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Post by mattofthespurs on Feb 16, 2014 11:18:28 GMT
I never know where to put things on this site so please feel free to move if it's in the wrong place, or remove completely if there is a thread already up on it. Came across this in Waterstones the other day. Delighted to see that the anthology is not quite dead. Much of the contents seem very familiar and I expect someone with more knowledge on these things will be able to point to the inclusions in other volumes. Strangely the edition I picked up was hardback whilst Amazon only have a listing for paperback and Kindle copies. Still, a nice volume to add to the library. Contents are; The Shadow - E. Nesbitt The Clock - W F Harvey Pirates - EF Benson The Crown Derby Plate - Marjorie Bowen The Tarn - Hugh Walpole The Haunting of Shirley Rectory - Ruth Rendall The Cotillon - LP Hartley The Haunted Doll's House - MR James Pomegranate Seed - Edith Wharton The Phantom Rickshaw - Rudyard Kipling The Toll House - WW Jacobs The Black Veil - AF Kidd The Hedgehog - Saki
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Post by dem bones on Feb 16, 2014 13:52:36 GMT
Also from the same publisher (ebook only, it says, but you never know your luck) Lorna Bradbury - Ghost Stories: The Best of The Daily Telegraph's Ghost Story Competition (Profile, 2010) Gill Baconnier - Grace Geri Hughes - Daniel‘s Cauf Craig Drew - A Hollow Cause Justin Crozier - The Rites Zhou Pat Black - Gimme Shelter Richard Crornpton - Friends
Susan Hill - The Small Hand [sample extract] In 2010 thousands of people submitted ghost stories to The Daily Telegraph's first ghost story competition. Standards were chillingly high and only the spookiest went through to the shortlist of six. Presented here are short stories from Gill Baconnier, Justin Crozier, Ceri Hughes, Pat Black, Craig Drew and the winner, Richard Crompton, whose story 'Friends' is an uncanny take on social networking. Currently available only in ebook form they are the perfect company for a long winter's night.you can read the winning entry at foot of Lorna Bradbury Telegraph article HERE
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Post by ripper on Aug 14, 2016 11:16:58 GMT
It would be nice if other publications would hold this type of short-story competition. This one by the Telegraph and an earlier one by The Times are the only two of which I am aware, though I suppose there must have been others over the years.
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 14, 2016 12:49:48 GMT
It would be nice if other publications would hold this type of short-story competition. This one by the Telegraph and an earlier one by The Times are the only two of which I am aware, though I suppose there must have been others over the years. I remember that both Ramsey Campbell and Roger Johnson (with "The Scarecrow") failed to bother the judges in the Times competition, while the stories which did win were mostly a weak bunch. This seems to be the norm for such competitions. Two years ago Saga magazine held a ghost story competition, the resulting book being called - er - Ghost Stories. Here's what I said about it in Lady Wardrop's Journal - my zine for the Everlasting Club postal discussion group: ***** Has anyone seen the recent book of winners of the Saga Ghost Story Competition, Ghost Stories: A Saga Collection (Profile Books)? The last time I checked, it only seemed to be available for Kindle, so I haven't, but I did read the first-prize entry printed in Saga Magazine (Mum and Dad get it - not me!). I also scanned through the book's introduction which can be found on Amazon (along with the contents page - no familiar names, except that for some unknown reason the book begins with MRJ's "A Vignette"). Saga used a lot of quotes from MRJ's famous essay in announcing and promoting the competition, but if the intro (by Katy Bravery, editor of Saga Magazine) is anything to go by, a lot of the entrants don't seem to have taken his hints to heart. Apparently nowadays the preponderance of ghost stories are of the poignant variety, or that's what the editor says, on the basis of the content of the thousand entries they received (a thousand - can it be?). She says: "There seems to be a drift away from the bloodthirsty and evil - today's ghosts are growing subtler and more poignant, and ghost stories can even introduce us to spirits that are benevolently inclined". I can't say that drift is evident to me (subtle and benevolent ghosts have always been with us, yet sinister and evil ones still have the upper hand, thank goodness). But maybe it's something to do with the fact that most of the entrants will have been elderly - timor mortis conturbat me, and all that! So what of the first-prize winning tale? Well, it's perfect - a perfect example of how not to write a ghost story! What's one of the first rules? You know, Rule 3 after (1) Never use "and it was all a dream" as your final line; and (2) At all costs, avoid any plot involving phantom hitchhikers? Yes, Rule 3's the one about never having a protagonist returning from a war only to find that, unbeknownst to him, he's been killed and is a ghost. That's all it is - adequately written, but nothing new, nothing which hasn't been done a hundred times before. If this won the first prize I dread to think what the others in the book are like, but let's be generous and hope that maybe there's something good among them.
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Post by ripper on Aug 15, 2016 6:46:41 GMT
I thought that a few stories in the Times competition were quite good, most memorably the one about the disturbed girl and her doll collection, but I agree that most were so-so. I hadn't heard of the Saga competition.
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 15, 2016 8:17:22 GMT
I thought that a few stories in the Times competition were quite good, most memorably the one about the disturbed girl and her doll collection, but I agree that most were so-so. I hadn't heard of the Saga competition. I believe I'm right in saying that Ramsey's story which failed to get a place in the Times competition was the utterly, truly terrifying "In the Bag". That went on to win the British and World Fantasy Awards, which proves something, I think.
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Post by ripper on Aug 15, 2016 13:21:12 GMT
I've read both Ramsey's and Roger's stories and I would agree that they are far better than most that appeared in the Times anthology. I like to think that such competitions raise the profile of supernatural fiction, particularly short stories, among people who wouldn't normally consider it as reading material, but I have no idea if that is so in reality.
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Post by dem bones on Aug 16, 2016 6:49:32 GMT
The Times Anthology Of Ghost Stories has grown on me over the years, but I'm still wondering what the judges were on that made them overlook In The Bag and The Scarecrow. Agree with them (and Rip!) on The Doll Named Silvio.
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Post by ripper on Aug 16, 2016 8:47:04 GMT
The Times anthology is, for me, okay as a whole, but after reading "Silvio" all the other stories really pale. There isn't enough nastiness in the collection for my tastes; including Ramsey's and Roger's tales would have strengthened that aspect, especially at the expense of a couple of the more benign stories.
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 16, 2016 11:01:49 GMT
I like to think that such competitions raise the profile of supernatural fiction, particularly short stories, among people who wouldn't normally consider it as reading material, but I have no idea if that is so in reality. There's truth in that, undoubtedly. But conversely, an insipid, unexciting collection (as the Saga book sounds as though it is) could put people off for life!
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 16, 2016 11:03:24 GMT
The Times anthology is, for me, okay as a whole, but after reading "Silvio" all the other stories really pale. There isn't enough nastiness in the collection for my tastes; including Ramsey's and Roger's tales would have strengthened that aspect, especially at the expense of a couple of the more benign stories. Perhaps this is why Ramsey's story got nowhere: it is, after all, pleasingly and satisfactorily nasty!
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Post by ripper on Aug 16, 2016 13:11:23 GMT
That's very true about a poor, insipid collection putting people off, Rosemary. I suppose that when a magazine or newspaper announces such a competition it is then relying on the stories it receives for the quality of the collection that is produced. It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall when the judges were considering the stories for the Times anthology. I don't know whether all stories would have been read by the judges or if 'screeners' were employed to weed out entries that were considered unsuitable.
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 16, 2016 15:23:02 GMT
That's very true about a poor, insipid collection putting people off, Rosemary. I suppose that when a magazine or newspaper announces such a competition it is then relying on the stories it receives for the quality of the collection that is produced. It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall when the judges were considering the stories for the Times anthology. I don't know whether all stories would have been read by the judges or if 'screeners' were employed to weed out entries that were considered unsuitable. It's an interesting experience, being a ghost story competition judge. When I've run Ghosts & Scholars-related competitions, they've been easy to cope with as we're only talking about a few dozen entries - forty or fifty at most (and I'm the only judge - the power!!!). The largest competition I was ever involved with was one which the Ghost Story Society ran many years ago. There were rather more (and more varied) entries for that - I suspect it could have been over a hundred. There were some very good ones (I have the feeling Chris Harman was one of the winners), but one of my favourites was Clive Ward's "The Spinney", which only got an honourable mention because none of the other judges liked it as much as I did. This was Clive's first story and he had no plans then to continue as a writer. I'm still very chuffed that I was involved in starting his writing 'career'. He's done some wonderful stuff since (I've just accepted a great new story by him for G&S next year), but "The Spinney" is still one of my favourites!
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Post by ropardoe on Aug 16, 2016 15:55:40 GMT
That's very true about a poor, insipid collection putting people off, Rosemary. I suppose that when a magazine or newspaper announces such a competition it is then relying on the stories it receives for the quality of the collection that is produced. It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall when the judges were considering the stories for the Times anthology. I don't know whether all stories would have been read by the judges or if 'screeners' were employed to weed out entries that were considered unsuitable. It's an interesting experience, being a ghost story competition judge. When I've run Ghosts & Scholars-related competitions, they've been easy to cope with as we're only talking about a few dozen entries - forty or fifty at most (and I'm the only judge - the power!!!). The largest competition I was ever involved with was one which the Ghost Story Society ran many years ago. There were rather more (and more varied) entries for that - I suspect it could have been over a hundred. There were some very good ones (I have the feeling Chris Harman was one of the winners), but one of my favourites was Clive Ward's "The Spinney", which only got an honourable mention because none of the other judges liked it as much as I did. This was Clive's first story and he had no plans then to continue as a writer. I'm still very chuffed that I was involved in starting his writing 'career'. He's done some wonderful stuff since (I've just accepted a great new story by him for G&S next year), but "The Spinney" is still one of my favourites! Lest I confuse anyone, I should say that I may be misremembering Chris Harman being a winner in the competition. I've said elsewhere in the Vault that my memory for such things is rubbish. My memory for what I've published in G&S would be rubbish if I hadn't kept copies!
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Post by jamesdoig on Aug 16, 2016 21:20:52 GMT
Lest I confuse anyone, I should say that I may be misremembering Chris Harman being a winner in the competition. It wouldn't surprise me at all - he's a terrific writer.
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