Stephen's Literary Competition win

October 2011

From Stephen Page:

I have just won my first literary competition, with my poem Uses For Lipstick at the Worthing library yesterday.

It may not sound like much, but it is a really important milestone for me.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember, poetry and short stories, and I have even tried my hand at writing a novel. Like most first novels, it remains somewhere in manuscript form, probably the best place for most first novels.

Perhaps this small but significant literary award from the Worthing Library is the first step for me to greater things, and I have included at the end of this e-mail/press release a copy of my poem, which I would be delighted if anyone would like to publish it. It is, after all, a prizewinner.

Without wanting to make a big thing of it, my success is all the more worth crowing about because I am severely disabled by multiple sclerosis, and the only way in which I am able to use a typewriter keyboard/computer keyboard is through the use of voice-activated software, I wish more people with less typing ability than they would like would have a go at using this kind of assistance.

I have tried several different programs, and at the moment are use something called MacSpeech dictate, which apparently is based on the same software engine behind Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is usable with a PC.

Go on, give it a go. After just a couple of hours, if you can talk, you will be able to type, as quickly as you can speak clearly, and with very few mistakes.

And what will I be doing with my new found success? I am hoping to be able to add to my already published book of poems, 50 x 50 - Useful Poetry For Troubled Times with some of the 20 or so poems I have written during the period of my grant from New Writing South.

Publishing these days has transformed so much with new technology, and I use a publisher that makes available print on demand, so I do not have to invest in large numbers of books to clutter up my hallway. Just as well, when my wheelchair needs all the room it can get...





Uses For Lipstick

Seduction. A message on a mirror
or the name on a wooden grave-marker
in Ice Cold In Alex.
Triage
in Pearl Harbor,
marking those that would live
and those that will die.
Marlene Dietrich wore it smudged
in the mornings
so her nights might have seemed
more interesting.
James Cagney wore it too
because great actors know
how to use make-up,
and his films were just in black and white
it was another kind of seduction.
.





--
my shortlisted bbc film:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/2010/03/100319_short_film_independence_myworld.shtml

my writing:
http://www.completelynovel.com/books/114952/read-online