Bristol Tales - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0954936353 ISBN 13: 9780954936358

Publisher: ENDpapers, 2005

Synopsis

When I first heard about the Tales series, a competition to write a short story set in your own city, I knew straight away that it was a winner. This was bourne out immiediately by the enthusiasm of the people of Bristol to get involved and contribute, stories, time, whatever they could, to support it. Hence this book really is a collaboratorive effort for the whole city, and something it should be very proud of.
There are a broad sellection of ideas put forward in the tales. They are sometimes humerous, sometimes sad, but always thought provoking. The compilation gives a snap shot of all walks of modern life in Bristol.
The reason for it'ssuccess is that the idea behind it is so sound. There is something fascinating about reading ficiton that is set in a place you know so well. It changes the way you look at streets, or buildings, or even people.
Bristol tales is like a meeting point for everyone in Bristol to congregate at.

About this title

Review:

"The Tales Series gives readers a wonderful new map to contemporary city life... an ideal guide book to the imagination." -- Sara Davies, Executive Producer, BBC Radio 4

The TALES series gives readers a wonderful map to contemporary city life...an ideal guidebook to the imagination -- Sara Davies, Executive Producer BBC Radio 4

From the Publisher:

It’s a fact: we met outside the toilets at the London Book Fair in March 2005.

One of us was sitting wearing a name badge with BRISTOL writ large, and the other one was idling, waiting for colleagues to advance in a seemingly endless queue. With books and writing uppermost in our minds - as opposed to the state of our bladders - we caught sight of one another’s badges and fell to talking about the TALES series.

Each volume in the TALES series begins with one local contact, shed loads of leaflets and the launch of a writing competition. This chance encounter was the local contact and then, with Bristol, gathering in tales was easy. Why?

Firstly, Bristol is full of writers, full of creativity, full of contradiction. This creates exactly the right environment to breed short story writers.

Secondly, and for ENDpapers, critically, there was a wide variety of hubs in place, with networks branching off them like spokes, that we were able to tap into.

BORDERS in Bristol, for one, is a hive of enthusiasm for creativity and a draw for local people, both to buy books and to talk about them. Many of the staff are themselves writers and they maintained a keen interest in the progress of the competition, distributing leaflets, exploiting broadcast opportunities and just generally talking up the TALES series whenever they could.

Bristol Grammar School is another. Unusually for volumes in the TALES series, we were invited to work with a school. Bristol Grammar School offered a reader service to local writers wishing to submit to the competition. This meant that a whole population of people, teachers, parents and students, could be made directly aware of BRISTOL TALES.

BBC Radio 4’s production team for books happens to operate from Bristol. Right from the outset we had their support. Not only were senior producers able and interested to help us in promoting writing across the city, wherever there was a chance with local radio to promote the competition and to help make listeners aware of it, they did it.

Creative writing groups, Access and English courses in the City of Bristol College took leaflets, gave support, and generally promoted the existence of the TALES series. We received many submissions from them.

And then, of course, there is the great British public, which is indeterminate and unpredictable wherever competitions like this are launched. The bottom line is this: YOU NEVER KNOW.

We were lucky to find each other at the London Book Fair and the progress of the BRISTOL TALES has been a series of modulations on a largely successful and harmonious theme.

We are pleased with the results, delighted that Bristol has shown itself to be absolutely the hot bed of talent we expected, and we look forward to putting together another volume of BRISTOL TALES before too long.

Maggi Jackson - ENDpapers
Lucy Shepherd – Bristol Grammar School

if you are interested in how a TALES anthology might be launched in your area, contact ENDpapers at info@endpapers.co.uk

About this edition

• Publisher: ENDpapers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0954936353
• ISBN 13: 9780954936358
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 250
• Editor: Hazelwood Rachel