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The December issue of 'The Pages' is now available for download,

We thought we'd let you know about a couple of collaboration competitions - something to keep those creative juices flowing!

The View From Here is a literary magazine with author interviews, book reviews, news & events, original short fiction, cartoons, articles and behind the scenes features.

You could win signed copies of all these books from publisher Paperbooks who have generously donated them as a prize for our competition.

Entry is FREE and the competition will close at the end of September.

So what do you have to do?

They're going to produce a short story with different contributions. The story will appear in the printed version of the magazine with a list of all those who have contributed.

The best contribution will win the books. To enter read the start of the story below and then read the comments on the site(unless you are first in!) Then continue on the story from the last comment.

Simple as that. Word limit in your comment is 250 words. Leave a way for them to contact you or find your blog/website so they can get hold of you if you win.

I look out of the plane’s window and watch the fields become one. A wash of green painted with broad strokes. Seen from this height they appear childish, splashed against a soil canvas as if painted in joy. The urban sprawl to the East seems complicated, fussy, overdone.

I look around the cabin. People unclick their seatbelts. How does my perspective inform me? Am I immersed in a micro-culture within metal, or am I surrounded by the sky?

I look outside as the clouds rub out the view. What do we look like to those on the land? A fuel hungry People Carrier or a beast of metal?

The toilet engaged light illuminates. A baby cries and settles as it finds a nipple. A man coughs and smiles as the stewardess walks past. Papers rustle and headphones are pulled from plastic wraps.

I open my book and think of her. It’s been six months. How can she be sure? She says he has my eyes. The sky sings around me and calls me back to stay. Perhaps I will, perhaps I should commit, settle down.

If you're interested, you'll find The Apprentice Writer's

 

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Christmas is coming... read more

The first issue has been  launched. See The Pages Magazine page to download your copy.

We’ll be running two competitions in each issue: one short story slot, with a maximum of a 1000 words ( for the first issue) and one poem of no more than 40 lines. Entry: £1.50 per piece entered and you can enter as many times as you wish.

There will be a prize of £25 for the best entry in each category, and the winning entries will be published in the magazine.

The first competition will be based on a photograph, which will be published in the first issue.

The deadline for submissions will be 15th October (NOTE NEW DEADLINE) for the competition in the first issue, but after that it will be the 15^th of every other month. The Pages will go bi-monthly from Issue 2.

Contributions are welcome at any time - see below.

Submission Guidelines

In each issue we aim to publish two poems, two short stories, an essay or open article, an article on the Writing Life – from any angle – a travel article and a piece of Flash Fiction (up to 500 words).

An opinion piece (or call it a ‘rant’) would be good, too – and we’d like to see book reviews and extracts.

If you have an idea for a series for future issues, we would welcome suggestions – and we would also like to see some illustrations.

In short, we’ll consider all suggestions and contributions that come our way.

We cannot offer payment as of yet, but aim to do so in the future, depending on incoming revenue.

'The Pages'

We are starting an on-line magazine/e-zine for writers and readers alike.

From little seeds… You never know - from initial inspiration to a fully-grown literary magazine might be a little too much to expect – but hopefully it will find its way into a wider readership and grow in that way.

So what are we about? In essence that is up to those who contribute to The Pages, but we, as the editors, reserve the right to exclude what we consider unsuitable for any reason.  Our aim is that this will be a springboard for aspiring and apprentice writers alike, as well as a platform for the more experienced writers and authors.

We’re looking for an eclectic mix of quality writing and our aim is to make the magazine available on-line (www.freewebs.com/theapprenticewriter/), as well making it available to download in a PDF file.  

We will also be looking for suitable illustrations, if only a few per magazine. The key is to keep it simple and not too colourful, to consider those who’d like to print it out (cost of colour printing cartridges). For the same reason, we will limit the pages to approximately 20 pages, although that’s not set in stone.

Before you all inundate us with your contributions, we’d like to point out that we were intending this to be a free magazine, and as such we cannot pay contributors, but we will add one link (website or blog) after each contributor’s piece, and once a month there will be a competition  with a cash prize, depending on the number of submissions.

If you would like to register your interest, please do so either on the above website, or here, in your comments, and we will add you to the list of possible contributors for the inaugural issue, due in July/August.

Any comments, good or bad, let us have them!

Marit and Stina