The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon

The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon
Shortlisted for The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Prize

Wednesday 12 March 2008

2008 Elora Writer's Festival

Last week I attended to kick-off for the 2008 Elora Writer’s Festival. The turn out wasn’t as good as it could have been but hey, we’d received yet another 25 centimetres of snow the previous day so that could have had something to do with it.

There were local personalities from our newspapers and the cable station. The author who hosts our Fiction workshop, Michael Hale, was the master of ceremonies. In attendance also was actor, Colin Fox of PSIfactor fame (actually his IMDb listing is as long as your arm, PSIfactor doesn't begin to describe his accomplishments).

During the festivities the writers who will be reading from their works were announced and you can visit the website for a full accounting. The theme and format of the 5th Annual Elora Writer’s Festival Writing Competition was announced as well. This year the format is “A Harvest of Words” – follow the link to enter.

The other bit of news from the evening is that the guy who never wins anything (that’d be yours truly) won a door prize. I received 2 books from our local bookstore, Roxanne’s Reflections. The books were Helen Humphrey’s Wild Dogs and Laurie Gough’s travel memoir, Kiss the Sunset Pig. I haven’t read them yet but a quick flip through Kiss the Sunset Pig had me laughing.

Last week at the Fiction Workshop the assignment was to create a scene or situation where two characters come together and each wants something from the other. I don’t know how exactly it happened but this was a springboard to one of the most grim things I’ve ever written. So grim, in fact, was the story that I felt the need to go out in the world and be among people after I finished it. I went for a walk downtown, rented a movie and bought some goodies for the kids just to be among people and get centred.

What is this grim story? Well, it is called Just Business and can be accessed at the Fiction Notebook.

There’s no Workshop for the next two weeks but I am keeping busy cleaning up Loremaster and doing odd jobs around the house. Loremaster should be ready to go out into the world by the end of the month and hopefully I’ll have the bathroom renovated by then too…