Hello and happy new year, you lovely lot.

Please allow us a moment of self indulgence now, as all three of us bring you a bonus episode looking back on where we were 4 years ago, when we first began this lovely little writing / podcasting project.

Because for some inexplicable reason, we've decided to take our first ever episode and provide a kind of 'director's commentary' over it.

There will be cringing. There will be self-reflection. There might even be the odd moment of pride - as we look back at just how far we've come.

Well... alright... admittedly, from the outside it doesn't look like we've come very far, does it?

But the journey is long my friends, and the road is badly paved, and we're all easily distracted by all the fascinating little distractions along the way, aren't we?

So try not to judge too hard.

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This week we have a look at the rest of our festive flash fiction competition shortlist.

Warning:  They’re upsettingly good.

Any one of them, frankly, could have won.

Which must rankle somewhat.

Thankfully though, this is the moment they can shine.

Here were the winners (Announced last week):

Katie Holloway:

https://loseyourselfbooks.wordpress.com/

James Montgomory

https://www.jamesmontgomerywrites.com

John R Preston.

And here are the incredible Shortlisters:

Camilla Cassidy:

https://camillacassidy.co.uk

Genevieve Marenghi Daly

@genevieve.m.d

Rachael Dunlop:

https://rachaeldunlop.com

Insta: @rachaeldunlop1

Rebecca Latham

Debbie Howard

Please give them a massive round of applause and buy them a drink next time you see them.

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Winners winners, turkey dinners!

Thanks to the absolute legends at SCRIVENER - https://www.literatureandlatte.com/

You can get 20% off a copy by using the code 'failing' until the end of 2024.

ORRRR

maybe... just maybe... you've already won a copy, and you don’t know it?

Well there's only one way to find out isn't there?

by listening to this episode....

So come on in and let's find out who's won the Failing Writers Podcast £500 Festive Flash Fiction Final!

Whoop whoop!

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Don't forget you can still get 20% off SCRIVENER using the code 'failing' until the new year - so do that first before you get side-tracked with all the less-important Christmas stuff.

OK. Done that? Great. Now listen to this lovely episode featuring the wonderful Amy Daughters talking about how hand written letters can help bring people together.

https://www.amydaughters.com/books

Next, find out how Jon & Tom got on with a bit of letter writing ...

and then for the sake of balance, lets see what happens when you write letters pretending to be a 104 year old woman, who has a pet hedgehog and lives with a horrible lady called Mrs Hale...

Because Robert Popper's been busy again...

Get The Elsie Drake Letters for your loved ones in time for Christmas here "or you will regret it":

https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/robert-popper/the-elsie-drake-letters-aged-104/9781399817899/

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Time to finish our letter to Bridget Phillipson, and once again thank the incredible teachers we spoke to, and the pupils for their fabulous creative writing.

And hey, thank yourself too! Whether you like it or not, you're now part of our powerful army of activists, who are going to help bring about a U-turn in reading and writing!

Let's start today - let's put away the smartphones - let's read more - let's volunteer as a paired-reader at a school. Let's big-up teachers - let's write something and share it with the world - let's write letters to the government until they change the way English is taught, and the way the arts are viewed in schools.

Thanks for listening, and if you want to know more about the stuff we've been discussing, or have any other suggestions about how we might give English in schools a boost - drop us a line!

[email protected]

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"Thank goodness for the Failing Writers."

A phrase you've no doubt overheard people say quite a lot over the years. At bus stops. Maybe in libraries? At the off licence?

No? Not even the off license?

Oh.

Anyway - not to worry - this week you're ALMOST CERTAIN to hear it, as Jon and Tom slip their pants on over their tights and become SAVIOURS OF THE SUBJECT OF ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS.

Yes, we're making it our mission to breathe new life into our favourite school subject and bring back the joy of reading and writing for the young folk of Britain!

How?

By writing a sternly worded letter of course! To Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education.

But first, we need to talk to some people who actually know what they're talking about. You know, to find out what the heck's going on with young people and reading and writing!

First up: Inspirational English Guru: (Yes. We're calling her a guru!) Leah Crawford.

Ooh... and don't you dare forget to enter our Festive Flash Fiction Competition in Association with Scrivener:

Get more details here:

https://www.failingwriterspodcast.com/episodes/episode/ad99e466/s4-ep-20-the-failing-writers-festive-flash-fiction-competition

Here's Leah's website:

https://leahcrawford.com

Bob Cox’s site - The home of Opening Doors:

https://searchingforexcellence.co.uk

The Opening Doors series:

https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/opening-doors

Let's Think in English:

https://www.letsthinkinenglish.org

Links to The English Association’s campaign to save English:

https://englishassociation.ac.uk/english-creates-a-campaign-for-english/

https://englishassociation.ac.uk/choose-english/

The Common English Forum Manifesto for English in schools:

https://commonenglishforum.org/a-manifesto-for-english/

The Just Imagine Centre championing excellent books in schools:

https://justimagine.co.uk/the-book-channel/

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If Tom & Jon wrote poems

‘spose it will be assumed

They won’t be as good as Henry’s

Normal service will be resumed.

In this episode, we meet up with Henry Normal: poet, writer of famous sit-coms, TV producer and poetry festival founder, and have a blummin’ lovely natter.

(After we did that - we watched him perform all his lovely poems, so effortlessly. So fluidly. So naturally.

And thus, inspired by his performance, we wondered how hard it would be to knock off a quick poem and perform it aloud.

“Bloobee blah blah bleeblee

 Bloobloo bloobloo la!…”

Sort of like that.

Dead easy.

So we did.

The results were... profoundly... um...

...well... decide for yourself.)

Henry Normal’s insta:

https://www.instagram.com/henrynormalpoet/

Buy Henry’s books:

https://flapjackpress.co.uk/products/henry-normal

Henry’s tour dates:

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/henry-normal

BIG UPS…

The bloke who wrote the short story that Jon loved:

https://www.aaroncourts.com/

A.B. Finlayson and his excellent book:

https://abfinlayson.com/rockzombie/

Genevieve Marenghi-Daly’s lovely website.

https://sharpewords.uk/

Cover photo: J. Preston. Available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and saucy stuff.

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Sorry? Did you just say you'd love to enter an almost free* festive flash fiction competition to win £500?

I thought you did!

Well as coincidence would have it, that is exactly what we've got going on in this very episode.

So step this way, my cheeky little word-purveyor, and cast your well oiled ears at our glorious 350 word Flash Fiction Competition.

That's it.... yep... cast them freely.... mmmm.... that's the ticket.

*I say 'almost free', cos it's only a pound to enter. And we only did that to keep the pesky AI enterers from entering.

So, well... that pretty much qualifies as free doesn't it?

Here are some links to stuff mentioned in the podcast:

Buy the Fuel Anthology Emily mentions, here:  https://www.fuelflash.net

Find Smokelong Quarterly here:  https://www.smokelong.com

And here is your failsafe

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO ENTERING

THE FAILING WRITERS PODCAST

£500 FESTIVE FLASH FICTION COMPETITION:

1.        Listen to Series 4, Episode 20 of The Failing Writers Podcast.

2.        Jot down the special phrase you must include in your story.

3.        Write your 350 word, festive flash, (including that phrase!) Ideally well before the deadline - midday, Friday 13th December!

4.        When you’re super-happy with it and ready to go… log into your Paypal account https://www.paypal.com

5.        Click on 'send and request'.

6.        Under the send menu, type [email protected] into the box. It will suggest Tom Turner – click on that!

7.        If ‘you send’ is set to USD, change to GBP, and send £1.00  (don’t forget that decimal point or you’ll send us £100!!! whoopieee)

8.        ‘What’s this for?’ put something like “Comp entry”

9.        Hit send.

10.  Now go to your email and find the receipt you should’ve just been sent.

11.  Click Forward, and attach your flash fiction entry to this new email.

12.  Send that email (with Paypal receipt & flash piece) to [email protected]

You’re all done!

Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

For all of the details and terms and conditions and all that jazz - go here:

https://www.failingwriterspodcast.com/post/win-500-in-our-festive-flash-fiction-competition

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What is ergodic literature? Well, it's when a story becomes more than just something you read, and you become part of it.

But pretend you haven't read that, so that you can find out from listening to this wonderful episode. In which, we have a chat with "S" co-author Doug Dorst and You Say Which Way author Deb Potter, in our quest to get to the bottom of what ergodic fiction is and why it's so blummin' good. Enjoy!

Here's some links for things in the show and stuff...

https://dougdorst.com/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/S-Doug-Dorst/dp/0316201642

https://yousaywhichway.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unfortunates

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/327088/house-of-leaves-by-danielewski-mark-z/9781529943993

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masquerade_(book)

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Should you treat yourself to a writing retreat?

If you did it twice would you be re-treating yourself to a writing retreat?

If you tweeted about treating yourself to a writers retreat would you be tweeting your re-treat of retreating to a retreat?

And if you then re-tweeted your...

OK, I'll stop.

Tom & Jon not only answer the first of these pressing questions, but as they disappear into the wilderness (sort of) to sample a writers' retreat, they seek to answer the biggest question of all.

The one that's been haunting them for as long as they've been doing this podcast.

Can they actually knuckle down and write for 2 and a half days straight? No social media. No boxsets. No 'nipping to the pub for one' and then accidentally spending the entire afternoon there?

...

What?

Well I'm obviously not going to tell you am I?

Of course not.

What do you mean, I'm being a tease? That's what these bits of blurb are for! to tease you in.

Oh stop arguing and hit play.

Here's where we went:

https://writersretreatuk.co.uk/2023/01/our-own-venue-the-retreat-at-the-kings-arms/

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