Styling Interiors for Photo Shoots with BIID ...

As a magazine stylist - and indeed as a consumer myself of beautiful interiors images - I’m always looking for one essential element in a photograph above all others: ambience. For sure, the furniture, colours, light and accessories in a room matter. But most importantly, it’s that soulful feeling that an individual has just been in the room - reading, cooking, relaxing, or simply sitting - and that they’ll be back at any moment. A sense of movement or of lifestyle, a candle burning or fresh flowers just picked from the garden … it’s all in the careful placing of a chair, a newspaper discarded, shoes kicked off. So often, styling is about the tiny details, a deliberate decision to keep things simple, rather than adding masses of props or complex furniture arrangements. Anyone can learn to employ a few tricks of the trade, and so …

… I’ve distilled the key principles I’ve learned over my years as a magazine stylist into an online event for the British Institute of Interior Design. The workshop will run on 3 November 2021 from 3-4.30pm and is a whistle stop tour through Styling Interiors for Photo Shoots. You’ll learn how to fine-tune interiors with a stylist’s eye. We’ll cover the importance of ambience and lifestyle elements, key props and flowers to select, how to tailor a variety of styling ‘styles’ to a variety of interiors, and how to plan a day’s shoot, from whole room shots to details. I’ll be on hand to answer your styling queries, too. The workshop is booking now - so do join us!

This week I've read ...

The Barbizon: The New York Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren (Two Roads, £20)

How I heard about it: I spotted the fabulous 50s-inspired cover at Notting Hill bookshop Lutyens & Rubinstein.

Did I like it? Yes! I read it over one weekend.

What’s it about? A history of the birth, life and ultimate demise of ‘The Barbizon’ hotel in New York, which opened in 1927 and was converted into condominiums in 2007. But the book also explores themes of female empowerment and women’s need for independence. Tracing the aspirations, and roadblocks, of 20th century women, from the New Woman of the 1920s to the advent of Women’s Lib in the 1960s and beyond, The Barbizon tells the stories not just of the hotel’s famous residents, including writers Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion , but also glimpses the ‘hidden’ women who passed through its doors, seeking a new life in New York,

An added bonus? The Barbizon gives a fascinating insight into the workings of New York’s high fashion Mademoiselle magazine, published 1935 to 2001. The magazine was famous for its Guest Editor programme, a competition aimed at young women with literary ambition. Each summer, the winners - the chosen few - were put up at ‘The Barbizon’ hotel during their June internship at Mademoiselle. For me, as a magazine journalist, I loved this extra dimension, particularly the sections from the 1950s. Sylvia Plath, who was a Guest Editor in 1952, famously immortalised ‘The Barbizon’ hotel in her novel The Bell Jar, renaming it the ‘Amazon.’

Why Writing Competitions Matter!

I’ve been musing recently on writing competitions. I’ve entered a selection over the years, and been lucky enough to be short-listed, long-listed, and even to win prizes. I’d recommend anyone getting serious about their writing to enter their work. Sticking to a word count is a great goal, as is the need to edit rigorously and to meet a competition deadline. The bonus? Many short story competitions not only raise your profile, should you be listed, but also publish great-looking anthologies. Having your work read, judged and taken seriously, particularly if the final judges are literary agents or published writers, is a real confidence booster. And if you don’t succeed? There are many competitions out there, so try, try and try again …

Podcast for Spread the Word/London Short Story Prize 2019

Back in March 2020 (what seems a pre-Covid lifetime ago!) I had great fun recording a podcast for the Spread the Word London Short Story Prize 2019, organised by Luke Applin and Julia Ramrath, students on the MA Publishing at UAL London College of Communication. They interviewed me about my 1st Prize winning story ‘Jacking Sea Fruits in the Dark’. The podcast has just been released and it can be listened to here! You can also hear interviews with writers Isha Karki and Caroline Rae, who were Highly Commended.

Judith, Julia and Luke, recording the podcast

THE LONDON SHORT STORY PRIZE 2019 Anthology

I’m very proud to have my 1st Prize-winning short story ‘Jacking Sea Fruits in the Dark’ now published in The London Short Story Prize Anthology 2019! I couldn’t be in better company amongst these talented writers. The pdf containing all 12 stories can be downloaded here free, so do take a look:

The prize and anthology is managed and edited by the fabulous Aliya Gulamani at Spread the Word, with input from staff and students on the MA Publishing at Kingston University and the MA Publishing London College of Communications.

The Fairlight Book of Short Stories (Volume 1)

I’m very happy to share the cover reveal for The Fairlight Book of Short Stories (Volume 1) to be published October 2020. The book includes 24 short stories, from a host of writers, such as Sophie van Llewyn and Adam Trodd. It also features my story ‘Winter, 1963’. This was originally published by Fairlight Books on their online short story portal, for their Winter Shorts series; you can read it here. Fairlight Books, based in Oxford, publish a beautifully curated list of ‘the best of new and contemporary literary fiction’ - this volume is their first anthology of short stories. ‘Winter, 1963’ won 2nd Prize for the Colm Toibin International Short Story Competition 2016, at the Wexford Literary Festival.

3rd Prize Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize 2019

I was thrilled to be awarded 3rd Prize for the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize 2019, awarded at the launch of the anthology on 21st November 2019. Most of the 12 long listed short story writers were present, as well as the writer, bookseller and project manager of the prize, Kate Ellis, and the bookshop owner, Denise Jones. We were joined by two of the judges: literary agent Emma Paterson of Aitken Alexander Associates and Kit Caless of Influx Press. The third judge was the writer Zoe Gilbert. Many congratulations to 1st Prize winner James Mitchell and 2nd Prize winner Rosanna Hildyard! It was really great to hear so many writers read an extract from their short stories. The other writers included in the anthology are: Holly Barratt, Emily Bullock, Ellen Hardy, Kerry Hood, Isha Karki, Melody Razak, T. Schroeder, Toby Wallis, and Sylvia Warren.

From left: Kate Ellis, Judith Wilson, James Mitchell, Rosanna Hildyard and Denise Jones

My short story, ‘Hot Butter on Repeat’, was inspired by the landscape of 1970s Liverpool, where I grew up. I’m often drawn back to Liverpool in my short stories. And the track that features in it - ‘Popcorn’ by Hot Butter, released in 1972 - is most definitely worth a listen!

‘Hot Butter on Repeat’ was inspired by 1970s Liverpool

The Brick Lane Bookshop at 166 Brick Lane London E1 6RU www.bricklanebookshop.org

This was the inaugural Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize 2019, and - with 463 entries - I felt very lucky to have my story included in the anthology (and it’s a very beautiful anthology). So thanks again to the organisers and judges, congratulations to the other writers - and now - please buy the book to discover 12 new writers! You can order it for £8 here …

1st Prize Winning Story Published in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts

I was thrilled last August 2017, when I received an email from the American writer, Lorian Hemingway, telling me that I'd won the American Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition 2017.  My story, Welcome to Legoland, had been picked from over 600 international entries and to hear this was such a wonderful boost.  As well as winning the prize, an additional bonus was that Welcome to Legoland would be published in Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts.  Cutthroat is an internationally recognised literary journal published in the USA: its Editor-in-Chief is Pamela Uschuk.  The Spring 2018 issue is now out - and after winging its way across the Atlantic (thank you, Lorian, for taking the time and trouble) - I have received several copies and here it is!

Welcome to Legoland is a story dear to my heart, because it is set in Liverpool in the 1970s, the place and time where I grew up.  I wanted to capture the raw industrial mood of the city, as it was then, contrasted with the mature, mellow environs of Liverpool University, where my father taught.  I hope I've succeeded.  Narrated by a university student about the stranger teenage boy she meets on the avant-garde Southgate Housing Estate in Runcorn New Town, the story explores grief and architecture and a brief encounter between two lost individuals.  It was created as a side-step from the novel I'm completing, which is also set in Liverpool.  As writers, to take a breather, we're often encouraged to meet our characters in a different place, outside the timeline of the novel, and this is what I did one day. Adrian, the stranger, was the result.

So, a big thank you both to Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts, and to Lorian Hemingway, who is such a generous and encouraging author, for giving my story a chance to meet the world.  And if you get to read Welcome to Legoland - I hope you enjoy it.