Catalyst 24hr Flash - untitled by Lucette Hindin

by Lucette Hindin

A photo of you. I know it is morning because the dairy owner is doing chi kung again. It is winter: my bad framing has caught half a seagull waiting on a fence for you to drop your chips. You're only seventeen and wear blue patterned leggings and a black dress with bare arms. Will I ever see you again? Something happened and you left. Again. I must be old to say “again” so many times. History is repeating for us now. The voices of the past become the voices of the present. They say “this place is no good.”

It is generally accepted that this place is no good: heavy, sad, full of negative ions and spiritual darkness. We walked the city streets at night. One week we were re-invented hippies with flowers in our hair, the next goths with black nail polish. Fashion isn't political for fourteen year old girls. Now my shoes have holes in them. Now you live up north. More rain, no more earthquakes. You have two children. You sell almond croissants at the village market.

The truth is that I would love to leave here too. I miss who we once were.

Catalyst 24hr Flash - The Cat & the Seagull by Jeni Curtis

The cat and the seagull 

by Jeni Curtis

There once lived, at the foot of a tree-lined mountain near the sea, a youngish woman.

“What I really need are flowers,” she said to her cat, one morning.

“What she really needs are flowers,” the cat said to the seagull on the roof.

But there were no flowers to be seen around the place.

“The best I can do are starfish,” said the seagull.

“What I really need is love,” said the woman. She had watched the girls in the nearby village. They were slim and pretty, while she was plump and plain. She listened to their laughing voices as they walked on high-heeled shoes. Those were days that were full of rain.

Jacob, who owned the motel at the edge of the village, walked along the beach. He was shy of the laughing girls, and yet he longed for love. He saw a cat and a seagull standing over a clump of starfish and seaweed. Jacob gathered them into a bucket and covered it with gladwrap.

He went quietly to the door of the youngish woman.

“I have brought these for you,” he said and uncovered the bucket.

Inside there were a dozen bright sunflowers.

Catalyst 24hr Flash - Falling by Nod Ghosh

FALLING

by NOD GHOSH

Kicking her shoes off with a howl, DeAnne voices her concerns to anyone who'll listen.

"Why isn't anyone helping me?"

She sits on the edge of the bed swinging her legs. Most of the people in the place are beyond caring about petulant suicidal young girls. It's been more than ten minutes since she saw a staff member. Perhaps she could...there's a sharp piece of...no. She looks at people on the other side of the ward.

Peggy sits stock-still, her little seagull eyes staring straight ahead. There's a brown rubber ring under her bottom, for piles.

Reg makes a "zzzzzzzzz" noise, mowing the imaginary lawn near his bed.  He plants flowers made of tissue paper in Heather's underwear drawer. Everyone knows Reg is in love with Heather.

DeAnne thinks of love, and is desperate to know where Shane is.

He promised to visit this morning.

Just after eleven he walks in looking sheepish.

Violent curses rain down on his head.  Curling his bottom lip he looks towards the floor like a village idiot.

"You don't really love me, do you?" she balls up her emotion and throws it at him to catch. He is silent.

It never occurs to DeAnne to be civil to her ex-boyfriend. It never occurs to her that Shane is only here out of a sense of duty. It never occurs to her that Shane could disappear from her life like a puff of wind.

And all the time, she feels like she is falling.

Catalyst 24hr Flash - Richard by Steve Carter

Richard

by Steve Carter

All the girls in the village think I'm weird but I love that three-legged seagull.  Today I made him some tiny leather shoes: one red, one white, one blue.  He'd be like a flying Union Jack if he could only get off the ground. 

I know they'll most likely get ruined.  I made him a waistcoat once, stitched all over with seven hundred miniature crocheted flowers.  I found it the next day, torn to shreds and lonely-looking, sodden in a muddy puddle.

As for the purple and yellow paisley scarf I made for him from twine spun from my own hair ... that came back stinking of shellfish and stained in a slightly disconcerting way.  I wasn't angry.  I simply washed it the next day in the light morning rain shower and then draped it over a lavender bush to dry in midday sunbeams.

People tell me he doesn't care for all my efforts and attention but it's not really my place to question his gratitude or lack of it.
 
I just do what the voices tell me.

Catalyst 24hr Flash - A Morning Place by Susan Kornfeld

A Morning Place 

by Susan Kornfeld 

Hoihoi was a morning place. That’s what the girls liked to say about the  cliff-top bach. Summers meant breakfast in a lounge drenched in sunlight while far below, the Torongi River flashed its way past the village to the sea. Seagulls woke us with their accusing, assertive voices and winds plied the cliffs. Hoihoi is Maori for noisy. Most mornings you might as well not talk.

            It’s the place I think of, though, when I think of the girls. Golden Melanie with her crayons and chalks. So easy to love. Gilda, the older sister, always watching. Sunlight and shadow. I keep Melanie’s picture on the bureau. Graeme took the family portrait when he left. So there was a space.

            Gilda just bought a house in Timaru. I know because she sent me an email about the blue flowers that used to line the front deck. They’re Forget-me-nots, I wrote back. It wasn’t true. They were some sort of borage. But I never want her to forget.

            Gilda, like a ghost, white T and shorts, no shoes, running with her arms full of air and wet with rain. Where’s your sister, I asked. The wind took her words.

            What I did hear: the sound of a lone seagull. “Fall, fall,” it screamed. “Lie, Lie.” Graeme blamed me, but I hadn’t been the one holding Melanie’s hand. I would have remembered that. Gilda’s words never returned. They are too ashamed, I said, to come back.

24 Hour Flash Winners announced!

We posted the names last night on facebook so here you go...

A pretty fun Catalyst on Tuesday night, launching The Cardinal's Humour AND announcing the winner and 5 runners up of our inaugural 24 Hour Flash competition... we'll be sending off the six stories to the NFFD team (thanks Michelle Elvy!) and also publishing them on the Catalyst blog. A big congrats and thank you to everyone who entered and helped celebrate NZ's first national Flash Fiction Day on 22nd June - Flash Harrys, all of you. 

Alright, enough with the ado. Congratulations to the runners up: 

Susan Kornfeld - A Morning Place

Lucette Miriam Hindin - untitled

Nod Ghosh - Falling

Jeni Curtis - The Cat & the Seagull

Steve Carter - Richard

And drumroll please... the winner is:  

Kay Luff - A Walk in the Rain.

We will be publishing these stories soon right here, check in again.

The Cardinal's Humour

Don't forget the grand book launch tomorrow night (see the details in the post below) featuring selected readings and also live music from the song lyrics in the book - by Doc Drumheller and Aaron Boot.

Just to whet your appetite here's a couple of excerpts from the book itself - these are actual page grabs - click on the images for a full size view.  Enjoy!

Peace a la Carte by Doc Drumheller

art work by Gail Anderson

Book Launch! The Cardinal's Humour by Doc Drumheller

The Cardinal’s Humour

Poetry and Lyrics by Doc Drumheller

Artwork and Design by Gail Anderson

Book Launch, Tuesday, July 3^rd, 8pm Pegasus Arms Upstairs (Vespa Room)

Books available for $20 at the venue

The next Catalyst night - Tuesday 3rd July - is a bumper night of literary shenanigans.  Not only are we announcing the 'winners' of our first ever 24 Hour Flash competition but we're gonna launch Doc Drumheller's new and possibly most important book to date The Cardinal's Humour.  

Join us for a special reading or two from the book and your chance to get yer mitts on a copy before anyone else!

The Cardinal's Humour is Doc's first major collection (excluding haiku), gathering previously published work from across the last decade in one place for the first time.  It is presented with staggeringly creative and beautiful graphic design and art by Gail Anderson.  The Cardinal's Humour is the first release from The Republic of Oma Rapiti Press, with funding assistance by Creative Communities Christchurch.

If you've been following the adventures of Catalyst and Neoismist Press over the years then probably Doc is not an unknown figure to you.  But just in case you're new here or have forgotten just who the hell this guy is... apart from starting up NZ's longest continuously running poetry open mic night, founding Neoismist Press and Catalyst, inventing Poetry Idol and Survivor Poetry, he's also published numerous chapbooks and 3 books of haiku.  So yes, apart from all that:

About the Author:

 

Doc Drumheller was born in Charleston, South Carolina and has lived in New Zealand for more than half his life. He has worked in award winning groups for theatre and music and has published ten collections of poetry.

 

In 2007 he participated in the 12th Havana International Poetry Festival, where he was asked to represent New Zealand on the International Board of Poets in Defence of Humanity. In 2009 he participated in the 5th World Haiku Association Conference and The Druskininkai Poetic Fall in Lithuania, where he became the New Zealand Ambassador to the Republic of Užupis. In 2010 he participated in the World Haiku Festival Pécs, Hungary and won first prize in the ginko haiku writing competition.

 

In 2011 he travelled to India where his book ‘In Transit’, 100 haiku in 11 languages, was published. He performed poetry and music at the Cyberwit office in Allahabad and at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi and then went on to represent New Zealand at the 2nd Tokyo International Poetry Festival and 6th World Haiku Association Conference in Japan.

 

He lives in Oxford, where he edits and publishes the literary journal Catalyst and teaches creative writing at the School for Young Writers.

In the next post this week we'll be featuring an excerpt from the book plus some more of Gail Anderson's stunning art work.  Keep checking in folks!
 

24 Hour Flashed in the pan

Wow!  A final flash fiction tally of 43 entries!  Congratulations to everyone who put pen to paper, or fingertip to keyboard, whatever, you got yer arse in gear and wrote up a flash storm!  We salute you!

 We have decided to announce our picks at the next Catalyst Open Mic which is Tuesday 3rd July, 8pm at the Pegasus Arms upstairs (Vespa Room) so if you want to find out you have to come! (or wait until the next day when we'll post the names here!)

A weekend dedicated to advancing your writing

Weekend Creative Writing Workshop        

Advance your writing!

 

 When : June 30, Sat 10 -3, July1st, Sun  10-3

 Where: Hagley Writers' Institute, Hagley Community College

 What:  How to advance your writing - Poetry and Fiction  

 

  Tutors: Frankie McMillan, Kerrin Sharpe

   Fee:     $100 waged, $90 unwaged

 

Please bring, paper, pen a writing sample (page) and lunch. Morning and afternoon tea will be provided.

Contact: Kerrin Sharpe         3555 414

               Frankie McMillan    377 7587 frankiepara@yahoo.co.nz 

Catalyst 24 Hour Flash begins now!

drum roll please... the 10 trigger words for the first ever Catalyst Literary Arts Journal 24 Hour Flash are... and remember your story must include ALL ten words, in no particular order, to be eligible and no longer than 250 words in total. Here we go:

rain
voices
seagull
place
morning
shoes
flowers
village
love 
girls

On your marks, get set, FLASH.

If you're still reading this post, congratulations! You may have noticed the prompt words are all NOUNS. That's cos we love nouns. The words were selected by Doc Drumheller using the following method: They are all from Catalyst volume 9 - we used the first 10 poets in that volume and chose the first noun from each of their poems. So there yeh go.

Email your finished story by midnight Friday night to:
catalyst_queries@yahoo.com clearly marked 24 Hour Flash somehow. Go!!!

Flash News Flash! Hagley Writers Flash Fic Events!

In the spirit of flash fiction Hagley Writers Institute have rather speedily got an offical event organized for the day.

National Flash Fiction Day at the libraries this  
Friday, 22nd June.
Peterborough Central 11 - 11.30
Upper Riccarton 12 - 12.30
 
Hear tiny stories with a big wallop by Hagley Writers.

24 Hour Flash!

Flash Fiction alert! We're going to carry on up the virtual, so to speak, with our own 24 Hour Flash competition. Just like the Northland NZSA branch version - details here: http://nationalflash.wordpress.com/24-hour-flash/

Stay tuned for 10 prompt words tomorrow - National Flash Fiction Day have offered to publish a selection on their website and we'll do the same on www.catalystnz.blogspot.com

To enter you must include the 10 prompt words announced tomorrow in your story (or stories!) and email it to us.

If we find a place to hang out we may even have some live performance from those of you in ChCh. Otherwise they can be shared at the next Catalyst poetry open mic on 3rd July.

Poetry Reading & Book Launch: Dear Heart - 150 NZ Love Poems

Join our very own Doc Drumheller along with a veritable smorgasboard of Christchurch poetic talent to help launch the new collection Dear Heart - 150 New Zealand Love Poems, an anthology of 'our finest love poems, written from the 1930's onwards'.   Here's a link to a review in the NZ Herald.

Thursday 14th June, 5.30pm

Ed Hopper Cafe & Bar

184 Clarence St, Riccarton

Ph 348 0220 for more details

Next Catalyst Poetry Open Mic - Tues 5th June

CATALYST POETRY OPEN MIC

TUESDAY 5th JUNE, 8pm

PEGASUS ARMS UPSTAIRS

The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe shortlisted for the Gemmell Morningstar Award

A bit of shameless plugging for our good friend Helen Lowe here, whose novel The Heir of Night has been shortlisted for the prestigious Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer.  (Congratulations Helen!)

This award is voted on by the public and Helen's up against some pretty mighty UK/US fanbases so let's seize this opportunity to put a local writer on the global literary map - it's pretty daunting when you find that no book by a woman author or from south of the equator has yet won in either the Legend or Morningstar category.  That might be enough reason for you to vote for it, even if you haven't read it yet (you can buy it here!)

Anyway, the voting closes real soon (May 31st!)  So you've only got two more days to make your vote count!

All you have to do to vote now is click Here

Then click again in the circle immediately above "The Heir of Night -- Helen Lowe"

National Flash Fiction Day 22nd June

Save that date!  Friday 22nd June is NZ's national Flash Fiction Day and Catalyst will be hosting an event for writers to read/perform their short short fiction.  I'll put up more info soon, in the meantime click on the link there and check out the National Flash Fiction Day website.  It's not too late to enter the national competition which closes at the end of May.  You can check that out at the NFFD website too.

In fact we've got a whole batch of events coming up so stay tuned for more posts soon

We're 99% sure Catalyst's poetry open mic will go ahead on 5th June at the Peg but we'll post as soon as we have the green light.

Also upcoming is Catalyst's inaugural Poets on Bikes pub crawl on Saturday 9th June.  More info on that soon too!

Next Catalyst Poetry Open Mic - Tues 3rd April, Peg Arms upstairs

First Tuesday of every month, live at the Pegasus Arms upstairs!

Beat St Sessions this week!

This Thursday 15 March - Beat St Sessions beware the ides of March

Open mic poetry & guests
@ Beat St Cafe, cnr Barbadoes & Armagh Sts

Sign-up + schmoozin from 6pm
w/ live music by Dylan Hawesome

Poetry kicks off at 7pm
Open mic + guest poets Helen Back & Ben Brown

$5 if you can

Workshop ALERT- David Gill

This opportunity came through the wire from 

Canterbury Poets Collective.  We are not familiar with David Gill 

or his work so this is not an endorsement, merely passing on the news!

SPOKEN POETRY - for poets. Would you like to: 

• Make your poem come ALIVE? 

• Enchant your audience? 

• Keep their attention so they don’t drift off’? 

• Enjoy the experience whilst eliminating nerves & tension? 

David Gill, a trained actor, Speech & Drama teacher & poet,
will be running a full day workshop on   

Sunday March 11th 

at the Sydenham Room, Christchurch South Library,
Beckenham, 66 Colombo Street, 10am - 4pm. 
Call David on 0275 11 69 94, or email him on 
goodgill6@gmail.com 
for more info!

Next Catalyst Poetry Open Mic

First Tuesday of every month!

Tuesday 6th March, 8pm

Pegasus Arms upstairs

14 Oxford Tce.

bring yer stuff!

The Beat Goes On...

More live poetry!  More music!  Beat St Sessions!

Beat St Sessions this Thurs 16 Feb
at Beat St Cafe, cnr Barbadoes and Armagh Sts

Doors open @ 6
Live music by Doc Drumheller
Poetry from 7
Open mic plus guest poets Andrew Coyle and Micah Timona Ferris
$5 if you can

Catalyst 9 - The Cover!

Reminder: Catalyst 9: Export Quality Launch Event

Tonight! February 7th, 7.30pm

Pegasus Arms upstairs, 14 Oxford Tce