Showing Tag: "inspiration" (Show all posts)

A New Crop of Opportunities

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, September 4, 2017, In : Competitions 
September. Can you believe it? The summer's gone, the children are heading back to school, and the holidays are over. Before the gloom sets in, this means that many of the magazines that were closed to submissions over the summer are now open again. Theatres that were dark are now launching their autumn seasons too. Even places that hadn't closed tended to be short-staffed, but now they'll be getting up to speed again.
    Any work that's been languishing in slush piles might now get read, and...
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Blogathon

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, November 20, 2016, In : Coming Soon 
I've been engaged on a blogathon. I'm conscious that I haven't been posting here as regularly as I'd like, and how irritating it can be for readers to visit a site and find nothing new. That's why instead of writing one blog for this week, I've written half a dozen to make sure that if life gets in the way of creativity, for the next few weeks I'll still have something fresh to post.
    I hadn't really intended writing more than one when I sat down at the computer, but the ideas kept coming....
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Proms Poetry Contest

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Friday, August 12, 2016, In : Competitions 
There's still just time to enter the BBC's contest for a poem of up to 25 lines inspired by your response to a piece of music included in this year's Proms concerts. The closing date is 14th August. There's no cash prize, but the winning poem will be read on air and the winner will be invited to one of the concerts. Details are on the BBC's website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/features/poetry-competition.
    There should be plenty of food for ideas in the concerts. Music calms or excites, com...
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Tempus Fugit Again

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, January 13, 2015, In : Coming Soon 
I've been plagued with clichés buzzing around my head while I've been trying to write, but I'm holding out for my own fresh metaphors, similes and turns of phrase. Clichés might be accurate, but everyone has heard them so often that they have become meaningless. Maybe a heroine does 'go weak at the knees', but readers will no doubt forget her unless she does it in an original way. Notice that I haven't provided an alternative myself. Devising good ones isn't easy, but it's well worth making...
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Four Legs Good

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, September 2, 2014, In : Competitions 
The good news this week, is that my entry was a runner-up in the Haynet and Lavender & White Equestrian Short Story competition. 'Horse Sense' is about a man who tries to reignite the spark in his marriage by taking his wife on holiday in a horse-drawn caravan. When things go wrong, it takes horse sense to save the day. All the runners-up will be published on the organiser's site at http://www.hay-net.co.uk in the near future, and you can already enjoy the winner, 'Be Careful What you Wish Fo...
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A Room with a Different View

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, July 14, 2014, In : Inspiration 
When you go on holiday, it isn't unusual to see people taking photo after photo, barely taking the time to focus. In fact, they're so intent on getting the shot that they don't even really look at the things they're taking photos of. When they look at them afterwards they probably have trouble remembering that they were there.
Writers are always told to carry a notebook with them, and I second that, but there's a danger of becoming like those photographers. Somehow a balance needs to be found...
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Bits and Bobs

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, June 23, 2014, In : Competitions 
In my search for free to enter competitions, I came across The World's Best Birthday Ideas competition for humorous birthday verses. The closing date isn't until 30th June 2014, so there's still time to enter. I did, and you can read my effort at http://www.great-happy-birthday-ideas.com/made-it.html.
    On another subject, my efforts to write in another language have gone off at a tangent. One language doesn't translate exactly to another. If language is an extension of the way people think,...
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Take Two

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, In : Competitions 
One of the great things about being a writer is that sometimes work you did a long time ago rewards you out of the blue. This week I had a request to publish my story, 'Blind Alleys', from the organisers of the Yeovil Literary Prize. It was commended in the 2012 competition, and I had thought that was that. Now, I have publication in an anthology to look forward to in the autumn. It will bring together the winners and commended entries in the short story and poetry sections of the competition...
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Bowled Over at Tate Britain

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, December 16, 2012, In : Reviews 
I've always been a fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. They aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I've always loved the stories/poems that inspired them and the inspiration the paintings provide, their stained glass colours and the way they capture the moment. For me, the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain was unmissable.
Even though I had seen many of the paintings before at exhibitions, on television or in books, I found the exhibition dazzling. Reproductions certainly do...
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More Food for Thought

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, June 25, 2012, In : Reviews 
My trip to Royal & Derngate theatre last week was interesting, if not unalloyed joy.  I saw Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding, which was the second production in the theatre's Festival of Chaos. The production used the same cast as The Bacchae and played up the drama's similarities to Greek tragedy with a chorus, violence in the wilderness, female control etc. 
I'm glad I went, but it was patchy–in the word's of the friend who went with me "over-produced".  The attempts to give the pla...
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About Me


My writing career began as a freelance feature writer for the local press, businesses and organisations. Now a prize-winning playwright and short story writer, my work has appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic. I write as K. S. Dearsley because it saves having to keep repeating my forename, and specialise in fantasy and other speculative genres.

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