Writers Abroad, the online writing group for ex-pat writers I belong to, is publishing a new anthology today, entitled Foreign Encounters. It contains short stories, non-fiction and poems by writers who are, or have been, ex-pats. They live in, or have written about, more than 50 countries across all continents.
An encounter can be a chance meeting, a planned get-together or even a confrontation. This collection features a variety of foreign encounters: with family, friends, lovers, animals, cultures, or just with one’s own prejudices and preconceptions.
Foreign Encounters is the third anthology published by Writers Abroad. Author Julia Gregson, a former ex-pat whose bestselling novel East of the Sun won the Prince Maurice Prize for romantic fiction, has written the foreword.
Following a call for submissions, we received 231 contributions of which we selected 95 for the anthology. They include 16 poems, 38 short stories and 41 non-fiction articles. Since Writers Abroad is a virtual writers’ group, all the work to produce Foreign Encounters was done online. This was a real team effort. Every member had a part in producing it.
I contributed two pieces: a short story set in World War I, entitled ‘Bertie’s Buttons’; and a non-fiction piece, entitled ‘Monsieur C’, about a local character.
All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Books Abroad, a charity which coordinates the donation of free books for schools throughout the world, believing that education is a crucial aspect of human progress. The charity celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and has supplied over 1,600 schools with desperately-needed books.
Foreign Encounters is available from print-on-demand online publisher Lulu from today, Wednesday 24th October, price €9.99 (approximately £8.00).
Writers Abroad was founded in 2009. It provides an online forum for ex-pat writers to exchange ideas, views and news on writing and to offer support and constructive feedback on each other’s work. To find out more and for a complete list of contributions, please go to the Writers Abroad website.
So if you need an idea for a cracking good Christmas present…
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No harm in posting a blog about it on my site too… every bit helps so I’ll probably re-blog this when the time seems right if that’s ok?
Thank you so much – that would be lovely if you would. We are trying to raise money for a worthy cause, so every little certainly helps.
We’re working on a book launch in Dhaka – I have ordered twenty-five copies and hope they arrive!
That’s great, Paola! I hope they arrive too – could be a bit tricky if they don’t. But if not you can always do a reading and whet people’s appetites so they order it themselves.
Looking forward to the book launch in Nov. I hadn’t thought about doing a blog post…good idea!
Yes, please do one. The more publicity it gets, the better.
Sounds like my kind of book (as an expat myself). Will be sure to read… and maybe get involved next edition!
Oh, I do hope you will submit something to our next one – assuming we do one, but we have for the past 3 years. I always post the call for submissions on this blog so look out for it next spring.