Word Up

I spent this Saturday at Huddersfield University with the other finalists in the short story competition that was run by The Examiner in which I [polite cough] came 2nd out of 70 or so entrants.
Everyone there was very friendly and supportive of each others steps out of the back room/bedroom/kitchen and into the light of 'proper' writing ambitions. A nice bunch of people who were enthused by , err, the enthusiasm for writing of Gaia Holmes, our lovely, quietly confident teacher / facilitator for the day.
Twas good and I'd love to do one again. Maybe in more picturesque surroundings though .. There are some nice views away from the University over the canal, but the views of the building we were in were, well, brutal. See below. That coupled with the closed road opposite because of a drive-by shooting the night before made for a pretty urban feel to day. And I added to that by buying a new book on graffiti / street tags in our lunch break. 'New ' graffiti are like short stories I think, there's a narrative there sometime and the position of the deliberately placed characters against ad posters or street signs or place tells a story.
enough of the essay.