Welcome - The International Writers Magazine - October 2008 writing from across the globe.

Welcome to the October Edition of Hackwriters. Utopia 2.0 starts here - Oct 14th:

Got this email from a reader John L.
Hi Sam, I was just reading that we've given £100m to keep to totally defunct Icelandic Landsbanki open, when I was suddenly struck by a paranoid thought...
WHAT IF...Gordon Brown has been a communist agent since university? It would all make sense, wouldn't it?
He sold most of our gold at the bottom of the market. He fatally divided responsibility between the BoE, Gov and FSA, which led to the Northern Rock fiasco. He engineered the housing and credit bubbles. He bankrolled two wars to further impoverish us. Now he's given away half a trillion of our money to banks who will lend it back to us at high interest. I mean -- he can't be on our side, can he??

It makes more and more sense as you read it. You heard it here first on Hackwriters.

Dow up nearly 1000 pts. Everyone is happy again, but wait oil is up too. Every silver lining has a cloud huh. No way to keep up with this. This morning all the banks nationalised in the UK, rescue packages all over Europe. It's Christmas for Bankers. Poor house for taxpayers. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the Government now owns my mortage?

Got woken up last Friday morning with my sister hysterical about the Dow dropping like a stone and the FTSE going below 4000. She's in a bad state. I had to remind her that she doesn't actually have any shares. She went a bit quiet for a moment. 'Oh yes'. Have a cup of tea, I told her, there'll be another crisis along in a minute.

It's easy to get carried away. Sure things are going to be bad and pensions worthless, but look at this way, inflation will probably come down as the economy goes into a tailspin. Nevertheless, people still have to eat, there will be terrific bargains on world cruises, new cars, and ok, my house is almost in negative equity already, but as long as we have jobs, we can pay the mortgages, right?

Of course a lot of us won't have jobs soon. So keep the ledge warm for me,ok.

Blimey, how do we keep up with all that has happened? Nationalising major banks, so much going wrong and this week we discover the British Town Councils have been putting money into Icelandic banks as well. London Transport is missing 40 million ($75 million) alone. Two billion dollars vanished overall. More trouble to come I think. Trust has evaporated, your mattress looks more and more secure and indeed there is a run on bank safes in London as more people rush to buy them. Oh yes there are queues outside the Savoy in London as grannies buy gold coins. Too late m'dears. Buy beans, rice and a shotgun. You might need all three. All the whilst Wall Street churns up and down and what either of them will discover in January is scary business. All this plays into Russian and Chinese hands and I am not sure I want my future to be controlled by either country, but it almost certainly will be now. They have the money. Tonight on Sky they are suggesting the US will need to go begging to China for a bail-out. I'm shorting Taiwan in that case... Meanwhile two weeks till the election in the USA. latest polls 10.20.08 show Obama at 49.8 and MCain at 44. I hope the hell they are right. We need someone sane and cool headed in the White House.

I was amused to see that Capital One the credit card company wishes to exploit the situation, sending me a credit card offer yesterday with a fantastic 34.9% !!! - Are they crazy? Who on earth would fill that form out? I am not going to buy anything, not a new car, new sweater, new shoes, because let's face it, the gas and power bills are 56% higher than last year and winter hasn't started yet. I have no idea how I will pay that. If you aren't putting aside money now for your heating, do so, it will be frightening. (Especially if you have an old person in the house who feels the cold all summer long and insists upon heating like I do.)

Here, PM Gordon Brown is trying to paint himself as the saviour of the financial system, but he is one of the architects of the whole bust and never once thought to constrain the housing boom because, of course, it helped him win elections when everyone thought they were going to be rich. He actually made it easier for people to 'buy and let' and go to banks for a mortgage to buy properties and put them into your pension portfolio. Now B&B is bust, so are the shareholders and the 'buy to let' market is falling on its face. There are way too many properties to let and rents are falling and mortgages are rising. Homebuilders up north are offering 43% off new builds. Send the bill to New Labour in the UK and the Republicans in the USA.

I have no idea what will happen next. 'Rosie Scenario' or 'Muder on the High Street 'but October is the witching month and if you were hoping for miracles, don't hold your breath.


Meanwhile the October edition of Hackwriters is here. Check it out. Lots of new fiction, new travel and lifestyle stories. *Just read 'Gone', impressive first novel that will grab the Twilight readers by the ears....

Sam North - Editor October 20th 2008 - Suspect 'Murder on the High Street' is winning.

Welcome to the October Edition of Hackwriters. If you want to help us keep going, buy my new book Mean Tide. A young adult ghost story set in Greenwhich, London.

Published Summer 2008 - Mean Tide by Sam North 'Extraordinary novel about a child's psychic awakening' Lulu Press - ISBN: 978-1-4092-0354-4 Review: 'An engaging, unusual and completely engrossing read' - Beverly Birch author of 'Rift' Order now Sent to live with his spooky Grandma by the river in Greenwich, Oliver (12) discovers a whole world of disturbed people who are probably even crazier than the ones he left behind. When he finds a dog with its throat cut on the beach, everything changes. Age range 12-16 and adult

Borderlines Vol 2 A Literary Spark - ISBN: 978-1-4092-0494-7 A University of Portsmouth publication from the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media- Buy now - available from Lulu Press & Blackwells, Amazon on-line Borderlines Vol 2 - A literary Anthology of new fiction, travel writing and poetry from the Creative Writing Programme and invited writers at the University of Portsmouth, UK under the editorship of Freya Scott, Ryan Sirmons, Aby Davis and Sam North 'An exciting insight into the amazing talent and diversity of new writers out there today' Stuart Olesker - Playwright

Meanwhile, are you worried about your health? Read my book '‘Another Place to Die'' . If you have the slightest worry about how to survive the coming flu pandemic, you need this book and all the proceeds go to keep Hackwriters going. In the UK newspapers 31.08.07 they were quoting a Home Office paper called: Planning for a possible Influenza Edpidemic and predicting 650,000 'extra' deaths this winter in the UK if it breaks out. There will also be a shortage of coffins, not that you need them in a mass grave. It's all in my book, you don't need this report. Another Place to Die is a guide on how to survive the pandemic. So order now for your autumn reading. (Maybe Amazon will do you a deal on a coffin too!) You will not be disappointed.
See the review from Calvin Hussey

Another Place To Die by Sam North ISBN: 978-1-84753-899-4 The Great Flu Pandemic is coming. Are you prepared? Reviews: 'It will keep readers in suspense, laced with gritty-gallows humor' Charlie Dickinson 'Beautiful, plausible, and sickeningly addictive, Another Place to Die will terrify you, thrill you, and make you petrified of anyone who comes near you...'. Roxy Williams - Amazon.co.uk Fascinating, frightening and compelling, Another Place to Die is the ultimate page-turner which I guarantee will result in many late nights under the bedside light with you uttering, ‘just one more chapter!!’ Ian Middleton Read the first chapter on line Order Now direct from Publisher : Another Place To Die

The Curse of the Nibelung - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery by Sam North ISBN 1-4116-3748-8 $19.98 Retail - 300 pages - Lulu Press USA 'Chocolate will never be the same again' - Sunday Express Buy from your favourite on-line retailer Amazon UK Amazon USA Barnes and Noble & Waterstones

Diamonds - The Rush of '72 is also available from the publishers direct

Diamonds - The Rush of '72 By Sam North ISBN: 1-4116-1088-1 Buy now from Amazon.com 'a terrific piece of storytelling' Historical Novel Society Review Also printed in the UK and available from Amazon.co.uk & Waterstones

We at Hacks are self-supporting and if you want to support us, buy Sam's books - All the funds from the sale of the books go back into the site. If you live in New York they can be ordered at the Mysterious Bookshop at 58 Warren Street. These titles are able to be ordered at Amazon who keep stock see below and can be ordered from Waterstones all over the UK and Hatchards in London and for less cost direct from Lulu.com in the UK and USA

* The MA in Creative Writing at Portsmouth University started another year this October. Apply now for 2009 entry: The current students have all got their major projects under way now. Novels, screenplays, children's fiction, speculation fiction, crime novels, you name it... If you need support and like a good encouraging peer group, join us. Might do you good to live in Portsmouth for a year, but you don't have to. Students come down from London once a week and further afield. Apply now to avoid being disappointed. You do not have to be published to join us, but you do have to have a portfolio of some interesting writing already to hand. *Hackwriter published writers especially welcome. Come to Sherlock Holmes country (yes this is where it all started on Elm Grove in Southsea).

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