Costa Blanca Doyen

I have now been invited to become a regular contributor to the 'Expatica' Expats web site. They also suggested I adopted a name to use on the site.

After some thought I decided to opt for 'Costa Blanca Doyen'

The idea came from my last CoolFM radio show appearance when the host, Ken Scott, referred to me as 'The doyen of Southampton'

In case you are unsure (as I was) of its meaning:

the senior member, as in age, rank, or experience, of a group, class, profession, etc.

 

So it is a bit more complimentary than I first thought! 

 

There are already two of my contributions on Expatica (link above) and more will follow over the coming months - look out Costa Blanca Doyen

 

 

Call for Short Stories - in support of National Short Story Week

Organised by Writers Abroad

National Short Story Week

will take place during the week 22nd - 28th November. In support of the
event, Writers Abroad will be publishing an anthology of short stories.

Title: ‘Writers Abroad’

Theme: Short Stories on any aspect of Expat Life, the pains and the pleasure.

Contributions: From Expat writers (either currently an Expat or previously an Expat)

Word Count:
Anything up to 2,500 words. Submissions can be flash fiction i.e up to
500 words or short stories up to 2,500. Word count does not include the
title.

Submission and Entry Rules:

• All stories must be previously unpublished
• Submissions should be received by midnight Friday 15th October 2010
• Submissions must be in English
• References to porn or racism will not be accepted
• Manuscripts must be submitted in either Word or RTF format (No DOCX or other format will be accepted).
• The approximate word count should be inserted at the end of the story
• Author name and story title should be placed in the left header of the document and page numbers in the right footer
• Manuscripts should be presented with double spacing and Times New Roman Font.
• Submissions are by email only to expatwritersabroad@gmail.com
  - in the subject line please quote ‘Writers Abroad submission’ and provide your contact details and story title in the body of the email
• Entries are free, only one entry per author plus a short bio of 30 words
• Successful authors will be informed within two weeks of the closing date
• It will not be possible to provide feedback on stories but successful stories will be edited and authors may be required to undertake minor changes for publication purposes

Copyright will remain with the author and the stories will be published in an anthology in a number of formats

Writers Abroad supporting NSSW

The online writing group - Writers Abroad, of which I am a member are planning to support the National Short Story Week by producing an anthology of short stories themed on Expat life.

Details will be announced next week but the group will be calling for submissions from current and past Expats.

It is planned to publish the book during NSSW.

More to follow........

Biggest Attendance Yet at Wordplay

Lots of new faces at the monthly Wordplay group meeting yesterday, including a few from Torrevieja Writers Circle (come to see what they were missing!) and a journalist, Julie Day from the Costa Blanca News.

A lively session during which I gave a short talk on the benefits and options of writing courses and we had a talk on writing memoirs and family history. A genre now becoming very popular (and there are courses on it)

Wordplay are now running competitions and planning a quarterly magazine. See their site for more

Afterwards there was networking and a discussion about having an 'Open Mic' evening - later in the year.

TIM July Out Now

The July edition carries my - Spain Going Green Part 2 - Electric Cars and an article on Spain's New Driving Laws as well as my regular Bibliomaniac Page. Also some of my photos are displayed in a montage for our recent magazine - Fun in the Sun Day. (See the slideshow on this blog - see right)
The magazine is below, just click to view (sorry this does not arrive via email subs.)

Open publication - Free publishing - More tim

http://robinnis.wordpress.com/

Having considered some options regarding my internet site problem (see previous post on this blog) I have decided to set up a site on Wordpress.

Although many think of it as just a 'blog' site it offers a different format to Blogger (on which this blog runs) and it does have the option to create a more standard looking web site with lots of additional features.

So I now have a new site here: http://robinnis.wordpress.com/ 

It also allows me to offer my articles, in their PDF magazine format, to be read online and doubtless lots of other goodies that I have yet to discover.

The cost? Well FREE actually - like I have said previously - there are plenty of free services still out there so why not use them?

BTW A letter of mine was published in this months 'Writers Forum' magazine regarding joining online writing groups for which I have been sent another Moleskine notebook.