KEAP & The Writers’ Block have been approached by a lovely project called ‘Solstice Shorts’ run by a small publishing company in Greenwich, Arachne Press.

Solstice Shorts is a live literature and music event, happening on the shortest day of the year. This year, it is going nationwide with events from Cornwall up to Scotland. These live events will each start at dusk and finish at full dark, so will create a ripple of events across the country. On 21st December, Dusk starts in the UK in the far NE (Shetland) at 16:53 and finishes in the far South West (Cornwall) at 18:21, taking between 40 and 50 minutes depending where you are. We want the performances to match this exactly, and to have a live link up – so that Cornwall wouldn’t start reading until Shetland had almost finished and all the other performances will overlap, so that somewhere in the ether we are all reading/singing together, like a murmuration of starlings.

The Writers’ Block is very pleased to be hosting the Cornish event!

We are now looking for the content for each of these events. Arachne Press would like submissions of new and unpublished poems and stories, plus new or traditional music/song all on the theme of DUSK. Please note that they are welcoming submissions in Cornish (with accompanying translation) Submissions are shortlisted anonymously, so DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON YOUR STORY – only on the form/covering letter.

The submissions will be short listed, and those which are chosen will be read at the events (different ones at each event), and also published into an anthology. Due to the length of each performance – 40 ish minutes – there is likely to be only time for 2 poems, 2 stories and 2 songs at each event. We expect that our Story Republicans will read the poems or stories, but the musical elements will need to be performed by the musicians who created them, so it is really important we get some local musical submissions! If the projects gets Arts Council funding, performers will be paid an hourly rate. Writers will not be paid for their work (unless they read it at their local event), but it will be published, and they will receive royalties from the book.

The deadline for submissions is 5 November. The link to submit, and more info on restrictions on length etc is here https://arachnepress.submittable.com/submit Click on the MORE button, next to the orange SUBMIT button for full requirements.

More info about the project itself is at https://arachnepress.com/solstice-shorts/