I’d been submitting to traditional publishers for a long time. Some would respond with encouraging letters to soften the rejection, other along the lines of ‘it doesn’t fit into our prestigious list’. My writing life was in stasis. I filled it with freelance jobs in nursing, medical research, a stint as an editor for a … Continue reading My journey
Below the first story in my collection: The beggar Hi. I’m a homeless writer. I stand at the corner of William Nicol Drive and Sloane Street in Bryanston, South Africa. How did I get here? Well, that’s a long story. I had big dreams while growing up; I wanted to be an architect, maybe even … Continue reading Excerpt Eye of a needle
Fick’s Eye of a Needle is a delightful assemblage of passionate, probing layers. It’s a compelling re-imagination of our lived experiences … fear, desire, weakness, happiness, grief, strength, love, abuse, poverty. And more. It eschews in places the normal, disrupting convention, hard-at-work to extract melody from the unsuspecting coatings of words; boldly gripping the reader … Continue reading Review Eye of a Needle
Recently I made the longlist of the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award. ‘The longlisted poems are in a range of South Africa’s official languages, and will all appear in volume six of the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology,’ according to the press release. My poem was among those ‘highly commended’. I was thrilled. … Continue reading Sol Plaatje EU Poetry Award
Influenced by Lydia Davis, Maxine Chernoff and Flannery O’Connor, this debut collection of short stories is an interesting blend of flash fiction and longer narratives. ‘Running a stop street’ and ‘Thoughts of a soldier’ experiment with punctuation, ‘Opposites attract’ uses the same sentence structure to demonstrate opposing concepts, while ‘Love at first bite’ takes a … Continue reading Eye of a Needle Release date: 30 September
Watch the August 2016 Winning Short Story Reading.
Reading Performed by actor Julian Ford
Thoughts of a Soldier by Cornelia Fick
Get to know the winning writer:
1. What is your 1pg Short Story about?
‘Thoughts of a soldier’ is about a fictitious war during the struggle to overthrow apartheid.
2. What genres would you say this short story is in?
This is a literary story, experimenting with punctuation.
3. How would you describe this story in two words?
Poignant, intriguing
4. What movie have you seen the most in your life?
I’ve seen ‘Gone with the wind’ a number of times.
5. How long have you been working on this story?
I wrote this story long ago and kept returning to it to refine it. Finally, I worked on it during my MA Creative Writing degree at Rhodes University and perfected it (I hope).
6. Do you have an all-time favorite novel?
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I don’t know if I would take any books to a desert island. Where would I store them? They would get awfully dirty, rained on and maybe eaten if I was excessively hungry. Being of a practical nature I would think of survival first. But if I were to choose five books, it would … Continue reading Which books would I take to a desert island?
Set in contemporary South Africa, Eye of a needle is a collection of stories that investigates the complex relationships between men and women, and amongst women. A man moves in with a woman but discovers a nasty surprise (‘Moving in’), and the relationship between a younger and an older woman is the topic of ‘The … Continue reading More about Eye of a Needle
‘The collection of stories Eye of a needle offers an intriguing, humane, and often poignant insight into the lives and moments of a variety of characters in a range of situations. The thirty-nine stories vary in length and type quite widely, from experimental one-line stories to more personal narratives. They often focus on women … Continue reading Cover reveal
One of the things I like to do in my leisure time is to brows some very interesting online literary magazines as it helps in my inspiration but I also like to be informed about the newest trends in literature and writing styles.
As a result of my research I managed to compile a list of 9 magazines that pretty much on regular basis accept submissions for new poems and prose, and of course you might find some of them interesting in your publication process.
So here it is:
1.Hootreview. This is maybe one of my favorite. They focus on a micropoetry and microfiction, giving a real chance to aspiring writers.
2.32poems. They accept unsolicited poetry year round and also simultaneous submissions. As a rule, preference is given to shorter poems that fit on a single page (about 32 lines). For more visit their guidelines page.
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Cornelia Smith Fick 