Massive Great Update.

Greetings, folks. We decided it was about time for a massive great update on pretty much everything we've been doing. Here it is.

Current Competitions

We’d like, first off, to give our hearty thanks to the entrants of Leaf Books’ first poetry competition of 2008. It closed at the end of January and we received an impressive great wadge of verses. Judging will be taking place over the next couple of months and we hope to make an announcement about winners and the like at the end of March. We shall, as ever, keep you informed.

Until then, you might’ve noticed that the Leaf Books Micro-Fiction Competition 2008 or whatever we’ve called it has leapt selflessly and seamlessly into the gap left by the late poetry comp, or opened on February the 1st if you want to be staid about it. We’ve already had a few entries in and we’re hoping for a fair few more. We invite you to send micro-fiction of up to 300 words on any subject whatsoever. You can enter online or by post. It’ll cost you £3 per single submission or £10 for four submissions. The winner receives £200; the runner-up receives ten free pocket-sized Leaf books. All selected entries will be published in a competition anthology. The competition closes on 31st May 2008. We think that’s more or less it. Please check the website for full details and guidelines and entry forms and things along those lines.

In Production

Ooh, lots of things. Well, two. First and foremost, or first at any rate, is Imagine Coal and More Micro-Fiction, our latest micro-fiction anthology with a revealing and suspense-ruining title. It’s enthrallingly close to completion: basically it’s just undergoing a final proofing and decorous touching-up before being booted off to the printer. Meaning you ought to be able to buy it in March. And you bally well should, because, you know, it’s great. Have an extract and some blurb:

The Woman with a Coffee Pot opposite me is so ugly with her work-a-day blue dress. Without rest I have to stare into her large, thick, round face, so like my own mother: the stern gaze, the bulbous nose. She is admired. Cezanne kept her. I am a working girl fresh from the fields, so blotted out.
‘You are the invisible form of my composition,’ he said.

– Extract from ‘Imagine Coal’ by Mary Cookson

Imagine Coal contains the winning entries from Leaf Books’ second micro-fiction competition of 2007. The thirty-one tiny fragments of wonderfulness within very concisely discourse on a fantastic variety of subjects, from artists’ models to attempted matricide via alien invasions, dancing GIs and elderly men with aphasia.

The competition was judged by the Leaf Team. Our thanks to all who entered.

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There. You’re all excited now.

The other piece of work in the pipeline is the very exciting anthology of the winners from our recent Spoof and Humour Competition. It’s exciting for two reasons, mostly: first off for its content, obviously, which is funny and witty and talks quite a bit about soup, and second … off … because it’s getting a dual release – in print as the punningly titled anthology The Someday Supplement and online as part of the content of the newest and bestest iteration of our comedy website Mostly Life.

Mostly Life, that erstwhile and erudite if slightly under-construction repository for all things mirthful, is in an inordinately exciting phase at present. You can see the holding page at http://www.mostlylife.com/ and the even more enthralling blog at http://www.mostlylifeblog.blogspot.com/, which explains more or less what we’ve been up to and what we’re likely to be up to and in what sense we’ve been deflating the moon. We’re more in the habit of confusing and intriguing you than we are of giving the game away, but basically the website progression’s gone from funny words hidden under clipart images of bicycles and umbrellas through a cluttered office desk housing an knicker-clad aspidistra (no, really though) to a ship’s cabin with a resident platypus, and I think there was a brief diversion via an Escher print at one stage as well. Anyway, this version’s going to be spiffing. Properly spiffing. It’ll be going live in the next few weeks or so. There’ll be fanfares and things. It’s wholly exciting. Mostly.

Other Stuff

Other stuff, yes. Well, in between all our making books and designing websites and generally scouring Google images for comical 1950s-style underwear, we’ve been doing Other Stuff. That includes populating the authors’ page on the Leaf Books website, which is slow but significant work. If you're a Leaf Author (that does include the poets and micro-ficcers) and you've not send us a biography (up to 500 words) or a photograph and would like so to do, please get in touch with us. Also feel free to get in touch with us if, in our confusion, we've put up an out-of-date biography for you, and we'll wallop the correct one into place forthwith. Or as soon as we have a moment.

We’re also still very much in the habit of compiling anthologies for writers’ groups, should you happen to be a writers’ group with an anthology that wants compiling (or an individual writer with a novel or a collection of poems or anything along those lines). We’ve recently done All Roads Lead to Bute for the Bute Writers’ Group and Against the Clock for The Grail, and seemingly the links to those are misbehaving something chronic at present, but you can find them yourselves via the Writers' Groups page on our website. Anyway. Have a look at the ‘Printing Service’ page for further information about getting your own work printed. You nab a page on our website into the bargain.

And that's more or less it for the time being.

Sam.