There's no doubt about it now, it's absolutely, positively, definitely Autumn. The stew is in the crock pot, the heating is on and the pumpkins (or maybe the neeps?) are being bought and carved to give us a spooky Hallowe'en feel at the end of the month, or perhaps just remind us all what time of year it is when it seems to have gone by so quickly! Around the UK we are in various states of lockdown – which will not be a surprise to the canny Autumn Voices who have been carefully treading their way through this strange year – and it's just a couple of weeks til the clocks go back and the nights properly draw in for the winter. It’s perfectly understandable to be feeling a bit of trepidation right now, but we have plenty to keep your hands warm and your brains busy this month!

Guest Poet
We were inspired by National Poetry Day to run a poetry competition throughout October, so we decided to have a guest poet whose work we’re featuring on the Autumn Voices website. Jo Somerset has joined us for the month and one of her poems is being published on the website every week until the end of the month. Three of her poems are already up there for you to see, and the other two will appear on the 21^st and 28^th of October. You can read all about Manchester-based writer Jo, her work and her inspirations here.

Poetry Competition
As you’ll hopefully have seen on our Twitter and Facebook pages, we’re running a poetry competition throughout October. We invited applications from prospective judges, and we selected the marvellous Finola Scott to be our poetry judge. Finola is a fantastic poet who writes in Scots and English and she’s the current Makar for the Federation of Writers, Scotland. She also recently judged their poetry competition, so we know she knows her stuff. You can read all about Finola and enter the competition here.

Just to remind you, the theme of the competition is ‘Autumn Vices’ (no, that’s not a typo) so we’re inviting you to pen and submit a poem on your hard to break habits, guilty pleasures and small moments of weakness your other half, best friend or perhaps your GP would give you a ticking off for! You can enter the competition right up until midnight on October 31^st. It costs £4 to enter per poem, or £3 for members. It’s free to become a member, so we suggest you read about membership and sign up here if you’re interested. There will be a first prize of £100, a second prize of £50, and the writers of two Highly Commended poems will each be the recipient of the Autumn Voices book.

Survey
Just a reminder that the Autumn Voices feedback survey is still open for one more week, and we’d love your responses if you can spare some time to fill it in. We want to make sure that the developing content and activities on our website is something you’re interested in and want to see, and this is a chance to help us shape the direction we move in. There are 13 questions to answer and we think it should only take about 10-15 minutes to complete. It’s secure and the responses are anonymous. You can access the survey here.

Scottish Arts Club Short Story Awards
The Scottish Arts Club, which some of you may be members of, is having a launch party on Zoom for its annual anthology of short stories and – at the same time – announcing this year’s winner of their Short Story Award with featured readings by the finalists and winner. All the details will be profiled on the Scottish Arts Club website and their Facebook and Twitter accounts for one week from Friday 23rd October, so do keep an eye out for that. At a time when the arts are under their biggest ever threat, it’s vital we do our bit wherever possible to support artistic jobs and endeavours. They are important for every generation, and at Autumn Voices we get to celebrate the creative ageing of our very own Robin Lloyd-Jones, who is one of the finalists who will be interviewed. For a taster of the award and a peek at Robin, watch this short video. Good luck Robin!

Special mentions to notable Autumn Voices
We’d like to give particular mention to some notably creatively members of the Autumn Voices community, all of whom were featured in the Autumn Voices book.

Sheila Templeton won the James McCash Scottish Language Poetry Competition – for the fourth time no less – and is nominated in the Writer category of the Scots Language awards run by Hands Up For Trad.
A.C. Clarke won second prize in the Manchester Cathedral Poetry Competition.
Ethyl Smith’s latest novel Broken Times was published earlier this month.  
Robert Murray’s sequel to The Grocer’s Boy – The Grocer's Boy Rides Again – will be published on October 16^th by Extremis Publishing.

Congratulations to everyone on their noteworthy achievements and successes!


Thanks for joining us this week. Until next time, stay safe, stay well and stay in touch.