Show your art at the RWA Annual Open Exhibition

Posted on September 7, 2020 by Judy

RWA © Alice Hendy

The Royal West of England Academy in Bristol is currently preparing one of my favourite cultural events – the RWA Annual Open Exhibition.

The Royal West of England Academy in Bristol is inviting submissions for its 168th Annual Open Exhibition. The exhibition will be on from 14th November 2020 until 7th March 2021, and your art can be a part of it!

The deadline for submissions is Tuesday 22nd September 2020.

Artists of all ages and experience are invited to submit.

This year’s Prize Fund offers £8,550 in cash awards, including the Academy Prize (1st prize: £5,000; 2nd prize: £1,000), a £1,000 prize for artwork by a BAME artist, an £800 prize for a work on paper, (sponsored by Yvonne Crossley RWA and The Drawing Gallery), the £500 People’s Choice Prize voted for by exhibition visitors, and the £250 painting prize sponsored by Derek Balmer PPRWA

Applicants must enter online, submitting images using the Online Exhibition Submission System (OESS).

Find full details here of how to apply here. Good luck!

Read my review of the RWA Open Exhibition 166.

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Sky Light Rain – Paper Flowers

Posted on September 3, 2020 by Judy

Over the coming weeks, I’ll share a few insights into the stories that make up my collection Sky Light Rain. I’ll explore them in the order in which they appear in the book. The eleventh story in the collection is ‘Paper Flowers’.

As you may have noticed, I draw a lot of inspiration from my travels. This one sprang from a visit to Mount Isola, Lake Iseo, courtesy of Brescia Tourism. The traditional craft I describe in the tale, of making thousands of paper flowers for the Santa Croce festival that takes place every five years.

I wondered what it would be like to live there as an outsider, and dreamt up Julia, a woman who’d intended only to pass by on holiday, but fell in love with the setting and a man who later died. Now her daughters are almost grown, and she’s wondering what she can do to keep them with her in this place where time seems to hold its breath, or whether she even should.

An earlier version, published by The Island Review, I used the first person perspective, but at my Valley Press editor’s urging, I changed it to the third person.

The tale begins:

Julia hands the yellow felt-tip to Chiara, half watching as she adds a few dots of ochre-yellow to the heart of a paper lily: pollen that will never billow free.

“What’s wrong, ha?” Chiara asks, focused on her task. “You’ve been almost silent since you arrived.”

Julia shrugs, trying to smile, but Chiara re-caps the pen, flicks her eyes towards the younger woman, insistent.

“Bianca…” Julia admits, and she snorts.

“Of course, Bianca. What’s her trouble now?” Chiara’s own daughters are grown up, married off, safe. Julia’s eldest is fifteen, that most lethal of ages, when everything wants to devour her, and she seems hellbent on devouring everything.

“There’s a boy…”

Chiara hoots. “When isn’t there?” She snips the petals of a tulip a little more roughly than intended, tsks, and tidies the ragged crepe edges. “Who this time?”

“Not local,” Julia admits. This is what perturbs her most.

Sky Light Rain is published by Valley Press and is available to purchase here.

Discover the inspiration behind my other Sky Light Rain stories by clicking on the story titles below.

If you’d like to request a review copy of Sky Light Rain or interview me about my writing, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Writing prompt – peril at sea

Posted on September 2, 2020 by Judy

The lovely folks at Oh Magazine have commissioned me to create the following writing prompt, using their dramatic issue 52 cover by Jago Silver as a leaping-off point.

Issue 52 explores possible cures for endless comparison, rituals to lighten darker days and ways to live life to the bittersweet brim.

Imagine two siblings, friends or lovers take a trip to the sea and end up in peril. As they seek safety, old rivalries bubble up and spill over.

You can subscribe to Oh magazine here.

If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com to let me know. With your permission, I may publish it on SkyLightRain.com.

Book review – This Alone Could Save Us by Santino Prinzi

Posted on September 1, 2020 by Judy

Despite the saying that a book shouldn’t be judged by its cover, inevitably, we all do it to some extent. In the case of This Alone Could Save Us, though no doubt completed long before we were up to our necks in global calamities, the cover image by artist Stuart Buck paired with that title feels prescient, and, reader, it delivers.

Story after story, some barely half a page long (one only a sentence), feed our darting minds, offer distraction and comfort.

And, yes, there are flashes of sorrow and regret, but there are also stories here of quiet, quivering joy. One of my favourites is Costume: “I taste salt and camaraderie on my tongue. The wind whips past our skin and the sand flicks behind us as we run towards the waves.”

Exhilaration and triumph rise outwards with those flicks of sand.

Continue reading →

SkyLightRain

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Monthly Archives: September 2020

Show your art at the RWA Annual Open Exhibition

Sky Light Rain – Paper Flowers

Writing prompt – peril at sea

Book review – This Alone Could Save Us by Santino Prinzi