Cautionary tale for writers

I was amused by a piece in the Guardian Review for 1st May by Blake Morrison about attribution.

When he was writing South of the River, he quoted from some pop songs, played in one of the scenes.  He knew about getting permission for quotes from living authors but hoped that using only a few words from each song would slide through unnoticed.  He also knew it's the author's responsibility to obtain and pay for them but left it until his editor did the job for him.

For quoting two lines of I shot the sheriff by Bob Marley it cost him £1,000.  And so on with the other songs.

So his advice to other writers is DON'T and if you have characters in your novel playing music, don't quote the lyrics.

Farhana Shaikh

I met Farhana recently at Amplified Leicester's Showcase event.  She edits the Asian Writers publication and is involved in a very interesting project for Amplified Leicester on families in Leicester.

You can learn more about her at
http://www.leicesterfamily.org/

http://muslimwritersawards.org.uk/node/475

http://www.theasianwriter.co.uk/

Writing.com competition

Check out the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge, 300 words or less: Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

 at http://www.writing.com/

May quotes

"Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun."   Kahlil Gibran

Volunteering England and the Olympics 2012

Nothing to do with writing as such but if you or your organisation is considering doing something about the Olympics then there are opportunities available.

www.volunteering.org.uk/

Writing exercise

Daily Flash Fiction Challenge http://www.wrting.com/

Transliteracy and the future of writing

Just a reminder that the Transliteracy Research Group regularly posts interesting articles about a wide range of transliteracy-related topics. Do check it out at http://www.transliteracy.com/

There's an intriguing item on there called Transliteracy as Blueberry Smoothie by Brian Hulsey