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This month we have a student forum special in the form of successes and tips from students, expert advice from Heather Cooke on how to generate ideas, Ten Tops Tips to help you with your poetry competition entries, plus the usual mix of inspiration and useful websites.

END NOTE and a little inspiration!

Inspiration

Could you write about any of these;

1st May	Beltane in the Irish Calendar and also the first day of summer.
2nd May 1885	Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.
3rd May	World Press Freedom Day.
4th May 1953	The Old Man and the Sea, earns Ernest Hemmingway a Pulitzer Prize .
5th May 1260	The Mongol Empire is taken over by Kublai Khan.
6th May 1877	Chief Crazy Horse surrenders in Nebraska to the United States troops.
7th May 1539	The founder of the Sikh Religion, Guru Nanak Dev, dies.
8th May	World Fair Trade Day.
9th May	Europe or Schuman Day is a celebration of peace and unity in Europe. Sadly this day is not celebrated in the UK due to a large amount of euro-scepticism but it is celebrated in all other member countries.
10th May 1996	Eight climbers, including Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, are killed in a rogue storm at the summit of Mt Everest making it the most deadly day in the mountain’s history.
11th May 1987	The trial of Klaus Barbie for war crimes committed in WWII begins in Lyon.
12th May	International Nurses day.
13th May 1958	The trade mark for Velcro is registered.
14th May 1939	Astonishingly, Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history giving birth at the age of 5 to a healthy boy by caesarean section.
15th May 1991	France elects its first female prime minister in Edith Cresson.
16th May 1568	England becomes a refuge for the fleeing Mary Queen of Scots.
17th May 1994	The first multiparty elections are held in Malawi.
18th May 1897	Irish author Bram Stoker publishes Dracula.
19th May 1897	Reading jail releases Oscar Wilde.
20th May 1916	A tornado hits the small town of Codell in Kansas, USA. The same town is hit by a tornado on the exact same date for the next two years – oh no, we’re back to those spooky coincidences again!
21st May 1960	Jeffrey Dahmer, the notorious American serial killer, is born in West Allis, Wisconsin.
22nd May 1960	The most powerful earth quake ever recorded – 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale – hits Southern Chile.
23rd May	World Turtle Day
24th May 1940	Russian born Noble Prize Laureate and poet Josef Brodsky is born in Leningrad, USSR. See end notes for a link to a rather gruesome and sad little poem about a polar explorer.
25th May 1966	Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands is born in Leiden.
26th May 1966	British Guiana claims independence and becomes Guyana.
27th May 1995	Superman actor Christopher Reeve falls from his horse at a competition in Charlottesville, USA, and is paralyzed from the neck down.
28th May 1999	The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci is put back on display in Milan, Italy after 22 years of restoration.
29th May 1886	The first advertisement for Coca-Cola is placed in the Atlanta journal by chemist and inventor of the drink John Pemberton.
30th May 1431	Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English dominated tribunal.
31st May 1279 BC	Ancient Egypt has a new Pharaoh, Rameses II, also known as Rameses The Great.

Here are some reader suggested tips for you to digest and use:
Lyndsey G advises the following for making your outlines succinct: “Try telling a friend what article you are writing and tape record yourself while you do it. It won't be too long because you don't want to bore them and you'll want to make it sound interesting so you only end up giving the edited highlights. I used to work in recruitment where three-page page CV's had to be whittled down to 50 word tag lines and that was the method I used to use.” It’s a great tip Lyndsey, thanks!

And Kate M explains how to get ideas using brainstorming: “Write down a topic title on a topic that you know a lot about and then around that topic title, write all the words down relating to that topic. It's what teachers call a brainstorm. From that, jot down key words or sentences you could write about this section and you have a basic framework for an article. It should look a bit like a spider’s web. Introduction, Main Body and Concluding Paragraph are your three basic paragraphs, then off you go! There are loads of ways to plan an article, but that one works for me. Good luck!" If you try it out and it works for you please go onto the forum and let others know.

This month’s game is more of a challenge than a game. It’s the Trivial Pursuit Challenge – who’s best, boys or girls? I found this totally addictive and the videos for right or wrong are amusing! So, come on girls, we were ahead by over 100,000 points the other day when I was looking, but I see now that we are about the same behind and we only have until 31st December to catch up! Sorry – my feminist side is creeping out!

Remember, if you are in the USA and you are already a successful writer you could be tutoring our students. Email dianan@writersbureau.com with your CV and find out if you could be just what we are looking for.

So, to finish off this month here’s the Joseph Brodsky poem recounting the last days of a polar explorer’s final days. Short but definitely not sweet – Polar Explorer.

If you found something of use to you in this issue please pass the word on to all your writer friends – and even those who don’t! You never know, you might inspire them to take it up. They can sign up here.

See you next month.

Shelley x

P.S. Don’t forget our Writer of the Year and Poetry and Short Story Competitions! As usual, if you've any suggestions or would like to comment on anything you have read then please contact me at: ezeewriter@writersbureau.com

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