ALAN DALE writes: I am a mechanical engineer, and completed a Writers Bureau course six years ago, at the age of 56. I was thrilled to earn my course fees and see my name in print. I’ve had short stories, articles, fillers, letters and features published so far, from course work and my own, independent efforts. Two stories have been broadcast on local radio and one was accepted for dramatisation on local TV. One of my salan-dale-newhort stories won the April 2014 Freelance Market News competition and was published in a subsequent issue. Having seen a request for freelance writers, in Freelance Market News, from the editor of the En Vie fashion ezine, I was commissioned to write several flash fiction pieces. These were published alongside the fashion shots around which I was asked to plot each tale. Another new experience was seeing each one translated into several languages. My website is under construction.