Category: literature

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OUT OF COMPETITION

Kenneth Patchen Award for the innovative novel

‘Laugh out loud funny’

Carla M. Wilson

5 OUT OF 5 STARS

Intelligent, provocative and fun

Cherry Jam UK, October 16, 2024 Review

Humorously subversive. It goes so fast I read it in two days. A must for anyone with a love of cinema and its festivals. And the most irreverent novel written about the South of France

5 OUT OF 5 STARS

Ten Years is Enough!

Read-fest UK, 9 September 2025

A sharp satire about democracy set in a Riviera Film Festival facing collapse as young cineastes demonstrate against privilege and lack of transparency in the annual voting shakedown, the novel opening with the kidnap off the streets of a desperate bankrupt Hollywood producer cadging money wherever he can

Out of Competition Ingram distributing, found at:

JEF Books

https://www.experimentalfiction.com/products/out-of-competition

Bookshop.org, bricks & mortar bookstores and online booksellers

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Out of Competition – a novel for Cannes?

This is not Cannes. Or the Cannes Film Festival. Let me say that upfront. It’s Renne-Sur-Mer, a far better film festival by the way, a film festival not many get to see because they are blinded by the tinsel razzle-dazzle of Cannes’ annual event, or so it seems.

I documented a year in Renne-Sur-Mer’s historical progress when some unfortunate things happened. It was sad and bit funny at times. But was it fair to portray Renne in such a, well, dubious light. I can say I documented what happened. You work it out. What year was it. You know I can’t remember but it wasn’t that long ago in the future. Here’s ten pages to give you an idea of how chaotic festivals can be when the wheels fly off.

OUT OF COMPETITION a reading sampleDownload
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Three Films that Could Have Been Over Early

No Country For Old Men

While out hunting in west Texas Llewelyn Moss finds the drug deal gone wrong, then discovers the “last man standing” dead with the brief case under a tree. Llewelyn removes the trace, buries it at the feet of the man and goes home to tell his wife it’s time for a new life in a new state, where they go and live a wonderful life happily ever after.

The Fugitive

Doctor Kimble is charged with murder by a DA who didn’t do his homework. Kimble’s defence counsel proves to the judge and jury that Kimble couldn’t have done it, had no motive to kill her. Case is dismissed, leaving the police to DNA trace the one-armed man – they do. He leads them to Dr Nicholls. He and the one-armed man go to jail for life

The Godfather

Michael Corleone at the marriage reception of his sister decides life as a mafioso is not for him. His father at a loss out buying oranges is shot and dies in hospital, apparently by suffocation. Sad but resolute Michael marries his girlfriend joins the Democrats, goes into politics and is elected to Congress. The Corleones divide their father’s fortune between family members and decide on a side by side middleclass Condo existence down in Florida.