Wales to the west. So what? I hear you cry? Well luckily for us Stephen’s head works differently, and he’s seen it as an opportunity to set off on an adventure, as well as an exercise in writing. Kitted out with a 7 day bus pass, note book and pen, he left Birkenhead bus station in search of the pot of gold at the end of the bus route. Along the way, Stephen will be writing stories and commentaries on the people who get on the bus, and the towns he passes through. Watch this space for future instalments!

Along with Arriva buses, the organisations that have helped Stephen in his recovery have sponsored him, enabling him to stay in Bed and Breakfasts throughout the week-pop up rooms of one’s own if you will.

To sponsor Stephen’s trip, please go to http://www.justgiving.com/Stephen-Potter

All money raised will be divided between Advocacy in Wirral, Arch Initiaves, Charles Thomson’s Mission, Spider Project, Action in Addiction, and Wirral CVS -  all of which aided Stephen’s recovery, and Zoe’s Place ( who offer palliative, respite and terminal care for babies/infants aged from birth to five years old) which is Arriva’s nominated charity.

Our Read author and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce will be heading up the bill of performers on the night, joined by local poets Eleanor Rees and Paul Farley. Also appearing are playwrights Lizzie Nunnery (Intemperance, Unprotected, Anthology) and Laurence Wilson (Urban Legend, Lost Monsters, Tiny Volcanoes), songwriter Martin Heslop, Lindsay Rodden (The Almond Tree),  percussionist Vidar Norheim, writer Jeff Young (Quadrophenia the Musical), film-makers Sam Meech and Tim Brunsden, amongst many more.

Radical City is part of Liverpool City Of Radicals, a year long programme of events, exhibitions and debates marking a series of landmark anniversaries for radicalism in the city in 2011. It is also part of the Working Class Life and Music Festival, the biggest celebration of working class culture in the world, as well as the Everyman and Playhouse’s City of Radicals week.

So if you’re looking for something radically different to do this Easter weekend and an enriching creative experience crammed with the cream of the local cultural crop sounds like it would fit the bill, then why not head along? Tickets cost £12 (£10 concessions) and are available from the Everyman box office – in person or on 0151 709 4776 – or from the Everyman Playhouse website.

Reading in Practice is a two-year, part-time degree, which encourages students to  find their own serious relationship to literature. The course also investigates the ways in which a number of significant writers have thought about reading, creativity, health, wholeness and being alive.

Reader development is a fast-expanding field – in libraries, in social regeneration and educational projects, and in health provision. Innovative non-traditional interventions, such as encouraging personal development through shared group reading, are increasingly sought by many agencies: while this MA is not a professional qualification, it will enhance the career prospects of those working, or wishing to work in the fields outlined above, as well as offering opportunities for personal growth and the acquiring of transferable skills.

I am currently doing this MA, and it’s quite hard to stand back and write about it, whilst still immersed in it (I’m about to embark on my dissertation…) but I can say that it has been the most valuable, creative and challenging, course I have ever done. In fact, it’s far deeper and vital than that: it’s more like a personal journey, guided by some of our greatest literature, into the sphere of human life and potential. The Reading in Practice MA is concerned with, as Phil Davis the course director, says:

the wide and deep ways in which literature ‘finds’ people – the readers and the writers – emotionally and imaginatively by offering living models and visions of human troubles and human possibilities.

Here are a few thoughts from other students on the course about their experience of doing the MA:

‘Reading in Practice’ is the most challenging and rewarding course of study I have ever undertaken. It has taught me, through practical experience, what literature demands from you as a reader and, in turn, what you as a reader can demand from literature, as nourishment for a thinking, feeling, active life.

Being a student on the Reading in Practice MA has been an incredible experience. I started this course after studying English at degree level, and initially felt very daunted by the emphasis that this course placed on your own response to the literature that was being studied - I’d become used to the critic’s opinion or the theory being the information that mattered in an English essay. This is not the case on this course; your own feelings in relation to each text guide your study and thought. At times, this personal journey has felt very challenging, but the serious, deep thinking achieved in relation to some of the finest books ever written is hugely rewarding.

The next enrolment will take place in September 2011. Seminars take place on Thursday evenings, 6-8pm.

Applications

You should normally have an undergraduate degree – though not necessarily in English Literature. We wish to attract a wide range of lively and committed readers from diverse educational backgrounds and will consider candidates on an individual basis.

Click here for more information on the MA.

Click here for the application form.

Jemma Foster‘s collection of twelve short story books are not available on Kindle or iPad, nor do they appear in hardback or paperback, but are instead handmade from recycled cardboard, bought from Buenos Aires’ cardboard pickers who make a living collecting it from the streets and are painted by hand, making each one entirely unique.

Inspired by these cardboard books, Jemma put together a collection of stories, with the theme of the human senses not only binding the tales together as a body of work, but also acting as an umbrella over the ideas and philosophical concepts that have niggled, fascinated and haunted Jemma for some time.

For every book sold in the UK, a book is donated to Abuelas Cuentacuentos – Storytelling Grandmothers - charity that invites elderly volunteers to read to children in the poorest parts of Argentina. All other profits will go towards providing them with a ‘grannymobil’ library bus.

The project is a collaborative effort and a number of artists and designers, all close friends of the author, have donated their talents to illustrate the stories.

The books are available to buy online and from independent bookshops such as Notting Hill’s Travel Bookshop, Brick Lane’s Eastside Books and Hackney’s Broadway Bookshop.

The Lightship International Literary Prizes was set-up by Irish writer, publisher and lecturer at the University of Hull, Simon Kerr.  The competition aims to find and support exciting new novelists, poets and short story writers.

Lightship’s honorary patrons are Costa Book Award Winner Christopher Reid, Sir Andrew Motion, Lindsay Clarke and Man Booker Prize Winner Hilary Mantel; judging the short story, poetry and flash fiction categories this year will be Toby Litt, Jackie Kay and Kachi A. Ozumba.

Click here for more information.

You can enter online here.

Winning poets will be invited to appear at the Wigtown Book Festival in 2011, and will be published in Southlight, the Dumfries and Galloway Literary magazine.

1st Prize is £2500.

The closing date is Tuesday 3rd May 2011 at 5pm. Please click here for more information.