And as you read the sea is turning its dark pages, turning its dark pages

I am SO excited. I just mailed out a draft of our first review, a collection of seven pieces on the subject of paint and painting. The work we picked is evocative and thoughtful. The words came from Northampton, Kettering, Rugby and Scotland and they were beautiful, and passionate.

So this is something we want to do every month, on a different theme, with the same writers or different writers, or different and the same writers. This month will be The Sea. We would like your short stories and prose - no more than 1,000 words again, please - on the subject of the sea. Just because, really. Because, we're too far away from it. Please send your submissions, via our website submissions slot, or to rippingpages@hotmail.co.uk by September 30th.

"And as you read the sea is turning its dark pages, turning its dark pages."
Denise Levertov

Where, indeed?

I'm reading a collection of short stories by Gina Ochsner called People I Wanted to Be. One character asks: "Where do our words go once they've been spoken?"



Where indeed do they go? Answers on a...





Amy

Paint, or our first submission theme

So, the conversation went something like this. Let's get some writing in now, let's do a submissions thingy, let's just make up a theme. What could the theme be? Silence as we look around respective rooms and views from upstairs windows. Er Chimneys. Erm. Not chimneys, no. Can anybody even spell chimneys? I think not. More silence. Er. Erm. Paint. The idea is inspired by a greeting card, a design by Chris Chun - 36 different colours, laid out like a paint palette but actually representing foods. Paint, yes. Paint. Let's say paint. What? Just paint? Well, we'll word it a bit better than that. OK, yes, paint. And that was that.

Amy