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.
So if you need an idea for a cracking good Christmas present…
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Life on La Lune 
[…] online expat writing group I belong to, Writers Abroad, published its third anthology, Foreign Encounters. A lot of effort went into the final product and all profits will go to charity Books Abroad. You […]
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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?
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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.
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We’re working on a book launch in Dhaka – I have ordered twenty-five copies and hope they arrive!
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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.
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Looking forward to the book launch in Nov. I hadn’t thought about doing a blog post…good idea!
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Yes, please do one. The more publicity it gets, the better.
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Sounds like my kind of book (as an expat myself). Will be sure to read… and maybe get involved next edition!
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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.
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