The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I found this photograph recently. It was taken from behind (why does that sound saucy?) during the last major music festival I attended, WOMAD 2004. I didn't go to a single festival this year... Next year I plan to make up for lost time!

I found a few other photographs between the pages of a novel I was about to give to a charity shop, Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. I have been clearing my bookshelves again, giving away books I have read and don't want to read again (or books I know I never will read). I have whittled my collection down to the perfect number, probably enough to last me the rest of my lifetime! The giving away of books stops here!

This very morning I submitted my application for a writer's bursary to the Welsh Academi. I have applied for £2000 so I can finish writing my big novel, The Clown of the New Eternities. I don't feel too confident about having my bid accepted: I tried a couple of years ago and was turned down. I might be in a stronger position now, I don't know. I won't be notified of the Academi's decision until next February, so I'm not holding my breath!

André-François Ruaud of les moutons électrique has just e-mailed me to inform me that my SF novella 'The Crystal Cosmos' has been published in French in the pages of the French magazine FICTION 4. Anyone who would rather read it in English will have to wait until next year, when it will be issued as a book by PS Publishing. My story 'The Cuckoos of Bliss' has also been published in French in a 'special' issue of the same magazine, an anthology entitled les anges électriques. Anyone who wants to read this story in English might have to wait a very long time, as I haven't placed the English version anywhere yet!

I'm only friendly with two people in Swansea who speak French as their first language, so my complementary copies of these publications will probably go to them: Manuela Ruault and Adel Guemar. Unless they don't want them. Which is possible. I suppose.