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S E P TE M B E R 2022 BESTSELLING WRITING MAGAZINE H E L P I N G YO U B E C O M E A B E T T E R W R I T E R WM Reader success stories1 30 5 Competitions for you to enter Opportunities to get published5 4 YOU CAN DO IT! How to navigate the long road to success What’s wrong with your story? How to identify, and overcome, common short story problems £WIN84,875INPWRITING RIZES STAR INTERVIEW How Gill Hor nby was inspired to bring Jane Austen’s world to life BEAT THE BURNOUT Top tops to help avoid creative exhaustion Writing for children Make your picture book shine £4.99 7 7 0 9 6 4 9 1 6 2 8 0 9 0 9 >

Copy-editing & proofreading Full book design service Printing & binding Promotion & marketing Book distribution Commission-free online bookshop eBook production & distribution Free & friendly advice Cup of tea and a chat! Confused about self-publishing? Recommended by the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook York Publishing Services Ltd tel. 01904 431213 enquiries@yps publishing.co.uk www.yps-publishing.co.uk YPS are the one-stop-shop for self-publishers

Success in writing comes in many forms From having a novel on the shelves to just getting some words onto the page, the shape of your success is however you define it, and we’ll celebrate ever y victor y with you Most of us would be ver y happy to have a series of novels selling millions of copies, but headline grabbing t ales of overnight success often mask the years of hard work behind them Such is the case with Mark Edwards, whose st atus as a hybrid bestseller was hard won though years of false st arts and big victories that seemed to vanish just as they appeared He shares his stor y with us on p10, highlighting all the qualities we always emphasise in WM, perseverance, persistence and a willingness to tr y something different But more than anything else it illustrates the import ance of sticking with it and building on your success Each victor y, however big , is a stepping stone to your next Good luck!

C O N T E N T S Never miss an issue of Wr iting Magazine SUBSCRIBE NOW see p83 Get FREE access to our app GET THE WM DIGITAL EDITION Direct to your device ORDER A COPY DIRECT, with free postage https://writ.rs/wmissues SIGN UP FOR OUR REGULAR NEWSLETTERS at http://writ.rs/signupnow GET THE WRITER’S APP For daily prompts and oppor tunities http://writ.rs/writersapp BESTSELLING WR T NG AGAZ NE HELP NG YOU BECOME A BETTER WR TER WM d r cess310 5Comp tit ns ou o tOppo ties pub h d54 YOU CAN DO IT! How v ga e h ong ad o s ss What’s wrong with your story? How t d fy a ove com h ory p b ms WIN £84 875 N WRIT PNG R ZES STAR NTERV EW H w G l H nby as nspi d o bri g J ne Aust n s wor d to fe BEAT THE BURNOUT T p op h p av d a ve haust o Wr ting for children M k your p boo h W E L C O M E 64 WRITERS’ NEWS Your essential monthly roundup of competitions, paying markers, opportunities to get into print and publishing industr y news INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES 14 Star interview: How Gill Hornby brings Jane Austen’s world to life 22 My path to publication: Neurodivergent novelist Sunyi Dean’s strategies for writing 32 Shelf Life: Acclaimed author Benjamin Myers picks his top five reads 39 Subscriber news: WM readers share their success stories 56 Author profile: Award winning author Norma Curtis keeps markets in mind 81 My writing day: Australian thriller author Allie Reynolds shares her writing routine CREATIVE WRITING 12 Creative writing: Overcome common short stor y problems 18 The first five pages: Phoebe Wynne introduces her new novel 30 Beginners: How many people does your stor y need? 34 Under the microscope: A reader’s first 300 words critiqued 42 Writing for children: Avoiding common picture book errors 48 Masterclass: What role can silence play in fiction 50 Fantastic realms: Explore extraterrestrial life in your SF 52 Fiction focus: Rediscover your abandoned manuscripts WRITING LIFE 10 Writing life: Bestselling author Mark Edwards on his long road to overnight success 24 Writing life: Are pitching contests a recipe for success? 58 The business of writing: How to avoid creative exhaustion 82 Under the covers: Is the grass always greener on the other side? ASK THE EXPERTS 9 From the other side of the desk: Agent aggro 21 Ask a literary consultant: Should unpublished writers concentrate on getting a deal? 60 Research tips: Keep your finger on the pulse of medical research 61 Behind the tape: Get the details right in your crime fiction POETRY 54 Poetry workshop: Exploring a poem with a message COMPETITIONS AND EXERCISES 26 Free range writing: Exchange themed writing exercises 27 & 45 Short story competition launches 28 & 46 Short story winners 36 Get the write idea: Creative writing exercises and prompts 38 Writers’ circles: Writing group exercises REGULARS 4 Miscellany 6 Letters 69 Going to market 71 Novel ideas 75 Travel writing know how 48 14

3SEPTEMBER 2022

Jonathan Telfer Editor

BURNING ISSUE

And as we all know, thanks to Ray Bradbury, a regular book would be aflame by the time it passed 451ºF Find out more at https://writ.rs/ unburnt Gary Dalkin

L itera r y t ra nslator Z en ia Tompk ins ha s been t a l k ing to Poets & Writers about t he m ission of her non prof it Tompk ins A genc y for U k ra in ia n L iterat u re in Tra nslat ion, wh ich she fou nded in 2019, about t he way t he Ru ssia n inva sion ha s i mpac ted on TAU LT ’ s work . ‘ T he m o s t s i g n i f i c a nt c h a n g e i s t he s u d d e n a nd v e r y e nt hu s i a s t i c i nt e r e s t of A m e r i c a n, B r it i s h a nd E u r op e a n a g e nt s i n r e pr e s e nt i n g U k r a i n i a n a ut hor s ’ w or k t o pr e s s e s , ’ s he s a i d . ‘ We ’ v e a l s o b e e n a ble t o s t r e a m l i ne t he pr o c e s s of U k r a i n i a n a ut hor s b e i n g pu bl i s he d i n j ou r n a l s du e t o j ou r n a l s s e e k i n g u s out Si nc e t he i nv a s i on w e ’ v e r e a l l y a mp e d u p t he s p e e d a nd f r e qu e nc y of ou r i nt e r a c t i on s w it h j ou r n a l s We ’ r e no w a l s o i n t he pr o c e s s of s e t t i n g u p a c ol le c t i v e of a g e nt s i n U k r a i ne t h a t w i l l w or k a lon g s i d e ou r t r a n s l a t or c ol le c t i ve to h a nd le s s y nop s e s , c h a pt e r out l i ne s a nd a ut hor bi o s , a s w e l l a s s c out ne w a ut hor s . ’ S i n c e R u s s i a i n v a d e d , Z e n i a ’ s i n b o x h a s b e e n f l o o d e d ‘ S i n c e t h e i n v a s i o n , o u r c o l l e c t i v e w h i c h h a d a l r e a d y w o r k e d w it h o v e r 10 0 U k r a i n i a n a u t h o r s i n o u r f i r s t t h r e e y e a r s h a s m a d e e v e r y e f f o r t t o w o r k w it h a n y U k r a i n i a n a u t h o r o r p r e s s t h a t h a s a p p r o a c h e d u s b y t h e l o g i c t h a t e v e r y o n e i n U k r a i n e n e e d s f i n a n c i a l a s s i s t a n c e a n d m o r a l s u p p o r t r i g h t n o w. ’ I NG VO I C E S

The auction house noted that, ‘All materials were tested by fire during manufacturing to validate these specifications ’

F I N D

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk4 A n i n d e s t r u c t i b l e b o o k , i n d e f a t i g a b l e t r a n s l a t o r s , n o t s o u n r e p e a t a b l e i m a g e s a n d a n i r r e p l a c e a b l e l o s s t r av e r s i n g t h e h i g h s a n d l o w s o f t h e w i d e w o r l d o f w r i t i n g The world of writing M I S C E L L A N Y

To raise awareness about proliferating book banning and censorship in American schools, as well as to raise money to support PEN America’s opposition, Margaret Atwood, Penguin Random House and creative agency Rethink recently joined forces to make a unique limited edition of one, a fireproof edition of Atwood’s regularly banned The Handmaid’s Tale Dubbed The Unburnable Book, the edition was designed by Noma Bar, made from fireproof materials by print and bindery master craftsman Jeremy Martin and produced in Toronto by graphic arts specialty and bookbinding atelier The Gas Company Inc The finished volume was auctioned in June by Sotheby’s, raising $130,000 for PEN America’s anti censorship work. That organisation recorded that in the US between 1 July 2021 and 31 March this year there were 1,586 known instances of individual books being banned in public schools, affecting 1,145 unique book titles Sotheby’s described the book as: ‘8vo Printed on black and white coated aluminum Cinefoils, used in film production to wrap hot lights, which are stable to 660°C/1,220°F, textblock hand sewn with nickel wire, often used in electrical components, which is stable to 1,400°C/2,600°F, head and tail bands are woven stainless steel, used in aerospace manufacturing, which are stable up to 1,530°C/2,790°F. Boards 3mm phenolic sheets, used in electronics manufacturing, which are stable to 540°F/282°C, opaque white and CMYK printing produced on an OKI five colour digital press, with inks stable to 1200°C/2200°F ’

5SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk M I S C E L L A N Y Published by Warners Group Publications plc West Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH Main office: 0113 20 0 2929 Subscriptions: 01778 392 482 Advertising: 0113 20 0 2925 Publisher: Collette Lloyd, email: collette lloyd@warnersgroup co uk Editor: Jonathan Telfer email: jtelfer@writersnews co uk Senior designer: Nathan Ward, email: nathanw@warnersgroup co uk Marketing: Collette Lloyd, email: collette lloyd@warnersgroup co uk Advertising sales manager: Mark Dean email: mark dean@warnersgroup co uk Subscriptions: writingmagazine@warnersgroup co uk Typeset by: Warners Group Publications plc West Street, Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH Printed by: Warners (Midlands) plc The Maltings Manor Lane Bourne Lincs PE10 9PH Distribution: Nikki Munton, email: nikkim@warnersgroup co uk tel: 01778 391171 Warners Group Publications plc West Street Bourne Lincs PE10 9PH All rights reser ved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored n a retrieval system, or transm tted, in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or other wise without the prior permission of Warners Group Publications plc © Copyright Warners Group Pub cations plc ISSN 0964 9166 Whilst ever y care is t aken of material submitted to the editor for publication no responsib it y can be accepted for oss or damage Email submissions preferred Warners Group Publications plc are not able to nvestigate the products or ser v ces provided by the advertisers in Wr ting Magazine nor to make recommendations about them Warners Group Publications plc cannot act as a licensing or accredit ation authorit y but will investigate complaints against advertisers HASTA A VISTA, COSTA

E I M A

WM has discovered a perplexing mystery involving mystery novels. As a 50 plus year resident of Dorset, your intrepid correspondent knew something was amiss when he saw the cover of Long Man’s Shadow by Anne Wilkinson. The cover art was a photo of Gold Hill, the most famous street in Dorset, but the strapline, right at the top of the cover, announced that the novel was set in ‘leafy Sussex’ This was peculiar, given even people not fortunate enough to live in Dorset instantly recognise Gold Hill Though that’s usually due to director Ridley Scott’s very famous Hovis commercial, which passed the street off as somewhere ‘ oop north’ Nevertheless, the cover designer had just one job, to choose a cover image for a novel that boldly declares it’s set in Sussex that doesn’t immediately scream Dorset to all and sundry But then I came across another crime novel with a photo of Gold Hill on the cover, The Bookshop Murder by Merryn Allingham. This made me curious enough to check if what are the odds? it was also set in Sussex. And astonishingly, it was. The blurb begins: ‘Sussex, 1955 ’ The coincidence doesn’t end there. Both books are cosy crime novels written by female authors which are part of series about female amateur investigators who work in shops. In Sussex. The heroine in one novel one owns a bookshop The heroine of the other works in ‘ a retro vintage shop’. I’ll leave it to your deductive powers to work out which is which But really what are the chances that both these Sussex set cosy crime novels would end up with a photo of Dorset’s most famous street on their cover? And why? What is going on? Writing Magazine wants to know. Perhaps someone will write a book about it But what to put on the cover? Gary Dalkin D O U B L G E S

The inhabitants of WM Towers have shed a few tears at the demise of the Costa Awards, which had a fifty year history of supporting and showcasing wonderful and brilliant books, many of which were by new and independently published authors both of which we ’ re all about championing from our book lined eyrie here at WM. As just one example, Caleb Azumah’s debut Open Water, which was already scheduled as a Waterstones Book of the Month, went on to be Waterstones’ second most successful debut ever, because of its Costa win And then there’s the 2020 Costa Novel of the Year winner, Monique Roffey’s The Mermaid of Black Conch, published by the indie Peepal Tree Press. ‘When it was shortlisted I was astonished, when it won novel of the year I was dumbfounded and when it won novel of the year I was flabbergasted ’ Monique told The Guardian ‘I still am. None of the mainstream publishers would touch me they think that middle class readers who, like it or not, are the main book buyers, are never going to enjoy a book written in creole by a white Trinidadian about a black mermaid, but that’s not true. The Costas mainstreamed a book that had been excluded.’

The Costas started life as the Whitbread Awards back in 1971, with judges including Margaret Drabble Book of the Year winners include Kate Atkinson for her debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman the first children’s novel to win. The Costa Short Story Award launched in 2012 There have been some wonderful winners. Cheers, Costa You’ve done great things, and drawn attention to a lot of good books that might have been overlooked without you We’ll miss you You’ve been grand

AN AID TO RECOVERY

Shukla’s Finding the Voice to Tell Your Stor y, and Rosalind Moody’s inter view with

Writing Magazine more than proved its worth over the Jubilee weekend when I suffered a heart attack. I was in the Cardiac Assessment Unit waiting for an angiogram, but that would not happen until Monday at the earliest For the first night of my stay, I was bored out of my mind listening to the constant beeping of the monitoring machines. I could not sleep or move because a dozen wires were fastened to my chest I envied the other patients with books and tablets because they had something to do.

introduced me to a new author who I

HEALING

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES

t t h e d o l d r u m s a n d I h a v e d o n e l i t t l e f o r m o n t h s Wr i t i n g M a g a z i n e h a s re f u e l l e d m y c re a t i v i t y a n d re m i n d e d m e t h a t I a m p a r t o f a w r i t i n g c o m m u n i t y. I

Cameron, Finding

I will love

The star letter each month earns a copy of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2022, courtesy of Bloomsbury

JOHN MORALEE Washington, Tyne and Wear

RESTART FRESH I stopped my subscription over 18 months ago due to redundancy and having to severely economise. Now back in work, I picked up the May edition of Writing Magazine and was immediately enthralled How could I have forgotten the encouragement, advice, experiences and inspiration waiting between the pages? My w r i t i n g , o r r a t h e r l a c k o f w r i i n g , h a d h i particularly enjoyed the star inter view with Tom Cox, especially as it know Nikesh Julia My Own

Artist’s Way, both gave me inspiration and ignited a list of ideas which I’ll be pruning and sorting Today I renewed my subscription and am really looking for ward to the next Writing Magazine D E E S H A R PE Balcombe, West Sussex

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk6 LETTERS

WORDS Louise Nealon’s article Words are a Way Through (WM July) really struck a chord with me. A few years Iago, went through a traumatic six months that led to me hearing horrid voices in my head, putting me down and saying the nastiest things I’d ever heard in mywhole life. Being embarrassed, I never told anyone But one day I picked up a magazine and read the true story of someone who had gone through exactly what I was going through except she did the sensible thing and confided in someone, which led to diagnosis of psychosis caused by PTSD The sense of relief after reading her words was amazing I realised that I wasn ’ t being spied on and that there were no drones (this was what the voices told me) and that the voices weren ’ t real And from that day on, the voices just drifted away Four years on, I’ve finally found the strength to start writingabout my experiences just personal writings through poems, story scenes even an article which one day I will find a home for Words are a way through and as writers, we will help others who in turn will help others too Writing is essential to healing.

IRENE JOSEPH Ammanford, South Wales

WM May contained just the right mix of ‘how to ’ ar ticles and inspirational stories I read it cover to cover, in one ginormous gulp, dogearing pages and circling sentences And all the while I could feel something shifting within me If he could do it and she could do it (against the odds) then maybe I could too I felt hopeful. I felt encouraged. I felt inspired. And not because I could simply repeat their success What really ‘spoke’ to me was the tantalising idea of possibility Endless possibility That in opening ourselves to the world through our writing, we are also creating the possibility for anything to happen (he and she are proof of that!)

t

Luckily, the next morning, a relative brought in my July edition of Writing Magazine, which proved a saviour Not only did it occupy my time with useful information, like how to use Amazon’s A+ content to improve sales, it provided new markets for stories that I wanted to write after I was better Instead of worrying about my operation, I had something to look forward to when it was all over I’m now out of the hospital recovering at home, typing this with a large bandage on my bruised arm from the angiogram, but it’s worth the pain to be able to write this letter as a thank you.

J E N N I E G A R D N E R Upper Swainswick S T A R L E T T E R

Though not submitting articles or short stories, nor aiming to write a novel, it proves that writing can come in many guises and any acceptance is gratefully received. I L A G R I F F I T H S HELPFUL HOARD

AN IRRESTISTIBLE URGE

edited

There’s a wealth of wise words from great writers, on writing and how to write well. Sometimes they’re found on social media by writers like myself who hope to remind others, and themselves, that they are not alone in their struggles Sometimes though, those wise words leave me feeling inadequate When I sit in front of a blank screen with an equally blank mind Then those wise words ring with a mocking tone And then my laptop gives up and dies too And I wonder if that might be the final thing. The thing that dissuades me from writerly endeavours The thing that convinces me to, in the words of a Disney princess, let it go, let it go But here I am writing away on my phone instead Composing letters and poetr y and snippets of whatnot in the notes app. So, despite the self doubt and malfunctioning technology, it seems I cannot be cured of this compulsion Thankfully, now and then, something other than insecurities rushes in Sometimes the spark of an idea creates a small Big Bang in the void, and whole worlds are created.

D AV I D G D A LTO N Faringdon,

W h 0 d p T h h d T h Th d U d d y p p H A d h g b T W b h T h h h h h C k W h h d Th A h Y 0 d h d g d d d h h O p h d h h U d d h y y KEEPING TIME WITH STORY

IT ALL MOUNTS

7SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk

Hereford

of 250 words, are exclusive to Writing Magazine Letters may

D I A N E PE R RY

PH I L I P S I M O N S Stevington, Bedfordshire Write to: Letters to the editor, Writing Magazine, Warners Group Publications plc, 5th Floor, 31 32 Park Row, Leeds LS1 5JD; email: letters@writersnews co uk (Include your name and address when emailing letters Ensure all letters, a maximum be ) please and page

state month of publication

When referring to previous ar ticles/letters,

A L E X K A S H KO Edinburgh

number OPPORTUNITIES KNOCK I have recently had my first ever piece of flash fiction published A non fiction publisher has said they will publish an essay of mine in a forthcoming collection of essays on local histor y and they also want to publish my proposed Edinburgh Miscellany Both publishers were mentioned in your opportunities section, which I now read religiously.

KEEP THEM GUESSING James McCreet’s article, Keeping Time with a Stor y (WM July) was well worth reading I particularly enjoyed his comment about readers predicting what was going to happen. I find using that concept much more proactive than asking ‘what if?’ I can do more justice to a rough draft by thinking, what will the reader be predicting and how can I throw a googly into that, than if I’m grinding out a plot. While I agree with James that the basic elements of a stor y must be there early in the process if it is to flow and hang together, looking at the reader’s likely predictions has already produced some good dramatic twists within the plot of my next novel (as Sullatober Dalton) Oxfordshire UP

Having put away a copy of my latest publication, (my fourth this year), I decided to count my successes over thirty years of submissions I was ver y surprised to find that I had thirty pieces published over this time. Though it could be said this number is small it does not include the many poems for birthdays, anniversaries and eulogies that I’ve written for such occasions, nor the fact that I did not write for over twelve years To know that my work is still relevant at this time is more important than payment, though of course that is useful in my retirement!

I have always been a bit of a hoarder regarding magazines. I had a tidy up the other day and found some horse related magazines that had I kept for over seven years To my amazement, I found an article in a magazine to inspire and help me with research for my next teenage novel It was the perfect timeline of my stor y and so I felt as though I had found treasure! I have been able to get a window of the past with words and pictures on paper . Having these materials can still help writers without the internet to research, get inspired and write. Ludlow, Shropshire

S H E

CLOSING DATE: 31 DEC ENTER NOW: Online, at https://writ.r s/1k2022 The entry fee is £15, or £10 for Writing Magazine subscriber s. Your submissions should be in a single document, with your contact details on the fir st page. i n t h e Writing MAGAZINE Gr and Fla sH Prize 2022 Stories will be judged by the Writing Magazine editorial team editor Jonathan Telfer and assistant editor T ina Jackson – and the winner published in Writing Magazine T h e o p e n c o m p e t i t i o n i nv i t e s y o u r s h o rt s t o r i e s i n a ny f o r m , o n a ny t o p i c . T h e o n l y s t i p u l a t i o n i s t h a t y o u r s t o r y s h o u l d b e a m a x i m u m 5 0 0 w o r d s . Ru n n e r s u p p r i ze s a r e £ 2 5 0 f o r s e c o n d , £ 10 0 f o r t h i r d , a W M C o u r s e m i n i c r i t i q u e f o r f o u rt h a n d a t w e l v e m o n t h s u b s c r i p t i o n f o r fift h .

The time star ved junior publishers who are most likely the people in whose hands your book rests, are, in theor y at least, grateful for all the help they can get The trouble is that the us and them attitude is also pretty much baked into the culture at publishers too Proper collaboration is rare and hard to achieve. Perhaps it is impossible to conduct a hard negotiation and then switch into collaborative mode with the person you ’ ve just fought hard with over money. But that’s really about how you conduct yourself in the fight Money is money. Publishing a book brilliantly is a completely different thing Certainly, as publishing gets ever more complicated technology and social media provide all kinds of opportunities but are also unbelievable time bandits it is more necessar y than it ever has been to utilise ever y asset you have got. The more hands to the pump the better But it is hard. Editors have a huge amount of demands on their time Publishing, which can seem so attractive as a career from the outside, is a demanding work environment and the last thing they want is another person to be beholden to Add in the number of agents who are unpersonable and arm ’ s length is very often the preferred distance And that is why optimistic is the better word, because while a really collaborative relationship can be terrifically rewarding and good for book, author, publisher and agent there are significant barriers to that happening. But certainly, as an author, you should be keeping an eye out for what kind of agent you have A dealmaker may be what you want, but if longevity is your aim, you may want to consider and ask what they see their role as being once the deal is done. A g e n t s n e e d t o wo r k o n a b o o k ’ s

Ver y often, the fault lies not with publishers, but with agents. A lot of agents are a word I won ’ t sully these pages with. Seriously. I was a publisher once, I know. They can behave atrociously They might argue that is fair enough, they are deal makers. And that is fine for big authors, but quite a few have never been a publisher and so don’t fully know what it is that publishers do Not in detail Even if they do, there are many, many agents who see it as their job to win fights when there is a fight, but to leave it at that Historically these agents have tended to take the view that the best way to get publishers to work hard is to get them to overpay for the books

An us and them approach is part of their DNA The trouble is that if the publisher has not overpaid, that approach can be positively counterproductive Building a bestseller can seem like constructing a snowball one snowflake at a time A painstaking and thankless task, but sometimes, if one is lucky there is a creaking sound and the snowball starts to roll away all of its own accord

n my more optimistic moments the job of being an agent can seem like one is a sort of freelance publisher, taking on projects and authors and then outsourcing the publishing of them to Hachette or HarperCollins. Of course a publisher might say that was a ver y arrogant thing to say and that delusional was a better word than optimistic, perhaps with some reason. But it is nevertheless an interesting way of looking at the publishing process and an agent ’ s role within it. Publishing a book is a complex process with lots of moving parts and it is all too easy during that process for details to slip. That is exacerbated by the fact it happens over such long time frames It is all too easy for editors to put a book on a back burner and forget about it It is a crucial part of an agent ’ s job to keep an eye out for these kinds of things

9SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk From the O T H E S I D RE O F T H E D E S K

Many authors and many agents complain about publishers. Sometimes with justification, but the truth also is that editors, just like ever yone else at the publishing house, are over worked and underpaid. They are also though, as a rule, passionate about what they do and only need the tiniest encouragement to get fired up.

I

b e h a l f w i t h o u t s t a r t i n g a w a r, s ay s A g e n t a g g r o

Over the next few years I wrote four or five novels (I forget) and learned to dread the arrival of my postman In 1998, I landed my first agent, Dinah Wiener, who told me I was almost certainly going to be a huge success. I still remember her phone call and how excited I was I thought, This is it (the first of several such moments over the following years) However, Dinah wasn ’ t able to sell my novel, nor the next. Then a strange quirk of fate landed me on a BBC documentar y about aspiring writers. I was sure this was going to lead to publication but, in retrospect, I think it made me look like a desperate loser with a box full of rejection letters. It did however lead to a friendship with a writer who emailed me I was online by this point and told me she was in the same boat. Her name was Louise Voss I kept writing. Louise went on to get a massive book deal and I was happy for her (yes, really). My book, The Mag pies, was almost acquired by Louise’s publisher, Transworld When they decided against it, Dinah dropped me and I was back in the wilderness This was 2002. One night, while out drinking, Louise and I hit on the idea of writing a stalker thriller together, which we called Killing Cupid I moved to Japan to teach English and she remained in London, and we wrote the whole thing by email Halfway through, Louise showed it to a TV producer who promptly optioned it for BBC drama. I couldn’t believe it. Surely this was it? Reader, it wasn ’ t Louise’s book agent wasn ’ t keen and no publisher wanted it I came back to the UK and carried on writing, tr ying again to find an agent It wasn ’ t long before Louise was without an agent or publisher too. And so, in 2006, we decided to co write another book: this time a fast paced thriller about a virus. Yes, I was an armchair virologist fourteen years before ever yone else. This book, you guessed it, also failed to attract an agent In desperation, I even sent it to Dinah who replied with a single line: ‘Just not good enough’ That was the final straw. It was time to Bestselling author Mark Edwards describes the close calls and near-misses that led to self-publishing and seeing his books go stratospheric

THE LONG ROAD TO OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk10

2022marks the tenth anniversar y of my first traditionally published novel, and the publication of my eighteenth My total career sales recently crossed the four million threshold, I’ve had numerous number one bestsellers, have been translated into a dozen languages, have had books optioned for TV and, most importantly, I’m a full time writer, doing what I always dreamed of and earning a good living. But it wasn ’ t too long ago that if you’d told me I would ever be able to write a paragraph like the one above, I would have asked you to stop teasing me. Because early in 2010, after years of tr ying to get published, hundreds of thousands of words written and too many rejections to count, I had given up on my dream of being an author Put the dream aside. And then my wife bought me a Kindle I hadn’t wanted one. I liked print books and thought ebooks were a gimmick that would soon disappear. But as I searched Amazon for titles to download onto this new gadget, I noticed that a lot of the novels riding high in the rankings were self published. Some of them were even pretty good Doing some research, I discovered that a growing number of writers were making good money self publishing And so, shortly after my fortieth birthday, I decided to give it a go myself And the rest, as they say Wait. Let’s rewind. I started writing novels in 1994, when I was in my early twenties. Amazon had just been invented but nobody I knew had the internet, so we aspiring authors had no option but to buy The Writer’s Handbook and submit to agents using brown SAEs. I wrote my first novel in 1994 and got enough scribbled words of praise on rejection slips to encourage me to keep going. I sometimes wonder if my life would have been easier if some literar y Simon Cowell had told me to give up the dream when I started. But nobody did.

And during that month, the thing I’d always dreamed of happened. First, after contacting a few agents, all of whom were ver y interested, we got taken on by one He sent it to all of the big UK publishers and within a week we had a four book six figure deal with HarperCollins. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I shed several tears After all the hard work and rejection, the thousands of hours honing my craft, I finally had a publishing deal It had taken seventeen years. And I thought, This definitely is it But there is one more twist in this tale The ‘all is lost’ moment they talk about in screenwriting classes Killing Cupid and Catch Your Death were republished in 2012 It was thrilling to walk into a bookshop and see my name Okay, it was a shelf at Asda, not the plinth at Waterstones I’d long imagined, but I didn’t care Unfortunately, though, the books didn’t sell. They failed to dent the charts When the third book came out in early 2013, it was hardly stocked anywhere, and we already knew book four which we were still writing wouldn’t be in any shops It was heartbreaking, especially after the highs of 2011. More practically, I was broke. I had gambled and quit my job to go freelance. I was thousands in debt, my wife was pregnant and the taxman was threatening to send round bailiffs. I had also moved to a city where there were no jobs in the industr y I’d been working in. The stress made me ill and I had detached retinas in both eyes, my sight saved by a brilliant NHS surgeon. I refused to give up hope, though Louise and I vowed to carry on and, in the meantime, I decided it might be worth trying self publishing again I still thought The Mag pies, my 2000 novel, was good maybe I could do something with it. I realised I didn’t have a copy (it was saved on a long lost floppy disk) but luckily it was attached to an email deep in my wife’s email inbox (I owe her a lot, don’t I?) Louise and my wife both helped me edit it, I once again got my sister in law to design a cover and I released it in March 2013. I figured if I could sell 20,000 copies I would earn enough to pay my tax bill and keep the bailiffs from my door. For the first couple of weeks it looked like it wasn ’ t going to happen. And then, on Good Friday, something miraculous happened. The Mag pies, ahem, flew up the rankings and stuck And a few weeks later, it got to number one. It has since sold over half a million copies The success of The Mag pies led to a deal with Thomas & Mercer, who have published all my books since, including two more with Louise. I’ve just signed another three book contract with them I’m still working hard, still have a lot of ambitions I haven’t fulfilled yet, and I still have disappointments and bad days like ever y other author But on those bad days, I am able to remind myself of how difficult it was to get to this place and that I’m living the dream. And it’s still wonderful to see my books on shelves Best of all, I love hearing from readers. I know writers, too, who tell me they were inspired by my stor y Occasionally, I hear about authors who were snapped up by the first agent and publisher they approached. Who got rich before anyone had even had the chance to buy one of their books. I’m not envious. Because success is so much sweeter when you ’ ve had to fight for it

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quit I had a decent job by this point, where I was appreciated. Why continue to cause myself so much grief and stress? Why spend all my spare time labouring over novels no one was ever going to read? I was starting to have children at this point too. I decided that, looking back, I would be able to say I’d given it my best shot. I’d tried but hadn’t quite made it It was nothing to be ashamed of I was content with my decision and, for a couple of years, I forgot about my dream Then I got that Kindle. ‘ We should self publish our two novels,’ I said to Louise, who was still writing but without much success She was reluctant Wouldn’t it be a lot of effort for little reward? Wouldn’t it be embarrassing? But I persuaded her, and we set about editing the books, updating them and removing all the references to smoking in pubs and adding new fangled inventions like mobile phones and Facebook I bought a stock image and my sister-in-law designed a cover for us for free We published Killing Cupid in Februar y 2011 On day one, we sold two copies: one to my mother in law; the other to my boss When I told people I had self published a book they looked at me with pity. But I quickly became obsessed with tr ying to sell it. I blogged, I used forums, I spent hours on social media, I networked with other writers, sought out reviews, and endlessly tweaked the book’s blurb Slowly, Killing Cupid climbed the charts. By May, it sat just outside the top 100 on Amazon Then we released Catch Your Death. For the first two weeks, it sold steadily but slowly. I became addicted to checking the download figures. One weekend, I noticed something exciting Sales were coming in thick and fast. Catch Your Death shot up the charts T h re e d a y s l a t e r, i t w a s n u m b e r o n e o n A m a z o n U K a n d K i l l i n g Cu p i d w a s n u m b e r t w o. T h e y s t a y e d t h e re f o r a m o n t h .

No Place to Run by Mark Edwards is out now (Thomas & Mercer, £8 99) Mark’s top tips

1. Be sure where your book fits in the market and which authors you can be compared to. It’s much harder to break through if you ’ re novel is ‘ a little bit this and a little bit that’.

3 Work on your pitch The fewer words you need to describe your book, the better.

2. Don’t delete writing scenes that might seem crazy or outrageous. They’re the ones readers will remember. Be bold.

• Dialogue ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I’m not bad,’ she said, unable to stop the tears ‘I’ve heard it all before You’re not fooling anyone, ’ the man said, scowling.

Your interest is also piqued. What didn’t she mean to do?

When I’m reading a story, I like to be taken to the scene It makes me feel involved Using the different senses sight, sound, smell, touch and taste can be very effective in achieving this For example, if you ’ re writing about a scene in a pub, you could use the sense

Cardboard characters Characters in a story are everything They bring it to life However, in a short story, there aren ’ t enough words to devote to giving characters a lot of depth. But we still want to feel them, to be taken on their journey with them, and to care about them.

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The little things are also important habits and mannerisms that are unique to them These can really make a character ‘real’ for us, and are very effective in a story, so add these to your profile as well as favourite sayings and speech patterns. You won ’ t need to use all these details, but you’ll have the character vividly in mind as you write If you want to describe their hair, for example, or something about the way they’re dressed, you’ll be able to You’ll also know what makes them tick, any mannerisms they have, etc, and so be able to write about a more believable character.

O ve rc o m e c o m m o n s h o r t s t o r y p ro b l e m s w i t h a d v i c e f ro m w r i t i n g t u t o r a n d e d i t o r SEPTEMBER 2022

See how you already feel involved

• Tip It’s the little nuances (the way a character says something, or a face they pull) that bring them to life Too many senses or not enough

In this opening paragraph you already feel for this character and want to know if she’s all right.

• Tip There’s no need to tell your reader everything in the opening paragraph. Leave them dangling, feeling compelled to read on.

s a creative writing tutor, editor and competition judge, I read a lot of short stories. Many of them hook my interest right at the start, and keep it there all the way through, building up vivid scenes in my mind and making the characters leap off the page. I often find myself thinking, Now that’s a story I wish I’d written However, there are also stories which need a bit of help and where I find common issues coming up again and again. I’ll take you through the main problems and give you some tips on how to tackle them. A meandering opening A story should draw us in, hooking our interest and making us want to know more. Some writers like to take us to the scene and paint a picture of the weather and setting. That’s fine, but don’t overdo it The reader needs to know there’s going to be a story to get their teeth into. Here are a few effective ways to ensure you entice your reader into your tale:

www wr iter s online co uk12 C R E A T I V E W R I T I N G S O R T O U T YO U R S H O R T S

• Shock your reader I knew she was dead even though the dull eyes stared back at me, mocking me, tempting me to raise the knife once more An opening which shocks and thrusts the reader right in • Make the reader care I hate it here. I huddle under the covers, pulling them over my head Slowly, I start to rock to and fro. Mummy said I did that when I was a baby, with my bottom stuck up in the air, my thumb in my mouth and the other hand twiddled amongst the knots in my long hair

It can be useful to create a mini profile The more you know about your characters, the more you can make us believe in them A lot of novel writers do this, but even for a short story it’s useful Write down different aspects for each character, including: name, age, build, eye colour, hair colour, any distinguishing features, how they dress, occupation/school, talents/ hobbies, siblings, spouse, children, health, greatest flaw, best quality, strengths/weaknesses.

• Telling This is where you ‘tell’ the reader what’s going on It’s more factual It’s usually brief and it’s an efficient way to get information across

Conversely, showing lets the story unfold for itself; it brings the reader right into the scene and gets those feelings stirred. It’s a richer way of writing and is often longer. ‘Showing’ allows us to get swept up in the character’s tale and connects us to them more Here’s an example:

• And then they woke up! It can ’ t all have been a dream. This type of ending has been done to death

Here are a few more points to think about in relation to your ending:

• The gang could threaten to tell Peter’s parents. He won ’ t want them to know what he’s doing

• Keep it open Many readers like an open ending so they can finish the story for themselves

Sight is the most widely used sense in descriptive writing. It paints a picture in the reader’s mind But think about using the other senses as well. Taste is the least used sense in descriptive writing, but it can make you feel as if you ’ re almost tasting the food yourself think about the sharpness of a lemon bringing tears to your eyes, for instance, or the creaminess of milk chocolate melting on your tongue.

A lack of obstacles and tension

• A happy ending? Your ending doesn’t necessarily have to be a happy one depending on the publication A story aimed at The People’s Friend, for instance, must have an uplifting ending But one written for an e zine or competition doesn’t necessarily have to An ending that shocks or is poignant ensures your story will stay with your reader for some time.

• Tip Because a short stor y is so short, you haven’t time for lots of description. So don’t feel you have to use all the senses. Give a little and then let your reader fill in the rest and unleash their own imagination. Show, not tell This is an issue many writers struggle with, where they ‘tell’ the story and so the reader doesn’t connect with it as it doesn’t evoke feelings Some ‘tell’ is fine, and necessary, but the characters and story need to unfold for themselves So, what does ‘show, not tell’ actually mean?

For example, in a science fiction story, all the aliens could have left Earth after a fierce battle and your last sentence could reveal that one has been left behind Let the reader decide whether the spaceship comes back for their lost member, or if something else happens

• Showing

Some stories have a brilliant beginning and an ending that satisfies, but the middle sags, with not much happening. Think about adding in an obstacle or two. How is your main character going to get from the beginning to the ending? Don’t make things too easy for them. Here’s a basic outline for a story: Peter is a teenager who has joined a gang. He’s a decent lad underneath, but he’s got in with the wrong crowd and is uncomfortable with the things they’re doing He wants to get out, but doesn’t know how. At the end of the story, he stands up to them and leaves the gang So how do you get from the beginning, where he’s part of the gang and to the point at the end, where he’s left? Here are some ideas for obstacles he needs to overcome:

• The gang make him do something he doesn’t want to do take drugs or steal something The reader will feel plenty of tension there at the thought Peter might become addicted or get caught

Editors and judges cringe when they see it It’s also an easy option, where the writer can concoct any story, however bizarre, and then doesn’t have to give a proper explanation for what’s happened

• Tip Whatever your ending, it must be clear. I’ve read stories where a character who has been killed off earlier on suddenly turns up at the end alive and well, but there’s no reason for this or any explanation It makes the reader feel confused and let down. Put these tips into practice and you’ll give your stories a greater chance

• The stakes could be upped, with the gang doing more and more dangerous things, such as hurting someone Will Peter go along with it?

• Tip Raise the stakes, add in a few obstacles, prevent the protagonist achieving their goal, and the tension rises. It doesn’t all end well

Showing: Jacob looked down at his watch Two minutes to go! The image of an exam paper filled his mind He gulped, pushing it away Sweat broke out on his forehead, oozing its way down his cheeks and he gripped his leg, battling to stop it jiggling up and down. In the first example, it’s difficult to connect to Jacob and how he’s feeling, but in the second passage, you can sense his nerves in his behaviour You’ve also not been told he’s sitting an exam; the image appearing in his mind ‘shows’ it.

Even if the story has kept us riveted all the way through, that can fall by the wayside if the ending isn’t good. Some stories go beyond their natural finish, some feel rushed, or the twists don’t quite come off. If you ’ ve taken care and time over the rest of the story, it’s important you get the end right, too.

Telling: Jacob was sitting an exam. It was almost time for the exam to start He was feeling really ner vous

• Tip Describe your characters’ body language. Their actions reveal a lot about how they’re feeling

13www wr iter s online co uk of sound and write about the hum and chatter of the customers, and the tinkling of glasses Using the sense of smell, what about the spiciness of someone ’ s curry as the waitress carries it past? T h e s e n s e s w o r k s o w e l l i n b r i n g i n g a s t o r y t o l i f e a n d f o r m a k i n g y o u , a s a re a d e r, f e e l p a r t o f i t a s y o u s e e a n d e x p e r i e n c e e v e r y t h i n g a l o n g w i t h t h e c h a r a c t e r

SEPTEMBER 2022

What do readers love about Jane Austen’s books, 200 years after she wrote them? Wit, warmth, a wr y and amused insight into the vagaries of the human condition? Those are also the qualities to be found in Gill Hornby’s sparkling new novel Godmersham Park, which plays with the conventions of the Regency novel as it follows the fortunes of Anne Sharp, a real life associate of Jane Austen Combining intelligence and entertainment in equal measure, Godmersham Park is a real treat So is its author, who could probably charm the pants off wheely bins, and appears on Zoom cutting a tremendous dash in a fabulous bright orange dress and an insouciant Lauren Bacall esque glamour Godmersham Park is Gill’s fourth novel. Her first, 2013’s bestselling The Hive, was one of those water cooler books that got talked about a delicious contemporary social comedy about yummy mummies that skewered cliquey playground dynamics with humour and insight. Following that she wrote another modern comedy of manners, 2015’s All Together Now 2020’s Miss Austen, though, was Gill’s first historical novel and a real breakthrough. Fictionalising the story of why Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra burned Jane’s letters, it was a bestseller and made its way onto ‘best book of 2020’ lists Godmersham Park, Gill’s second Austen related title, turns to another minor player in the Austen canon: Jane’s friend Anne Sharp. Gill had been intrigued by her for some time ‘In all of my research about the Austens, I came across Anne Sharp a lot,’ says Gill ‘She’s one of the few people whose letters to Jane sur vived. And she kept them She knew enough about Jane’s genius and posterity to keep them So I read those And my basic policy was that Jane was an extremely shrewd judge of character. She took care to keep in touch with Anne for all of her life and she was the last person Jane wrote to just before

SEPTEMBER 2022 J a n e A u s t e n ’ s wo r l d c o m e s t o l i f e i n t h e n o ve l s o f , a s d i s c o ve r s A U S T E N T R A N S L AT I O N S T A R I N T E R V I E W

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Governesses appear in many 19th centur y novels, including Miss Taylor in Jane Austen’s Emma. ‘I think they turn up in fiction by women writers because they’re all extremely conscious of this fate,’ says Gill ‘In men ’ s fiction they’re slightly more invisible. The Brontës, Anne and Charlotte, were governesses they’re women in the home but outside the home It’s like Downton a big house stor y, below stairs and upstairs. It was extraordinar y because for women you couldn’t go out, you were all living cheek by jowl. People knew when you had your periods or when your husband visited in the night So these were often claustrophobic, oppressive relationships ’

The real life Anne’s story is shrouded in mystery until she makes an appearance as a governess at Godmersham Park, which was the home of Jane Austen’s brother Edward Knight ‘ You know nothing about Anne before she turned up at Godmersham,’ says Gill ‘ We can work out when she was born. Whilst she was there, the frame work of the book is that two weeks before Anne arrived her charge Fanny Austen Knight was given a pocketbook and star ted to keep a diar y and she kept it all her life And there they are Fanny kept them all those years, and it was ver y banal today the canar y laid an egg but that was the stuff out of which I could build a novel ’ Apar t from Fanny’s diaries and the letters between Anne and Jane, the other real life evidence Gill based her stor y around came from Anne’s later life ‘She and Cassandra continued to write after Jane’s death,’ says Gill. ‘And there’s her obituar y, because she made it to r unning her own school. And the will People write diaries and letters thinking they might be read, or found. But wills are honest. Anne’s will I found fascinating She turned up at Godmersham in such desperate straits that she had to earn her own living. And when she died she left £2,000 and had 47 dear friends I was so thrilled when I read that, it spoke of success, really.’ From these snippets of truth, Gill has woven a clever, involving stor y about the life of a person who occupied a position in Regency society that was neither upstairs nor downstairs. ‘Governesses were a big part of the household,’ says Gill. ‘It’s a big deal having someone live with you and it was so awkward because you were on the mezzanine level between staff and ser vants. The staff didn’t like you because you had airs and graces and the family would blow hot and cold ’

People became governesses, says Gill, because as women their employment options were limited. ‘ There were only two ways of earning a living teaching or going on the game really Being a governess was open to genteel ladies, often because men had let them down. The worst thing of all was being companion to an elderly lady So it really fascinates me how women got through, how they sur vived.’

With the bare bones of the known biographical facts about Anne, Gill began to construct her stor y

www wr iter s online co uk 15 S T A R I N T E R V I E W SEPTEMBER 2022 she died so it shows the value of the friendships ’

Single or married, Georgian women ’ s lives were circumscribed and difficult ‘Single Georgian women just fascinate me, ’ says Gill. ‘ You married for security But there were so many reasons not to get married The men died in the war, they were flawed, they married for money And then there was the problem of childbirth you were in for twenty pregnancies and extremely likely not to sur vive. So there were good reasons not to get married but not marr ying was a ver y awkward business ’

‘I thought, well I’ll start at the beginning It was incredibly restrictive because if I’d just had the dates I could’ve had a high old time with all sorts going on but I kept stubbing my toe on what was in the public domain So Miss Sharp found her thimble and I had to think what happened ’ She does not take her characters beyond the boundaries of what might have been realistic for them, for instance in terms of Anne and romance ‘I go down it three quarters of the way. It would have been incredibly unfair on them to have done more. When I create monsters out of real people in the Austen world, I’ve got evidence. I haven’t just created them out of nothing ’ An episode in Godmersham Park shows what life might have been like for Anne on holiday with Jane and her sisters in a ‘spinster cluster’.

‘ That was the paradise that Jane found for herself,’ says Gill. ‘And ever yone has always felt sorr y for them but I think they had a hoot Jane, “She was very jealous of Walter Scott because he was selling gazillions, but who reads Walter Scott now? Nobody! She gets a lot of criticism for not mentioning the war and poverty and endurance but if she’d banged on about that, we wouldn’t be reading her now. She wrote about what it was like to have a mother, or brothers, or a dad or a boyfriend.”

S T A R I N T E R V I E W www wr iter s online co Suk EPTEMBER 2022 “ I t o o k a t w e n t y - y e a r c a r e e r b r e a k t o b r i n g u p t h e s e f o u r c h i l d r e n . B u t a l l t h e t i m e y o u ’ r e l e a r n i n g a b o u t h u m a n s a n d s o c i e t y a n d a l l t h e s e f a m i l i e s w h o l i v e c h e e k b y j o w l e v e r y t h i n g y o u l e a r n a b o u t i n j u s t i c e a n d c l a s s a n d a n t e n n a e w e r e a l w a y s u p . A n d i t h a s l e f t m e , n o t w i t h w i s d o m , b u t i n s i g h t i n t o l i f e . S t o r i e s t o t e l l . ”

Godmersham Park came about because of Miss Austen, and Miss Austen came after Gill wrote a book about Jane Austen for young readers ‘ Twenty years ago I was commissioned to write a biography of Jane Austen for 8 to 12 year olds,’ she says. ‘ The thing about writing a short book is you have to know as much as if you ’ re writing a long book and that was because when I became obsessed with Cassandra She was slightly haunting me already and when I read the letters, written with such love and how much J valued her, and then read the family letters that said she was a dr y old stick, I was furious Cassandra did all the work, she was the guardian aunt, and the attitude of the family’s views was completely tempered because Jane had become famous. All the time Cassandra was the top daughter, the eldest daughter, attractive, highly competent Jane was amusing and wrote these stories but she was much more problematic I wanted to write a manifesto for the defence of Cassandra really. And biographers hate her because she destroyed the letters, and I wanted to make a case for that.’ Gill has been an Austen fan since her teenage years. ‘Since sixth form.

In Gill’s hands, the relationship between Jane and Anne is a friendship between two creative women. ‘Anne was sent to Worthing to stay with the Austen ladies for at least a month, and we know Jane was revising a book, and it gave me this license to write about how they talk writer to writer. They called themselves writers even though the world didn’t see them as that.’

‘Bridgerton was thoroughly entertaining I’m delighted that people are lapping it all up And there’s Emma it’s Emma for a modern age. And the new Persuasion You think Jane would be loving it.’ Gill doesn’t think it’s a surprise that the Regency period continues to exert an appeal in modern times. ‘ The Regency period was the absolute Renaissance, explosion of aesthetics, in Britain,’ she says ‘So it’s aesthetically pleasing There was a bustle of intelligence and philosophy, blue stockings, the French Revolution, all affecting people intellectually in Britain We were taking a lot of French migrants so that elevated the conversation It was really tough if you were poor or a woman but bloody nice if you were a gentleman. There was this emphasis on the picturesque, on the seaside, they had holidays. That contributed to jollity Jane had a much more liberal upbringing then she would’ve had as a Victorian Her father was a theologian From the age of seven she was allowed to read anything in the librar y, all sorts of gothic romances Whereas a Victorian father would have been, not quite covering the piano legs, but much more restrictive.’

16 Cassandra, Martha, they didn’t have to worr y about any man And when Jane came into the blessed position of earning money, she didn’t have to hand it over to a man ’

It was a time when women writers were making important contributions to cultural and social conversations.

Gill has drawn her historical characters as hugely relatable characters, making it easy for modern readers to empathise with them ‘I make it relatable to now by giving them an internal life,’ she says ‘Contrasting the internal life with what people’s circumstances were like. Anne, invisible in her attic The contrast between internal and external is there all the time I just put myself in her shoes ’ She’s ver y much enjoying the current fascination with all things Regency.

Gill thinks readers are still entranced by Jane Austen’s novels, and fascinated by the author, because they’re about such relatable characters ‘Her novels are incredibly popular because we can relate to them She was ver y jealous of Walter Scott because he was selling gazillions, but who reads Walter Scott now? Nobody! She gets a lot of criticism for not mentioning the war and poverty and endurance but if she’d banged on about that, we wouldn’t be reading her now She wrote about what it was like to have a mother, or brothers, or a dad or a boyfriend And the world has changed but these facts are the same. She had the humour in the small things and the interactions it’s all there.’

I always read ferociously, read and I played the piano, but I was an incredibly difficult little bugger till I was sixteen, and not considered much of value And then this English teacher saw something in me and utterly turned me around She was an Austen addict and made me read all of them. But I didn’t engage in her life until I was commissioned to write the short book. So it’s all down to that teacher That’s a reason Anne Sharp was so attractive to me, because I’m really soppy about teachers, the amazing ones When you do get those moments, to find something in someone and draw it out I wish I had done it, really.’

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Gill is married to the thriller author Robert Harris, and her brother is Nick Hornby ‘Of course Robert and Nick and I talk about writing,’ she says. ‘ We did before I started and we still do Robert is my first reader and I’m his. Robert’s a day to day constant His self discipline is incredible. He’s at his desk first thing, nothing will deter him. I can ’ t say I emulate him completely but he’s got on in life because he’s unbelievably dedicated I don’t encroach on Robert’s space. But then it’s not exactly competitive he’s written twenty books and there isn’t going to be a catch up. He’s the one who first said I ought to write a novel ’ She’s delighted to have found her voice as a writer at this stage in her life. ‘I never had anything to say when I was younger It’s not enough to be able to craft a sentence. You have to have something to say. I took a twenty year career break to bring up these four children. But all the time you ’ re learning about humans and society and all these families who live cheek by jowl ever ything you learn about injustice and class and this over stifling life of the family. My antennae were always up And it has left me, not with wisdom, but insight into life. Stories to tell It never occurred to me to write a novel. I hadn’t done a single word of creative writing since O level but it was the best option and the best way to tell The Hive. I found enormous joy in it I was groping around for some sort of meaning. I knew from school that writing was my thing.’ Working in journalism taught Gill a few useful tricks ‘Journalism is an extremely good way of finding your voice, and the best way to tell a stor y, ’ she says. ‘In journalism you have to grab people by the throat at the beginning. And there’s the concept of a beginning, middle and an end There is the odd novelist who hasn’t quite got that. If you ’ re going to be good tr y to be good at the beginning Have a stab You’ve got to get them onto page 2.’ Another transferable journalism skill is the ability to write wherever you need to get words down ‘ The next one I’ll write in the shed,’ she laughs ‘ This one I wrote in the dining room. I don’t have a notebook I just kind of plunge in. When I’m in it I stick my earplugs in and it’s fine But I’ll walk the dog to death before I start it. A deadline is essential I worked at the BBC before I had kids but I wrote The Hive and Miss Austen without a deadline apart from personal humiliation Rejection has been a primar y motivator for me the rocket fuel I need to get going ’

‘I became slightly obsessed by Mar y Wollstonecraft bringing out pamphlets about the education of women, ’ says Gill. ‘And Fanny Burney her journals are so utterly relatable Yes, they put on corsets, but it’s extraordinar y what their minds were like People like Jane and Anne, brainy women who read lots of books there’s no way they wouldn’t have looked around the world and thought it might have needed changing. The idea that feminism began in the 1970s is completely untrue. I don’t think our ideas are new ’ All of Gill’s finely observed novels involve women and the domestic sphere ‘All four are family novels, and I’m very interested in relationships between women, ’ she says ‘I am a people watcher. I wrote The Hive from watching at the school gates, and I always find female friendships fascinating.’ Gill, a mother of four and former BBC journalist, began writing The Hive when she lost a prestigious writing gig ‘I’d been bringing up kids for twenty years, doing book reviewing and writing a column in The Telegraph and I got made redundant which was a real bugger, and I knew I wouldn’t get employed anywhere else because I was a woman in my fifties. And I was literally unemployed so I just sat down and wrote it.’ Gill says she was ‘stunned’ when it did well Both The Hive and Miss Austen were written without a commission ‘It’s terrifying but ver y liberating, especially with Miss Austen when I had to make Jane do things, walk and talk I thought probably no one ’ s ever going to read it, it was staying in a drawer ’ The element of humour is ver y important to her. ‘I find novels without jokes in really weird A joke is what makes us human we have a laugh. I find domestic novels in which nobody makes a joke rather strange. Don’t tell me they didn’t have a laugh in times gone by. Can you imagine never having a laugh, or making a joke? It would just be rubbish That’s what Jane Austen does and I think it’s why she’s so long lived as an author we still laugh at the same things.’

As a writer of fiction carefully crafted to entertain and make its in depth research accesssible, Gill’s advice is to be generous to the reader. ‘Make sure you ’ ve got something to offer Tell a stor y. Sit down and do it. Stick seat of paint to seat of the chair You’re not a writer till you ’ ve got a reader. There’s no point in writing something nobody wants to read But if there are two, there will be 2,000.’

Th e Ruins is my second novel, and unlike many second novels, it was wedged in my imagination all the time I was writing my first, Madam. When the time came for me to write it, the words flowed easier than ever before from the opening, to ever y plot point, to the height of the climax and the slow ease of the resolution. I can ’ t tell you exactly why, but just like my protagonists and hopefully the reader I was swept up by the decadent summer holiday, the intrigue, the tragedy, the horror, and the revenge contained within the pages The Ruins begins with a prologue.

Tof

floored me The young Patrick was on holiday with his dysfunctional parents, continually neglected and terribly abused amidst the glimmering glor y of their sunny French chateau and his parents ’ visiting friends. I recognised the small boy’s suffering as clearly as if a hand reached through the television and grabbed me by the chest. Was this a genre, I asked myself, has my stor y got a place here? The answer was yes. Even if the answer had been no, I would have felt forced to write it. The inspiration forced me for ward Then came the novel’s beginning The opening of a novel must strike the balance between exposition, and good writing. To give away the information in a gentle, unassuming manner and woo your reader with your woven words through ever y paragraph This craft was much easier in The Ruins, hopefully because my writing improves as I go from book one to book two, but also because the world Feminist gothic novelist Phoebe Wynne walks us through the opening of her chateau set new novel T h e R u i n s the openinghe Ruins at

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Prologues seem to be a popular trend in contemporar y literature, and they are something my agent and my two editors encourage It is a promise, a dash of excitement, a taste before the reader is launched into the novel I imagine the prologue is designed for two things: to give the reader a taste of the writing the themes, the setting, the general colour and to give the reader a sense of where you ’ re going, a glimpse of the ending, perhaps, which was the case in my first novel. The prologue in The Ruins doesn’t refer to the novel’s ending, but gives a sense of place, or atmosphere, and a taste of the bigger picture More significantly, it shows a catalytic event that happens just hours after the novel’s beginning time, an event the aftermath of a car accident that changes ever ything for ever yone and sets a standard for the rest of the novel. Lastly, it tells the reader what I am tr ying to say about damage, accountability and the difference between men and women in the world I’ve created. For me, writing inspiration comes like a knock on the head. My first knock with The Ruins was watching the Sky TV show Patrick Melrose After loving the series of books by Edward St Aubyn, I was thrilled to catch up with the TV series but the second episode

E N T E R I N G T H E R U I N SJ o s e p h i n e C r o n k Read

19SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk building in my first novel was colossal Madam’ s world is a boarding school in an extreme location filled with multiple characters, while The Ruins is a domestic drama set in France, on holiday, something perhaps much more in tune with the general reader and yet, being more attainable meant that I had to get it exactly right. Fo r m e , t h e s e t t i n g i s a c r u c i a l p a r t o f p i c k i n g u p a b o o k a n d c a r r y i n g o n w i t h i t . By t h a t I m e a n t h e p l a c e , t h e s e a s o n , t h e e r a , a n d a l m o s t a s e n s e o f ‘ s e t d e s i g n ’ . R i g h t f r o m t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h i s n ov e l t h e s t a g e i s s e t : t h e h o u s e i s g l ow i n g l i k e a c re a m w h i t e j e we l , a n d t h e e v e n i n g i s l i t u p f o r t h e A s h b y ’ s p a r t y T h i s f i r s t p a r a g r a p h c h a n g e d i n t h e e d i t , a n d w a s b r o u g h t f o r w a rd t o t h e v e r y b e g i n n i n g s o t h a t w e’d h a v e t h o s e i m a g e s i n t h e re a d e r ’ s m i n d f r o m f i r s t g l a n c e It g i v e s t h e p r o l o g u e a n i m m e d i a t e s e n s e o f p l a c e a n d a t m o s p h e re The narrative can then elaborate to establish the protagonist and the world around her She is a child, so she sees things directly but not clearly at all more so than any adult protagonist

The reader might feel her regret that something is ending, and worr y that this is the beginning of something else. The use of French is deliberate, too It is simple French but enough to catch the reader off guard in the same way the guests at the party are caught off guard by the sudden arrival of the police car. And therein lies the hook The hook is traditional in psychological suspense and the thriller, but here I am playing with genre and so I must play with the hook. The hook would traditionally be the siren and terrifying woman, the high pitched wail of a siren; her white face wore no blood but her eyes stretched wide; the tops of her fingers were soaked red, bright against her pale her and paler skin, but for me, the hook is also the chateau, the party, the gathered crowds of people out of place The hook is also Ruby, a child separating herself from the throng of messy, delighted children, and finding herself in a situation she can ’ t control. She is a plucky, unhappy, firecracker of a character, feeling annoyed with her small dread of more guests than [she] bargained for finding out that her father didn’t come to the concert, now busy with an important phone call Even the prologue tells the reader that this stor y will be told from a girl’s perspective, since the screaming woman is someone ’ s mother and not an equal In such a way the opening is entirely thrilling for me even as a reader but of course it should be be, since I always followed the infamous advice of Toni Morrison, by writing a book that I would want to read In this novel I am playing with genre, more so than I’ve done before I am a gothic novelist, where traditionally the young woman with her hair streaming behind her is tr ying to escape some oppressive masculine monster while holed up in a looming castle In The Ruins here my heroine is a child, in a house she knows well, with not just one man she needs to escape, but many in fact, a whole collective she needs to destroy But my most elaborate step away from the usual gothic is the temperature Gothic novels are cold, fearful, and biting. This novel is hot in climate and in tension, it is fierce, with the chateau crumbling and the guests sweltering. Another step towards a gothic update is my adding a dual timeline, a character from that ver y summer, but older, remembering and returning to confront those fateful events My next dose of gothic newness is the feminist punch, which I cannot seem to avoid including in my writing. Finally, I add the Classics element, using mythological stories to follow alongside and add depth to the narrative as well as the characters’ understanding The result of this genre bending is The Ruins, a feminist gothic coming of age revenge stor y colourful but hopefully not overloaded. As aforementioned, my luckiest strike with this opening, and for much of the novel, is that I’m writing from memor y I write best when I write without thinking, unconsciously, when a flurr y of images flit through my mind and fall onto the page. Ruby is a version of me, just as many of my characters do or say things I’ve always wanted to do or say but more than that, since I was once a girl on holiday in the south of France, after an orchestra trip, surrounded by people that I both kne w and feared. This means that the feelings coming through are living and breathing, and the sensor y detail the sights, the sounds, the smells is felt through the pages just as vividly as in my memor y: Ruby breathed in that smell so familiar to her, a deep, damp green pine. This also makes novel writing easier: the brain nudges you for ward, because even if the content is melancholic, the familiarity of it is warm and comfor ting. I imagine this is why some writers say writing is an exorcism Another lucky strike I had with this novel was that I wrote it with urgency. I had a story to tell a monster to get out of me that took me from scene to scene, almost panting as I paced through to the triumphant, violent ending This book was written out of passion, and anger and the agony I felt while writing helped me carve out some clarity on the page This means that my two protagonists, Ruby and the older Mrs Cosgrove, squirm with discomfort as they meet conflict at almost every moment The result is hopefully a dark beauty of a novel, hard hitting, truth telling, and rich.

The reader learns more about Ruby via the people around her, and the party at large: how they speak, and what they wear: mothers draped in pastel silks and linens, glittering with smiles and diamonds or precious gemstones. The reader understands Ruby’s place in the party, and how she responds to it, Ruby felt a twinge of anguish, remembering fondly her happy school moments through neat exposition, even telling the reader about the boy she likes.

T H E F I R S T F I V E P A G E S

The reader has seen a glimpse of Ruby in the prologue, a girl with red hair and frowning eyes, but she appears more fully in the first chapter. She is not at ease in her own environment, even though she knows it well, and her unease is felt early on, after the end of the concert: the unseen sea was gently roiling, rumbling out a soothing encore after the heroic might of the concert

Put together the perfect submission package

Join the WM team for more interactive webinars to help you achieve your writing dreams. LEARN LIVE FROM THE WM EXPERTS If you would like to book several webinars please call us so we can give you a discount. To find out more visit www.writers-online.co.uk/webinars or call us on 01778 392492 WEBINAR WRITERS ONLINE S E R I E S Masterclass Live

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classic short

Developing your writing routine

Sunday 21 August, 11am-2pm with Alex Davis

webinars

Wednesday 17 August with Dickens’ classic, The Signalman

Join WM regular Short Story Masterclass contributor Helen M Walters for a series of live exploring the some stories

techniques and style of

Don’t wait for the muse to strike build a solid writing routine and you won’t need to! This session explores the value of having a writing routine, the good habits to build one and practical exercises to help lay the groundwork for your own writing timetable

Gothic fiction Sunday 18 September, 11am-2pm with Alex Davis Gothic fiction remains an enduringly popular genre, with a rich history and lively modern scene. In this session we’ll explore what it means for fiction to be truly Gothic, as well as offering writing exercises to get you developing your own pieces in the field. How to write a twist short stor y Sunday 25 September, 10am-1pm with Della Galton

Sunday 11 September, 10am-noon with Della Galton How do you get your novel the attention it deserves? This course can help you write a tempting covering letter, explain what should go into your synopsis, biography and sample, and consider whether it is best to approach an agent or publisher

Writing Alternat(iv)e Histor y Sunday 2 October, 11am-2pm with Alex Davis Alter nat(iv)e history offers a fascinating opportunity to explore how events of the past could have played out differently and affected the world today. This webinar will define the subgenre, explore famous examples and set you up to develop your own alter native histories

There is an art to writing a twist ending story and making it work. This course will cover the dos and don’ts of the technique, bad and good endings, markets for twist stories, avoiding being too predictable, and five ways to make sure your story works

rewarding course. I

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Q C O R N E R S T O N E S L I T E R A R Y C O N S U L T A N C Y +44 (0) 1308 897374 www cornerstones co uk Based on the #1 bestselling book ON EDITING, our Edit Your Novel online course is designed to help you perfect your submissions package whilst equipping you with

in

With everything that is going on in the world, how is the publishing sector being affected? As a debut (unpublished) author, is it still financially viable to seek to be traditionally published or should I pack away my novel and focus on my day job?

Open for applications now! “Thank you [ ] for

for this level of excellence!” EYN course alumna Are you

A These are all good questions. While I can ’ t advise you in terms of your personal chances and potential remuneration, the good news is that publishing tends to remain resilient even in the toughest of times If you’d like current data on how world events are impacting the publishing market, have a look at the Publishers Association (www. publishers.org.uk)

Helen Corner-Brya nt has wise words for an unpublished writer wondering whether to concentrate on going for a traditional publishing deal it or pick up speed? all 2022 developing a and have been searching for four years thinking about

submitting to the trade? Do you want to learn the art of self editing? 21SEPTEMBER w2022 ww co

If you try to keep all of this alongside your day job then ideally, you ’ re spreading the risk and not putting too much pressure on either one working out financially. Writing and pressure can work well especially for delivery deadlines or not.

Focus on what you ’ re able to achieve and in the best way do your very best within your control and hopefully the rewards will follow

Look for publishers becoming agents, junior agents, and anyone looking to build a list as they’re usually open to submission and hungry to take on new authors Ask yourself, why are you approaching that agent? Do you admire their list, have you read a recent article on what they’re looking for? Consider other things too. For instance, you might be submitting your children’s book but you ’ re potentially drawn to psychological thrillers down the line so you’ll want an agent who represents both children’s and adult. Consider if you’d like to be part of a boutique agency or a large agency All of these factors only you can research, profile and decide on. Once you find the right fit and your manuscript gets taken on then that’s a huge and brilliant step towards your publishing quest. Then your journey is just beginning but there will be others around you as your support system

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According to the PA, publishing remained strong during Covid, and 2021 was a record high year for total book publishing sales in the home and export markets However, 2022 is another year with new challenges, so we’ll have to wait and see on that In the meantime, aim to focus on the things you can have a degree of control over, which is your manuscript and your submission journey If you love writing, it’s worth pursuing it’s one of the few hobbies that can potentially earn you an income! It’s also vital for one ’ s mental health in that it’s often sheer escapism If you want to be a cowboy, find love, shoot into space, explore a period of history and so on, then writing about it from the comfort of your chair is not only fun but a great distraction. If you ’ ve written a novel, why not submit it and see where it leads you If it’s down the publication route, even better! However, I’d always advise not giving up your day job. Writing can be precarious with no guarantees so if you can fit your writing around your day job that’s safest. Many published authors rely on additional supporting income so in this respect it’s prudent to bear that in mind. While most advances are very modest, over the years, I’ve seen many of our authors go on to reach six figure deals and beyond so that’s worth bearing in mind too. However, to manage expectations, I’d factor in a very modest advance and work up from that I assume you ’ re happy with your manuscript, that you ’ ve had it checked editorially by a beta reader, perhaps and that it’s in a solid draft state. While some authors see the editing stage as a time (and/or financial cost), we see it as an investment that can reap rewards down the line The time and care you put into your craft of writing should help to raise your writing to the next level at the very least, and if that culminates in an agent or publishing deal, fantastic. Bear in mind that you ’ re looking to submit a manuscript with room for further editorial input from an agent or publisher, so you ’ re aiming for a solid ‘first’ draft (even if you ’ ve redrafted it many times) Then, a professional approach to the submission process is vital. Treat it with respect as if you ’ re applying for a job as if you ’ re running your own writing company Do your research and profiling when creating your submission list of agents

I n June 2016, I’d just turned 29 and had ver y little to show for it: two degrees I wasn ’ t using, two kids who didn’t sleep, and a host of immigration problems which had abor ted any chance of a ‘real’ career

‘Querying agents didn’t go well No one was interested in my confused, dense, badly structured story. I collected about 130 rejections without a single agent request ‘I noticed that my rejections had two overarching themes: we cannot connect to your characters, and your story is inaccessible As it turns out, there was a specific reason for that. Over the following year, my son and I both received diagnoses for autism

‘I finished the novel and started querying in July 2018. This time, I had a good request rate, and eventually an offer of rep Just the one offer, but that was enough. After partnering up with my enthusiastic agent, Naomi Davis, we went out on submission to publishers

learn My ability to create emotional connections improved both in real life, and in my stories.

‘I also had an unwritten novel floating around in my head, one that was nagging to be penned. Objectively, I knew that my chances of ever being published were very low Agents sign about one new client for every 1,000 queries, and editors buy perhaps one out of every 100 agented books landing on their desk

S U N Y I D E A N

‘In total, I’d now written two books in three years, collecting about 180 agent rejections and 15+ publisher rejections between them Not the best ratio

‘While Book 2 was drowning at the submission stage, I started trying to write Book 3 I weighed up the rejection feedback I’d got with my agent and critique partners, and I took a more organised approach to worldbuilding this time I also studied thriller novels and other mainstream commercial books to get a sense of their structure, pacing, and tension three issues that had plagued my previous attempt

‘My craft struggle to make relatable characters mirrored my personal struggle to relate with neurotypical folk If I wanted to succeed in writing, I therefore would need to learn a skill which had eluded me my entire life: how to build meaningful connections with other people ‘Connection and emotion became my focus for Book 2. While writing it, I dived into novels with strong emotional cores and analysed them to see why they worked, and how. I read articles and books on emotional craft I reached out to other writers and spent a lot of time critiquing as a way to

n a u t i s m d i a g n o s i s p a v e d t h e w a y f o r t h e d e b u t f a n t a s y a u t h o r t o f i n d s t r a t e g i e s t h a t w o r k e d f o r a n e u r o d i v e r g e n t w r i t e r ©Richard Wilson

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‘It took about two years to write and revise Book 3. During that time, my marriage collapsed, Covid showed up, and lockdown came into force in the UK. I moved out of A

‘

‘My writing was making progress, but my personal circumstances weren ’ t great. Mental illness, unemployment, relationship problems, and other difficult things were taking a toll on my then partner and I We bled money and swelled with debt. ‘At that point, I should have tried to get a proper employment; instead, I worked on the next book. Perhaps a selfish, foolish and illogical decision My ship was sinking and instead of bailing water, I was concentrating on making pigs fly. In The Geek Feminist Revolution, Kameron Hurley writes: “I’d reached a point in my life where I didn’t know how to do anything else but finish the book” and I think that captures my mindset at the time, too

‘There’s a lot of information about querying, but very little that prepares you for subbing out to editors My first venture again wasn ’ t fun. Over the course of eighteen months, every imprint either shot us down with rejections, or just didn’t answer

‘But with all my other options closing down, I wanted to try writing it anyway. Sometimes, the act of trying matters more than the chances of succeeding ‘Desperation is a beautiful kind of motivation. Four frantic months later, I completed a truly terrible first draft of an epic fantasy novel. The book was all kinds of broken, but I’d written something, finally, and felt good about that I started revising, then rewriting over and over across many months, before eventually approaching literary agents.

23SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk

• Find a community When writers with similar goals and work ethics form groups and pursue publication together, a surprisingly high number of them get agents and book deals. It’s a really common phenomenon And if you can ’ t find a community, build one Make a Twitter account, reach out, star t a discord or a chat group Other writers are often desperate to connect. • Arm yourself with knowledge. If you don’t, this industr y will eat you up like a wild thing. Listen to podcasts, read books and ar ticles on publishing, or watch ‘Book Tube’ videos. comments were thoughtful, insightful and invaluable in taking critique

‘

‘There’s something about the tone which remains, even after so many readings, beguiling dark and glittering, terrifying and yet filled with passionate loves Like snow on a dark landscape the contrasts that Sunyi deploys to tell her story just work All of this is before we even begin with the unbelievable originality of the book eaters themselves: a clan of creatures so monstrous and convincing they feel almost familiar like something you ’ ve glanced in the corner of your vision, in the shadows, outside the window, under the bed ‘This is a tale for those outside of society, looking in. I was thrilled to be transported to Scotland and the north of England for her tale wild places often neglected in modern fantasy This book is rooted in the landscapes that Sunyi, a northern writer, lives in.

‘Lastly, of course, this is a book about books: an irresistible story about the magic of storytelling threaded with horror, romance and fantasy that feels oh so real.’

T h e re a re l o a d s o f f re e , h i g h q u a l i t y re s o u r c e s o n b o t h w r i t i n g c r a f t a n d p u b l i s h i n g c a re e r s . No n e e d f o r a n e x p e n s i v e w r i t i n g d e g re e o r m a s t e r s ( u n l e s s y o u w a n t o n e ) . “The

The Book Eaters was like no other book I’d read before or since. It is fair to say that when the manuscript landed in my inbox it consumed me as much as the other way round. There was so much that drew me to this story

service is first class and great value for money.” Brian K Get clarity on your writing with Writing Magazine’s critique ser vices Whether you have a 500 word picture book or 150,000 word saga, our specialist writers will give objective, professional, feedback to get your book into the best possible shape. BOOK YOUR CRITIQUE ONLINE TODAY: https://writ.rs/critique Unsure about grammar , sentences, structure or dialogue in your story ? my ex ’ s house in June 2020 and into a semi derelict flat, where I drafted the final chapters of The Book Eaters and handed them to my agent ‘After years of bad luck, the stars just seemed to align. I’d hit on the right kind of stor y at the right place and time: a high concept contemporar y fantasy with an unusual angle, which borrowed from thrillers for its structure and pacing. Four days after Naomi pitched the novel to publishers, we had an offer for a three book deal.’ Sunyi’s top tips:

Vicky Leech, commissioning editor, Har perCollins

my novel in a new direction Your

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The launch of every debut author’s dreams, Dominique’s book has received a rainbow of press, from Olive Magazine to the Daily Mail, BBC Radio 2 and plenty more Since its release, it’s been the number one bestseller in three Amazon categories, including top of the Restaurant category (considering Dominique is a home cook, not a chef, this is impressive work) Of course, my first question for her

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Are pitching contests a recipe for success?

Luckily for Dominique, Asian food is also more ‘in’ than ever Holly Shackleton, editor of industr y leading trade magazine Speciality Food, writes that ‘ yuzu fragrant Japanese citrus juice is up 57% from 2020 ’ Umami is also credited as a big trend for this year, and other key drivers are ‘plant based eating, wellness and interest in world cuisines. Glutamate rich ingredients such as seaweed and dried shiitake mushrooms give meat and dair y free dishes a flavour leg up, while fermented foods like miso, kimchi and pickles are associated with wellness ’ And, despite the ubiquitousness of free recipes online, cookbooks are still king.

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk24 W R I T I N G L I F E

The proud publisher behind Jamie Oliver himself, as well as Nadiya Hussain, Mrs Hinch, Jeremy Clarkson and Marian Keyes to name just a few, Michael Joseph found its winner Spoilers ahead it was Dominique Woolf Her book Dominique’s Kitchen: Easy Everyday Asian Inspired Food was released on 9 June, is endorsed by Jamie himself and is already a bestseller. 224 pages strong, the reader reviews alone make your mouth water, let alone the beautiful book itself ‘We wanted to help to open the doors a little wider and contribute towards breaking down barriers to make the publishing process more transparent and diverse,’ Louise Moore explained on Waterstones.com. ‘ The decision on which cook to invest in rested with me It was an absolute honour to work alongside [fellow judges] Evening Standard restaurant critic and food writer, Jimi Famurewa and award winning recipe writer and author, Georgina Hayden.’

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Imagine this: Dragon’s Den, but rather than business prospects, it’s cookbook proposals. Pioneered by TV chef Jamie Oliver, and joined by Louise Moore, MD at publisher Micheal Joseph, The Great Cookbook Challenge was broadcast on Channel 4 at the start of this year In it, we watched eighteen budding cookbook authors being put to the cooking tests, all to prove themselves worthy of winning their own cookbook publishing deal On discovering this show randomly one evening, it was like all my Christmases had come at once Wholesome cooking content with a publishing perspective? Be still my beating stomach

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Rosalind Moody meets a cookbook author whose Great Cookbook Challenge win took her to the top of the Amazon char ts

Se e , . A s I c l o n o g i g l i s h e , s h e s p i n k l e s i n a e w g a t i e a s t o i n s y o n c o o k o o k . I o l e g o i i n e s c e n e s

Louise reports that cookbooks are, in fact, ‘increasing in popularity, and cooker y makes up a growing portion of the overall publishing market.’

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e m s Do m i n i q u e c o u l d n ’ t h a v e p i t c h e d h e r d e b u t a t a b e t t e r t i m

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Dominique’s passion and drive is clear to hear We talk about how she’d been given a cookbook as a young girl which had fueled her curiosity in recipe writing, and how I related to that nostalgic memory of hers. I want to know what’s next on her journey ‘It’s still school holidays, but I’ve got quite a few food festivals in August and September, so that’s great. I would love to think I could get a book number two, so I’ve really started to think of ideas for that. I’m working on developing my social media, because that’s really important these days. Content has not always been my domain, but if I go to a really nice restaurant I’ll make a reel. I’m getting great engagement so far ’ We writers may groan when we hear that C word, but despite being more business led than editorial, Dominique is already a master at generating interesting content for platforms across London. ‘It’s really important to practise writing. I wrote something for a mum blog, and for a local cultural magazine in North London called Village Raw, and after meeting them at various events, they’ve featured me and been really supportive A friend introduced my to a health and wellness site who wanted a regular recipe column, so I did that for nearly a year, and that was great experience. I wrote tips to become a foodpreneur for an enterpreneurial website [Dominique started a condiment business, The Woolf ’ s Kitchen, during lockdown in 2020]. There’s nothing like having your work in print that’s not just on your blog. Find the opportunity, even it’s a small one, because it gets you experience and a portfolio

‘My blurbs introducing the recipes didn’t change much once I’d written them, which was great, but there was a little bit of time before it printed where I could adjust the recipes slightly. A few weeks of tweaks, such as swapping in a quicker method I’d thought of, or slightly changing the amount of an ingredient, and that was it!’

The following week I was to deliver 20 recipes, then 15, then there was a break for Christmas The Monday we all came back I was due another 15, then 15, and so on By the end of January, we were photographing it. So it was a case of “write them, test them, submit them”’!

25SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk had to be about her favourite recipe from it ‘ The book’s salad section has a really nice lunch which is a hot smoked salmon rice bowl with a miso and mustard dressing, which people have been loving using on all sorts of other different dishes It’s great for hot weather like this!’

‘I would have no idea how to pitch a book conventionally, though I would say have an idea that’s different, with a new angle An angle is the way you present something It’s got to be something not done before. My mum is Thai, so my angle was inspired by that Research and approach publishers for what books they already do, and don’t pitch something that’s exactly the same. Make your presentation of that really concise I’m sure there’s a format* Network like crazy, use LinkedIn, and go to writer networking events Ask people who have done it. There’s not just one way of doing things You’ve got to work at the whole thing, which is hard,’ Dominique insists If you ’ re considering following in Dominique’s breadcrumbs and applying to the show, remember, it’s not just contestants who are brand new at this unique process, either ‘[Being on the show] was so far out of my comfort zone, and so different to the usual book acquisition process, ’ Louise Moore admits. Her final professional advice echoes Dominique’s: ‘If you ’ re someone who wants to get a cookbook published, you ’ re an accomplished cook and you instinctively understand how recipes work, my biggest piece of advice would be to think really hard about what you want to say. I’d also encourage you to test your recipes ’You know what that means, right? Get cooking, writing and do lots of eating *She’s right, there is indeed. In my experience, most of the bigger publishers require an agent to submit something on your behalf. Research agents ’ websites, which specify how they want your pitch written out.

‘For the tests, I had to farm out the recipes to friends and cousins who didn’t even know I’d won I just told them it was for my website. I asked several people in Jamie [Oliver]’s team, so that each recipe had at least three tests to make sure they did work. The shoot took two weeks and I was cooking ten to eleven dishes a day, so while the food stylist worked her magic with one, I’d go and cook the next

Dominique’s Kitchen is out now Follow her at @dominiquewoolf or visit thewoolfskitchen.com. To apply to the next series of The Great Cookbook Challenge, look out for updates at plumpictures.co.uk/ cookbookstar

‘I was extremely fortunate I had this opportunity, and it’s amazing I ended up winning,’ she says. ‘I always had a feeling I could write recipes, but to have a successful book which is selling really well, it’s really exciting My writing process was completely topsy turvy I only had six weeks to write it, but I wanted to seize this once in a lifetime opportunity.’ I think I’d curl up in a ball under my bed if I was served such a short deadline on top of a full time job, but it’s to Dominique’s credit that she picked up her pen and got stuck in. How did it all begin? How so many things do in 2022 an advert on Instagram. This is where Dominique made the first move ‘I had to send in a two minute video, with an idea and some background on me as a cook, and a few weeks later I got a call. Then, there were two Zooms One was a cookalong where I had to make something with them watching. Eventually, in September, about six weeks after that initial application, I found out I was going to be on it!’ You’d imagine that you’d get the normal amount of time, if not an inch longer, to work on your debut cookbook, but it turned out quite the opposite ‘It wasn ’ t about drafts I won the show, then a few days later we had a meeting and I was given a schedule

Picture the scene where they discuss the problem, the setting and what they are doing while they talk The key to writing a passage of dialogue is to remember it’s a scene and embed the dialogue in the action Take twenty minutes

Here ’ s a good idea: Swap Ideas Day! It’s coming up in September. Sharing ideas that I’ve found useful or interesting is a big drive for me in my writing, and some of my most enlightening moments have come from other people’s books Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, that was a complete a ha for me, courtesy of US author Susan Jeffers. Such a simple idea, that it’s okay to feel afraid and fear need not stop you doing what you want to do I’ve passed that one on in my children’s self help books along with lots of others, such as the idea that expecting the best or the worst in life is a choice. Think about your own ideas with this month’s free range writing Perhaps you could pass some on M e m o i r What is your go to kind of reading, in different situations? When I’m travelling, I’m not keen on beach reads I prefer non fiction that gives me something to ponder as I while away the time. When I’m sad, I like to be distracted by a cosy murder mystery. I have a few favourite blogs I go to for a quick break when I’m working Write a list, just the first ones that come If you don’t read many books, you could go with music or TV shows instead Add specific examples. Carl Greer’s Change Your Story, Change Your Life got me through a four hour wait at Manchester airport a few years ago; a batch of Rebecca Tope’s Lake District mysteries helped in lockdowns; the Awfully Big Blog Adventure by my friends in the Scattered Authors’ Society is always good for a quick read while the kettle’s boiling. Write a piece that goes from the general to the particular, starting with what kind of book/TV/music you enjoy in certain circumstances, then going on to ‘One time ’ describing a particular occasion and one or two particular books/TV shows/ pieces of music. Take twenty minutes. If you finish early, write a second one F i c t i o n Swapping ideas means being willing both to offer your own ideas and listen to other people’s but in the modern Twitterverse it can be less a swap and more a battle, and political debate is often reduced to ‘because it’s the right thing to do’, with no proper reasoned argument In your story, two people have a problem, and they have different ideas about how to solve it Who? Write some character notes their name, age and appearance, something about their home life and work or hobbies just get to know them a bit. What’s the relationship between them (if any)? What’s the problem? Maybe they’re lost or running late, or they’ve got a difficult client or a project that isn’t going well. Maybe one wants to split up and the other doesn’t Maybe they disagree about someone else’s situation, a child struggling at school, an aged parent refusing to accept care. Can they listen to each other? Can they make the case for their own position? Or is one or both of them confrontational? How do they decide whose idea to go with? How does each of them feel about the decision?

FREE w riting Pass on your ideas in these exchange-themed writing exercises from Jenny Alexa nder

S A P S H O P

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N o n - f i c t i o n

W

RANGE

Ted Hughes describes the process of getting ideas for poems as being like hunting or fishing, patiently waiting with all his senses on high alert. An idea is like a fox; a mind is like a pond full of fish that we have to find own way of catching I’m a dreamer, not a hunter, and I think of the process of getting ideas as being like creative dreaming, where you set an intention before you go to sleep and receive the insight you were looking for in your dreams. First the focus, then the wait, then the capture For your poem, use one of your own hobbies or interests as an image to describe how you get ideas for writing Maybe you enjoy baking, or gardening, or singing in a choir you could choose anything but be specific. Not just baking generally, but baking what? Growing which plant? Singing which song? This will help you to use all your senses and anchor your poem. Read The Thought Fox by Ted Hughes to see how effective this can be. Take twenty minutes.

C r e a t i v e

Thinking about one of your skills or hobbies what helpful tips and hacks could you give a beginner? As it’s a swap, what questions would you ask someone who’s got more experience than you? Write one piece with tips and hacks and one with questions, including examples of times you have felt hampered by not knowing the answers Take twenty minutes Notice how writing non fiction helps you clarify and develop your ideas

Po e t r y

HolidayS H O R T S TO R Y C O M P E T I T I O N T£250 O BE WON The winner rwill eceive £200, with f£50 or the runner-up, pand ublication in MWriting agazine for both. W I N ! £ 5 0 0 I N C A S H P R I Z E S & P U B L I C A T I O N With its closing date of 15 September, there’s still time to enter last month’s competition for love stories Prizes and length are as above See p62 for full details A we l l - n e e d e d re t re a t o r a h o l i d ay f ro m h e l l ? S u n ny b e a c h e s o r a t r i p to M a r s ? W h i s k u s a way w i t h yo u r s to r y fo r t h i s m o n t h ’s c o m p e t i t i o n , w h i c h mu s t h ave a ‘ h o l i d ay ’ t h e m e. Yo u r s to r y s h o u l d b e 1 , 5 0 0 1 , 7 0 0 wo rd s . T h e c l o s i n g d a te i s 1 5 O c to b e r. SEE P62 FOR ENTRY DETAILS, FULL RULES AND ENTRY FORMS

‘Again, Jade This isn’t good enough ’ I am never good enough My Da’s eyes told me so when he pushed away my attempt at breakfast and slumped back on his armchair facing the widescreen TV he spent all of last month’s benefits on and turned up the volume so he could pretend he didn’t hear my little sister calling for him I pulled her into my arms instead and helped her put on shoes and braided her hair and tried not to see Maw in her smile

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you don’t know FIRST PLACE £200

S C H O O L S H O R T S T O R Y C O M P E T I T I O N W I N N E R S Read the judges’ comments at http://writ.rs/ wmsept22

You don’t

When you look at me you don’t see the morning I have already lived before I walk in through your door half an hour late.

You don’t see me. * * * * * When you look at me as you come crashing in through my classroom door, your eyes burn with a challenge and I can ’ t resist rising to it, taking your lateness as disinterest in my class You don’t know that your mumbled response, ‘Fat cow, ’ feels like a gutter punch and you don’t see the tears that sting as I turn to face the white board and tr y to catch my breath You don’t know Fat cow is what Greg by Victoria Gemmell

Victoria Gemmell lives in Renfrewshire, Scotland, and enjoys engaging with teenagers in her day job as a careers adviser. Her debut young adult myster y novel Follow Me was published in 2015, with a new standalone YA myster y, Promise Me, in 2021 Victoria also writes contemporar y flash fiction and short stories and has been published in a range of journals At the start of the year Victoria made a conscious decision to write more short stories and is delighted with this win see me;

You don’t see the breakfasts I make with one egg and two stale rolls, for two mouths, not three, because I go without and I can ’ t even remember when I last ate a proper meal and the hunger burrows deep into my bones. You don’t see me miss the bus, the one that stops at Milly’s nurser y on my school route, so I had to push the pram up the hill, running through puddles, feeling the icy rain soak through the cracks in my boots, until I couldn’t feel my feet. And Milly wanted extra kisses and cuddles before she’d let me leave You don’t see me shiver and don’t understand that the rain has soaked through my crappy jacket and has made my white school shirt see through and I could only find a black bra this morning and I don’t want eyes on me or cat calls, which is why I will not take off my coat when you tell me. And I can ’ t resist swinging back on my chair in your classroom, pressing close against the radiator and when the heat carries up my spine a little bit of tension unfurls and the tiredness pulls at me Your voice and your instructions are fading, like I am drowning under water in a pool of treacle and then your hand slams on my desk, making my teeth rattle. I sit up straight, defiant, your anger a dull ring that no longer penetrates because I have seen real fur y, words etched in red inside my head: Whore Worthless Just like your maw I stab my notebook with the tip of my pen and watch in satisfaction as the ink bleeds into the paper, and then the plastic casing crunches and a gloop of blue explodes onto my hands I get up and tell you I am leaving, that I need to wash my hands, and you are shaking your head in frustration, and you won ’ t even look at me, already turning away before I am out the door

And the whoops and jeering swamp me, and there is one boy, he has Greg’s smirk, and it is as if I can hear his scorn: Pathetic, weak, doormat But it is you who gets the brunt of my rage. You don’t even flinch when I punch the desk. I hear a bone crack in my finger and I swallow down the pain You don’t know how good I am at swallowing pain, that I am carr ying it in my body daily The other teachers in the department tr y to persuade me to, ‘ Take off that cardigan, Fi ’ ‘Loosen a button.’ But I will not and cannot take off my layers, as I am purple and blue underneath You don’t know when you show me the ink spreading across your hands that I am remembering the bruise that bled across my stomach last night I have to turn away. I cannot deal with your nonsense, your laziness, your immaturity You do not know what I have to carr y with me when I come in here and then what I carr y when I go home. You do not see me

My hands shake with anger when I see you slumped asleep on your desk It reminds me of the time Greg yawned all the way through a lesson plan I tried to get him to read when I was doing my teacher training. Your snoring is getting a rise from the class, a chorus of laughter ringing in my ears, and then you open one eye and tell me to, ‘Please be quiet. I’m tr ying to sleep.’

* * * * *

Milly is tugging my hand, pulling me over to the swings and I see you across the road, walking with a man, who is tugging your arm I position Milly in the swing so that I am facing you and as I push her higher I see the man shove you, just a nudge, but hard enough that you stumble. The carrier bag you are holding drops with a thud to the ground and apples roll along the pavement and a carton of milk goes splat, a stream of white trickling into the road His body stretches above you, his mouth opening in a roar, and you are cowering, shrinking beneath him And I know. I know this scene. My body is reacting before my mind, and Milly is screaming as I yank her out of the swing, her feet kicking my hips in protest as I pull her in close and run across the street just as his fist is rising. ‘Miss Callaghan,’ I shout your name and he reacts first. His hand disappears into his pocket and a smile spreads across his face but he has eyes like a snake. I see you. You look dazed, unable to find your voice and Milly throws you a life line, her fingers finding the end of your scarf and she tugs, giving you one of her best smiles ‘Oh, hello, Jade Hello, little one What’s your name?’

* * * * *

‘ This is my sister, Milly ’ I pull Milly’s hand away from the scarf and turn my attention to the man You’re refusing to look at him and he has put an arm around your back, pulling you away from us ‘ We need to get back to the shop. Fi ruined our dinner plans Can’t make cheese sauce without milk.’ You are mumbling an apology and I see the fear and the panic on your face. Milly struggles in my arms, whining about being hungr y, and I shush her and the man says goodbye for both of you and I watch you walk away, wanting to chase after you, wanting to check you are okay Because I know you are not okay. You won ’ t look at me when I walk into your classroom on Monday morning I set my alarm for 6am so that I am early today. I take a seat at the front and I watch the way you move, slowly, stiffly, as if in pain and my fist curls. I answer all of your questions and listen to all of your instructions and I see the wariness in your eyes; you think I am taking the piss, and this is a new way of acting out. When the bell goes I don’t move and wait for ever yone else to leave and you look up in surprise. There is an awkward silence then you speak first. ‘ Your sister is ver y cute. Do you look after her often?’ Your question has questions beneath it and I decide to give you what you ’ re wanting ‘All the time after our Maw died. My Da doesn’t want to know ’ ‘I’m sorr y. ’ ‘Does your boyfriend hit you?’ My question has no questions beneath it and I know you are shocked by my bluntness You open and close your mouth and I wonder if you are tasting the lies before deciding which one to choose. When you say nothing we both know you ’ ve told me the answer, but you ’ re not ready to speak it out loud. You shuffle some papers on your desk, pulling one to the top. ‘ You know, the last test you did was really quite good, Jade. If you put some effort in I think you could easily get an A ’ I sit back, folding my arms ‘I know I could.’ A smile twitches on your lips You look at me. ‘How about I buy you lunch today and you bring it in here and I go over some extra work with you?’ I shrug, shame flaming my cheeks as I think back to the comment I made last week when I called you fat and now I can see your skin is practically sliding off your bones ‘Only if you buy us the burgers and we can share chips and onion rings.’ You nod your agreement but I make you shake on it, and when you give my hand an extra squeeze before you let go, I squeeze back. Runner up and shortlisted Runn er u p in the Sch oo l co mpet ition was Andrew Hutchcraft, Peterbo ro ugh , Cambr idgeshi re, whose s tory is published o n w ww writer s online,co uk Also short listed were: Jacqueline Burgoyne, Portland, Dor set; Michael Callaghan , Glasgow; David Graham, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear; Katie Kent, Bicester, Oxfordshire; Damien McKeating, Newcas tle under Lyme, Staffordshire; Jacqueline Pye, South ampt on ; Deborah J Smith, Maidenh ead, Berksh ire; Wendy Turner, London SE3

29SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk likes to call me and that he tells me he finds my thighs repulsive. You don’t see me sitting alone in my classroom ever y lunchtime, avoiding the tantalising smells of the canteen and staff room, hands shaking with hunger

T here’s no hard and fast rule as far as I know if there is, I missed it years ago regarding how many characters you should or should not use in your stories Some writers wonder whether they’ve overdone things when it comes to populating a single work I know I have I raise this point because on a clear out blitz a couple of weeks ago when cleaning the keyboard was simply not challenging enough, I happened on a character list produced by the editor of my latest series title. To my surprise it totalled 57 names, from the main lead, Inspector Rocco of the French police, through the various repeat characters, down to the baddies, miscreants and walk ons, some of whom I swear inser ted themselves into the stor y by stealth. So, how many is right? In short stories, the fewer the better. Imagine, say, Les Miserables being cast on a tiny stage, and you’ll know what I mean It’s easy for names and characters to start tripping over each other. In a stor y of, say, 3,000 words, the poor reader might begin to wonder who was the focus of the tale and why. I o Book length works are a different animal altogether. You’re got more room and time to introduce and get rid of characters. Some will outlive their usefulness ver y quickly, although for the reader they may well linger in their memor y longer than you expect. Many will need some kind of description, brief or other wise, depending on their role in the scheme of things, and it’s worth sparing a few words to make them come alive For example those who play an integral part in the stor yline will need more than a passing mention, whereas those you use as part of the backdrop scener y require less (It’s fun, though, when you find a minor character demanding to be elevated by sheer force of personality. If you haven’t ever experienced that phenomenon, buckle up your britches because it will happen one day.)

t e n d t o w o r k o n t h e b a s i s o f f o u r c h a r a c t e r s m a x i m u m , p re f e r a b l y f e w e r i f t h e y e a c h t a k e a n a c t i v e o r s p e a k i n g p a r t It’s b e t t e r t o h a v e t w o , m a y b e t h re e i n t e re s t i n g p e o p l e r a t h e r t h a n a c a s t o f t w o d o z e n w a n d e r i n g t h r o u g h t h e s t o r y l i k e t a l e n t n i g h t a t a s c o u t s ’ j a m b

re e

Too many stand about characters with little or nothing to contribute make for a busy but less than interesting tale. It’s like watching the Olympic short track speed skating; you know all the assembled bodies rushing around the ice like ants are involved because they must have come through a check in gate to get out there But you don’t have time to get to know any of them before they’ve done their bit and are gone The benefit for naming or describing some of the longer stayers is that it nails them more firmly than being a simple passer by. No matter how brief, H o ?

T h i n k c a re f u l l y w h e n yo u ’ re p o p u l a t i n g yo u r f i c t i o n , s ay s H E A D C O U N T B E G I N N E R S

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w m a ny p e o p l e d o e s yo u r s t o r y n e e d

• An over long scene between two people can become unrealistic if it threatens to go nowhere You need an escape clause

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Bringing in AN Other can ser ve as a diversion and propel the conversation in another direction If you think about it, there’s not much that we do in life without someone else walking by, coming in or briefly joining a conversation. It’s like the phone call that always seems to come at the wrong moment (or the right one if you need a quick exit) Such interruptions are commonplace and therefore easy to add to a scene without seeming forced In fact, depending on the scene, an interruption can show an additional side to the character(s), adding another dimension which you might want to bring to the stor yline or to give you that break needed to launch into another viewpoint

• Using names for minor characters pins them to the story How you enlarge on that is up to you but some might surprise you by suggesting their own elevation

• Overpopulating every scene can be a distraction for the reader

Extra characters, brief or not, can ser ve to add some interesting punch and colour to a scene

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A dialogue between two people can easily drag on a little (cue editor suggestion to cut the waffle and get on with the action)

"L aura is a prisoner in a coercive marriage. Has she the courage to make her escape?" Amazon

An office scene, for example, might well have run its course and you could be wondering how to end it. Bring a knock on the door or a phone call, and you have your exit strategy. This allows you to move on with the stor y rather than getting stuck Speech can also add this extra dimension If you ’ re in the middle of a thriller scene for example, an aside by one or more of the characters containing some dark humour will add some colour between bursts of action as well as making a character more memorable.

T O P T I P S if they flesh out the stor y backdrop in any way by speech or action, they will provide you with something else to say which, quite apart from adding colour and depth to a scene, goes towards your word count I say be cautious here because these characters don’t all need a biography about their school days, who they had a crush on, where they like to go on their hols and what their favourite film might be… unless a character happens to be one of a group of thugs who has your main lead strapped to a dentist’s chair and mutters aloud that his favourite film ever of all time is Marathon Man ( That dental appointment you were thinking of? Forget it.)

on Kindle Edition and in paperback T 0203 751 0757 e x t 8 0 0 (M o n T hurs) E inf o @lit e ra r yc o nsu l t a n c y c o uk W w w w lit e ra r yc o nsu l t a n c y c o uk Detailed critical assessments by professional editors for writing at all stages of development, in all genres Links with publishers and agents, and advice on self publishing Submission Package Repor ts, Online Writing Surgeries and Copy editing/Proofreading Six one to one sessions with a professional editor, online or in person Includes separate manuscript assessment and industr y day with publishers and agents Masterclasses and skills workshops via Being a Writer community platform Literar y Adventure writing retreat ADVERTISE HERE mark.dean@ warnersgroup.co.uk For more information contact: BESTSELLING WR T NG MAG E HELP NG YOU BECOME A BETTER WR TER £WIN 48 305N WR T PNG R ZES SELL YOUR WORK WM R d ccess t215 8 C pet onsfo y er Opportu t g pub shed56 Cosy crime and clergy Th s of L J cs ha t pp g succ Can you make money s an on in content cr ator? R cha d C lthe c me on h p e ? How to write abest seller IS YOUR WRITING ANY GOOD? How to ans th r ck es quest e ask oursel

T h e h i g h l y a c c l a i m e d a u t h o r o f n o ve l s i n c l u d i n g B e a s t i n g s a n d T h e G a l l ow s Po l e

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Savage’s approach is intellectual and academic, but accessible too, and contextualises the music, fashion and politics of punk in a way that shows it was about so much more than safety pins and sniffing glue England’s Dreaming became my bible during my first forays to London aged fifteen, where I would sleep on the floor of a squat and, armed only with a travel card, would then spend an entire week undertaking exhausting pilgrimages to the all the significant and destinations in punk histor y, alighting at places in Chelsea, Notting Hill, Soho and far beyond It was an invaluable alternative education in English histor y and the power of art to subvert the mainstream.’

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

‘I have a ver y distinct memor y of being on a family holiday in a caravan in the mid 1980s, when I picked up a book that was sitting on the side, in the sun It was Union Street, and my mother said, “She lives near us, ” referring to Pat Barker. That comment was the first time it ever became apparent that people like us, people like me a comprehensive school boy living in the north east of England during the time of Thatcherism and high unemployment could not only consider being a writer, but could actually write about the place that they came from.

Union Street by Pat Barker

S h e l f l i f e England’s Dreaming by Jon Savage

Giovanni’s Room is one of the most beautifully tender portraits of a relationship in 20th centur y literature, in this case between David, an America living in Paris and Giovanni, an Italian bartender. A narrative that explores different forms of alienation sexual, geographical, economic this slight stor y nevertheless demonstrates exactly why Baldwin was such a powerful force for positive change ’

‘Some of my ver y favourite novels Maurice by EM Forster, City Of Night by John Rechy, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh all explore the difficulties of gay relationships at a time when homosexuality was either outlawed or had to be publicly repressed; it’s something I touched upon in my previous novel The Offing The idea that being gay somehow makes someone a lesser person is one of the great man made tragedies, and I hope always to be an ally

It seems obvious now, but the realisation that writers can come from anywhere was hugely significant. Then when I finally read the novel years later while on a sunlounger in Turkey an incongruous place for such a dark and ver y northern English book I was bowled over by the brutal brilliance of Barker’s depiction of the various struggles of working class women She’s one of our ver y best.’

‘I was too young to experience punk as it happened I was born just a few months before Sex Pistols realised Anarchy In The UK but the whole get up and have a go, anti establishment attitude of the scene ’ s leading exponents proved to be a huge inspiration to me when I hit my teenage years and began to play in a band of my own. The urtext for my understanding of punk as a cultural force was this fantastic and forensic dissection of the genre, by someone who witnessed it from the eye of the storm.

‘

‘I now realise that the first ten years of writing my way through God knows how many unpublishable novels were just a warm up You can ’ t run a marathon without training, so no one should expect to be able to sit down and write that one book that they have within them at the first attempt It’s not realistic At some point I thought to myself, “I’ll probably not get halfway decent until I’m forty,” and that realisation proved to be liberating the notion that I could only get better was enough to keep me going through years of rejections from agents and publishers ‘ That said, I’m quite reluctant to offer concrete advice on how to write, because everyone is different and we all bring our own life experiences to the desk when we finally sit down and face the blank page, the lonely screen. Enjoy it more than you hate it is probably a good maxim to go by And, of course, never give up ’ My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley ‘Gwendoline Riley might be the best British author working today; she’s almost certainly the most underrated. In my opinion, she’s the closest we ’ ve got to such singular writer as Anita Brookner, Jean Rhys or Muriel Spark I’ve been reading her work for nearly twenty years now and I think she reached a pinnacle with this, her most recent novel. My Phantoms ostensibly concerns the strained relationship between a daughter who has left the north of England to live a middle class life in London, and her erratic and troubled mother (and, to a lesser extent, her hapless father) Rather than relying on plot, Riley is a master of the minutiae, a queen of the quiet, and each scene within this master work is weighted with the awkwardness that exists between family members who simply cannot relate to one another, and whose relationships are resigned purely to the superficial in order to sur vive One particular line in the book is like a bomb going off. And that’s where Riley’s true power lies: her writing is spare and effective, and ever y single sentence counts. I read her and think: if only I were this good I’m not even jealous; her pure talent shines through.’ Millstone Grit by Glyn Hughes ‘If you mention the name Hughes around where I lived in the Upper Calder Valley in West Yorkshire, most folk invariably think of the towering figure of 20th centur y poetr y, Ted Hughes But Glyn Hughes (no relation) was another fantastic writer, whose Millstone Grit (1975) is something of a lost classic Subtitled “A Pennine Journey”, it’s a book that somehow manages to simultaneously be travelogue, memoir, guidebook, historical over view, poetr y, proto psychogeographical study and much more besides, yet without ever once standing still long enough to be truly categorisable as any of these. Like the best books it exists in a genre of one, and also like the best books readers don’t need to come to it with an understanding or interest in this particular corner of the world. Long out of print, I’m pleased to report Millstone Grit is being reissued by the wonderful Little Toller with a new foreword by yours truly ’

‘It was a very strange experience, and I tried to ignore it as I was halfway through researching and writing a much longer project, but I scribbled some notes and then six months later sat down and wrote a novel about two friends who make crop circles across the canvas of rural south west England over the summer of 1989 This was in early 2020 and I had recently begun to work with the film director Shane Meadows, and I think that following some initial conversations with him I was hugely inspired to create, so the words poured out in a way that has never happened before I’m a strong believer in the power of the subconscious as a good place in which to ferment ideas, which then occasionally hopefully bubble up to the surface Sometimes you just have to go with it

‘My writing routine involves coffee, lots of walking the hills, moors and woods of West Yorkshire and making a concerted effort to write something every weekday. If I can come up with 500 words that’s great and 1,000 words even better, because there are always endless distractions I also work as a journalist, so this is often on top of writing reviews and articles. But sometimes I just find myself staring out the window for long stretches; there are currently some lambs in the field next door, and they’re a wonderful distraction.

The best writing advice was given to me by Hanif Kureishi, who I interviewed when I was a 22 year old music journalist at the now defunct Melody Maker. He told me that in order to write novels one has to make time and not excuses If you ’ re serious you must adjust your working and personal life accordingly, otherwise the days run away like wild beasts over the horizon, gone forever

33SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk B E N J A M I N M Y E R S

‘I’m almost loathe to publicly admit this for fear of sounding overly confident something I very much am not but the idea for my latest novel The Perfect Golden Circle arrived almost fully-formed, within about ten seconds of wandering out into field of barley a few summers ago. The plot, location, structure and two main characters just appeared, as if downloaded directly from the clouds above

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk34 U N D E R T H E M I C R O S C O P E

6 Is it the lungs that hurt after screaming? Or is it the throat and voice box? For the lungs to hurt, she’d have to be taking such deep breaths, and so many, that hyper ventilation is the result And even then, painful lungs would probably be from a pre existing condition.

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a p p l i e s h i s f o r e n s i c c r i t i c i s m t o t h e f i r s t 3 0 0 w o r d s o f a r e a d e r ’ s m a n u s c r i p t

2 The exclamation mark suggests the speaker has suddenly started shouting Why? This, and the lack of context, makes the fist paragraph confusing to read. Maybe the intention was to create suspense what’s happening here? but that’s not how it feels.

“ There you go, Stacey 1 And see you don’t come back We don’t wanna see your face round ’ ere no more!”2 The sound of metal gates clanging shut echoes in my ears3 as I step over the iron grid4 and out into the strong sunshine of freedom. I open my mouth and scream5 until my lungs hurt 6 Passers by don’t bother staring at me.7 The people who live near the prison seem used to such things.8 One old lady, trailing a shopping trolley,9 gives me a thumbs up I manage a half hearted smile in her direction.10 I should feel great, relieved,11 something other than how I do feel 12 Tired,13 no exhausted and deeply dejected.14 I sling the polythene bag holding my belongings over my shoulder and begin trudging along until I come to a bus stop.15 Annoyingly,16 despite having plenty of funds in the bank, I can ’ t access them until I get home I just have a small amount of cash the prison warder has given me Enough for a bus to the nearest train station and a one way ticket home to Essex 17 I can ’ t wait I can almost detect18 the smell of seaweed and chips in my nostrils.19 The smell of home Southend on Sea “I’ll get her for this.” I am aware I’m talking to myself.20 I used to do that all the time inside. “I’ll get my own back if it’s the last thing I do ” I am still muttering under my breath.21 It’s a busy place, East London, and it’s not long before a bus arrives.22 I check the front indicator.23 Fenchurch Street station 24 I haul my bag of stuff up to the top deck and plonk down on a seat near the stairs.24 I have to keep an eye out for the stop.25 I might have to get off quickly.26

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A mildly confusing first sentence

Your writing critiqued

4 I’m imagining a kind of cattle grid here, but it can ’ t be. Why would she have to step over it? Why is it there?

It seems Stacey has been handed something and we might imagine she’s in a shop The next sentence makes this unlikely, however, without clarifying what the thing was

7 Unlikely. A person is standing in the street and screaming until they’re literally in pain and nobody pays attention? It’s London, but still 8 They’re used to recently released convicts screaming in the street? How often are convicts released for the locals to have become so accustomed to their screaming? I’m not entirely convinced

Clanging is a sound so you don’t need to tell us it’s a sound Also, where else would Stacey hear it except in her ears? A pedantic point: the clanging is not echoing solely in her ears but generally. Indeed, I wonder if it’s actually echoing at all Maybe more of a reverberation or vibration?

9 What does ‘trailing’ mean? She’s pulling a shopping trolley behind her? That’s possible but inconvenient and improbable Or is the shopping trolley pulling her along? The sentence seems to suggest that the trolley is in control.

10 Does the character smile at the old lady or ‘in her direction’? There’s a difference

11. A comma won ’ t work here You need a dash or a colon.

5 Is it possible to scream without opening one ’ s mouth? Just write, ‘I screamed’ unless you want the reader specifically to picture the character standing in the street with their mouth open prior to screaming

Viv Seaman is a member of Leigh Writers and their hobby is writing novels, which are aimed at adult reades Previous writing successes include a few articles, a self published novel for older children, a short stor y in a Richard and Judy compilation for charity and a few competition poems published Viv has twice enjoyed the Writers’ Week at Swanwick, the first of which they won with a humorous written piece.

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If you would like to submit an I n s u m m a r y

d

19. W h e re e l s e w o u l d s h e s m e l l a n y t h i n g e xc e p t i n h e r n o s t r i l s ? T h i s s a i d , i t d o e s r a i s e t h e i n t e re s t i n g q u e s t i o n o f s m e l l s w e h o l d i n o u r l o n g t e r m m e m o r i e s . C a n w e ‘ s m e l l’ t h e m w h e n t h e y a re o n l y b e i n g re m e m b e re d ? 20

12

Same again If you want the meaning to flow, you need a dash or a colon. However, that would make the sentence as a whole less readable

26 A potential non sequitur? Being on the upper deck wouldn’t necessarily make it easier to spot the stop, which could be on the other side of the bus If the narrator already knows what the station looks like, being on the lower deck would be fine. If they don’t know, then it might be easier to closer to the driver and ask?

At first glance, this looks like a perfectly acceptable piece of writing. It’s clear what’s happening and the narrative is organised effectively to show the character and action The problem is in the precision of the prose. Good writing should contain no repetition, redundancy, accidental ambiguity or errors It should be easy to read and credible. Outside difficult literature, the reader should never have to pause even just a blink or a flicker to wonder what something means or if it makes sense Writers need to be more critical of their work than anyone else They need to read it with close attention and weed out ever ything that doesn’t contribute, that overcomplicates or that is vague. We know that mouths scream We know that nostrils smell We know that ‘clanging’ is a sound and that an echo is not the same as a vibration The writer must distil meaning rather than leave the reader to pick the sense out of the sentences. There are some indications of good style here I like the short sentences separated by full stops, which capture the staccato and fragmentar y nature of genuine thoughts and therefore of the character’s mind That’s why we don’t need her to speak out loud. Sometimes, we ’ re guilty of ‘writing’ rather than writing. The former is about the gathering of words on a page: scenes and speech we’d like the reader to perceive. A recently released prisoner screaming dramatically in the street (despite being newly free) The latter is the direct visualisation of the scene in the reader’s mind as if the words themselves don’t exist. The reader doesn’t notice the punctuation or question the probability. It just comes alive. For this to happen, we have to hone our prose to the bone

13 And

Some people do talk to themselves. When characters do this in books or films, though, it tends to look like the author tr ying to tell the reader something in a ver y unsubtle way. Why say it out loud? Just have the character think it This makes the effect even more unnatural highlighting to the reader that the character is still talking to herself It’s also redundant because the quotation marks make it clear. 22 Do we need to be told that East London is busy? It seems like second guessing a reader who might doubt the frequency of buses. ? ?

The character has just stepped out into the sunshine of freedom and screamed We might have assumed happiness, but it’s actually dejection? Did she enjoy being in prison? No indication of how far she trudged. I’m assuming a matter of metres, but ‘trudging’ suggests a greater distance Also, the phrasing makes it sound like she was looking for any bus stop rather than a particular one Avoid signposting emotions for the reader. Show that the character is annoyed by presenting their situation and let the reader perceive the annoyance I suggest a new paragraph here as we switch to the character’s reflections. ‘Detect’ is an odd word This isn’t an investigation It looks suspiciously like a synonym used to avoid repeating ‘smell’ but the solution is simpler: ‘I could almost smell the seaweed and chips ’

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T h e d e s t i n a t i o n d i s p l a y

24 Often, the destination displayed on the bus is the final stop rather than the stops along the way. I wonder if all buses that stop at Fenchurch Street have it on their displays?

25 Maybe it’s just me, but ‘plonk’ doesn’t seem to be a ver y good verb

27 W h y g o u p s t a i r s i f g e t t i n g o f f q u i c k l y m i g h t b e a n e c e s s i t y ?

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It a l s o s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e n a r r a t o r o e s n ’ t k n ow w h e re t h e s t a t i o n i s , s o b e i n g u p s t a i r s w o n ’ t h e l p m u c h w i t h s p o t t i n g i t .

16

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The various clauses need unpicking and connecting with punctuation that helps the sense. again A comma isn’t right for the kind of emphasis you want here A dash and a comma would be better (see the rewrite).

extract o f y o u r w o r k i n p r o g r e s s , s e n d i t b y e m a i l , w i t h s y n o p s i s a n d a b r i e f b i o g , t o : j t e l f e r @ w r i t e r s n e w s c o u k

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23 T h e f r o n t i n d i c a t o r i s w h a t t e l l s o t h e r d r i v e r s i f t h e b u s i s a b o u t t o t u r n ( a s s u m i n g t h e d r i v e r u s e s t h e m ) W h a t s h o u l d w e c a l l t h e t h i n g y o u ’ re re f e r r i n g t o

What narrative could you create from this picture? A story about friendship dynamics? About a team game in the past, or the present? Perhaps you’ll write about the game, or perhaps this scene will act as the introduction to the characters and then your story will take them in another direction... You choose! Get creative, and get writing!

P h o t o b y R o b e r t C o l i n s o n U n s p l a s h

Now, from their fictional point of view, write down that character’s thoughts about all the other people in the gathering.

Write as slowly as possible in this exercise. The aim is to slow down your writing, and the mental process that accompanies it You might like to do it in longhand, with a pen, but it’s your choice

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk36 Write something different with these creative writing prompts and exercises to try right now G e t t h e w r ite i d e a

Playing out

PICTURE PROMPT:

Thoughtfully and consciously, start writing. Be aware of the movements your hand makes with the pen or keyboard. Think about every aspect of what you ’ re doing. What are you writing about? Why?

SNAIL’S PACE

Be inspired by this image of a game in the woods in this exercise

h o t o b y A e x B a j a n o n U n s p l a s h P h o t o b y B l a k e W i s z o n U n s p a s h

Use a holiday on wheels as the starting point for some creative writing Who’s on holiday? Why are they in a caravan? Where is it? Is it static or are they travelling around? What do they like/ dislike about it? How can you use this caravan in a piece of writing? Explore your ideas and have fun!

See through the eyes of a group member this creative writing exercise. Imagine you ’ re one of the people in this summer garden party gathering.

Think about each word as you write it Why have you chosen that word? What do you like about it? Write each letter of each chosen word with care and attention. Write in this way for 15 minutes. What have you come up with? How is it different from what you usually write?

Story starter: P

Explore the possibilities of an outdoor gathering in your writing exercise. Have you got a favourite festival memor y? You could write about that. What’s the best way of conveying it in writing poem, lyric, memoir? Perhaps you could use a festival as a setting for a stor y! What happens, and how does the setting enhance the stor y? Maybe you’d like to write non fiction about the histor y of festivals might you home in on one in particular?

A S A S A S A S

Invent a character who wants to be of assistance for this exercise Who is the character? What kind of help are they offering? Why do they want to be helpful? How do they succeed in their efforts? What’s the effect of their helpful action? You could widen the exercise out by thinking about the role the helpful character and their action take in a wider story context Is the helpful person a central character, or a secondary character? In what way does their helpfulness impact on the way your story might play out?

Write for as long as you want (and at least ten minutes!)

FUNP h o t o b y V o n e c i a C a r s w e l o n U n s p l a s h P h o t o b y A l v i n B a e m e s a o n U n s p a s h

Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

Turn a gift of flowers into a significant plot point for this creative writing prompt. What kind of story are you going to tell, where a bouquet is a significant element? Who is giving or has given the flowers, to whom and why? How are they a turning point in your narrative? What is the effect of the flowers? How does your story play out to the end?

BUNCH OF FLOWE RS

37SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk

SCORCHER

Helpful CHARACTER

Get more prompts ever y day with The Writer’s App, available for Apple and Android devices

Start a new piece of writing with an extremely hot day in this timely creative writing exercise How does the heat contribute to the narrative? Who are the people in your stor y and how does it affect them? How can you use the ‘hot day’ theme most effectively in your writing not just in terms of plot decisions, but also vocabular y choices? Is there a wider context for your ‘hot day’ stor y? If you ’ ve ever fancied experimenting with eco fiction, why not tr y your hand?

FESTIVAL

Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash

Whatever you choose, think about the elements that make your festival memorable sounds, sights, scents, and more and how you ’ re going to get that across in words

Have a think about the traits or behaviours an imposter or impersonator might have and display. They would have had to have done their research so that they could answer any questions the people they are tr ying to dupe might ask They would also have to be confident and not give in to any anxieties or qualms they might have of being discovered.

Chutzpah and bare faced cheek often get them what they want, as does deception, manipulation and coercion, but they could also go an a charm offensive.

E x p l o re i m p o s t e r s y n d ro m e w i t h t h e s e w r i t i n g g ro u p e xe rc i s e s f ro m J u l i e P h i l l i p s Facevalue

Expand on this. Write the scene of the imposter’s arrival and announcement from the viewpoint of the true family member character and then rewrite the same scene from the viewpoint of the imposter. This is a good way of bringing out the dynamics of the family characters and the waves the imposter makes. How is the genuine family member going to play it? Will they come out loud and accusator y, risking it all imploding on them as the rest of the family, who are more gullible, are taken in by the imposter and the family member kicking up the fuss is ostracised? Or will they play the long game, hoping the imposter will trip themselves up and reveal their true self and motivation, given time, with little interference from anyone else? Plenty of potential food for conflict there

www wr iter s online co uk38 W R I T E R S ’ C I R C L E S SEPTEMBER 2022

Next, it’s time to flex your fiction muscles and think of a situation where an imposter, someone who says they are someone they are not, or suggests it, might appear It might be a private event like a family wedding, a party, or a works do, or it could be a more public event like a book signing, a summer festival or a music concert.

First ask the group to recall a time where they felt like an imposter and write down their feelings about that experience. What made them feel like they didn’t belong or didn’t deserve the success or invite? Was it something within themselves such as low self esteem or anxiety? Or was it something external to them, like someone giving them a stern look or whispering to other guests, that they thought was directed at them? Analysing those feelings can help to see the interplay between reality and our perception of it which can seem very different, which heightens those feelings and our potential responses to it. This understanding is key to improving writing because it allows for conflict and misdirection for our characters

The scope of the imposter and impersonator is vast for writers. There’s plenty of opportunity to introduce subterfuge to deflect and reroute the readers’ perceptions of who is the real deal and who isn’t, with lots of potential for conflict and an intriguing plot line.

Think about a couple of characters and why they are at an event. One of them shouldn’t be there, or should be if they actually were the person they state that they are What motivates them to impersonate someone else? That is the key to your conflict in the piece. Is it a financial/fraud thing, a revenge thing or something else?

Maybe a long lost, apparently wealthy, family member has died, and suddenly, out of the ether appears a man, apparently a long lost cousin come to pay their respects to the deceased, when they are not that person but are pretending to be in order to claim a stake in the will The other character is suspicious of him but what can they do to out him as the imposter he is?

Have you ever walked into a place a cafe, a meeting, a party only to feel like a fish out of water, like you don’t belong? Or have you written a pitch for a magazine, submitted a short stor y or told someone you don’t know that you are a writer and then felt wrong for doing so? You may be suffering from Imposter Syndrome and this is what your writing group will be exploring this month. We all have times when we applied for and got a job that we’d convinced ourselves we weren ’ t good enough for. Or we have written the first draft of a novel only to shove it away at the back of a drawer some where, never to see the light of day again because we don’t think we have what it takes to edit and get it published. Even when we do have a little success as writers, we tend to play it down, or feel that we are merely masquerading as a good writer and that any minute now we are going to be unmasked and found out to be the charlatans that we think we are. But what about the world of a real imposter?

‘For the following two years, I kept my head below the parapet at school by writing about cats, dogs and days out to the seaside that never happened. At home, I kept my power dry by reading all the stuff I’d been told to stay away from and writing whatever I wanted. It was around this time that I truly learnt not only that writing sets you free, but also that authority can never be trusted. Despite my teacher’s best efforts, my short stories earned me a job writing for The Early Times and The Young Independent By the time I was seventeen, they’d won me several writing prizes and an unconditional offer from UEA to undertake their English Literature with Creative Writing degree course.

Late starter, blooming wr iter S

‘With every story I wrote, the situation escalated. Once the headmaster had been alerted to my scribblings, I was called into his office and questioned as if I were a red under the bed. Afterwards, the teacher suggested an evaluation by a child psychologist I was nine years old at the time of this witch hunt

‘I can ’ t pretend that the intervening years have been smooth sailing. Writing short stories has kept me afloat, though a lack of confidence meant keeping them to myself. Come the age of coronavirus, I began entering the Writing Magazine short story competitions and, to my surprise, won twice. The judges were so encouraging in their reviews that, with renewed confidence, I went on to write enough stories for two collections.

M C A O W M ICH A EL J LO W IS D J O S E R AND THE G O D

‘In addition to these single topic, mostly non fiction works, I had been gradually accumulating a collection of short stories and anecdotes After failing to interest a publisher, I turned to self publishing. To date, four books have entered the marketplace by this route, one being a collection of co authored stories.

‘With ten books out there, was I able to regard myself as a writer? Technically I suppose I could. But that last step was missing acceptance on merit by a traditional publisher Writing Magazine came to the rescue once again. I saw in one of the articles that Stairwell Books were looking for submissions from specific genres One of my self published books, an historical novel, seemed appropriate. I submitted a synopsis, and Rose Drew asked for the full manuscript A discussion on Zoom followed, and then a contract. Wow! Website: author.to/MichaelJLowis

‘My father worked as a journalist on a provincial evening newspaper and as a schoolboy I often visited him in the office,’ writes subscriber Michael J Lowis ‘Despite the enjoyment of interacting with people whose profession involved the written word, my career ambition lay elsewhere At sixteen I left school to become a medical lab technician. ‘Fast forward 25 years, when I decided to study social sciences. Having to complete many written assignments reawakened my interest in writing per se, but what if I could actually have papers published? ‘Persistence paid off. I had my rejections, but over the years managed to achieve over fifty published articles ‘Fast forward another 25 years. A published author, but not a leading light even within my specialist field As an extreme late developer I’d commenced yet another course of study, and wondered if I should I try my hand at writing a whole book A tutor advised me to submit my manuscript an extended version of my dissertation to a particular American publisher. Before long I was able to hold in my hand my very first book It was only 100 pages long, but it was out there. What joy! Fired on by this success, over the next few years I had another four books accepted by the same publisher, one being a memoir of the time my family and I spent living in South Africa I was working on this manuscript when I enrolled on one of Writing Magazine’ s creative writing courses, and was able to submit most of the chapters as assignments The feedback and suggestions by the excellent course tutor were invaluable.

Website: www.ajreid.org

‘Seppuku is the follow up collection to Rare Exotic Breeds, which was published last year Both are happily dark, mischievous and experimental, but of the two, Seppuku is the book I would gift to my old teacher, just to see that look on her face one last time.’

39SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk S U B S C R I B E R S ’ N E W S S H A R E YO U R N E W S

‘My relationship with the short story is somewhat tricky,’ writes subscriber Antony Reid ‘At primary school, I was accused of plagiarism constantly by a certain teacher until I agreed to write a new story under supervision I’ll never forget the look on her face when she’d finished reading it Even though she was an incredibly negative force in my childhood, this teacher also provided me a clear target for my writing: to subvert Whether corrupt hierarchy, cruel prejudice or propagandised popular opinion, they were all fair game for my pen

H AV I N G T H E L A S T WO R D

To feature in subscr ibers’ news contact: tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk

‘In May 2022, my historical novel Cupid and the Silent Goddess, set in the art world of 16th century Florence, was republished by Page d’Or Books after being out of print for two and a half years, ’ writes subscriber Alan Fisk. ‘Surprisingly, perhaps, getting a novel published for the second time can be even harder than for the first time.

‘Given that it can take a long time to find an agent and a publisher, and that I was an unknown author of a book of short stories, left me with only one option to self publish.

Self-publishing

‘Nearly all novels go out of publication eventually. When that happens, the rights to it should revert to you, and there should be a “reversion clause” in your contract setting out how this is to happen If there isn’t, you can ask for the rights to be “reverted” to you, and be sure to ask to be able to use the published text when offering it to other publishers. A publisher may otherwise claim that their edited text belongs to them. ‘I’ve twice had the problem that a publisher has gone out of business, or simply disappeared, so that I couldn’t provide a statement of reversion of rights. In such a case, if you offer the book to another publisher, you must state those facts. They may not want to take the risk of being sued if the first publisher should emerge from the woodwork to claim that its rights were still in force

‘I have always enjoyed Roald Dahl’s Tales of The Unexpected, so I decided to try and write one myself And I was surprised how well it turned out That proved to be the spur which drove me on to write more ‘By this time, we were into lockdown, which also helped to facilitate the writing process. I thoroughly enjoyed the plotting and planning to end up with the twists At night, I would spend ages in bed trying to work things out in my overactive mind whilst waiting for sleep to come. Then the light would go on and I would scribble down notes before they were lost to the amnesia of sleep.

‘Another reason applies to one of my novels which was rejected 57 times over nine years before eventually being accepted and published Looking over it now, I realise that it was the 57 people who rejected it were right to do so!’

THE ART OF GETTING REPUBLISHED

‘There can be reasons why you may not want to try to have a novel republished In the case of one of my historical novels, new research has brought up facts that mean that my story could simply not have happened

‘Although I lived in Brussels, the supposed city of spies, the job itself is steeped in such secrecy that it’s hard to find reliable sources of information The more I learned about spies, the clearer it became I didn’t want to write a classic spy story. For one, my spy would be a woman and she would spy for a specific cause, rather than a country ‘While working for WWF, I learned about the vast scale of environmental crime, which gave me an idea. Could my spy work on behalf of the environment? It wasn ’ t until I read accounts of people involved in crime that my main character sprang to life ‘Antonia (Toni) Morretti arrived with heavy luggage As a mobster’s sister who cooks her brother’s books, Toni struggles to live a life of crime, but she doesn’t want to betray her family. She fakes her own death and starts anew In Mexico City, she finds work as a spy, but her new boss knows more than he lets on. Her brilliant disguise skills get her by, but it soon becomes clear she’s not as safe as she thought When her past comes knocking, Toni needs to decide: to run once more or risk her life for a chance of freedom?

‘I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo and took three more years to revise and polish the stor y. No Such Thing as Goodbye has been shor tlisted and received an honourable mention at the Black Spring Crime Fiction Prize 2020 and has been longlisted for the 2020 Exeter Novel Prize. Despite getting a hybrid publishing offer I decided to self publish, as this is the first book in a series. The book came out in July 2022 ’ Website: www.karmens.net B l e s s i n g i n d i s g u i s e

‘I eventually ended up with fifteen stories, which are all quite different and of varying lengths. So, there it was: I now had my first book a book I’m really proud of.

‘It’s still early days, yet; the book didn’t come out until the beginning of March this year But it has already attracted some five star reviews on Amazon, which I took as a validation of my arrival amidst the ranks of published authors ‘I am now well into my next book, with lots of new ideas to explore ’ with a twist

‘Literary agencies seem very reluctant to take on previously published books. I don’t know why; perhaps some agent will write in to Writing Magazine to explain.

‘Like a lot of people, I had always thought I’d like to write a book one day, writes subscriber Michael Church. ‘And for many, that’s all it remains a dream. But fate intervened and led me to do something about it ‘After spending my working life trying to keep my head above water, and battling mental illness, it took a boating accident to get me to devote more time to writing During the ensuing months spent in hospital and rehab, I grew tired of reading (is that even possible?) and my thoughts turned to writing.

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk40 ‘As a fan of crime fiction, I always wanted to write a spy thriller, but wasn ’ t sure where to start, ’ writes subscriber Karmen Špiljak.

‘I had been collecting stories for my book for longer than I care to remember but my home town ’ s annual literar y festival What’s Your Stor y Chorley? finally helped me to realise my ambition to be an author,’ writes subscriber Linda Sherlock.

‘In January 1885 Major General Charles Gordon, the controversial Victorian solder, was under siege in the Sudan capital of Khartoum He was the Governor General of Sudan and had a diminishing band of hungry troops with which to defend the city against the tens of thousands of Arab fighters under the command of the religious fanatic, the Mahdi They were camped on the opposite bank of the river Nile and when the river dropped in height, they crossed the ford and slaughtered all the defenders of Khartoum including Gordon The Mahdi showed his true colours by then putting Gordon’s head on a stake to provide proof of his death The relief force led by Lord Kitchener arrived days later having been held up by political infighting, indecision, and bungling.

‘I chose this period of his life to be the starting point of my novel The French Emperor’s Woman (published by Troubadour in 2021)

‘ Then Covid struck and I felt it wasn ’ t a good time to go to print. The book was released in June 2021 to coincide with a celebration of my mum ’ s 65 years in her own salon in Chorley, Lancashire.

‘The plot of the novel concerns a mistress of the French Emperor, Napoleon III, Marie Anne, who has been parted from her son Pierre the illegitimate son of Napoleon because of the Franco/Prussian War of 1870/71. The last sighting of Pierre was him being rowed ashore from a ship off Gravesend, he then disappeared without trace.

H I S TO RY R E P E AT I N G

‘I went to a talk by Dea Parkin from Fiction Feedback. She was a founder member of Chorley Writers’ Circle which I later joined She outlined different ways to get published in a clear and straightfor ward way and one of the publishers mentioned was Matador

‘ We h a d g re a t f u n p u b l i c i s i n g t h e b o o k a s t h e s t o r y o f m y re m a r k a b l e m u m s e e m e d t o c a t c h t h e i m a g i n a t i o n o f r a d i o , T V a n d t h e p re s s . It h e l p s i f y o u c a n re l e a s e y o u r b o o k t o c o i n c i d e w i t h a l a n d m a r k d a t e o r h a v e a 9 1 y e a r o l d m u m w h o w ow s t h e a u d i e n c e ! I t h i n k t h e n o s t a l g i a o f t h e b o o k re a l l y a p p e a l e d t o m a n y a n d t h i s w a s re f l e c t e d t h r o u g h t h e c ov e r ‘In March 2022, I was delighted to go full circle and give a presentation at What’s Your Stor y, Chorley? and show others that you can achieve your ambition to be a writer and open up new opportunities as well as meeting some lovely people along the way ’ Styled and set

‘Using this mystery as a starting point I wrote my 65,000 word novel in early 2020. I then approached Troubador who were able to take this to the finished novel stage At a price, they provided editing, typography, book cover design, obtained ISBN, publication, and marketing.

‘I have since received many positive reviews for this book mostly reproduced on the: www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/ crime and thrillers/ website

‘I have also got an e version of the book and received a nice review from a reader in NW America ‘Authoring a book is not easy, and selling copies is even harder, but I am sure most people could do it if they have the determination and an idea that excites them enough to put in the time.’

‘My book Shampoo and Set 75 Years as a Hairdresser is a memoir about my mum, Margaret Sherlock, who is the UK’s longest working hairdresser.

‘Sitting here, watching the ongoing siege of Kyiv, I am reminded of another infamous historic event which occurred over 100 years ago, ’ writes subscriber David Bissenden

41SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk

‘I contacted them in early 2020 when I was finally satisfied that I had finished my book They suggested that I work with their sister company, The Book Guild They were willing to par t fund the publication as they felt it was commercially viable and would be of interest to readers From all the manuscripts which they receive, they chose ten each month to produce in this way.

• Tune into those ideas which actually mean something to you. You’re more likely to want to sing rather than whisper about them.

G a t e k e e p e r re a d e r s ( a g e n t s , e d i t o r s , c o m p e t i t i o n re a d e r s , e t c ) re c e i v e h u n d re d s o f p i c t u re b o o k s , a n d o f t e n b l o c k o u t s e s s i o n s t o re a d s u b m i s s i o n s Fo r m u l a i c s t o r i e s a re a l w a y s o b v i o u s a n d a re p r o b a b l y t h e m o s t c o m m o n s u b m i s s i o n .

• Allow yourself time to challenge the idea Consider it from different angles, points of view, genres and styles. This can help create a stronger version than the original idea, or confirm the original one is your favourite

• Be completely honest with yourself about the idea writers are extremely good at lying to themselves. Addressing problems in your idea at the beginning will help make your writing quicker, more efficient and less painful.

• Check that the idea isn’t too familiar. Some familiarity is good, as it will feel more marketable, but if it lacks an original spark or angle, it may not be so attractive to the reader

Voice means so much in storytelling

1 The idea could be bigger One common problem is not challenging your idea to become the best or your favourite version of itself Brilliant ideas rarely come fully formed. When we ’ re struck by a new idea, often the temptation is to run with it straightaway, but they can usually benefit from being hammered about and stretched How can you address this?

• Try and feel confident in your craft, then you can concentrate on feeling confident in your voice

• Think about the key moments in your story. If you maximise the effect of the most dramatic, most emotional or funniest moments, the reader may be so swept away that they don’t even notice or care about formulaic storytelling

3 Unconfident or generic voice

www wr iter s online co uk W R I T I N G F O R C H I L D R E N SEPTEMBER 202242

• Avoid wording which reflects a formulaic feel, particularly if your picture book is more traditionally structured, such as ‘One day...’ for your inciting incident This is also very important with the low moment, which usually features around spread 9 How can you use original wording to reflect your character’s mood or emotions?

Tuning into and showcasing your individual voice with confidence helps your work to leap off the slushpile, whereas stories with more generic or unconfident voice tend to blur into each other. When you give your voice an opportunity to shine, you can often find the story becomes more energetic, emotional and engaging. How can you give your voice the best chance?

• Ask yourself whether this story sounds ‘safe’ or familiar Does it sound like you? Why would your friend/family member/ partner recognise it as your writing?

Picture books sound like they should be so easy to write, but in truth, they are incredibly difficult It’s no mean feat to create an outstanding picture book which captivates young listeners (and adult readers), all in around 600 words or so. As we approach the next Writing Magazine Children’s Writing Prize, here are some tips for avoiding common picture book pitfalls.

4 Could be more page turning Sometimes picture book texts just lack a Pict

u re b o ok PIT FALLS M a ke yo u r p i c t u re b o o k s h i n e by avo i d i n g t h e s e c o m m o n e rro r s , w i t h a d v i c e f ro m

• Try to focus more on exciting and engaging storytelling rather than what must happen when Make your story enjoyable and exciting to read. Your story is a one off what works best for your individual story?

2. The story is too formulaic Formulaic stories aren ’ t in themselves a bad thing With picture books particularly, a familiar structure can be very effective and helpful for young listeners. But it also risks being overfamiliar and a little boring It can be very noticeable as the picture book format is so short. How can you de formulise your story or make a formulaic story more dynamic and exciting?

FOR

‘Firstly, writing is a long game It’s a marathon not a sprint. Don’t be in a rush to send things out to agents or publishers Take your time and slow down. Your stories will be all the better for it It’s helpful to give yourself a little distance from a newly written stor y, because often, when you look at it with fresh eyes, you can see what edits can help make your picture book text sparkle that little more ‘Secondly, in complete contrast to that, don’t hold on to your stories forever Pressing send can be hard, but if you would like to pursue a career in writing, then it’s no use keeping your stories in your notebook or on your laptop forever ‘Lastly, don’t write to be published. Write for your own enjoyment I think it’s very common for new writers to be focused on the end goal, but the thing is, the goal posts always shift Writing is a long game, and focusing too much on pursuing a book deal can take the fun out of it, and sometimes make the writing journey feel stressful When you step back, and write what’s in your heart, rather than what you ‘think’ publishers want, you’ll find that your writing will be stronger for it.’

• Check how your spreads end Make the most of every page-turn. Why will your reader be impatient to turn the page and read on? What have you offered them in the closing lines? Choose your language carefully to be as engaging with the reader as possible For example, you could pose a question, or tease them by finishing halfway through a sentence and continuing on the next page or use your words to create a specific emotional response in the reader Picture books might be difficult to write, but they can be incredibly rewarding The more you write, the more you learn, and the more you exercise your voice. Good luck if you enter the Writing Magazine Prize this year! Check out next month’s issue for more information.

• writers online co uk/how to write • stor ygodmother co uk • picturebookden.blogpost.com • curtisbrowncreative co uk/seven tips for writing a childrens picture book/ E s t a b l i s h e d i n 1 9 9 4 , we a r e a l i te r a r y c o n s u l t a n c y s e r v i c e p r ov i d i n g a d v i c e a n d t r a i n i n g to c h i l d r e n’s w r i te r s. We offer: Manuscript appraisals Consultanc y ser vices Courses and workshops We work alongside children’s publisher Wacky Bee Books. Shakespeare House, 168 Lavender Hill, London SW11 5TG T 020 7801 6300 E info@writersadvice.co.uk w w w. w r i te r s a d v i c e. c o. u k

‘Every Bunny is a Yoga Bunny is a story about yoga, calm and mindfulness, written by me and beautifully illustrated by award winning Deborah Allwright. It is published by Nosy Crow, in collaboration with The National Trust. The story is about Yo Yo, a fidgety, bouncy, can ’ t sit still ever type of bunny Her Grandpa suggests the bunnies try yoga, but even that doesn’t stop Yo Yo wiggling and giggling. But later, when she finds herself lost in a dark forest, she discovers that Grandpa’s yoga can help after all ‘Every Bunny is a Yoga Bunny is my debut picture book, and for this reason it’s a really important book for me It was a dream come true to get a book deal, and I’m still waiting for someone to pinch me and I’ll wake up! I think an author’s debut book will always have a special place in their heart ‘I honestly think the stars aligned for me! I just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right story I signed up to an event organised by The Children’s Book Circle, for one to ones with editors and agents, and it was held at the Nosy Crow offices I took my little yoga story along with me… and the rest is history, as they say. ‘One of the tricky things about writing Ever y Bunny is a Yoga Bunny was achieving the right balance between the stor y and the yoga element. I worked closely with my editor at Nosy Crow to ensure that the yoga moves didn’t slow down the pace of the stor y and that they worked seamlessly within it. At the end of the book, we have more detailed step by step instr uctions so children can stretch, feel calm and be a yoga bunny too ‘If I could go back to the beginning of my writing journey and give myself three top tips, they would be…

• Keep the energy up and keep the pace rolling. Check your spreads is there something exciting, intriguing, emotional or interesting happening on every spread? Don’t let the reader’s attention waver for a moment Captivate them

Debut picture book author Emily Ann Davison shares her tips and experience about writing a picture book. MORE RESOURCES:

• Make sure we care about or are intrigued about the main character. If we ’ re not, what is the motivation for reading on to find out what happens to them?

43SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk little confidence in their storytelling or their ability to pull the reader along They are just not as engaging and gripping as they could be. Why will readers be hanging on your every word? How will young listeners be gripped by your story?

Personalised writing courses to help y ou achiev e y our goals • Cho ose y our own tutor from the comfor t of y our home • Up to t w o y ears to complete • Spread the cost and pay monthly Courses include: Fic tion Shor t Stor y Writing for Children How to write crime How to make money from y our writing B O O K O N L I N E AT: w w w.writers- online.co.uk/writing- courses 10% FOFF OR SMAGAZINE UBSCRIBERS

SEE P62FOR DENTRY ETAILS, RFULL ULES EAND NTRY FORMS £125 TO BE WON With its closing date of 15 September, there’s still time to enter last month’s competition for free ver se poems. See p62 for entry details. c o m p e t i t i o n S h o r t S t o r y I N C A S H P R I Z E S & P U B L I C A T I O N W I N ! £ 2 7 5 S U B S C R I B E R - O N LY C O M P E T I T I O N W h e t h e r yo u r n a rra to r i s re l i a b l e o r u n re l i a b l e , l e tt i n g yo u r s to r y u n fo l d i n t h e i r ow n wo rd s l e t s yo u e x p e ri m e n t w i t h vo i c e , s t y l e a n d p o i n t o f v i e w. Your entry should be 1,50 0-1,70 0 words. The closing date is 15 October. The winner will recei ve £10 0 and publication in Writing Magazine, with £25 and publication on www.writer s online.co.uk for the runner up. S T I L L T I M E TO E N T E R £ 1 5 0 to b e wo n F i r s t - P e r s o n

James Perkin has been an avid reader for as long as he can remember He enjoys writing mainly science fiction; however, after being a long term WM subscriber, and recently resolving to enter a competition monthly, he is tr ying out differened genres and styles In the past year, he has been shortlisted once, and is now delighted with his first win

T h e f i n a l b a l l . A n d s t i l l w i t h a l l t o p l a y A n d a l l t o l o s e Hi t a n d m i s s , o r b e g i v e n o u t , a n d v i c t o r y i s h a n d e d ov e r Hi t t h e b a l l , m a k e a c o n n e c t i o n a n y c o n n e c t i o n , t h e n r u n a n d h o p e A n y t h i n g w o u l d d o. A s i n g l e , t w o , a b o u n d a r y e v e n Ju s t d o n ’ t g e t o u t T h e f i n a l b a l l . T h e g r o u n d f e l l q u i e t e r s t i l l He b e g a n h i s r u n u p. We h a d b e e n i n Au s t r a l i a f o r ov e r t h re e m o n t h s . T h re e l o n g m o n t h s o f c r i c k e t : p r a c t i c e , m a t c h e s , w a r m u p s , p re s s c o n f e re n c e s , p r a c t i c e , m a t c h e s , p h y s i o , p r a c t i c e , m a t c h e s , p r a c t i c e Pr a c t i c e , p r a c t i c e , p r a c t i c e . To p a r a p h r a s e Ma l c o l m G l a d w e l l : y o u n e e d t o p r a c t i s e t o b e c o m e t h e m a s t e r o f s o m e t h i n g . Te n t h o u s a n d h o u r s t o b e a n e x p e r t Te n t h o u s a n d h o u r s i n t h e n e t s , p l a y i n g b a l l a f t e r b a l l , a f t e r b a l l , a f t e r … Te n t h o u s a n d h o u r s t r y i n g t o p i c k a l e g b re a k f r o m a g o o g l y ; t e n t h o u s a n d h o u r s t o s p o t a f l i p p e r f r o m a t o p s p i n n e r Wa i t , w a t c h , w a i t . Ba l l , s t a n c e , h i t . Re s e t Ho u r a f t e r h o u r, d a y a f t e r d a y, b a l l a f t e r b a l l . A f t e r b a l l , a f t e r b a l l , a f t e r To b e t h e b e s t , y o u h a v e t o b e b e t t e r t h a n t h e re s t . In n a t e s k i l l c a n g e t y o u s o f a r b u t t o c r o s s t h e b r i d g e , f r o m a v e r a g e t o s u b l i m e , y o u h a v e t o p r a c t i s e Pr a c t i s e , p r a c t i s e , p r a c t i s e Ba l l a f t e r b a l l , d a y a f t e r d a y, h o u r a f t e r h o u r Te n t h o u s a n d h o u r s It u s e d t o b e y o u c o u l d b e a n ‘ a m a t e u r ’ a t t h e t o p o f t h e g a m e . A g e n t l e m a n w i t h o t h e r i n t e re s t s , w h o c o u l d s t i l l r i s e t o t h e t o p o f a s p o r t i n g f i e l d , o r a g e n i u s w i t h p re t e r n a t u r a l s k i l l s t o t r a n s c e n d t h e c h a f f c l a w i n g a t t h e i r h e e l s No t a n y m o re Now y o u h a d t o s p e n d e v e r y w a k i n g h o u r p r a c t i c i n g . Pr a c t i s e , p r a c t i s e , p r a c t i s e . Ba l l a f t e r b a l l , d a y a f t e r d a y, h o u r a f t e r h o u r. Te n t h o u s a n d h o u r s . I f y o u w e re n ’ t i n a c l u b’s d e v e l o p m e n t p r o g r a m m e b y e i g h t , y o u w e re a l l b u t d o n e f o r Yo u n e e d e d t o g e t i n e a r l y, t o g e t t h e h o u r s i n ; t o g e t t h e p r a c t i s e i n . Pr a c t i s e , p r a c t i s e , p r a c t i s e Ba l l a f t e r b a l l , d a y a f t e r d a y, h o u r a f t e r h o u r. Te n t h o u s a n d h o u r s . at by James Perkin

O v e r FIRST PLACE £100

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk46 A b e a d o f s w e a t c re p t i t s w a y a c r o s s m y f o re h e a d , s o m e h ow e v a d i n g t h e c u s h i o n e d h e a d b a n d o f m y h e l m e t . I i g n o re i t . C o n c e n t r a t e . Fo c u s Ho u r s o f p r a c t i c e y e a r s o f p r a c t i c e ; m y m i n d a s t e e l y w e a p o n t o t a l l y i n c o n t r o l o f m y b o d y, m y e m o t i o n s , m y re a c t i o n s Tw e n t y t w o y a rd s a w a y m y o p p o n e n t w i l l s o o n a r r i v e ; f u r t h e r b a c k , I s e e h i m w a i t i n g s t a n d i n g b y a s m a l l p i l e o f s a w d u s t , a n i n d i c a t o r o f t h e s t a r t o f h i s r u n u p. T h e b a l l i s g r i p p e d i n h i s h a n d . A h a n d c u r re n t l y h i d d e n b e h i n d h i s b a c k Ev e n a t t h i s d i s t a n c e , I c a n s e e h i s e y e s , f e e l t h e m b o r i n g i n t o m e W h a t i s h e t h i n k i n g ? W h a t i s h e p l a n n i n g ? A t e a m s p o r t ; e l e v e n a g a i n s t e l e v e n Bu t i t a l l c o m e s d ow n t o t h i s O n e o n o n e . B ow l e r v e r s u s b a t s m a n ; d e v i o u s n e s s a n d t r i c k e r y v e r s u s s k i l l a n d j u d g e m e n t . Ti m e s e e m s t o s l ow He b a re l y m ov e s . T h e l i g h t b re e z e n o l o n g e r r u f f l i n g h i s s u n b l e a c h e d h a i r I l o o k a r o u n d t h e g r o u n d Fi f t y t h o u s a n d p e o p l e , a l l h u s h e d , e x p e c t a n t l y, a s t h e y a w a i t t h e f i n a l b a l l . T h e f i n a l b a l l o f t h e m a t c h , t h e f i n a l b a l l o f a l o n g t o u r A l o n g t o u r o n t h e o t h e r s i d e o f t h e w o r l d , a w a y f r o m f r i e n d s , a w a y f r o m f a m i l y ; b u t a l a s , n o t a w a y f r o m t h e h a r s h b a r b s o f f a n s , b i t t e r d a g g e r s o f t h e p re s s T h e f i n a l b a l l . T h e f i n a l b a l l , t o b e d e l i v e re d b y t h e w o r l d’s g re a t e s t s p i n n e r. T h e f i n a l b a l l , t o b e d e l i v e re d b y t h e w o r l d’s g re a t e s t s p i n n e r, o n a s p i n f r i e n d l y g r o u n d . T h e f i n a l b a l l t o b e d e l i v e re d b y t h e w o r l d’s g re a t e s t s p i n n e r t o t h e w o r l d’s g re a t e s t p l a y e r o f s p i n ( o r s o m y p r o p o n e n t s w o u l d h a v e m e b e l i e v e )

S P O R T S H O R T S T O R Y C O M P E T I T I O N W I N N E R S Read the judges’ comments

T h e h a n d , s t i l l b e h i n d t h e b a c k , s t i l l s h i e l d i n g t h e b a l l ; a n y t h i n g f o r t h e s l i g h t e s t a d v a n t a g e Sh i e l d i n g t h e g r i p, s h i e l d i n g h i s i n t e n t i o n s . Wa s h i s r u n u p d i f f e re n t ? Wa s h i s b o d y p o s t u re d i f f e re n t ? Hi s e y e s w h e re w e re t h e y l o o k i n g ? A n y c l u e t o g a i n t h e s l i g h t e s t a d v a n t a g e I f s e e m e d l i k e t h e re w a s a l l t h e t i m e i n t h e w o r l d A l l t h e t i m e t o b ow l t h e p e r f e c t b a l l , t o p i c k w h i c h s h o t t o p l a y It w a s n e v e r t h a t e a s y It’s l o n e l y o n t h e r o a d . Yo u ’ re o n t h e o t h e r s i d e o f t h e w o r l d , a w a y f r o m n o r m a l i t y, a w a y f r o m r o u t i n e , a w a y f r o m a l l f o r m s o f f a m i l i a r c o m f o r t Su re , y o u h a v e y o u r t e a m m a t e s , b u t t h a t c a n b e c o m e s t a l e v e r y q u i c k l y A g r o u p o f c o m p e t i t i v e p e o p l e v y i n g f o r t h e s a m e o p p o r t u n i t i e s , t h e s a m e s e l e c t i o n o p p o r t u n i t i e s ; a g r o u p o f p e o p l e w h e re re s e n t m e n t c a n b u i l d q u i c k l y ov e r a d r o p p e d c a t c h o r a b a d s h o t . T h re e m o n t h s c a n g e t v e r y l o n e l y, v e r y q u i c k l y W h a t m a d e i t w o r s e w a s t h e t r a v e l i n g p re s s p a c k . A n a l y s i n g e v e r y m ov e e v e r y b a l l b ow l e d , e v e r y b a l l s t r u c k . Hy p e r c r i t i c a l re p o r t i n g b y p e o p l e w h o’d n e v e r p l a y e d t h e g a m e , o r t h o s e w h o h a d a n d o u g h t t o k n ow b e t t e r T h e c o n s t a n t n e e d t o f i l l c o l u m n i n c h e s , o r a i r t i m e , o r s c re e n t i m e . Ev e r y t h i n g s e e m e d t o h a v e a n e d g e a b i t e , a c r i t i c i s m Tw o w i c k e t s f a l l i n q u i c k s u c c e s s i o n a n d i t w a s a c o l l a p s e Tw o t e s t s w i t h o u t a s c o re i n d o u b l e f i g u re s a n d i t w a s a ‘ w o r r y i n g l a c k o f f o r m ’ . Wi n a m a t c h , a n d i t w a s t h e o t h e r t e a m w h o h a d p l a y e d p o o r l y, o r y o u w e re l u c k y. D a re t o l o s e a m a t c h a n d i t w a s t h e w o r s e c r i s i s s i n c e 1 9 7 7 ; l o s e a s e r i e s t h e n t h e g h o s t s o f 1 8 8 2 w e re d r a g g e d o u t Do p e o p l e i n o t h e r l i n e s o f w o r k h a v e t h e s a m e c o n s t a n t a n d b r u t a l i n s p e c t i o n ? Do e s a w e l d e r g e t l a m b a s t e d i f h i s j o i n s a re n o t a s c l e a n a s t h e y w e re t h e y e a r b e f o re ? O r a l u m b e r j a c k b e m o a n e d t h a t t h e a n g l e o f h i s c u t l e f t a l o t t o b e d e s i re d , a n d w a s i n d i c a t i v e o f t h e m a l a i s e o f c u r re n t t re e f e l l i n g s k i l l s Pr o b a b l y n o t . Bu t , h e s u p p o s e d , i t c o u l d b e a r g u e d t h a t t h e re w a s m u c h m o re a t s t a k e h e re , t h a n i n t h o s e o c c u p a t i o n s . Mo n e y. A h , a n d t h e re w a s t h e k i l l e r Ma t t e r n o t , t h a t a f a i l e d w e l d c o u l d s i n k a s h i p, o r a m i s c u t t re e b r i n g d ow n a b u i l d i n g ; m o n e y w a s t h e d r i v e r i n s p o r t . But then surely there was more of that at stake in the world of finance? Where was the talk criticising the investor who let ever yone down by failing to capitalise on his first million, and not going on to make a second? L e g s s t a r t i n g t o p i c k u p m o re s p e e d n ow H a i r s t re a k i n g b a c k Si n e w s s t r a i n i n g , m u s c l e s b u l g i n g . T h e a r m b e h i n d t h e b o d y s t a r t i n g t o a r c u p w a rd s a d a n c e w i t h t h e o t h e r, l i k e t w o o p p o s i n g s a i l s o n a w i n d m i l l He s h u f f l e d h i s f e e t , r o c k e d f r o m o n e t o t h e o t h e r ; k e e p m ov i n g , k e e p m o b i l e A t a p o f t h e b a t j u s t b e f o re t h e c re a s e , t h e n a s l i g h t r a i s e o f i t q u i v e r i n g a s i t h e l d i t s p o s i t i o n , w a i t i n g t o d e s c e n d o n i t s d ow n w a rd s s w i n g t o m e e t i t s o p p o n e n t T h e y’d p l a y e d o n e d a y m a t c h e s , t w o d a y m a t c h e s , t h re e d a y m a t c h e s Ma t c h e s a g a i n s t s e l e c t e l e v e n s , m a t c h e s a g a i n s t A t e a m s ; re d b a l l , w h i t e b a l l , p i n k b a l l ; d a y n i g h t g a m e s , a b a n d o n e d g a m e s , re s c h e d u l e d g a m e s , e x t r a g a m e s . Ev e n n ow, t h i n k i n g o f i t , i t w a s a l l a b l u r ; w h e re o n e g a m e e n d e d a n d a n o t h e r b e g a n ; t h e s e a s o n a l l r o l l e d i n t o o n e o n e l o n g , h o t s u m m e r Di d h e e v e n k n ow w h a t m o n t h i t w a s ? Sp e c i a l i s t t e a m s f o r t e s t m a t c h e s , s p e c i a l i s t t e a m s f o r l i m i t e d ov e r s , s p e c i a l i s t t e a m s f o r t w e n t y 2 0 . Sq u a re p e g s b e i n g f o r c e d i n t o s q u a re r a n d s q u a re r h o l e s . He h a d re c u r r i n g n i g h t m a re s t h a t s o o n , s o m e b r i g h t y o u n g t h i n g w o u l d i n v e n t a n e w f o r m a t T h e O v e r Si x b a l l s o n e b ow l e r v e r s u s o n e b a t s m a n . T h e y c o u l d s h ow i t o n Ti k To k , f o r t h e a t t e n t i o n d i s a f f e c t e d He s u p p o s e d t h a t ’ s w h e re h e w a s n ow. Bu t s o o n , i t w o u l d b e a l l ov e r. T h re e l o n g m o n t h s b r o u g h t t o a c o n c l u s i o n i n t h e n e x t f e w m o m e n t s . T h e f i n a l b a l l T h e f i n a l a c t T h e re’d b e e l e v e n e c s t a t i c p l a y e r s , m i r r o re d b y e l e v e n i n c re d i b l e d i s a p p o i n t e d o n e s Bu t t h e y’d a l l s h a re a b e e r g l o a t o r c o m m i s e r a t e , t h e n g o t h e i r s e p a r a t e w a y s O n e s e t g o i n g b a c k t o t h e i r h o m e s a n d f a m i l i e s , t h e o t h e r t h e s a m e , o n l y b y a l o n g e r a n d m o re l o n e l y r o u t e . A l m o s t ov e r A s t r i d e f r o m t h e w i c k e t n ow. A r m a b ov e h i s h e a d W h a t w a s t h e g r i p ? Q u i c k ! W h e re w e re t h e f i n g e r s ? W h e re w a s t h e s e a m ? T h e n : t h e b a l l i s re l e a s e d . He c a n s e e i t n ow Se e t h e f l i g h t Se e t h e s p i n Hi s f e e t m ov e , l i k e a d a n c e r i n a b a l l r o o m , o r a b i rd a b o u t t o t a k e f l i g h t T h e s h u f f l e a n d t h e m ov e m e n t o f h i s f e e t i n c re a s i n g , t h e b a t t a k i n g i t s f i n a l t i l t u p w a rd s b e f o re d r i v i n g b a c k d ow n w i t h s p e e d ; w i t h d e t e r m i n a t i o n A n d s o i t a l l c o m e s d ow n t o t h i s T h e f i n a l b a l l . T h e f i n a l a c t . Ti m e s s p e e d s b a c k u p T h e b a l l h u r t l e s t ow a rd s h i m . It s l a m s i n t o t h e g r o u n d , c h e c k s , a n d f l i c k s b a c k o n i t s p a t h . Hi s b a t r i s e s t o m e e t i t , m i n d a n d b o d y i n p e r f e c t u n i s o n t o a c t u n t h i n k i n g l y. T h e f i n a l b a l l D e s t i n y. O v e r Runner up and shortlisted Run ner up in the sp ort com petiti on was Dominic Bell, Hull, whos e story is p ublished on www writer s o nline co uk Also shortlisted w er e: Philip G Booth, Radcliffe, Manchest er ; Roger Dunn, Dart mo uth, Devon; Ellen Evers, Conglet on, Chesh ire; Andrew Hutchcraft, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire; GP Hyde, Grimsby, Linco lnshire; Katie Kent, Bicest er, Oxfordshire; Harry Seddon, Cho ppington, Northumberla nd.

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T h e m o m e n t s t re t c h e d o u t t o a n e t e r n i t y, l i k e a s p a c e s h i p c i r c l i n g a b l a c k h o l e i t s l i f e p l a y e d o u t t o t h e a u d i e n c e i n i n f i n i t e s l ow m o t i o n ; a n i n e v i t a b l e e v e n t , a c e r t a i n c o n c l u s i o n .

‘Penelope is not here’. They are stark words and state a reality that Juliet spends the rest of the stor y tr ying to come to terms with Joan also points out to Juliet that things she had chosen not to talk to her daughter about, namely religion and spirituality, may have led to a deficit in her life that Penelope is still affected by now. Juliet retaliates by pointing out that the subject wasn ’ t banned. They ‘could’ talk about it, but stayed silent instead Another type of silence occurs when Penelope sends her mother unsigned birthday cards. She is sending her mother a message that she is still alive and out there somewhere But the message is not articulated. The card has nothing written in it and Juliet only knows it is from her daughter as a result of examining the handwriting on the envelope. The communication is also one way Juliet does not have an address for her daughter, so she cannot respond. After five years of blank birthday cards, they stop coming at all. The silence is extended and made more absolute Juliet remains silent about the breakdown of her relationship with her daughter She tells her friend, Christa, of the trip to the retreat, but reluctantly Later in life she doesn’t even reveal the existence of her daughter to those she has got to know since her disappearance. Notice also how Juliet puts all her photos of Penelope, and anything else that would remind her of her daughter, into Penelope’s old bedroom and shuts the door A way of silencing the memories that those things

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nusually, this month I’ve chosen a stor y that is part of a group of three. Silence by Alice Munro is the third in a triptych following Chance and Soon As always, you’ll get the most out of this masterclass if you read the stor y: https://writ.rs/silence. If you have time to read all three stories that would be even better, but Silence does work as a standalone stor y and that’s what we ’ re going to focus on Silence is quite a complex stor y, and there are various aspects of it that are worthy of study. We could have examined the structure and the use of timescales We could have discussed its allusions to classical literature. But the aspect of the stor y that I found most interesting is the way that Alice Munro explores silence from a number of perspectives. So we ’ re going to look at the different forms of silence that occur and how they manifest themselves in the stor y. One form of silence is the things that characters don’t say but could have done One notable instance of this is early on in the stor y where the main character, Juliet, talks to another woman about her daughter Penelope. Note the contrast between what Juliet says to the woman, and what she reflects that she could (or possibly should) have said What is the truth? Is it one, or the other? Or somewhere between the two? We, as readers, cannot know. Another form of silence is absence

Although Penelope is a significant character in the stor y, she is absent for most of it In fact, she only appears in flashback and as described in dialogue by another character Notice the significance of Joan’s words to Juliet at the retreat where Juliet was expecting to be reunited with her daughter.

u s e s a s h o r t s t o r y b y A l i c e M o n r o t o e x p l o r e t h e r o l e o f s i l e n c e i n f i c t i o n s p e a k s S i l e n c e vo l u m e s

Both Eric ( Juliet’s partner and Penelope’s father) and Christa might have had more to say about Juliet’s situation if they had not been permanently removed from the discourse. Eric, in particular, was silenced when things between him and Juliet were unresolved due to the fact that he had ‘lived a lie’ Eric’s funeral is also interesting, if a little macabre

Silence can be used as a weapon. Blanking someone who has upset them, refusing to talk to a partner after a quarrel, or sending someone to Coventr y, could all be interesting plot devices for your characters. Avoiding exposition, and leaving readers to work things out for themselves, is another way of packing more into a short stor y that you might other wise be able to Hinting at things rather than describing them in a verbose manner can save on word count and increase intrigue at the same time This is particularly true of endings.

might otherwise evoke Two characters in the story are silenced by death

Lies, both by commission and omission, can act as tension creating plot points. Secrets can keep the reader enthralled waiting for the reveal Characters who say one thing whilst thinking or doing another can cause all sorts of mischief As can characters who tell one thing to one person and something completely different to another. Or what about a character who says something important and the person they are speaking to mishears, or doesn’t hear at all? How might that impact your plot?

Juliet returns to her study of literature, finding gaps in the narratives where work was ‘lost or fragmentar y ’ Compare this with the process Juliet goes through with her imaginar y picture of how Penelope’s life might have turned out and how she has to adjust this picture when she bumps into an old friend of Penelope’s who has seen her recently and unknowingly supplies Juliet with details she was totally unaware of. This encounter constitutes a watershed for Juliet She knows Penelope is still out there, but not the Penelope she had once known, or the Penelope of her imagination. She continues to hope to hear from her, but not strenuously What they don’t say One of the things that differentiates a short stor y from a novel is that, due to the limited wordcount of a short stor y, sometimes the strength of the stor y can be as much about what you leave out as what you include. So, in this part of the masterclass we ’ re going to look at absent characters, missing dialogue, and other things that are left unsaid in fiction But before we do that, I want to spend a moment thinking about short stories that are somehow linked. Collections of short stories that are linked by recurring characters or themes are popular. Good examples of this would be the Clovis stories by Saki, one of which we looked at last month, in which Clovis and other characters recur. Meanwhile, Nine Stories by JD Salinger contains stories that are thematically linked Linking the stories in a collection, in whatever way, can add a sense of cohesion or completeness that it might not other wise have.

An ending to a short stor y where ever ything isn’t neatly tied up will leave the reader still thinking about it even after they’ve closed the book or turned off the e reader. And if the ending is open or ambiguous the reader can imagine the bits of the tale that remained untold When you ’ re writing short stories, always remember there can be a power in leaving things out that is ever y bit as strong as what you put in.

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A very popular form at the moment is the novella (or novel) in flash This is a series of flash fictions linked to form a longer narrative If you are keen to experiment with your short story writing, and push the boundaries a bit, these forms are worth finding out more about.

Silence features a lot of instances of missed, misinterpreted and withheld dialogue People don’t always say what they mean and sometimes they just say what they think they should Tr y contrasting what your character is saying in dialogue, and what they are thinking in internal dialogue, and see how you can use that to create uncertainty and ambiguity

Now, let’s think about absent characters Anyone who has read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier knows that a character doesn’t need to be present to have a huge impact on the narrative In Silence Penelope is absent due to her estrangement from her mother But why else could your characters be temporarily, or permanently, absent? You could have a character who is temporarily absent from the narrative because they are elsewhere geographically. They could be in prison, in hospital, working away from home or in another countr y Or they could be permanently removed by death or a rift so big it can ’ t be healed How might characters still be introduced into your narrative if they are not physically there? Like Penelope, they could send cards or letters What they write, or don’t write, in these missives could tell you a lot about them Perhaps the other characters in the stor y only know where they are because they receive a series of postcards from exotic places. Even if they are permanently absent, they will be present in your main character’s heart and mind. Your main character may talk to others about them, have memories and flashbacks involving them, or even have imaginar y conversations with them. A much loved deceased character might be recalled ever y time a descendant who looks, talks or acts like them is around

Note how his fishing partner declines to participate verbally in the ceremony as he is ‘ no speaker’. But the person who steps up to speak instead rambles on, loses sight of the subject, and probably leaves a welcome silence when he finally stops In a neat plot development, following Eric’s death, Juliet seeks a job as a librarian She is seeking out a place where silence is considered an attribute. Her career develops further when she is given the chance to do some television broadcasting The antithesis of silence But ultimately when that job comes to an end, her public persona is silenced and she becomes ‘that lady who used to be on the television’.

Fi r s t contact Even if your story is set far beyond the time humans and aliens first came into contact, there’s a lot to be said for considering what the initial encounter would be like. You may wish to consider it a sort of ‘future history’, where that first meeting sets the tone for what comes afterwards Of course society on Earth may be a little different depending on when you are actually setting the story, but I would suggest the following questions would be well worth considering You may not even get the chance to use the answers to all of them within your story, but even if you don’t it will enrich the story regardless.

F A N T A S T I C R E A L M S E x p l o r e e x t r a t e r r e s t r i a l l i f e i n y o u r s c i e n c e f i c t i o n w i t h a d v i c e f r o m L o v i n g T H E A L I E N

• What was the reaction from the scientific community?

• How was that first contact made? Was it a direct meeting or communication by technological means?

A common conundrum for science fiction writers wishing to include aliens within their stories is the consideration of just how ‘humanlike’ these beings should be In essence, this boils down to a debate of reality vs readability. It’s fair to assume that any extraterrestrials we may ever come to encounter are likely to look pretty different to us, and are liable to feed, breathe and communicate in ways that are going to perhaps be completely unfathomable. However that provides a huge barrier to many of the stories you might tell If there’s no method by which you can have a conversation, no face or body language signals to call upon and generally no way to even know which part of the alien you should be talking to, how can you get a complex stor y over? The solution could be to create a simpler stor y, an alien invasion that casts the new visitors as an ‘other’ to be fought against, or a quiet invasion by subterfuge, stealth and assimilation You could indeed build the complications of understanding and being understood into the tale the movie Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s The Stor y of Your Life, is a truly fascinating exploration of this, not to mention Close Encounters of the Third Kind Or we go the third way, and something that is often seen in SF we develop species of aliens that are distinctly humanoid, but do have some differences that ser ve to set them apart from people. It’s impossible to count the number of SF books and franchises that have gone down this road, and there is a definite expediency to doing it, provided you feel as though you can depend on the readers’ suspension

H u m a no i d s f rom ou ter s pace

• What was the reaction on social media?

• What were the wishes of the aliens as stated? And was there another desire or drive underneath that at all?

• Who was able to make contact with who?

T he question of whether life exists on other planets has long been a source of fascination and speculation, with the worlds of science and technology continuing the search and thinkers and philosophers examining what it means for us denizens of Earth And of course, that makes it a great area for science fiction to explore, from tales of first contact to darker invasion stor ylines to far flung future tales of aliens and humans mixing freely in a wider intergalactic society. But how do you develop convincing and well realised aliens to feature within your stor y? In this piece, we’ll take a look at the extraterrestrial question from its many angles.

• What were the first meetings like between alien and human? How might those have played out?

• Was the initial contact seen as peaceful or not? Was there any threat given, or was there a perceived threat?

• What was the reaction of the media?

• Was the initial contact kept quiet by governments, etc or was the contact made in a way that was impossible to keep quiet from the public?

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• Are they happy to trade with other species?

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• What are their politics like how is their society structured? Does that sit well or sit badly with humans and/or other aliens? Tech - yes or tech - no? The assumption in most SF stories is that aliens are liable to have a technology far beyond our own though maybe that’s an assumption that ties more to where we are in 2022 than where we might be in the future If you look at the advance of human technology over even the last fifty years, the thought of where we could be in another half a centur y is mind boggling. So yes, you could well have an alien species with incredible technology at its fingertips and this does also provide a firm opportunity for you not to have to explain the workings of it, because it’s liable to simply be so incomprehensible to human minds as to be meaningless.

• Do they work with humans and/or other aliens? Are they on friendly terms?

• What are their needs are there things that these aliens require they cannot do or cannot find for themselves?

There does need to be some sort of limit to this, as you don’t want the tech available to eventually become sort of deus ex machina and an easy out for characters in any given situation Equally you could go the other way, which is rarer, and explore alien creatures that are less advanced than humanity imagine flipping that oft seen equation on its head and having people lording it over these newly encountered extraterrestrials with our remarkable devices What would happen in that instance?

Les s i s more Yes, I am aware that what has come before probably poses more questions than it does answers though as a writer it’s by tackling these questions that we often find the heart of a stor y With all the above said, it’s also ver y important to consider what you actually need to put into the stor y, and what is going to become relevant. You may well develop a rich and well considered culture for your aliens and I would suggest you do. However not all of that is going to be pertinent to the stor y, so knowing what to leave out and what to include can be a fine art for an author. You could of course use the odd extra flourish for a bit more flavour, but why start exploring rabbit holes that you know don’t lead anywhere that matters for the stor y? The habit is not to think of that work as ‘wasted’ ever ything you do that adds detail to the aliens will make them seem far more realistic to a reader, just by virtue of you knowing all about them and having the extra confidence in what you are saying This background will help you deliver a lot of nuance, which is pivotal to immersing a reader in a stor y.

Now here’s a word I’ve used a few times in these articles, but I’m afraid it bears repeating here. If you consider any of the non human creatures in fantasy as an example your dragons, elves, goblins, etc there are always rules that govern their behaviour, things they can and cannot do. And the same would have to go for any alien species you throw into a science fiction Now putting this together might not be too bad a job if your stor y focuses on one particular type of interplanetar y being You might even have a stor y with a lot of ‘background’ aliens that are just there for visual flavour I’m thinking in particular of Star Wars’ Mos Eisley cantina, where we actually meet precious few of its clientele and as such you don’t need to get into this kind of depth

• What is their speciality what are their skills, or what resources do they have that could be sought after?

With that said, if you are featuring many different types of aliens, spending some time considering how things are going to function among them as well as between them will have real value and let’s not forget the humans in the mix too There might be alien races that are warlike or peaceful Some will have religion and others won ’ t, some will have more advanced tech than others, some may have skills in particular areas that others don’t. If your stor y is going to feature numerous types of aliens it is going to be well worth asking yourself the following:

• Are they at war with human and/or other aliens, or is there tension just waiting to develop?

• Do they tend to live in their own cities, or on their own planets, or do they freely mix with humans or other types of aliens?

Aliens as a trope have inhabited science fiction in many forms, and it’s hard to come up with a truly universal view on how they tend to be used. We have brazen and quiet alien invasion stories, stories of humans going on galactic extraterrestrial pilgrimages, tales of communication and trade and tr ying to find peace… However, what is universal is the need to think deeply about these new beings that you are creating You could lapse back into old clichés, but so many ideas have been done time and time again that your stor y is liable to feel stale for employing them. With the questions above, you should be able to develop something that not only feels complete and also well realised, but also gives you the scope to take your stor y in a different direction. It might be the case that the alien comes first, and you can use that as the foundation for a stor y, or the plotline arrives first and you need to inject some aliens into it to make it function Depth and pre planning can go a long way however it all takes shape.

You might even consider other options the aliens could be vastly divergent from us, but still have some mechanism to talk to humanity the old ‘universal communicator’ trick or maybe communication is through another recognisable medium besides speech Sign language has featured in some alien stories, and I think that’s an interesting possibility for something a bit different R u l e s , r u l e s , r u l e s

Still looking at the file you ’ ve recently opened, ask yourself: does your stor y start in the right place? Does it ask or at least suggest a question? Or, better still, suggest a conflict? Does it tell readers something they’ll need to know straight away?

Now look at the long neglected work you ’ ve just opened and think about writing an elevator pitch. Once you ’ ve done that, you’ll be able to define this work: to explain it to yourself (and also to anyone else) in a matter of moments

• Jane Rutherford’s.

So, for example:

• Who or what might stop Jane getting what she wants and thus introduce a conflict?

• To become a champion jockey and win the Grand National.

• Whose stor y are you telling?

• What does Jane want?

The link below focuses on writing for the screen, but its advice applies to all other forms of creative writing, too: https://writ.rs/logline

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk52 F I C T I O N F O C U S Rediscover your abandoned manuscripts and dust them off so you can send them out into the world, with advice from Ma rg a ret J a mes B e f o re e l e c t r i c t y p e w r i t e r s , l e t a l o n e A m s t r a d s a n d Si n c l a i r Sp e c t r u m s , c a m e i n t o o u r l i v e s , m a n y a u t h o r s w r o t e t h e f i r s t , s e c o n d o r e v e n t h i rd d r a f t s o f t h e i r n ov e l s i n l o n g h a n d They typed whatever they wanted to submit to literar y agents or publishers on clacking manual typewriters. They sent off the top copies, keeping their original, handwritten drafts and carbons in cupboards, filing cabinets or boxes under their beds, where rejected or unfinished work also came to rest These days, most of us are more likely to keep our work in digital files Almost ever ything we write is submitted by email But, even though the technical aspects of writing fiction have advanced into the 21st centur y, I’m betting plenty of readers of this magazine still have files and folders full of work which has never seen the light of publication day. What about you? Maybe you ’ re hoarding one, two or even more novels that stalled before you managed to complete even a first draft? Some shor t stories you kne w how to begin, but not how to finish? A magazine serial that had an intriguing set up and a per fect opening episode, but then went nowhere? A folder of research notes for a novel you might write one day, but haven’t got round to writing yet, and secretly wonder if you ever will? How could you get the material that’s gathering literal or metaphorical dust to work for you, instead of just lazing around in files you haven’t opened for months or even years? You’ll have heard of elevator pitches, shout lines, log lines, or whatever you want to call them All these terms amount to more or less the same thing: they’re shor t summaries of what a work in question is actually about

• A jealous rival who is also Jane’s workmate, partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé, fiancée? A serious injur y? A change of heart? Here’s a potential pitch: When a famous racehorse owner offers orphaned Jane Rutherford (the protagonist) an apprenticeship in his yard (the inciting or triggering incident), she’s able to exercise some of the owner ’ s thoroughbreds (the action) Soon, she’s dreaming of becoming a champion jockey (the protagonist’s motivation) Jane’s boyfriend Luke Wheeler (the antagonist) has the same ambition, but he hides it well (the conflict)

W H A T ’ S U N D E R YO U R B E D ?

2 1 i s s u e

Or do you spend ages setting the scene in detail? You probably don’t have to do that Just tell readers what they absolutely must know in order to be enticed into your stor y

Your central character: Is this the person (or ghost, or rabbit, or vampire) whose story you actually want to tell? Or is it really someone else’s story? It’s sometimes hard to decide. What if your novel were to be made into a film: which character would be the most prominent on the posters outside the cinema? It’s likely to be this same character’s story

NOW TRY THIS

Perhaps, even after spending ages working on various openings, you still don’t know if your stor y is worth telling, and that’s one of the reasons you abandoned it? So maybe forget about the beginning and think about the ending: could you write the ending? Then make your way back towards a suitable opening? Some authors, especially writers of short stories, do this It’s a strategy that might work for you, too At the beginning of this article I talked about writing in longhand and then typing up work on a manual typewriter, but this is in no way a criticism of my fellow authors I know several writers who do it this this way. So, if it also works for you, go for it

Then ask yourself when these readers need to know it Now? Later? Not at all? Look at the openings of other people’s published work, then maybe find your marker pen, and highlight what they tell their readers in these all important first pages

When and where did your journey as an author begin?

Some ver y famous novelists have died leaving behind stories they didn’t have the time, inclination or desire to see in print, and which other people finished for them: for example, Jane Austen’s Sanditon and Charles Dickens’ The Myster y of Edwin Drood But why wait for someone else to complete what you started? Some of your own apparently redundant work might yet turn out to be money in the bank for its originator you.

t a l s o b e a r i n m i n d t h a t g e n re b l e n d i n g i s n ’ t a l w a y s a c r i m e , s o d o n ’ t f e e l y o u c a n ’ t w r i t e a r o m a n t i c t h r i l l e r o r a s u p e r n a t u r a l m y s t e r y So m e b e s t s e l l i n g n ov e l s f o r e x a m p l e , St a c e y H a l l s ’ M r s En g l a n d a re v e r y h a rd t o p i g e o n h o l e . M r s En g l a n d h a s b e e n d e s c r i b e d a s a g r i p p i n g f e m i n i s t m y s t e r y f u l l o f g o t h i c m e n a c e a n d m u c h m o re b e s i d e . St a c e y t a l k e d a b o u t M r s En g l a n d i n h e r W M s t a r i n t e r v i e w i n t h e Au g u s t 2

The genre: Are you writing horror fiction that’s not particularly horrific? Or romantic fiction that’s not especially romantic? Or myster y fiction in which there’s no compelling myster y? Successful authors writing in these genres will show you the way. Bu 0

As soon as I could hold a pen and in my childhood home, where mental illness and alcoholism meant writing stories was my refuge. But it took many years and four novels before I finally got my first book deal at the age of 44. What is (or has been) your proudest moment as a writer? It was finishing my memoir Daffodils which was published in audiobook in April I’d always wanted to write about my difficult early star t in life. When my mother jumped off the Humber Bridge in 2019, this compelled me to begin I completed Daffodils during lockdown, which was extra hard, but ver y empowering Who or what is your greatest inspiration? Life, really. I soak up everything that happens around me like a human sponge: conversations, music, a word that intrigues me, my own memories and experiences. I also enjoy a challenge. If an idea I share has people telling me they’re not sure if I could or should write that, I’ll know it’s the one to start What is your latest novel about and what will be coming up next for you, fiction wise? Nothing Else was released earlier this year and is about a professional pianist whose sister went missing when they were small To escape the violence in their childhood home, they created a song together on a piano won in a raffle Now, Heather longs to find her sister so that they can play music together again Also look out also for a dystopian novel a complete change for me to be published in 2023 What are your top tips for writers still on the journey towards publication? Most importantly, never give up If I’d stopped at book one, two, three or four, I’d never have been published But don’t rush, especially when it comes to sending out your work Don’t send off your first draft It won ’ t be ready Let it breathe Go back and edit Do that again And again Get some friends to read it and give you feedback. Edit again. And again. And maybe, just maybe, by then it will be ready to share 53SEPTEMBER 2022

THE MESSENGER I saw her in the dusk light a shadow between the trees. I sensed something watching me, then the snap of a twig, rustling of leaves and there she was those large innocent eyes as bright as the north star A silhouette so beautiful, it was as if ever y line, ever y contour of her body had been sculptured In the hands of an old master. And for a moment, in the stillness before she turned and disappeared into the night I imagined she was a messenger from folklore, myth or legend A messenger of hope. Some poets find that a new piece of work always begins in the same way, but for most of us different poems arrive along their own unique route It can be a nugget of an idea that scratches in the mind, accumulating words and phrases the way a speck scratches in the oyster until it’s covered in nacre and becomes a pearl Sometimes an idea flashes, and a poem writes itself. It can be an academic exercise, or an incredible flight of fancy It can be inspired by another piece of writing, and that’s the experience of poet Jill Stanton Huxton of Buckingham. When Wordsworth wrote his world famous poem about the daffodils, it was clearly based on an account in his sister’s diar y that concerned coming across the flowers Some phrases are lifted straight from the diar y, or tweaked just a little, such as the tossed and reeled and danced becoming tossing their heads in sprightly dance Jill also has a diar y at her disposal, but this is in her own words. She describes how she started to write it. ‘I spent a few months last year staying with my twin sister and mother, who live in a converted barn on the edge of a wood. When I say the edge of a wood what I mean is the wood is literally on the doorstep ’ A family of deer lived in the wood, and she was able to see their antics ‘It was magical to watch I decided to keep a diar y ’ One of the entries fuelled the poem, recording how ‘It had been a beautiful mid summer day, not long before the summer solstice, the longest day and shortest night of the year. ’ It reads: ‘I sensed I was being watched so turned my head to look towards the wood In the dusk light, amongst the shadows of the trees there was a young fallow deer looking at me. For a few moments, in the stillness and calm of the fading light we watched each other and something passed between us. It was almost as if she understood what I

significant sight ing

54 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk e x p l o re s a p o e m w i t h a m e s s a g e

A

This is followed by a curiously whimsical thought, that the creature ’ s silhouette is too stunning for natural beauty, and she looks more like a sculpture than a flesh and blood animal. All this build up about the deer leads to the poem ’ s climax. The poet is in need of help and hope The deer has a mystical quality, from folklore, myth or legend, that insists its final description: A messenger of hope T h i s i s a g e n t l e p o e m , a d e s c r i p t i v e p i e c e t h a t c o n j u re s t h e m o m e n t f o r re a d e r s t o e n j oy a l o n g s i d e t h e n a r r a t o r It i s n ’ t u n t i l t h e l a s t t h re e l i n e s t h a t t h e a d d e d d i m e n s i o n , t h e i m p o r t o f t h e m e s s a g e , b e c o m e s a p p a re n t T h e n a re re a d i n g re v e a l s c l u e s i n t h e d e s c r i p t i o n s Wo rd s l i k e s h a d ow, s i l h o u e t t e , c o n t o u r a n d s c u l p t u re s u g g e s t s h a p e s t h a t l o o m i n t h e d u s k T h i s h i n t s a t s h a p e s t h a t l o o m i n t h e m i n d , o n a c o n s c i o u s o c o n s c i o u s l e v e l T h re e l i n e s into the poem, we see I sensed and then three lines from the end, I imagined. Instinct is being over taken by active thought a point that might be missed at a first reading but shows itself on fur ther study. Such subtle clues may not be obvious on an individual basis, but their combined weight adds to the communication of ideas through the poem The same is true of the slant rhyme, those similarities of sound that could be mere chance of pronunciation when found individually, but combine to create a network of interlinking effects. Look at the assonance at line ends in the first few lines. Trees, me and leaves chime together, and matched with the consonance of trees, leaves, was and eyes, those similarities start to join up and knit themselves into the fabric of the poem. In the middle of the piece, we find a repeat in ever y line, / ever y contour and there’s another subtle coherence of the text, just as the use of in / in / into starting the following alternate lines implies an enclosing within the situation, an intimacy the reader can share with the narrator

The Messenger is all about communication. A poem that communicates something to the reader satisfies its writer’s desire to share thoughts, emotions and experiences. The Messenger speaks out with clarity and intimacy, and its subject’s message of hope can be inferred by the reader as well as the narrator a tr ue feel good poem

r s u b

There is just one point that the poet might address in The Messenger when she continues with its revision, and that’s the placing of punctuation. Adding a comma at the end of the sixth and seventeenth lines would aid the logical flow of the reading, while changing the full stop on the penultimate line to a semicolon would include the final line within that highly significant sentence. This would, of course, suggest a lower case letter to open the last line and lower case could also be used at the start of the thirteenth line, to keep to the pattern most poets prefer nowadays, of using capitals only to start a new sentence. These are tiny tweaks, but attention to such details adds to the general delight of the reading If ever y aspect of the poem fits together per fectly, and even the smallest issues have been addressed, the overall effect is a complete and clear picture

55 55www wr iter s online co uk P O E T R Y W O R K S H O P SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr s co uk was going through and she was telling me ever ything would be okay. Then she turned and disappeared into the night.’ The diar y entr y describes a spiritual experience, and already has a poetic ‘feel’ to it, but there was still some work to be done to convert the wording into a poem. It needed form and shape The delicacy of the free verse form Jill chose, and the long, slender shape of the poem on the page, seem ideal to convey the ethereal character of the moment It was a good idea to start with a specific image rather than the more abstract I sensed I was being watched. Opening with the direct monosyllabic description has immediacy and engages the reader instantly. Then backtracking to the something watching me allows the fuller picture to be drawn without losing impact. A f t e r t h e i n i t i a l v i s u a l i m a g e s , t h e s o u n d s i n t r o d u c e a n e w d i m e n s i o n , e n r i c h e d b y t h e o n o m a t o p o e i c q u a l i t y o f s n a p a n d r u s t l i n g . T h e n t h e p ow e r f u l s i m i l e b r i g h t a s t h e n o r t h s t a r b r i n g s u s b a c k t o t h e s e n s e o f s i g h t w i t h a n o u t o f t h i s w o r l d c o m p a r i s o n

f o u n d m y s e l f l o o k i n g a t a p h o t o g r a p h i c c a l e n d a r o f G e o r g i a T h e m o n t h o f Ma y f e a t u re d a s h o t o f a re s e r v o i r s u r r o u n d e d b y g re e n h i l l s ,

writer?

‘My great uncle Ap Hefin was a Welsh bard and hymn writer, and I’d like to think I’ve inherited some writing genes from him,’ she says. ‘But I’ve always written diaries, poems and plays as a way of getting my thoughts and feelings down on paper

‘ While some scenes at a manor house were being shot, the director’s girlfriend arrived unexpectedly, had a blazing row with him, and then stormed out We heard an engine revving, followed by an almighty crash. We r ushed outside to find her car had shot up a bank and over turned, and she was hanging upside down, restrained by her seat belt. Luckily, she wasn ’ t hur t

‘One evening, after I’d produced something that pleased me, the tutor asked what market I had in mind, and this was my Eureka moment So that’s how it worked, I realised I needed to write for a market.

The first, entitled The Forgotten Guide to Happiness, featured a lively character with a personality similar to my mother’s This helped to keep her close to me, so it was a happy stor y to write at a difficult time.

‘I self published a children’s novel and, after my mother died, I wrote two romantic comedies as Sophie Jenkins.

she

The award-winning author tells how keeping a market in mind paved the way for her success

‘ W h I a c : W a m e s p a r t l y re a p p e a r ‘Drowned villages are always mysterious and intriguing, and Wales has a couple of these. What if a character in a novel went away, I wondered, then came back many years later to find their own village under water? How would that feel? ‘An intriguing fact about one par ticular Welsh lake is that an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln’s grave lies beneath it I decided the hero of my stor y would be an elderly American who remembered this fact. The novel would become a love stor y, and also my first historical Appropriately enough, it’s called The Drowned Village. After writing the beginning, I worked out the ending So I always kne w vaguely where I was heading, even if I did sometimes get lost on the way ‘My literar y agent got me a two book contract with Bookouture, and my next book for this publisher is also par tly historical It’s about a German woman who keeps her time in Belsen a secret from those closest to her. Like life, the stor y is full of small but also huge miracles ‘ I ’ v e n e v e r l e a r n t t o t y p e , s o I u s e v o i c e r e c o g n i t i o n s o f t w a r e w h i c h f e e l s l i k e o r a l s t o r y t e l l i n g I d e v e l o p t h e p l o t i n a n o t e b o o k , a s I g o a l o n g W h i l e I ’ m w o r k i n g o n t h e t i m e l i n e s , Po s t - It n o t e s m a k e i t e a s y t o s h u f f l e s c e n e s a r o u n d ‘Mornings are the best time for me to write first

N O R M A C U R T I S

56 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk A U T H O R P R O F I L E Th e We l s h a u t h o r No r m a Cu r t i s h a s w r i t t e n a r a n g e o f n ov e l s i n v a r i o u s g e n re s , c o n t e m p o r a r y a n d h i s t o r i c a l , f o r a d u l t s a n d f o r c h i l d re n . So , w h e n s h e a g re e d t o b e i n t e r v i e w e d f o r Wr i t i n g M a g a z i n e , I w a s l o o k i n g f o r w a rd t o h e a r i n g a b o u t h e r w r i t i n g j o u r n e y.

t e r v i l l a g e s s o m e t i

‘ This scene later became the inspiration for my first published novel Living it Up, Living it Down. A literar y agent who kne w the film director read the book, sold it, and it won the RNA’s Ne w Writers’ Scheme award and was also promoted as one of WHSmith’s Fresh Talent choices for that year. I wrote two more novels for the same publisher, but then I ran out of ideas.

‘During my late teens, I worked as a receptionist on a local ne wspaper I decided I wanted to be published So I joined a creative writing group, and each week we swapped pieces of work, taking it in turns to read these aloud. That way, we got to vie w our own effor ts from a reader’s perspective. We soon learned that there’s no point in coming up with a beautiful sentence if it makes no sense on the page.

‘My chosen market was a teenage magazine. I sent off a shor t stor y Three weeks later, it was returned with a nice letter, and I sent off another one. This seemed to go on for quite a while, but eventually I had a stor y published ‘A fe w years later, when I decided I wanted to write a novel, I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association under the RNA’s Ne w Writers’ Scheme. I met a woman who was looking for romantic stories for a film company. She liked one of mine, bought the film rights, had Alanna Knight write the screenplay, and invited me to Dorset to watch the filming

Does Norma feel was always destined to be a

n d h a d t h e

h e n t h e re s e r v o i r l e v e l s a re l ow, t h e b u r i e d , u n d e r w

a p t i o n

e n l o c k d ow n c a m e i n 2 0 2 0 ,

drafts, because this is when my mind is still dreamy and uncritical. But, as for re writes, any hour of the day will do, because I really love that par t of the process It’s the time when I’m tr ying to tell the stor y in the best way I can. ‘ O v e r t h e y e a r s , m y w r i t i n g s t y l e h a s c h a n g e d , a n d t h e s e d a y s I ’ m e n j oy i n g w r i t i n g s t o r i e s w i t h b i g g e r l a n d s c a p e s

57SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk N O R M A ’ S T O P T I P S • C h o o s e y o u r g e n r e , s o y o u k n o w w h i c h m a r k e t y o u ’ r e a i m i n g f o r • E n j o y t h e p r o c e s s , b e c a u s e i f y o u d o n ’t a c t u a l l y e n j o y w r i t i n g , y o u w o n ’t h a v e t h e s t a m i n a t o fi n i s h a n o v e l • W h e n y o u ’ r e r e a d i n g Wr i t i n g M a g a z i n e , p a y c l o s e a t t e n t i o n t o t h e Wr i t e r s ’ N e w s s e c t i o n , e s p e c i a l l y t h e d e t a i l s o f u p c o m i n g c o m p e t i t i o n s , a n d a n y s u b m i s s i o n a n d p i t c h i n g o p p o r t u n i t i e s . T h i s i s t h e b e s t t i m e e v e r t o b e p u b l i s h e d , s o y o u n e e d t o s t a y i n f o r m e d • B u y T h e Wr i t e r s ’ & A r t i s t s ’ Ye a r b o o k f o r u p t o d a t e a d v i c e , a n d t o fi n d l i t e r a r y a g e n t s a n d p u b l i s h e r s w h o ’ d b e a g o o d fi t f o r y o u a n d y o u r w o r k • B e p r o f e s s i o n a l F o r m a t y o u r t y p e s c r i p t p r o p e r l y M o s t a g e n t s a n d e d i t o r s w i l l r e a d s u b m i s s i o n s o n a K i n d l e , s o t h e c o r r e c t p r e s e n t a t i o n w i l l g i v e t h e m c o n fi d e n c e i n y o u • I f y o u r w r i t i n g s t y l e i s s i m i l a r t o a n o t h e r a u t h o r ’s , b e s u r e t o m e n t i o n i t i n y o u r c o v e r i n g l e t t e r, b e c a u s e t h i s c o u l d b e a g o o d s e l l i n g p o i n t • S o m e w r i t e r s fi n a l l y c o n c l u d e t h a t b e i n g a n o v e l i s t i s n o t f o r t h e m . B u t , w i t h o u t e x c e p t i o n , a n d w i t h m y h a n d o n m y h e a r t , e v e r y n e w w r i t e r I m e t i n t h o s e e a r l y d a y s , a n d w h o k e p t a t i t , e v e n t u a l l y g o t p u b l i s h e d A n d o n e d a y, t r u s t m e , s o w i l l y o u • Yo u h a v e n ’t f a i l e d u n t i l y o u ’ v e g i v e n u p S o d o n ’t g i v e u p !

c a l n ov e l , w h i c h a g a i n w i l l l i n k t h e p re s e n t a n d t h e p a s t T h e s t o r y w i l l b e g l a m o r o u s , d a n g e r o u s a n d p o i g n a n t . I k n ow t h a t w r i t i n g i t w i l l b e h a rd w o r k , b u t I a l s o k n ow I ’l l e n j oy t h e p r o c e s s , b e c a u s e w r i t i n g a l w a y s m a k e s m e h a p p y. ’ CLASSIFIED ADVERTISE HERE Contact Mark Dean Tel: 01778 395084 or email: mark dean@warnersgroup co uk Critique & Advisory Competitions TALL TALES With a twist Available from Amazon An eclectic mix of intriguing tales Michael Church Books Write your best poem 30 lines or fewer or short stor y 5 pages max, for a chance to win cash prizes totaling $1275.00! Extended deadline: September 30, 2022 Enter Now! www.dreamquestone.com Sign up to our FREE newsletter today www.writers-online.co.uk/register Get cexclusive ontent from eour xperts, ospecial ffers and the latestopportunities and newsADVERTISE HERE For more information contact: mark.dean@ warnersgroup.co.uk BESTSELL NG NG M H G YOU BEC BETTER W W £N 27 785 W Z Se f pub sh ng Get A+ sales on Amazon POSIT VE effects Stuart MacBride bl w h T ME TRAVEL k dar h ch EW 314 2p b47 yourNnovel AVIGATEH w How h s you and g the apy and bey d BESTSELL NG G MAGA HELP NG U BECOME A ER WR TER W £N 48 305WR PNG R E SE L YOUR WORK M R d s215 8 pepy d56 Cosy crime and clergy e L p Can y k y as a co t a o ? C ? How to wr te abest seller IS YOUR WRITING ANY GOOD? H e q on w ves Visit writer s-online.co.uk

T h e re ’ s a l w a y s h u m o u r i n m y n ov e l s , e v e n w h e n t h e s u b j e c t m a t t e r i s s e r i o u s I l i k e w r i t i n g a b o u t c o m m u n i t y, c o n n e c t i o n , a n d a l s o a b o u t l ov e i n i t s w i d e s t s e n s e . ‘ O n c e a b o o k i s f i n i s h e d , m y a g e n t u s u a l l y a s k s m e w h a t t h e n e x t o n e w i l l b e a b o u t So i t ’ s b a c k t o c o n s t r u c t i v e d a y d re a m i n g f o r m e , w h i c h i s a l w a y s f u n ‘ How d o I s t a y m o t i v a t e d ? T h e e n c o u r a g e m e n t o f o t h e r w r i t e r s k e p t m e g o i n g i n t h o s e e a r l y d a y s a n d , t o b e h o n e s t , i t s t i l l d o e s . I t r y t o p a s s o n t h a t e n c o u r a g e m e n t t o t h o s e w h o a re s t i l l o n t h e p a t h t o p u b l i c a t i o n . ‘ I ’d l i k e t o s t a y w i t h B o o k o u t u re b e c a u s e I l i k e t h e c u l t u re . I h a v e a n i d e a f o r a t h i rd h i s t o r i

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She also physically takes herself away from her writing desk and consumes creative content in different formats

i d ay u n t i l C h r i s t m a s , S i m o n W h a l e y a s k s i f we s h o u l d t a ke a b re a k f ro m o u r w r i t i n g b u s i n e s s t o avo i d c re a t i ve e x h a u s t i o n

Other signs of burnout include constant exhaustion, poor sleep, an inability to remember things, and poor physical health Using stimulants (alcohol, caffeine, or drugs) just to get some writing done is a significant warning sign. Recovery Thankfully, we can recover from creative exhaustion ‘I force myself to rest, but I often switch to a pastime that helps me relax whilst still allowing me to feel like I can create things,’ says Gemma ‘I paint a lot, sew, take photos, sing, record lines for a podcast, whatever something that gets me away from the computer where possible.’

‘I walk a great deal and listen to an the burnout W i t h o n e b a n k h l

‘It usually takes me a while to recognise that I am burned out, ’ says Gemma. ‘Because my schedule tends to be so busy, I drop straight off one project, novel, or deadline and run smack bang into the next I get very little breathing room in general, between writing and juggling being a parent and other things, so burnout always creeps up on me unseen, until I suddenly find myself unable to write.’ Burnout or block? Writer’s block arises when we ’ re stuck with a plot problem, can ’ t think of the best opening line, and have fallen out of our usual writing rhythm Creative exhaustion prevents our brain from thinking. As Gemma explains, it’s not that you don’t want to write, it’s that you can ’ t. ‘I can always, always put words down, even terrible ones, except when I’m burned out. Then, not a single word. It’s torture My brain is willing, but unable This often goes hand in hand with a healthy dose of imposter syndrome, intense fatigue, anxiety, and depression.’

Gemma Amor (gemmaamorauthor. com) is a horror fiction author, podcaster and voice actor, whose novel Full Immersion is published by Angry Robot Books in September. During 2020, she experienced creative burnout, missing several deadlines.

For some, the August Bank Holiday will be an extra day away from the office for them to focus on their writing. For self employed writers, it’s just like any other day. But could taking a day off from our writing actually help our creativity in the long run?

Jason Hamilton is the content manager for the Kindlepreneur com website and a psychology fantasy author who loves mythology and history, which he explores through his MythBank.com website. He realised he was creatively burned out when writing gave him little joy

SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk58 A s writers, we can work from anywhere. Whether that be a desk, a park bench, slouching on the sofa, or walking and dictating into our phones, we have no excuse not to write at any time. And what about all those times when we settle down to sleep with a plot problem, and wake up the next morning with a solution? We’re so lucky, we can practically work 24/7 Or can we? Our writing business is all based upon creativity. It doesn’t matter whether we write novels, articles, poetry, short stories, or stage plays Without the ability to come up with new ideas, capture them, and then write them in an engaging and entertaining way, we have no business.

‘It became rather evident I was in burnout when I was no longer looking forward to writing,’ he says. ‘I would sit at my computer, my hands would hover over the keyboard, and I would feel like I was having a mild panic attack I just didn’t want to be there ’ As writers, we pressurise ourselves to perform Those with day jobs and family commitments have limited writing time The pressure to use that precious limited resource efficiently can be overwhelming. Similarly, full time writers feel pressurised by the need to generate a survivable income, through successful writing projects, and by meeting various deadlines Jason felt this pressure exacerbated his burnout ‘I felt depression, despair, and a general lack of interest in doing what I previously loved to do. This came after I released the first two books in a series I was writing and it completely failed. It made nowhere near the money I was hoping for, so writing the remaining books was extremely difficult I was so focused on creating best selling products that when I knew they weren ’ t selling, I completely collapsed inward ’

Jason suggests we use the time to reappraise what we want from our writing, too ‘Ask yourself if you ’ re in it for the money, or if you ’ re in it to tell the stories from your heart, or to improve as a writer ’

So, with our last bank holiday Monday of the summer approaching, perhaps it’s time to take a step back and give ourselves a day off In the long run, our writing business, and our bodies, will benefit from it. And perhaps we should remember that the man who introduced the 1871 Bank Holiday Act to parliament, Sir John Lubbock, was also a writer.

B U S I N E S S D I R E C TO RY: C R E AT I V E E X H AU S T I O N R E C OV E RY P L A N

59SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk T H E B U S I N E S S O F W R I T I N G awful lot of music I try to indulge in movie marathons and audiobooks. I also use the time to reconnect with friends, get plenty of fresh air, sleep, and all the sensible things a person should do when overwhelmed It takes time, but it does eventually work. Self care is an extremely dunked upon but valid tool in your career tool box.’ Jason agrees a complete break is necessary But he also used the time to question his creative motivation.

Be aware of limitations Art is created, not produced We’re not robots, yet there are elements of this industry that require us to be robotic at times. Those writing for publication are subject to deadlines Reader expectations put pressure on us When’s the next book out? You wrote two last year. Will there be two more this year? But, as Gemma concludes, we need to get to know ourselves and, therefore, what our limits are.

• Gemma’s advice: ‘It’s okay to stop. Stop tr ying, if the tr ying is making you feel terrible I understand deadlines are a thing I also know that it’s not always possible to just put down the pen and walk away But in general, our brains can only produce so many thoughts, ideas, scenes, and words ’

‘I have extremely strict boundaries about what types of project I’ll take on, how many, and with whom,’ she explains ‘How I like to communicate, how I like to spend my time, and routine really helps as well And I moan a lot to friends. That helps too. Some of us know what it’s like to climb up the mountain, and having a climbing buddy is a definite advantage.’

Preventative practice

• Jason’s advice: ‘Make sure your health is in order Lack of sleep and poor diet (seriously, sugar is a drug) are the number one enemies of a high functioning creative mind Focus on the journey, not the destination.’

‘The biggest step, the most important, and perhaps the hardest one to swallow, is to take a break I also re examined my reasons for wanting to be a novelist. Was it for money, or was it to improve as a writer? Fame or skill? I began to focus on the process rather than the destination, with the knowledge that every time I write, I am learning and improving as a writer Lastly, I began slowly building up my writing muscles again. I started off with tiny habits that I slowly built on from there ’ Healing time The recovery time will depend upon the severity of your burnout and the current situation. Recent freedom restrictions have hampered the recovery process. ‘During the pandemic,’ says Gemma, ‘I was burned out for nearly two years, and I still feel like I’m just climbing out of all that. I regularly burn out several times a year, if not more, and how long recovery takes is down to the circumstances Obligations, parenting duties, deadlines... it’s impossible to put a time limit on recovery in the context of our messy everyday lives ’ But Gemma now accepts that if she looks after herself, burnout is only a temporary situation ‘It always came back, though, the spark. Always. Sometimes in fits and starts, others in a slow trickle ’ Jason’s recovery was longer, and he wished he’d thought more intentionally about his recovery. ‘It took at least a year, and could have possibly taken less had I been more intentional about it. Creativity, I believe, doesn’t come spontaneously It comes through consistent practice in whatever art you are pursuing, as well as engaging in worthwhile endeavours that fill the creative well, ie other forms of art/music, meditation, taking care of yourself physically, etc. Had I been more intentional about doing these things, I might have recovered earlier.’

Prevention is better than a cure, as Gemma now appreciates ‘It really doesn’t pay to run yourself into the ground if you can avoid it: recovery takes twice as long as taking measures to avoid it in the first place.’ Gemma relies on her friends to support her. ‘Being surrounded with creative friends who often point out when I’m burning out is a big help. I can ’ t understate the importance of community in this gig. I have a group of friends who all tell each other to go to bed when they see us messing around on Twitter at ungodly hours. It sounds silly, but it helps.’ Jason also took a closer look at his physical health. ‘I had no idea how much effect sugar and processed foods had on my ability to focus and feel creatively fulfilled, but it really is a huge influence. Improving my diet has been the number one thing I have changed about my life that has led to burnout recovery Exercise is great too, though not if you overdo it, and so is meditation ’ He’s also reappraised his daily motivations. ‘I try to focus more on creating daily habits rather than focusing on financial goals, or even project goals,’ he says ‘If I can write steadily, those things will come eventually.’

There are lots of books, magazines and websites suitable for non specialist researchers As new research results are published all the time, it’s worth noting that information in books may become outdated quickly. In this respect, websites, magazines and journals are likely to offer more up to date material. When searching online, there’s always the possibility indeed, likelihood of coming across dubious repor ts Before you use any information, make sure the website is reputable. For example, the NHS ( w w w. n h s . u k ), the Mayo Clinic ( w w w. m a yo c l i n i c . c o m ) and Medline Plus ( w w w. n l m . n i h . g ov / m e d l i n e p l u s ) are comprehensive sites that have been compiled by exper ts They have information on medical conditions, treatments and medicines. Newspapers are the most up to date sources for latest plain language research However, sometimes their articles can be simplistic especially if they are ver y short and/or appear in tabloids Therefore, by all means explore the articles, but then go to the original source to check the facts and establish that the tabloid wasn ’ t merely presenting an attention grabbing headline instead of an accurate account of the subject matter

If you ’ re critical about the Western approach to health and wellbeing, there’s an increasing body of sources that offer alternative and/or complementar y information So, whether you ’ re interested in Ayur veda, shamanic healing or acupressure, it’s not difficult to find material W h i l e y o u ’ r e r e s e a r c h i n g , a s s e s s t h e r e l i a b i l i t y o f t h e i n f o r m a t i o n y o u f i n d Fo r i n s t a n c e , w a t c h o u t f o r w e l l m e a n i n g s e l f p r o c l a i m e d e x p e r t s w h o d i s s e m i n a t e m i s l e a d i n g a d v i c e , c r o o k s p r o m i s i n g m i r a c l e c u r e s i n e x c h a n g e f o r a h i g h f e e , a n d t o o g o o d t o b e t r u e a n e c d o t e s s u g g e s t i n g s u c c e s s i n a p a r t i c u l a r k i n d o f t r e a t m e n t

Histor ical approach If you ’ re interested in the histor y of diseases and healthcare, there are plenty of resources available. For example, Wellcome Collection (https:// I n s i c k n es s a n d i n h ea lt h

www wr iter s online co uk60 R E S E A R C H T I P S SEPTEMBER 2022 Ke e p y o u r f i n g e r o n t h e p u l s e o f m e d i c a l r e s e a r c h w i t h a d v i c e f r o m Ta r j a M o l e s

Health, wellbeing and illnesses are topics that encompass numerous aspects to write about, including medical conditions and their treatments, healthy living, personal accounts of coping with an illness, histor y of healthcare and ethical issues There are different types of sources that you can use and it’s your focus that’ll guide you in terms of which sources are the most relevant and appropriate for you Here’s an introduction to some that may be of use.

When exploring academic sources, you ’ re likely to read conflicting views and research results It can be difficult to establish what to believe. Fortunately, there are organisations that vet the available results and use evidence based techniques to determine what the most accurate information is For example, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (www.nice.org.uk) and the Cochrane Librar y (www. thecochranelibrar y.com) provide independent and evidence based guidance on conditions, treatments and public health issues

Non-mainstream infor mation

Infor mation in plain language

The latest health related research tends to appear first in academic journals You can search for articles, for instance, through the PubMed interface (https://writ.rs/ pubmed). It’s a major database in the field of biomedical literature drawn from the US National Librar y of Medicine’s catalogue, life science journals and online books Although it allows you to read abstracts and any open access material in full, you’ll need to pay to see articles in cases where publishers haven’t made their content readily available.

Academic sources

Health related material can be full of specialist terminology If you haven’t gone to medical school, such information may be difficult to understand. This doesn’t, however, mean that medical topics are out of bounds. There are plenty of sources that are aimed at non specialists and have been written in plain language Nevertheless, it’s advantageous to learn at least some terminology You can do this with the help of medical dictionaries, such as those at https://medlineplus. gov/encyclopedia.html, www.merriam-webster.com/ medical and www.online medical dictionar y.org

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Subjective exper iences

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If you have a query for Lisa, pleasesend it by email to lisacuttsenquiries@ gmail com

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C r i t i c a l t h i n k i n g I t c a n b e d i ff i c u l t , n o t j u s t f o r l a y p e o p l e b u t a l s o f o r m e d i c a l p r o f e s s i o n a l s , t o d e t e r m i n e w h a t i n f o r m a t i o n i s r e l i a b l e U n d e r s t a n d i n g s c i e n t i f i c p r o c e s s e s a n d t a k i n g a n e v i d e n c e b a s e d a p p r o a c h a r e t h e f i r s t s t e p s i n t h e j o u r n e y o f c r i t i c a l t h i n k i n g To i m p r o v e y o u r s k i l l s , e x p l o r e B e n G o l d a c r e ’s w r i t i n g ( w w w. b a d s c i e n c e n e t ) , f o r e x a m p l e , b y r e a d i n g h i s b o o k s B a d S c i e n c e a n d B a d P h a r m a . H e s p e c i a l i s e s i n u n p i c k i n g t h e m i s u s e o f s c i e n c e a n d s t a t i s t i c s w h i c h w i l l h e l p y o u g a i n a d e e p e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f w h a o o o w o i a wellcomecollection.org) in London is an excellent place to research them It holds historical and contemporar y books, artworks, archives and manuscripts relating to medicine and health To find out what’s available, use Wellcome Collection’s search engine at https://wellcomecollection.org/ collections. The London Museums of Health and Medicine (http://medicalmuseums.org) are also fascinating places to visit. It’s a network of over twenty museums, each museum specialising in a different aspect of healthcare and medicine, such as dental heritage, eyecare, mental health care and the real stor y of Florence Nightingale. There are also other museums in other parts of the countr y that hold historical material, including the Thackray Museum of Medicine (https://thackraymuseum.co.uk) in Leeds and Surgeons’ Hall Museums (https:// museum.rcsed.ac.uk) in Edinburgh. Do an online search to find more medical museums and archives

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Personal experiences, whether as a patient, carer or health professional, can enliven both fiction and nonfiction writing If you don’t have a particular experience yourself, you could inter view someone who has You could contact people with specific conditions through dedicated charities and support groups and find health professionals through professional associations When you ’ re inter viewing people about their experiences, always treat them with utmost sensitivity. Health and illnesses are subjective matters, and ever yone ’ s experience of them is different. Also, the inter viewee may feel embarrassed or have reser vations about confidentiality and anonymity so always respect their wishes Good luck with your research! f a t h e r d e a d b y h a n g i n g i n h i s g a rd e n s h e d h e c a l l s t h e f a m i l y d o c t o r h e i s o l d h e c a l l s t h e p o l i c e h e n a t t e n d s t h e s u i c i d e s i t e o l i c e c a r s a t t e n d a n d t h e y f i n d a n o l d m a n h a n g i n g a n d d e a d . W h a t t h e n w o u l d t h e p ro c e d u re b e ? Wo u l d t h e y c o n f i r m f ro m t h e d o c t o r a s e l f i n f l i c t e d s u i c i d e ? Wo u l d t h e p o l i c e t h e n l e a v e f o r t h e f a m i l y t o d e a l w i t h i t ? W i l l i a m S t a r k e y v i a e m a i l

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A T h e p o l i c e w o u l d s t i l l d e a l w i t h t h e d e a t h a s a s u d d e n d e a t h , e n s u r i n g t h a t n o t h i n g u n t o w a rd h a s h a p p e n e d E v e n t h o u g h t h e f a t h e r a p p e a r s t o h a v e t a k e n h i s o w n l i f e , t h e b o d y w o u l d s t i l l b e e x a m i n e d f o r o t h e r i n j u r i e s a n d a p o s t m o r t e m l a t e r c a r r i e d o u t To x i c o l o g y m a y s h o w, f o r e x a m p l e , t h a t h e h a d t a k e n d r u g s o r b e e n d r u g g e d I t w o u l d b e s o m e t i m e b e f o re t h e s c e n e w o u l d b e re l e a s e d a s t h e p o l i c e w o u l d w a n t t o c h e c k f o r a n y s i g n s o f a b u r g l a r y o r d i s t u r b a n c e , a g a i n , i n c a s e t h e re w a s m o re t o i t t h a n f i r s t a p p e a r s T h e y w o u l d a l s o t r y t o d e t e r m i n e w h a t , i f a n y t h i n g , h a d t r i g g e re d h i m t o t a k e h i s o w n l i f e A re p o r t h a s t o b e p re p a re d f o r t h e c o ro n e r a n d i t n e e d s t o c o n t a i n b a c k g ro u n d i n f o r m a t i o n o n w h o t h e d e c e a s e d w a s , a f a m i l y b re a k d o w n a n d a n y p h y s i c a l o r m e n t a l h e a l t h i s s u e s , g a m b l i n g a d d i c t i o n s , a l c o h o l o r d r u g a b u s e o r a n y t h i n g e l s e w h i c h m a y b e re l e v a n t t o h i s d e a t h T h e re m u s t b e s o m e b a s i c i n q u i r i e s c a r r i e d o u t a n d f o r m a l i d e n t i f i c a t i o n m a d e o f t h e d e c e a s e d T h e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n w o u l d m o s t l i k e l y b e c a r r i e d o u t b y t h e d a u g h t e r, a l t h o u g h i f t h e re w a s a n y d o u b t o v e r h i s i d e n t i t y, a b a s i c s e a rc h i n t h e h o u s e s h o u l d p u t t h a t t o re s t S h e m i g h t b e m i s l e a d i n g t h e p o l i c e f o r s o m e re a s o n o v e r w h o t h e d e c e a s e d i s o r t h e e v e n t s p r i o r t o h i s d e a t h T h e p o l i c e w o u l d n ’t a l l o w t h e f a m i l y d o c t o r t o m a k e a n y o ff i c i a l c a u s e o f d e a t h , a l t h o u g h a n o ff i c e r w o u l d t a k e a s t a t e m e n t f ro m h i m a s h e h a s a t t e n d e d , k n o w s t h e f a m i l y a n d h a s m e d i c a l k n o w l e d g e T h e p o l i c e w o u l d a l s o a r r a n g e f o r t h e b o d y t o b e re m o v e d v i a a n u n d e r t a k e r

Lisa Cutts is a crime fiction author and retired detective sergeant, having spent most of her career within the Serious Crime Depar tment She has returned to work as an Investigating Officer on historic crimes Her novels are published by Myriad and Simon and Schuster

I enclose my entry fee (cheques/postal order payable to Warners Group Publications) OR I wish to pay my entry fee by: Maestro Delta Visa Access Mastercard Competition Entry I am enclosing my entry for the Ref code and agree to be bound by the competition rules Competition Entry I am enclosing my entry for the Ref code and agree to be bound by the competition rules Competition Rules TITLE FORENAME SURNAME ADDRESS POSTCODE EMAIL I m happy to receive special offers via email from Warners Group Publications plc TELEPHONE (INC AREA CODE) CARD NUMBER VALID FROM EXPIRY DATE ISSUE NUMBER SECURITY NUMBER CARDHOLDER NAME SIGNATURE DATE I enclose my entry fee (cheques/postal order payable to Warners Group Publications) OR I wish to pay my entry fee by: Maestro Delta Visa Access Mastercard TITLE FORENAME SURNAME ADDRESS POSTCODE EMAIL I m happy to receive special offers via email from Warners Group Publications plc TELEPHONE (INC AREA CODE) CARD NUMBER VALID FROM EXPIRY DATE ISSUE NUMBER SECURITY NUMBER CARDHOLDER NAME SIGNATURE DATE Ho w to enter Tick here if you wish to receive our FREE monthly e newsletter Tick here if you wish to receive our FREE monthly e newsletter 1 Eligibility All entries must be the original and unpublished work of the entrant and not currently submitted for publication nor for any other competition or award Each entry must be accompanied by an entry form, printed here (photocopies are acceptable), unless stated Open Competitions are open to any writer, who can submit as many entries as they choose Entry fees are £7 50 £5 for subscribers Subscriber only Competitions are open only to subscribers of Writing Magazine Entry is free but you can only submit one entry per competition 2 Entry Fees Cheques or postal orders should be payable to Warners Group Publications or you can pay by credit card (see form) 3 Manuscripts Short stories: Entries must be typed in double spacing on single sides of A4 paper with a front page stating your name address phone number and email address, your story title and word count and the name of the competition Entries will be returned if accompanied by sae Electronic entries should be a single doc, docx, txt, rtf or pdf file with the contact details etc on p1 and your story commencing on the second page Poetry manuscripts: Entries must be typed in single spacing with double spacing between stanzas on single sides of A4 Entrant s name, address, telephone number and email address must be typed on a separate A4 sheet Entries to poetry competitions cannot be returned Electronic entries should be a single doc docx txt rtf odt or pdf file with the contact details, etc, on p1, and your poem on the second page All manuscripts: Receipt of entries will be acknowledged if accompanied by a suitably worded stamped and addressed postcard Entrants retain copyright in their manuscripts You are advised not to send the only copy of your manuscript Enclose an sae if you want your manuscript to be returned 4 Competition Judging Competition judges will be appointed by Writing Magazine and the judges decision will be final with no correspondence being entered into 5 Notification Winners will be notified within three months of closing date after which date unplaced entries may be submitted elsewhere Winning entries may not be submitted elsewhere for twelve months after that date without permission of Writing Magazine who retain the right to publish winning entries in any form during those twelve months ENTRY FEE (please tick one) £7 50 £5 for subscribers Free entry (subscriber only competition) ENTRY FEE (please tick one) £7 50 £5 for subscribers Free entry (subscriber only competition) Competition rules and forms Enter online at www writer s online co uk or by post, with the ref code in the address, to: Writing Magazine Competitions (Ref Code xxxxx), Warner s Group Publications, West Street, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Remember to add a front sheet with full contact details and the name of the competition you are entering (see Rule 3) To enter: • Fir st-per son shor t story competition (see p62) For fir st per son short stories in any genre, 1,50 0 1,70 0 words; free entry, subscriber s only; closing date, 15 October Ref Code: Sep22/First • Holiday short story competition (see p27) For holiday short stories, 1,50 0 1,70 0 words; entry fee £7 50, £5 for subscriber s; closing date, 15 October. Ref Code: Sep22/Holiday Short stories with a ‘love’ theme, 1,50 0 1,70 0 words; entry fee £7 50, £5 for subscriber s; closing date, 15 September Ref Code: Aug22/Love • Love Shor t Story Competition (see p27) • Free ver se competition (see p56) Free ver se poems, up to 40 lines; entry fee £7 50, £5 for subscriber s; closing date, 15 September Ref Code: Aug22/free

Mslexia Fiction Competition 2022 CLOSING DATE FOR ALL CATEGORIES: 19 SEPTEMBER 2022 mslexia co uk/competitions competitions@mslexia co uk (+44) 191 204 8860 For novels of at least 20,000 words by wom en who are not yet published as novelists 1st Prize: £5,000 JUDGES CRESSIDA COWELL MBE, IMOGEN RUSSELL WILLIAMS, CHLOE SEAGER CHILDREN’S & YA NOVEL For complete short fiction of up to 3,000 words 1 s t Pr i z e : £ 3 , 0 0 0 JUDGE DIANA EVANS SHORT STORY For complete short fiction of up to 300 words 1st Prize: £500 JUDGE AUDREY NIVEN FLASH FICTION ‘There is no such things as imp ossible, only improb able The only things that limit us are the limits to our imagination ’ Cressida Cowell Novel winners and shortlisted finalists go on to be published at the highest level visit mslexia co uk/submit your work/reader success stories for recent achievements Winners and three finalists of the Short Story and Flash Fiction categories will be published in Mslexia magazine 24 Short Story and Flash Fiction finalists will be published in the Mslexia anthology Best Women’s Short Fiction 2022 Your p assp ort to publication

The closing date is 31 October Website: https://npc.poetr ysociety.org.uk/ P r i z e p o t f o r p o e t s

The New Media Writing Prize is awarded annually for interactive new media writing stor ytelling that is created specifically to be consumed via a PC or Mac, or a handheld device (ie tablet or smartphone) or online Entries may be fiction or non fiction, including novels, short stories, poems, documentaries, or transmedia works Interactivity must be a key component and the judges will be looking for innovative use of digital media to create an involving narrative

The Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetr y 2022 is a brand new poetr y competition from Morrab Librar y and the Dennis Myner Trust. The inaugural Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetr y is an international, free entr y competition inviting entries of original, unpublished poem on any theme There are categories for adults and children In the adult categor y, there is a first prize of £1,000, a second prize of £500 and a third prize of £300. In the children’s categor y the prizes are £150, £100 and £50 The competition will be judged by Katrina Naomi and Penelope Shuttle. Each entrant may submit one poem The closing date is 30 September. Website: https://morrablibrar y.org.uk/poetr yprize/

The Imagined Futures Prize is a brand new prize from Faber for science fiction novels or short stor y collections aimed at young adult readers by UK writers.

The entr y fee for the first poem is £7, and £5 for subsequent entries in the same submission.

This year ’ s award is in the following categories:

• The Writing Magazine Student Award: a year ’ s WM sub or creative writing course, closing date 20 December.

Each entr y should include an active access code or URL to the work. Entr y is free

The first prize is £5,000 There are second and third prizes of £2,000 and £1,000, and further commended poets will each get £200 This year ’ s judges are Greta Stoddart, Jason Allen Paisant and Michael Symmons Roberts Enter original, unpublished poems up to forty lines

The winner will receive a Faber publishing contract with a £15,000 advance. The second prize is a publishing contract with a £8,000 advance and the third prize is a contract with a £5,000 advance To enter, send the first 10,000 words of an unpublished novel or short stor y collection that can loosely be defined as science fiction, plus a 500 word synopsis Writers entering the competition may be agented or unagented, and unpublished or previously published Entr y is free.

The New Media Writing Prize 200 is inviting entries for this year ’ s digital stor ytelling awards

The closing date is 25 November. Website: https://newmediawritingprize.co.uk/ Get brooked in

Winners in both categories will each receive £1,000 Runners up each get £200. This year ’ s judge is Caroline Bird

Win a Faber publishing contract in the The Imagined Futures Prize 2022 contest for YA science fiction

D O I T D I G I T A L LY

64 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk Yo u r e s s e n t i a l m o n t h ly ro u n d - u p o f c o m p e t i t i o n s , p ay i n g m a r ke t s , o p p o r t u n i t i e s t o g e t i n t o p r i n t a n d p u b l i s h i n g i n d u s t r y n ew s

• The Opening Up Award: £500

The Oxford Brookes 2022 International Poetr y Competition is inviting entries in two categories: Open and EAL The competition is for original, unpublished poems in English by poets anywhere in the world, up to 50 lines The open categor y is for all poets, and the EAL categor y is for poets for whom English is an additional language.

• The Digital Journalism Award: £500 and free membership of the FIPP

The closing date is 9 September Website: www.faber.co.uk/journal/imagined futures prize/ Imagine all the contracts...

The annual National Poetr y Competition from The Poetr y Society is one of the world’s most prestigious prizes for unpublished poems

The entr y fee is £5 for each of the first three entries and £4 for each subsequent poem

• The Chris Meade Memorial UK New Media Writing Prize: £1,000

The closing date is 31 August Website: www.brookes.ac.uk/research/units/hss/centres/poetr y centre/ Grand new poetry prize

The winner will receive £250 and their essay will be published in Wasafiri Enter original, unpublished essays between 5,000 and 8,000 words on a subject within the field of international contemporar y literature (published since 1965)

bstiernberg@insidehook.com. Inside Inside Hook ONLINE LIFESTYLE MARKET

The ADCI Award launches this month and is open to authors with a disability or chronic illness, and will be given to novels that include a disabled or chronically ill character or characters

The Society of Authors has launched a new fiction prize to reward positive representations of disability and chronic illness in literature. The new ADCI (Authors with Disabilities and Chronic Illness) award has been founded by author Penny Batchelor and publisher Clare Christian Penny and Clare are campaigners for better representations of disability in publishing and improved accessibility for disabled and chronically ill writers

The closing date is 31 October.

Website: https://writ.rs/ADCIPrize

The Wasafiri Essay Prize is for innovative critical essays on international contemporar y literature It is intended to reward scholarship by early career researchers

Website: www.wasafiri.org/wasafiri essay prize/ L i t e r a t u r e m a t t e r s

Check out some recent TV features at www.insidehook. com/categor y/sections/arts entertainment/television

SEPTEMBER 2022

The site is ver y US focused, but always needs pitches, so there’s no deadline Payment is $350 $400 for 1,000 words Contact Bonnie Stiernberg email at

O P E N I N G A C C E S S T O P R I Z E S

The winner will receive £1,000 and two runners up will each get £500 Applicants will need to apply online and provide digital or hard copies of their novels

Entrants should have been awarded a PhD no more than eight years before the closing date Entr y is free. The closing date is 12 September.

Memoirs do not need to be complete to be entered To enter, send between 5,000 and 8,000 words plus a 300 word over view. Longlisted writers will be asked to provide 15,000 words and shortlisted authors will be asked for 30,000 words

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 65www wr iter s online co uk

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The Bridport Memoir Award 2022 is a new competition from the Bridport Prize. The Bridport Memoir Award is an international prize for unpublished memoir manuscripts The first prize winner will receive £1,500 and a year ’ s mentoring from The Literar y Consultancy The winner will also be offered a consultation with AM Heath literar y agency and with an editor from John Murray The runner up will receive £750 and a full manuscript assessment from The Literar y Consultancy, and three highly commendeds will each receive £150 and a 15,000 word manuscript assessment from TLC. The judge is Cathy Rentzenbrink.

Recent TV features have included, ‘Enough With All the Multiverse Stories Already’, ‘ What’s With All the Dancing on TV Nowadays?’, and ‘Is “Prestige TV” Over?’ The site also covers US centric news, and the usual lifestyle sections from food and drink to travel and sport, relationships to technology, health and fitness, arts and entertainment

Bonnie Stiernberg, managing editor at US website Inside Hook, has tweeted, ‘If you ’ re a person who writes about TV shows (specifically takes/ essays/thinkpieces, not weekly episodic reviews or listicles), you should send me some pitches ’ Inside Hook describes itself as ‘the go to news and luxur y lifestyle recommendation platform for the affluent, on the go gent ’ By this they mean that successful men don’t have the ‘time to sift through the mountain of information out there’, so the platform does it for them, dutifully scouring the globe to find ‘the most timely, important news, information and luxur y lifestyle intel’

All about the Benjamin Benjamin Franklin House Literar y Prize 2022 is inviting entries

Writers entering the Bridport Memoir Award must be unrepresented and not under contract to a traditional publisher for a memoir Writers who have published other kinds of books, eg poetr y or a novel, may enter The entr y fee is £24. The closing date is 30 September.

The annual competition is for fiction and non fiction by writers aged 18 25. Writers entering the prize are asked to explore the contemporar y relevance of a quotation from Benjamin Franklin. The 2022 quote is: ‘ The Eyes of other People are the Eyes that ruin us If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine Clothes, fine Houses nor fine Furniture ’ Letter to Benjamin Vaughan, 1784 There is a first prize of £750 and a runner up prize of £500 Winning entries will be published on the Benjamin Franklin House website. Enter original, unpublished fiction or non fiction between 1,000 and 1,500 words. Entr y is free Each writer may submit one entr y The closing date is 31 October. Website: http://benjaminfranklinhouse.org/education/literar y prize/ Memoirs are made of this

Gary Dalkin

Website: https://bridportprize.org.uk/

Muswell Press is a UK ‘proudly independent publisher of great books, both fiction and non fiction’, according to editors, Sarah and Kate Beal. They are committed to ‘editorial excellence, high quality production and marketing their books with flair’ Check out the website and their list as well as the guidelines Submissions are open for contemporary fiction, crime, travel, biography and memoir. They also have an LGBTQI list which republishes classic works of queer literature together with new work Please note that ‘From time to time we may need to close submissions while we catch up with reading Always check the website before submitting ’ For fiction, novels must be over 50,000 words Submit the completed manuscript Non fiction proposals should include an outline of the book plus a minimum of three chapters Email submissions ‘in a word file with a note of word count, a short synopsis and a cv/biography’ to: info@muswell press.co.uk Response time is around four months Rights and royalties are discussed with a contract Website: https://muswell press. co uk

Original poetr y and flash fiction are invited for the Allingham Ar ts Festival competitions which have a deadline of 16 September. The winners in each section will receive €300 and along with the second and third place winners will be invited to read their work at the Festival, 2 6 November, in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal Yo are wanted should have a maximum cast size of settings should be simple suggested There are no restrictions on stage play format no limit on the number of submissions you may make although if submitting more than one they should be made in the same email

F e s t iv a l compe t it i ons

and

Email to: Jeffrey@theatrethree.com Website: www theatrethree com/oaf html Gain a US A performance for y our short play

u m u s t b e ov e r t h e a g e o f e i g h t e e n o n 2 Nov e m b e r t o e n t e r a n d n o s u b m i s s i o n s h o u l d h a v e b e e n p u b l i s h e d o n l i n e , d i g i t a l l y o r i n p r i n t b e f o re t h e s a m e d a t e Poetr y should be a maximum forty lines and no more than five poems should be entered Flash fiction should be no more than 700 words and a maximum of five pieces may be submitted T h e e n t r y f e e i s € 5 f o r e a c h p o e m o r f l a s h f i c t i o n p i e c e a n d e n t r i e s m u s t b e m a d e s e p a r a t e l y f o r e a c h s e c t i o n B o t h o n l i n e a n d p o s t a l e n t r i e s w i l l b e a c c e p t e d b e f o re t h e d e a d l i n e o f 2 3 5 9 p m o n 1 6 Se p t e m b e r A s e p a r a t e a p p l i c a t i o n f o r m s h o u l d b e c o m p l e t e d f o r e a c h p o e m o r f l a s h f i c t i o n e n t r y Postal entries must be typed/printed and submitted with a cover letter stating your name, telephone number, postal and email addresses and the number of entries being made Cheques should be made payable to Allingham Festival As no entries will be returned keep a copy/copies Submit online via the website: www allinghamfestival.com/fiction poetr y competitions Details: Allingham Poetr y (or Flash Fiction) Competitions, c/o A Novel Idea, Castle Street, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, FG94 HK8W, Republic of Ireland New York based Theatre Three invites playscripts of a maximum forty minutes from around the world for their 24th Annual Festival of One Act plays. Submissions should not have been produced although plays which have received staged readings are eligible Adaptations and children’s plays

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W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 66 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk Muswell’s off UK BOOK MARKET PDR Lindsay-Salmon

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Submit your play before 30 September as a pdf document along with a cover sheet showing your name, address, telephone number and email address. You can include an optional short synopsis and you may also submit a resume/ CV as a separate attachment in the same email.

FLASHES

Plays

The Short Story 2022 from The Guardian and 4th Estate invites entries from unpublished writer s of colour The winner will recei ve £1,0 0 0 and a one day publishing workshop at 4th Estate Their story will be published on The Guardian’s website Enter original, unpublished short stories up to 6,0 0 0 words The closing date is 14 August. Website: www 4thestate co uk/2022/06/ prize 2022/ Songbook is a new weekly podcast celebrating music writing from music imprint White Rabbit Books Each episode will feature journalist, author and broadcaster Jude Roger s and a special guest in conver sation about a particular music book The fir st season’s guests include Vashti Bunyan, Ian Rankin, Brett Ander son and Adelle Stripe, and the music has been written by David Holmes ‘Oftentimes you think writing a certain scene is going to be so monumental and important, and you start to write it, and it falls flat because you’ve built it up so much in your mind I always try to remind myself that what mak es something interesting are the small human details and moments, not the grand sweeping gestures ’ Alexis Landau

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Selected plays will be presented for ten performances on Theatre Three’s Second Stage at the Ronald F Peieris Theatre in winter spring 2023 and the playwrights will each receive a $125 stipend, a standard Dramatists’ Guild approved contract and copies of playbills, flyers, articles, reviews and a link to all publicity and production photographs For those who are able to attend the theatre you are invited to come along to rehearsals and performances and there are four complimentar y tickets available for any performance

Last year Chiselbur y published four new books and four new editions of previously published books ‘In total we have 46 titles available,’ said Stuart ‘ To date we have published two new works in 2022 with another two nearing issue in the next month or so I expect that we will have done about ten this year in total.’ Writers interested in being published by Chiselbur y should send an introduction to themselves and their work in the first instance. ‘Initially I would like a brief synopsis to see whether the work is something that we would be interested in,’ said Stuart Chiselbur y publishes in print and ebook and pays royalties Website: www.chiselbur y.co.uk

Currently the team are seeking submissions of work which demonstrates a master y of writing craft, primarily literar y fiction and fine art, but they ‘have no qualms with publishing genre fiction that subverts convention’, and they like ‘experimental work that inverts tradition in pursuit of innovative stor ytelling’ No reprints or multiple submissions but simultaneous submissions are reluctantly accepted with the usual proviso For fiction and creative non fiction, submit no more than 5,000 words, for poetr y up to six pages, through the website: www.qwertyunb. com Response time is 6 12 months. Payment is ‘ a small honorarium (Can$15) and one complimentar y copy ’ J u s t t h e i r t y p e

Revamp, rebrand UK NON-FICTION MARKET Tina Jackson No t - s o - q u i c k f l a s h

Each flash should be no longer than around 1,000 words The winner will receive £300 There are two runners up prizes of £100, and each winning novella will be individually published and each author will receive five copies The Novella Award judge is John Brantingham. The entr y fee is £16 The closing date is 15 Januar y 2023. Website: www.bathflashfictionaward.com/

Qwerty is the University of New Brunswick’s graduate student run literar y magazine, and the editorial team publish ‘innovative poetr y, fiction, and visual art from emerging and established artists alike.’

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S www wr iter s online co uk 67SEPTEMBER 2022 Chiselbur y Publishers rebranded in 2021 to reflect the way it has evolved beyond its initial aims ‘Our titles now range from memoirs, biographies and histor y books, to contemporar y and historical novels,’ said managing director Stuart Leasor ‘ We have just published Seaton’s Orchid, the latest work from Chips Hardy, the writer of the award winning TV series Taboo ’ Chiselbur y Publishing was originally established as James Leasor Publishing in 2011 to make the works of James Leasor available to new and old readers ‘James Leasor had been one of the bestselling and most prolific British authors of the second half of the 20th centur y, writing over fifty books ranging from thrillers and historical novels to histories and biographies,’ said Stuart ‘However none were available as ebooks and the few in print had legacy contracts with publishers who had little interest in them We were then approached by leading journalist Dominic Midgley to see if we could make the bestselling biographies that he had written with Chris Hutchins on Roman Abramovich and Sir James Goldsmith available as well ’ This marked the beginning of a change in approach for Chiselbur y ‘ We have since been approached by other authors wanting us to publish new and previously published works and so we have rebranded as Chiselbur y to reflect our new profile,’ said Stuart. ‘Since our rebrand in 2021 we have been adding a number of new authors to the line up, with more in the pipeline for 2022 ’ Stuart wants to establish Chishelbur y as a destination publisher for interesting titles ‘I hope to continue to expand and help more authors who might have been wrongly rejected by other publishers achieve their aims I hope that Chiselbur y will become known for continuing to publish interesting and readable books.’ Chiselbur y Publishing titles reflect a variety of interests. ‘A good title for us is something that I would like to read myself!’ said Stuart. ‘I don’t think that there is set formula or type of book Our four most recent books show the range: from Seaton’s Orchid, a historical novel, and BloodLine, an alternate [sic] Scottish histor y thriller by Nick Bastin, to The Early Plantagenets by Alan McLean, a sort of horrible histories for adults, through to two memoirs of wartime heroes, Not Enough Said by Duke Sell and, our most recent title, The Man Under the Radar, by Linda Nissen Samuels ’

The 2023 Bath Novella in Flash Award is inviting entries. The Award, which comes under the umbrella of the Bath Flash Fiction Award, is given for novellas between 6,000 and 18,000 words that are comprised of flash fictions or ver y short stories

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Win a mentoring pack age in New Voices Fir st Novel Competition 2022 contest from Adventures in Fiction The competition is aimed at writer s who have completed at least fifty pages of a manuscript Submit the fir st page of an unpublished novel manuscript plus a one page synopsis The entry fee is £10 The closing date is 14 September Website: http:// adventuresin fiction co uk/ Leading UK literary and talent agency Curtis Brown Group, who represent Margaret Atwood, Matt Haig and Haruki Murak ami, and also the estates of the writer s Ian Fleming and John le Carré, among many other s, have been bought by United Talent Agency. Curtis Brown, which was founded in 1899, will continue under its original name with the same management team The PEN Ack erley Prize 2022, gi ven for literary autobiography, has been won by The Suitcase by Frances Stonor Saunder s, which explores her relationship with her father, who left Romania in 1940, via the suitcase of paper s he left when he died ‘Write what scares you If it’s not scaring you, at least a little, it’s probably not taking enough risks ’ Celeste Ng National Geographic Kids, a general interest non fiction magazine, invites submissions on a big range of topics including natural histor y, science, geography, histor y departments are looking for animal anecdotes and cool vacation ideas,’ say guidelines magazine is published ten times each year with an appeal for 6 14 year olds. Initially article ideas should be pitched through a quer y letter. This should show a well researched premise or hook and recent copies of the magazine should be studied to ensure your idea has not been covered in the last five years can be read should be around 250 words, include a headline suggesting the stor y and set out the premise and approach to your idea It should show the style in which you for Lindsay-Salmon Ghost Orchid Press is an independent publisher of horror, gothic and supernatural fiction based in Cambridgeshire As indie publishers they are happy to take risks on ‘fresh, thought provoking new content from new and lesser known authors’ This team love horror They publish horror anthologies and novellas Currently there is a call for a major ne w anthology edited by Evelyn Freeling, Les Petites Mor ts: An Antholog y of Erotic Horror Inspired by Fair y Tales, Mytholog y & Folklore She wants retellings should be about ‘sexuality, desire, and fantasies that take dark turns ’ Give the editorial team ‘ a good spin on the classics, but they do want to see fair y tales, mythologies, and folklore from outside the Western Euro catalogue as well ’ They expect ‘all of the hallmarks of a great horror stor y: rich characters, dynamic settings, tension, pacing, with well written erotic scenes that make our hear ts race ’ Don’t omit the ‘terrifying and horrifying’ The anthology is inclusive and M F, F F, M M, threesomes, orgies, kinks, etc, are permitted. Stories should be 1,000 5,000 words, ideally 2,000 4,000 and the deadline is 30 August Submit a doc/docx attachment to: lespetitesmortssubs@ gmail com

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online Pitches

and entertainment ‘For our

• The team also publish long fiction, also with a deadline of 31 August for general submissions of novellas 20,000 40,000 words and novels, 40,000 100,000 words ‘aimed at an adult audience’ They chiefly want horror, gothic, and dark fantasy but ‘love genre mixing, works that stray from the well trodden path, or that offer a fresh perspective on existing tropes ’ . They are keen to see submissions from BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and non Western authors, and stories with elements of the following genres, ‘horror romance/erotic horror, historical and gothic horror, folk horror, hauntings, supernatural, and the occult’ This is indie publishing so be prepared to work hard on the sales side. Submit by email and send the first three chapters or equivalent sample of pages, around fifty pages or 10,000 words as a doc/docx file to: submissions@ ghostorchidpress com Response time is ‘within sixty days’ for the anthology and novel/novella Payment for the novel/novella is by negotiation, usually ‘ a small advance plus 50% of net royalties’ Anthology payment is 6¢ per word Website: https://ghostorchidpress com G e t s n a p p e d u p

a writing style that’s informed but speaks the reader’s language and has a sense of humour,’ say guidelines. Pitches should also say which area of the magazine your stor y would fit and the website has further details on considerations you should keep in mind for the different sections of the magazine Include a resume with your pitch and send to senior editor Kay Boatner, Kay Boatner@ neogeo.com, or editor Allyson Shaw: Allyson Shaw@neo com Website: www nationalgeographic com/pdf/kids/NGK Submissions Guidelines 2021 pdfXX T h e Sn a p s h o t Pr e s s B o o k Aw a r d s a r e a n n u a l , i n t e r n a t i o n a l c o n t e s t s f o r b o o k l e n g t h c o l l e c t i o n s o f u n p u b l i s h e d h a i k u , t a n k a a n d s h o r t p o e m s Winners will have their collections published by Snapshot Press, independent publishers of haiku, tanka and other shor t form poetr y Collections should consist of between 60 and 100 poems, each of any length between 1 and 25 lines. Prose poems and haibun should be no longer than 200 words. The entr y fee per collection is £20 The closing date is 30 November Website: www.snapshotpress.co.uk Fair y love UK SPECFIC MARKET PDR

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W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 68 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk The world for kids GLOBAL MAGAZINE MARKET Jenny Roche FLASHES

Established in Januar y 2021,

Pay attention to juggling different aspects of the freelance life , says Patrick Forsyth

Payment

Response time ‘is three months or less, often much less’ Payment is a token $3 per piece, plus a copy, for first print and electronic rights.

We’re still living in untypical times There is a lot to cope with and much to catch up on Holidays are just one example (if you sur vive the airport experience); many people are catching up My next holiday, assuming it happens, was postponed three times One result for those intent on selling their writing is that you get busy I thought of this the other day I am writing a series of 15,000 word monographs for an online publisher One day I found myself counting three that needed proof reading, one new one to be written (and further topics to be suggested) and, separately, a book to be finished Then, of course, columns to write like this. For many writers, writing is not a full time activity and whatever mix of activities you have on the go it must be fitted in with the hurly burly of ever yday life Considering this sort of mix it is self evident that you need to be, and remain, organised. I am sure I have mentioned the need to hit deadlines numbers of times here, but that is just one implication. The greatest danger is the classic conundrum of feast and famine. When you have many things to do, and I would include speculative writing in that list (some of us have many unfinished pieces that so easily get sidelined and remain unfinished), most often what gets delayed or not done is activity to secure new commissions Suggestions to make, quer y messages to write, people and ideas to follow up, all need attention in parallel. Whenever you are busy it pays to take stock and balance the seeking of work with the doing of work Neglect that and, in due, course, famine will become the right word

Third Wednesday is a well established US literar y journal with an editorial team looking for quality poetr y and flash fiction. Read what’s published on their website and check the detailed guidelines carefully. The journal now has a new website and will feature some of the poetr y and fiction pieces on it once they’ve been published in the print journal. The editorial team love poetr y and seek submissions of ‘All types of poetr y from formal to experimental They look for an ‘emphasis placed on the ideas craft, language, the beauty of expression, and the picture that extends beyond the frame of the poem ’ Read the editors’ likes and dislikes in poetr y at the website Flash fiction, no more than 1,000 words, should ‘ say something’ Give the old a twist, a new perspective. Use language well, construct a stor y and end it well.

‘Name’ writers such as Neil Ferguson, Camille Paglia, Matt Groening, Steve Pinker and Zadie Smith have been contributors, but editor Michael Tomasky and his team are open to freelance pitches and unsolicited submissions from all writers, new as well as established. If you are pitching an idea for an essay, reportage, or other non fiction, briefly explain your angle, why it’s timely, and why you ’ re the person to write it; hyperlinking any references and citations in your pitch. If you are sending a completed submission, briefly summarise it in your email and attach your full article In all cases, include a brief biography and links to examples of your work Note, The New Republic is not a news site, but publishes in depth longform researched journalism and opinion piece essays, as well as reviews and other non fiction It is essential to send your pitch/feature to the right editor, as anything sent to more than one editor will be deleted unread. Departments are called ‘verticals’, and the editor for The Soapbox (the politics, law, healthcare, media vertical) is Jason Linkins: jlinkins@tnr com For Apocalypse Soon (climate change, science, Covid 19 and the environment), contact Heather Souvaine Horn: hshorn@tnr com Sold Short addresses identity, inequality and justice and is edited by Patrick Caldwell: pcaldwell@tnr.com and he has his own pitching guide at https:// newrepublic com/article/160249/pitch sold short He also edits the State of the Nation section of the print edition Email Emily Cook for Critical Mass, covering arts and culture including books, film and TV: emily@tnr.com Emily also edits feature stories for the print title Laura Marsh is the editor to contact for books and the arts in the physical edition: lmarsh@tnr.com You can submit poetr y, no more than a page long, via poetr y@tnr.com

While New Republic is ver y US centric it does cover a wide range of stories with global reach. Recent pieces have included ‘Is Nuclear Power Just Too Dangerous?’, ‘ Thom Gunn’s Anti Confessional Poetr y ’ , ‘Argentina Keeps Redesigning Its Currency, Solving Nothing’ and ‘How Buster Keaton Revolutionized the Early Film Industr y ’ . It’s best to read the magazine or website at https:// newrepublic.com before pitching and follow the full guidelines at https://newrepublic com/pages/ contact#submissionGuidelines varies at around 12 15¢ word

New Republic wants long-for m political essays GLOBAL NON-FICTION MARKET Gary Dalkin G O I N G T O M A R K E T 69SEPTEMBER 2022

Balls in the air

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Submit work online, 1 3 poems or a stor y in a single doc or docx file Simultaneous submissions are welcome but not reprints or multiple subs.

Founded in 1914, The New Republic is a left leaning ‘progressive’ US political magazine and website The print edition is published ten times a year and has a circulation of 50,000, while the website features between 1 5 articles a day, and has approximately 500,000 visitors per month

d

Website: https://thirdwednesdaymagazine org

Aeon is a US registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview

The deadline is 30 September Response time is ‘reasonable’ Payment, depending on a successful crowdfunding campaign, is

The Olga Sinclair Prize is an annual creati ve writing competition from Norwich Writer s Previous contests have been themed, but this year entries are invited on any topic, in any genre. Prizes are £50 0, £250 and £10 0 Winner s and shortlisted entries will be published in an anthology Enter original, unpublished short stories up to 2,0 0 0 words

The website’s mission is to create an online sanctuar y for serious thinking covering ever ything from histor y to metaphysics, religion to neurology. Companion site, Psyche, focuses on illuminating the human condition through psychology, philosophy and the arts

Aeon and Psyche commission longform essays, mainly from academics and clinicians, though the content itself is aimed at a an intelligent non specialised audience If you are an academic and would like to write for Aeon or Psyche email editorial@aeon.co with a short bio and a link to your faculty page or website, a one paragraph summar y of your proposed feature and an indication of which section of Aeon or Psyche it would fit It is strongly recommended to read some of the articles at https://aeon co and https://psyche co before pitching. Payment is at US professional rates.

Recent Prime Minister s are all believed to earned six figues or more for their memoir s Tony Blair ’s A Journey is reported to have netted an advance around £4 6 million, although he donated his profits to The British Legion Wonder what Bojo might spend his on? Form an orderly queue to place your bets Lucinda Mar sden has won the Kit de Waal Bur sary for Carer s with the fir st 50 0 words of her YA feminist novel Undercurrent Her prize is a free place at York Festi val of Writing ‘A lot of what I write about in terms of the fantastic I picked up from comics, particularly Marvel comics ’ Marlon James Mocha Memoirs Press is currently closed to submissions of full length novels but the editorial team is seeking SF and fantasy short stories for an anthology about ‘androids, robots, and/or cyborgs who have been naughty going off programming, cracking their internal code, etc ’ for Crack in the Code: Cybernated Stories of Rebellion They want to see what happens when the artificial lives become alive and share their stories Any stor y not set in westernised culture goes to the top of the acceptance pile as does a stor y with a disabled android, or LGBTQ+ characters

FLASHES

Gary Dalkin

The editors, Venessa Giunta and Nicole Givens Kurtz, want short stories, no more than 7,500 words, micro and flash fiction Submit stories online using their Google system as a docx or doc file

8¢ per word, for first world rights Website: https:// mochamemoirspress com We l l p l a c e d S F Bad Robot GLOBAL SPECFIC MARKET PDR Lindsay-Salmon The Locus Awards were announced by the Locus Science Fiction Foundation in June The winners were: Science Fiction Novel, A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine; Fantasy Novel, Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee; Horror Novel, My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones; YA Novel, Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders; First Novel, A Master of Djinn, P Djèlí Clark; Novella, Fugitive Telemetr y, Martha Wells; Novelette, That Stor y Isn’t the Stor y, John Wiswell (Uncanny 11 12/21); Short Stor y, Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather, Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 3 4/21); Antholog y, We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, eds CL Clark & Charles Payseur; Collection, Even Greater Mistakes, Charlie Jane Anders; Magazine, Tor com; Publisher, Tor; Editor, Ellen Datlow; Non fiction, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 1985, eds Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre; Illustrated and Art Book, The Art of Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess’s Stardust, Charles Vess; Special Award 2022: Community Building & Career Development, The Codex Writers’ Group Input/Output Enterprises is an independent publishing house with an editorial team crazy about vampires The team have already published volume one of their vampire anthology series and now look for more vampire stories for And the Dead Shall Sleep No More volume two The team want stories, no more than 6,000 words, and any genre which is ‘dark, creepy, weird and just a little off kilter’ is acceptable Think horror, science fiction, speculative fiction or weird fiction Anything which twists or subverts these genres in some unexpected way will be welcomed. Submit online, one single spaced manuscript through the website: www inputoutputenterprises com/ vampires Response time: ‘within 2 3 weeks following the close of submissions for the anthology’ Payment is $15, plus a digital copy of the anthology for First North American Serial Rights Wa k i n g D e a d

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 70 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk Serious thinkers wanted ONLINE NON-FICTION MARKET

The entry fee is £9; closing date, 30 September Website: https:// norwichwriters. wordpress com/ Publishing insider s believe Boris Johnson could command a fee of around £1million for his memoir s

Payment rates are Can10¢ per word for first world electronic rights and non exclusive and audio rights

The Canadian based Elegant Literature magazine aims to promote new talent and will only accept work from writers who have never been published either traditionally, self published or have won a fiction contest. Check out the website for information on the word and payment limits criteria as to the definition of being an unpublished author writers may submit short stories of 500 2,000 words in any genre. There is a monthly theme see website for details The themes are designed to inspire whilst ‘leaving room for you to tell the stor y you want to tell’ To give a feel of the kind of stories published past issues of the magazine can be read online Stories will be evaluated on creativity, character, structure and flow and the quality of the writing

International entries are welcomed Enter books and manuscripts in English in any of the following: novels, novellas, short stor y collections, poetr y, children’s books, historical fiction, memoir, graphic novels

Your way is the right way, says Lynne Hackles

O S T A C L O S I N G

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www wr iter s online co uk

anthology

In Stephen King’s book, On Writing, he recommends writing 1,000 words a day In Anne Lamott’s book, Bird By Bird, she suggests writing at the same time ever y day Ray Bradbur y said, ‘Just write ever y day of your life Read intensely Then see what happens Most of my friends who are put on that diet have ver y pleasant careers ’ And there is your answer Who do you think Stephen, Anne and Ray’s friends are? I reckon they are professional writers. That’s who. Professional writers have books to turn out Their job is to write. Many of you will have other things to do and have to fit writing into busy schedules So many of the experts we look up to emphasise that we need to write ever y day and for some of us that just doesn’t work Don’t allow others who post about their 5,000 words before lunch get to you If you want more time in the day then do what James Clear (Atomic Habits) suggests. Instead of asking what you should do, ask yourself what you can remove each day in order to give you that extra space you need You may find time to get in 1,000 words

• Published books: The winner receives a five day stay in Athens (air tickets not included) and a handmade ceramic An alternative prize in case of travel restrictions is translation into Greek of the winning book

The annual Eyelands Book Awards for published and unpublished books are inviting entries

Unpublished writers

Ten further prizewinners will each receive a handmade ceramic.

• Unpublished books: The winning book will translated into Greek and published by Strange Days Books

There is a list of grammar and punctuation requirements that if followed will increase your chances of acceptance

What works for you?

Multiple and simultaneous submissions will be considered. Format your work as a rtf, doc or docx document and submit through the website: www elegantliterature com close at midnight on the last day of each month. wanted

Submissions

GLOBAL FICTION MARKET

Unpublished

Jenny Roche One of the UK and Ireland’s biggest literar y awards, the Costa Book Awards, has come to an end. Established in 1971 as the Whitbread Book Awards (becoming the Costa in 2005), the Awards spanned fifty years, with the final, 2021 Awards, being given in Februar y The Awards were in five categories (Novel, First Novel, Children’s Book, Poetr y, Biography), each with a prize of £5,000, with an overall winner receiving a further £30,000 for the Book of the Year The first Book of the Year winner was Gerda Charles for The Destiny Waltz and the last, Claire Fuller, for Unsettled Ground Other winners included Susan Hill, Iris Murdoch, Paul Theroux, David Lodge, Ber yl Bainbridge, Peter Ackroyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Rose Tremain, Colm Tóibin, Andrea Levy, Maggie O’Farrell, Hilar y Mantel, Kate Atkinson, Sebastian Barr y, Sally Rooney and Jonathan Coe.

If you don’t know by now, let me tell you that ever y rule is made to be broken. The worst for me when I started out was the one about writing ever y day. I had a job and a young family with all that entails. I was lucky to find time to write a shopping list some days On others I had several hours and would write A while ago I suggested sitting down to write at the same time ever y day I do this but sometimes the writing consists of writing related stuff, like answering emails and checking what others are doing online

Novel Ideas

The Awards from Eyelands and Strange Days Books in Greece are given in two categories:

The entr y fee is €22 until 1 September, then €27. The closing date is 20 October. Website: https://eyelandsawards.com E y e s i n f o r t h i s p r e

The most controversial year of the Award came in 1989 when Best Novel was initially awarded to The War Zone by Alexander Stuart. But then juror Jane Gardam told Whitbread that the novel, which she considered ‘repellent’ would make the Award a ‘laughing stock’ The crisis leaked to the media and judges David Cook and Val Hennessy agreed the award should be given instead to Lindsay Clarke for The Chymical Wedding C

Submit

’ Submit

reprints,

The annual Moth Poetry Prize is one of the world’s biggest prizes for a single poem, awarding a prize of €1,0 0 0 This year ’s judge is Louise Gluck, who in 2020 won the Nobel Prize for Literature The winner will be published in The Moth Enter original, unpublished poems of any length and on any theme Entry fee, £15; closing date, 31 December Website: www themothmagazine com/ The winner s of the 2022 Orwell Prize are: Political Writing Book Prize: My Fourth T ime, We Drowned, Sally Hayden; Political Fiction Book Prize: Small Things Lik e These, Claire Keegan; Journalism Prize: George Monbiot, The Guardian; Exposing Britain’s Social Evils: Ed Thomas, The Cost of Covid Burnley Crisis, BBC News Scottish author Joan Lingard, the author of sixty books including the Kevin and Sadie series for young adults, has died aged ninety The Kevin and Sadie books, which sold more than 1m copies, were set against a backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and began with her fir st novel for children, 1970’s The Twelfth Day of July ‘Write the book you need to read That is all that matter s right now The rest will come ’ Nikesh Shukla Outlook Spring calls itself ‘ a literar y journal from another dimension’ It is ‘devoted to fiction, poetr y, and non fiction tinged with the strange weird, wobbly word work’ They are not biased against genre and publish fiction which is ‘Experimental, science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, minimalist, maximalist, flash, etc, ’ as long as the writer has given ‘emphasis on character and/or language rather than on cleverness and conceit ’ Poetr y is the team ’ s first love Submit one to five poems that ‘ ooze with sonic pleasure stagger from line to line with an animated corpse ’ s lingering bravado’ For creative non fiction the team welcome ‘all its forms and variations ’ They like ‘memoirs… Montaigne esque ramblings travel narratives lyrical essays… personal essays, and everything in between ’ Make it real, interesting, well written and show ‘ a new and exciting way to see the world ’ They are happy to accept experimental work as well traditional narratives No reprints or multiple submissions are allowed but simultaneous submissions are okay. Submit online Response time is ‘reasonable’ Payment is $10 per poem or flash piece, $25 for short fiction and essays Website: http://outlooksprings. com

Length:

The Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is an annual competition for arts reviewers. The first prize is £3,000 and publication in the Observer Two runners up each get £500 To enter, send an original, unpublished 800 word review of new work in the arts (ie, work produced since September 2021)

Dispatch Website:

multiple submissions

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 72 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk Common goals GLOBAL LITERARY MARKET PDR Lindsay Salmon

FLASHES

The Common is a magazine with an editorial team who like ‘Finding the extraordinary in the common ’ It needs literature that embodies particular times and places, real and imagined: from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon’. They want literature and art with ‘ a modern sense of place,’ with ‘ a global exchange of diverse ideas and experiences’ from all writers, Black, indigenous, people of colour, disabled, LGBTQIA+ identifying, immigrant, international, and/or otherwise from communities underrepresented in US literary magazines and journals ‘stories, essays, poems, and dispatches’ with ‘ a strong sense of place where the setting is crucial to character, narrative, mood, and language.’ This does not mean travelling to a foreign country; conventional travelogues are not wanted are open 1 Sep 1 Dec, then again 1 March 1 June Dispatch submissions are accepted year round the samples of work online to get a feel for their needs and check out the interview with editor in chief Jennifer Acker to understand what is meant by a feeling of place 1 5 poems, or one prose piece, no more than 10,000 words, or three flash pieces per submission one dispatch. Dispatches are notes, news, and impressions from around the world Both prose and verse accepted, but must be non fiction. up to 800 words. They are accepted year round and are published online only No or but simultaneous submissions are reluctantly accepted with the usual time is ‘eight months, but that varies’ Payment is $200 for prose, $40 per poem and $100 for a www.thecommononline.org

Subjects might include an album, book, concert, exhibition, film, play, live stream, social media entertainment, TV show, or any other artform or cultural activity that offers the opportunity to write a lively, thoughtful piece

Rewarding reviewing

Submit work online

The entry fee is £10. The closing date is 30 November.

Read

proviso Response

Website: www.anthonyburgess.org/observeranthony burgess prize arts journalism/ Wild beauty

Submit

The Wild Atlantic Writing Awards 6th Edition are inviting entries. The new 2022 WAWA contests are for flash fiction and creative non fiction on the theme of ‘Beauty’ The winner in each category will receive either €500 or a €1,000 voucher redeemable against any Ireland Writing Retreat from Wild Atlantic Writers The top ten stories in both categories will be published online. Enter original, unpublished flash fiction or creative non fiction up to 500 words on the ‘Beauty’ theme. There is a €10 fee for each entry The closing date is 9 September. Website: www.irelandwritingretreat.com Parallel lines

Submissions

Pilot Press currently has an open call for responses to Pale Blue Dot (1990) by Voyager 1 for the fifth anthology in a series looking at ar t made during the AIDS crisis Send work as doc or pages files by the closing date of 31 August.

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 73SEPTEMBER 2022

Website: https://saperebooks.com/

Payment rates are an average of 6¢ per word or $15 per page, 8¢ per word for non fiction, 4¢ per word for creative works A maximum of $75 is paid for short stories Multiple and simultaneous submissions are not wanted.

Symbiosis is the theme for the sixth issue of Mythulu e magazine Co authored short stories in any genre and non fiction commentar y and experiences with co created projects are invited Short stories should be 500 2,800 words long and non fiction articles 200 1,200 words The magazine has an aim ‘ to help writers make a living by demystifying the business journey and explaining techniques for maximally competitive stories’ Pieces showing stor y craft skills are published and ‘ concept and clarity are more important than prose ’ It should be noted that all submissions may be edited ‘aggressively’ before publication The magazine does believe in offering feedback and has several ways of doing this See website for details

Previously published work will be considered so long as you hold the copyright. The deadline for submissions is 2 October and they should be made using the Submittable link on the website. Website: https://mythulu submittable com/submit

Sapere Books is not currently accepting frontlist titles, but is keen to resissue backlist titles and is particularly interested to hear from under represented writers, including LGBTQ+ authors, who have backlist titles in the genres of historcal fiction including crime and mysteries, action and adventure, crime, mysteries, thrillers and histor y In the first instance contact editorial director Amy Durant with a short description of your books and writing career and if possible a link to/list of available titles

queer poetr y Send up to forty pages of poetr y and an introductor y paragraph about you, your work and how you identify in the LGBTQ+ community Website: www.fourteenpoems.com/ submit Knight Errant Press is a small independent queer publisher based in Scotland that strives to represent intersectional LGBTQIA+ creators and publish a wide range of narratives featuring LGBTQIA+ characters and themes Publisher Nathan Kunitsky’s focus is on accessible, entertaining short form fiction, non fiction, comics and poetr y, and submissions are welcomed, particularly in the areas of trans prose, horror, climate fiction, sapphic prose, sexy LGBTQI+ stories, science fiction and fantasy Submit short novels, novellas, graphic novels, flash fiction collections and poetr y collections Website: www knighterrantpress com L e a d i n g i n d e p e n d e n t c o m m e r c i a l p u b l i s h e r Jo f f e B o o k s e n c o u r a g e s LG BT s u b m i s s i o n s Jo f f e B o o k s i s p a r t i c u l a r l y i n t e re s t e d i n c r i m e a n d m y s t e r y s u b m i s s i o n s , b u t a l s o w o m e n ’ s f i c t i o n , h i s t o r i c a l f i c t i o n a n d r o m a n c e Su b m i s s i o n s t o Jo f f e B o o k s c a n c o m e f r o m a g e n t s a n d d i re c t f r o m a u t h o r s , a n d s h o u l d c o n s i s t o f a f u l l l e n g t h c o m m e r c i a l m a n u s c r i p t , a t h re e p a r a g r a p h s u b m i s s i o n a n d a n p a r a g r a p h i n t r o d u c i n g t h e a u t h o r We b s i t e : w w w. j o f f e b o o k s . c o m

Pilot Press was started in 2017 by visual artist Richard Por ter as a platform for textual and visual work by ar tists and writers, par ticularly those who identify as queer, trans, non binar y or outcast

Website: www.pilotpress.co.uk/open call US independent Black feminist publisher BLF Press has a call out for submissions from Black diaspora writers to its Black Joy Unbound anthology and are particularly interested in receiving submissions from Black queer writers of all gender identities and sexualities. Submissions should merge literar y genre to write about the themes of joy and pleasure and affirm the interconnectedness of race, gender and sexual orientation No erotica Submit prose between 2,000 and 5,000 words/two poems Accepted submissions will be paid $75 The closing date is 31 December.

Fourteen Poems is a London based print poetr y journal that publishes work by LGBTQ+ poets three times a year The next submissions deadline is 15 September Send up to five poems and a brief paragraph about yourself by email Each accepted poem is paid £25 Fourteen Poems also publishes solo pamphlets of

INTRODUCTIONS Wr i t i n g Ma g a z i n e p re s e n t s a s e l e c t i o n o f c u r re n t LG BTQ + s u b m i s s i o n c a l l s We s t r o n g l y re c o m m e n d t h a t y o u re a d b a c k i s s u e s , f a m i l i a r i s e y o u r s e l f w i t h t h e i r g u i d e l i n e s b e f o re s u b m i t t i n g a n d c h e c k w e b s i t e s f o r s u b m i s s i o n d e t a i l s Write together GLOBAL LITERARY MARKET Jenny Roche

Website: www.blfpress.com/submissions

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 74 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk

Prose submissions should be around thirty double spaced pages, no more than 10,000 words, preferably around 5,000. They also welcome shorter prose, 2,000 3,000 words Note that the editors seek non fiction submissions for upcoming issues which ‘ engages deeply, but not overly seriously, with the sciences ecology, natural histor y, and other fields, in both Western and non Western contexts ’ They like ‘fiction that is deeply rooted in place, and/or that engages similarly with ecology, natural histor y, climate crisis, et al’

The next quarterly Henshaw Short Story competition closes on 30 September, and is inviting entries of short fiction up to 2,0 0 0 words on any theme The prizes are £20 0, £10 0 and £50 The entry fee is £6 per story Story critiques are available for £14 Website: www henshawpress. co uk/ T ikTok has launched The T ikTok Book Club, a virtual space for the T ikTok community to discuss new titles Each month a new book will be announced the fir st, in July, was Jane Austen’s Per suasion, which will gladden the heart of the #AustenTok community (16 2 viewer s for that hashtag!) #BookTok has had almost 65 million views andBookTok Laureates will be providing li vely Book Club content Suzie Hull has won the RNA’s Joan Hessayon Award, which is for author s whose debut novel has gone through the RNA New Writer s ’ Scheme before being accepted for publication Suzie won for her fir st novel This Foreign Land ‘Respect the way character s may change once they’ve got 50 pages of life in them Revisit your plan at this stage and see whether certain things have to be altered to tak e account of these changes ’ Rose Tremain r i a l t e a m i s c o m m i t t e d t o p u b l i s h i n g ‘d i v e r s e v o i c e s a n d w e l c o m e s s u b m i s s i o n s f r o m u n d e r re p re s e n t e d w r i t e r s ’ C h e c k o u t t h e w e b s i t e , a n d t h e i r l i s t . Fo l l ow t h e g u i d e l i n e s c a re f u l l y Su b m i t t w e n t y t o t h i r t y p o e m s w h i c h a re ‘ l i n k e d b y a c o m p e l l i n g t h e m e ’ . E m a i l t h e p o e m s a s a P D F a t t a c h m e n t Fo r f i c t i o n s e n d a o n e p a g e p i t c h l e t t e r w i t h i n t h e t e x t o f a n e m a i l Fo r n o n f i c t i o n a g a i n s e n d a o n e p a g e p i t c h l e t t e r w i t h i n t h e t e x t o f a n e m a i l T h e e d i t o r i a l t e a m ‘ e n d e a v o u r t o re s p o n d t o a l l s u b m i s s i o n s a s q u i c k l y a s p o s s i b l e . A l l ow t h i r t y d a y s b e f o re f o l l ow i n g u p ’ R i g h t s a n d r oy a l t i e s a re d i s c u s s e d w i t h t h e c o n t r a c t D e t a i l s : Wo o d h a l l Pre s s , e m a i l s u b s t o : s u b m i s s i o n s @ w o o d h a l l p re s s . c o m ; w e b s i t e : w w w. w o o d h a l l p re s s c o m

Simultaneous submissions are accepted with the usual proviso, but not reprints or multiple subs Submit through the website: https://ecotonemagazine.org

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Poetr y submissions should be three to five poems per sub in a single document, The editors are particularly interested, for upcoming issues, in poetr y which ‘ engages with the social and natural sciences, and poetr y that uses form, metre, and/or other poetic constraints in innovative and expansive ways ’

Lookout Books is the literar y book imprint of the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Ecotone is their literar y magazine, both produced by faculty and students in the MFA programme. Ecotone, the literar y magazine, is ‘dedicated to reimagining place,’ and welcomes work from a wide range of voices The main interest is ‘place based work by people historically underrepresented in literar y publishing and in place based contexts ’ The team favour emerging writers and ‘writers and artists who are Black, Indigenous, people of colour, people with disabilities, gender nonconforming, LGBTQIA+, women, and others ’

Submissions are open for the upcoming Ocean Issue, until 2 September, the autumn 2023 Labour Issue, as well as for unthemed issues. Submissions ‘will also be considered for all upcoming issues, themed and unthemed’

The team look for ‘work that engages with the climate crisis, along with other work that reimagines place’

• Lookout Books is the book imprint, publishing ‘emerging and historically underrepresented voices as well as overlooked gems by established writers’ They are ‘ par ticularly proud of their work discovering and nur turing authors in the promising early stages of their careers ’ and feel, ‘ There’s something par ticularly special about an indie press, housed at a university with a publishing program and a roster of bright students who are an integral par t of the publishing process ’ The books they seek to publish are full of ‘lyrical prose and stories, be they fiction or non fiction, that are unique and imaginative’ The writing should speak ‘ to this moment in a way that is both timely and timeless’. Check the website for the current submission dates They change for agented and unagented submissions according to the number of submissions needing reading.

Response time for both Ecotone and Lookout Books is ‘generally six to nine months’ Payment for Ecotone is ‘ an honorarium upon publication, two copies, and a one year subscription’ Payment for Lookout Books is a 50/50 profit share Website: https://lookout org Calls to Lookout LITERARY MARKET PDR Lindsay-Salmon

Boutique home for poetr y GLOBAL POETRY MARKET Jenny Roche Wo o d h a l l Pre s s i s a b o u t i q u e p re s s w i t h a p e n c h a n t f o r p o e t r y T h e e d i t o

document Enquire for reprints or

The

for us/ Simultaneous submissions are

Patrick Forsyth suggests ways of improving and extending your sources

They would like to publish more work in translation, and can currently consider writing in Spanish, French or Swedish. For work already translated pay the same rate to the author and translator No ecofascism or prejudice in any form. Here’s a list of other things the don’t want press/submit/what doesnt work okay, but notify right away if accepted for poetr y You can submit whichever is shorter, combined in a single anything longer than 20,000 words:

they

elsewhere No multiple submissions except

Priority is given to proposals that will help generate discussion about why literature matters and help audiences connect with topics outside the usual reach of literature Projects may be a piece or pieces of writing, a publication, an event production applying for a Literature Matters Award should be based in the UK and have a track record of publication Applications are also accepted from small groups of creative collaborators. closing date is 24 August literature matters awards

The heart of what they want is your personal, visceral, idiosyncratic understanding of the world and the people in it as it has been, as it is, as it will be, as it could be, as a consequence of humanity’s relationship with the earth Submissions must address both environmental concerns and those of justice, hence the title

The editors are always seeking work from indigenous writers and artists, writers and artists of colour, queer and trans writers and artists, and anyone who has suffered the consequences, intended or other wise, of dominant society’s systemic disconnect with and mistreatment of the natural world

The RSL Literature Matters Awards are annual awards from the Royal Society of Literature that reward and enable literar y innovation A total of £20,000 is available in 2022, which will be split across a number of projects

or a

Writers

Website: https://rsliterature.org/rsl

Gary Dalkin

editors

3 5 poems, or ten pages,

entr y form/ M A K E I T M AT T E R

Digging deep T TRAVEL WRITIN G KNOW -HOW h e r e a r e n u m b e r s o f w a y s t o o b t a i n t h e c o n t e n t w h e n y o u w r i t e a b o u t t r a v e l T h e r e ’ s w h a t y o u s e e , w h a t y o u r e s e a r c h a n d w h a t y o u a r e t o l d ; p e r h a p s m o r e W h a t y o u s e e s i m p l y r e q u i r e s o b s e r v a t i o n , t h o u g h s i m p l y i s t h e w r o n g w o r d O b s e r v a t i o n s m u s t b e c o n s i d e r e d a n d t h o r o u g h a n d m a y a l s o n e e d s o m e o r g a n i s a t i o n t o o Yo u a r e n o t g o i n g t o b e a b l e t o s e e t h e s u n r i s e u n l e s s y o u g e t u p i n t i m e R e s e a r c h m a y t a k e t i m e a n d i s d e p e n d e n t o n y o u k n o w i n g , o r f i n d i n g o u t , w h e r e t o g o : a l i b r a r y, o n l i n e , a t r a v e l a g e n t a n d m a n y m o r e W h a t y o u a r e t o l d i s q u i t e d i f f e r e n t i n n a t u r e . It i s p e r f e c t l y p o s s i b l e t o g o s o m e w h e r e a n d n o t s p e a k t o a s o u l , o r f i n d a n y c o n t a c t y o u d o h a v e i s m i n i m a l a n d a d d s l i t t l e o r n o t h i n g Yo u n e e d t o m a k e a c o n s c i o u s e f f o r t , t o t a k e a n i n i t i a t i v e I f y o u d o t h i s , i t c a n p a y d i v i d e n d s a n d g i v e y o u m a t e r i a l t h a t g e n u i n e l y a d d s t o a n y t h i n g y o u c a n r e s e a r c h o r s e e Fo r e x a m p l e , a f t e r b o a r d i n g a f l i g h t a n d b e i n g k e p t w a i t i n g o n t h e r u n w a y f o r m o r e t h a n t w o h o u r s , p a s s e n g e r s m e i n c l u d e d w e r e u n d e r s t a n d a b l y r e s t l e s s a n d a n n o y e d ( w i t h Ry a n a i r ; s o r r y I c a n n o t r e s i s t a d i g ) . I w a s , h o w e v e r, t h e o n l y o n e w h o c o m p l a i n e d i n s u c h a w a y t h a t I w a s i n v i t e d i n t o t h e c o c k p i t t o s i t a n d l i s t e n t o a n a p o l o g y ( t h o u g h n o t m u c h o f a n e x p l a n a t i o n ) f r o m t h e c a p t a i n A c o m b i n a t i o n o f r e a s o n a b l e n e s s a n d p e r s i s t e n c e , r a t h e r t h a n t h e a n g r y o u t b u r s t s t h a t m o s t o t h e r p a s s e n g e r s w h o s a i d a n y t h i n g i n d u l g e d i n , g a v e m e s o m e t h i n g e x t r a t o w r i t e a b o u t I n t h i s i n s t a n c e I d i d n o t m e n t i o n I m i g h t w r i t e a b o u t i t S a y i n g y o u a r e a w r i t e r, e x p l a i n i n g a s p e c i f i c c o m m i s s i o n o r b r i e f , c a n o f t e n a c h i e v e m o r e w h e n y o u s p e a k t o p e o p l e . It m i g h t , f o r i n s t a n c e , g e t y o u t a l k i n g w i t h a h o t e l m a n a g e r i n s t e a d o f j u s t s o m e o n e a t t h e f r o n t d e s k . I o n c e h a d l u n c h w i t h t h e m a n a g e r o f R a f f l e s h o t e l i n S i n g a p o r e , d i s c o v e r i n g m a n y t h i n g s a b o u t h o w t h e y l o o k a f t e r t h e i r b e s t c u s t o m e r s ( h a v i n g a c a r r e a d y t o p i c k t h e m u p a t t h e a i r p o r t a s t h e y s t e p o u t o f t h e i r p r i v a t e j e t , f o r i n s t a n c e ) I s u s p e c t t h a t t h i s w a s o n l y p o s s i b l e b e c a u s e I h a d a c o m m i s s i o n t o w r i t e s o m e t h i n g a b o u t t h e m A f i n a l c o m m e n t h e r e c o n c e r n s p r e s s c a r d s . T h e s e a r e p a r t i c u l a r l y u s e f u l w h e n s h o w n t o g a t e k e e p e r s , t h o s e w h o c a n g i v e a c c e s s t o m o r e s e n i o r p e o p l e . B u t b e a r i n m i n d t o o t h a t i t i s n o t o n l y s e n i o r p e o p l e w h o c a n a c t t o p r o v i d e m a t e r i a l . W h a t m i g h t t h a t r a g g e d b e a c h c o m b e r b e a b l e t o t e l l y o u ?

Reckoning is an annual US based print journal of creative writing on environmental justice It is published by Michael J DeLuca and edited by Octavia Cade (fiction), Priya Chad (non fiction) and Tim Fab Eme (poetr y). The editorial team are currently reading for issue 7, which has a theme of Oceans, with a deadline of 22 September They note the fiction they publish is mostly, but not exclusively, speculative; the non fiction is more creative than journalistic, the poetr y tends towards the narrative, preferably with some thematic heft

Reckoning: a settling of scores

to see: https://reckoning

75SEPTEMBER 2022

reckoningmagazine@gmail.com Payment is 8¢ per word for prose, $30 per page for poetr y Full guidelines at https://reckoning.press/submit/ Submit your work via the submission engine at https://reckoning moksha io/publication/reckoning • Reckoning has just announced a special online only issue in response to the US Supreme Court overturning Roe Vs Wade to be called Our Beautiful Reward. The deadline is the end of August and you can find out more at https://reckoning.press/special submission call our beautiful reward/ Follow on Twitter: @ReckoningMag Time for Reckoning GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 76 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk

Email senior reader: scripts@nationaltheatre org uk

WOW (Women on Writing) is inviting entries for its Summer 2022 Flash Fiction Competition Enter original, unpublished fiction in any genre, between 250 and 750 words, to win prizes of $40 0, $30 0 and $20 0 Runner s up and honourable mentions win Amazon gift cards The entry fee is $10 The closing date is 31 August. Website: www wow womenonwriting com/contest.php

Website: www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/about the national theatre/new work/contact

S T A G E P L AY S F O R L O N D O N T H E A T R E

Founded in 1898, Duckworth is one of Britain’s oldest publishers still under independent ownership ‘Next year is our 125th anniversary,’ said Rob ‘It’s changed significantly over that time.’ Previous Duckworth authors have included Hilaire Belloc, Virginia Woolf, Anton Chekhov, DH Lawrence, Henry James, W Heath Robinson, Dorothy Parker, Beryl Bainbridge, Penelope Fitzgerald, and Oliver Sacks

Founded in 1898, Duckworth Books has a long publishing history ‘Duckworth Books is an independent publisher dedicated to great reads,’ says the publishing team ’ s Rob Wilding ‘The Duckworth imprint publishes eye opening non fiction and compelling literary and historical fiction whilst Farrago imprint is the home of humorous fiction, the only imprint in the world dedicated to fiction to make readers smile ’

‘ Today we are based in Richmond upon Thames, close to Hogarth House where Virginia Woolf once set up her own publishing imprint, having had her earliest books published by Duckworth,’ said Rob. ‘A full circle of sorts ’ Duckworth’s current areas of focus are memoir and biography, popular science, psychology, history, and historical and literary fiction For Farrago, it’s humorous fiction only ‘We don’t currently accept submissions that don’t adhere to our publishing areas, ’ said Rob. ‘For Duckworth, we are after non fiction and fiction of exceptional quality. Our recent titles attest to that The Shadowy Third: Love, Letters and Elizabeth Bowen by Julia Parry recently won the Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize for 2022 and Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth century London by Oskar Jensen received high praise in The Times and Independent. For Farrago, it’s even easier be able to make us smile. See Ian Moore’s Follet Valley series for tips ’ Duckworth is a popular choice for submitting writers and regularly receives a large volume of submissions ‘To help us make a decision we ask authors to enclose the following,’ said Rob ‘A one page synopsis of the manuscript highlighting the main story line, interesting selling points, how the book fills a gap or complements books already on the market. Two to three sample chapters or, better yet, the completed manuscript Your CV outlining any associated books published, awards or writing experience Ensure your manuscript is as best as it can possibly be and send it with a detailed proposal and CV you are presenting yourself as well as your book ’ Duckworth publishes in print and ebook Submit by email to Duckworth: submissions@duckworthbooks. com, and for Farrago: submissions@ farragobooks.com Websites: www duckworthbooks co.uk; https://farragobooks.com/ Get quacking for Duckwor th UK BOOK MARKET Tina Jackson

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Amongst the non profit literary organisations that will be supported in 2022 by the Amazon Literary Partner ship (ALP) are Africa Writes, the Arkbound Foundation, Arvon, Comma Press, Creati ve Future, English PEN, The Writer s ’ Summer School and Ministry of Stories In partner ship with The Reading Agency, bestseller Richard Osman has donated 1,0 0 0 copies of his novels to libraries across the UK. The Thur sday Murder Club was the most borrowed book from UK libraires in 2020/21 Kenyan writer Idza Luhumyo won the £10,0 0 0 2022 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. ‘Read Then read some more It’s never enough. Write, if you must, without talking too much about writing Write regularly If you lik e what you have written, rewrite ’ Rohinton Mistry London’s National Theatre’s New Work Department is happy to consider unsolicited scripts from playwrights in the UK and Ireland. Scripts should be full length with a playing time of at least one hour and must be written for the stage, not film, television or radio, although versions and adaptations of these for the stage will be considered. Musicals should be accompanied by a link to supporting materials via soundcloud com or similar Submit one play only within a twelve month period and this should not be a redraft of a play previously submitted to the theatre Handwritten and hardcopy scripts will not be considered.

The Rumpus is a cheerful online place where creative people are welcomed The editorial team ‘strive to be a platform for marginalised voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere... to shine a light on stories that build bridges, tear down walls, and speak truth to power ’

INTERNATIONAL

SCENE

Please read the detailed guidelines for each genre They are accepting essays, original fiction, inter views, book reviews, but not poetr y Subs for poetr y open in Januar y Book reviews are accepted year round. Inter view pitches and finished submissions are also accepted year round and should be sent by email to the Inter views team: inter views@ therumpus.net Response time varies ‘from a few days to a few months Please allow three months ’ Payment is usually $10 $25 per writer Website: https://therumpus net riddlebird is a new journal striving ‘ to make a space for more diversity (of interest, of authorship, of meaning)’ Check out the website and follow the guidelines Submit literar y fiction, personal essays and well written genre fiction, up to 6,000 words, by email: riddlebirdmag@ gmail com Response time is ‘reasonable’. Payment is $100 for North American Serial Rights Website: www.riddlebird.com

Response time is ver y slow, up to five months, but they tr y for 120 days Payment is 8¢ per word Website: www bafflingmag com

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 77SEPTEMBER w2022 ww wr iter s online co uk

PDR Lindsay Salmon

ZINE

Submissions are open to all.

Flash fiction submissions, no more than 1,200 words, on the theme of ‘performance’ open in December For unthemed submissions send using the online submission form The editors are looking for speculative stories that explore science fiction, fantasy, and horror with a queer bent They ‘ want queer stories and trans stories and aro/ace stories Give them ‘indefinable stories and weird, slipstream, and interstitial writing ’ Submit stories in doc or docx files by email: bafflingmag@neonhemlock com

The Good Life Review is a literar y journal with an editorial team ‘committed to exploring the overlooked’ They want ‘the myriad of voices that call lift up the strange, the daring, and the underrepresented to reveal complexities hidden in our heartland’ Submit original, creative non fiction, fiction, stage plays screenplays, and poetr y They also welcome hybrid or collaborative work. Poetr y should push boundaries Submit 1 6 poems of no more than ten pages in total Flash prose, no more than 1,000 words, should ‘ move, transform and twist on the page ’ Submit one to three pieces in a single text file Long prose, up to 5,000 words, should be labelled as fiction or creative non fiction Response time is ‘ up to four months on general submissions and up to six months on contest submissions’ Payment is $25 for all work’ for first North American serial rights and archival rights Website: https://thegoodlifereview.com/ Pumpernickel House is a specialist zine ‘devoted to fair y tales and fabulism’ Submissions are open for stories, both flash and long form, 1,000 10,000 words, and poems, 3 5 in a single document of no more than five pages. Response time is ‘reasonable’. Payment is $50 for long fiction, $15 for flash and $10 for poems Website: www.pumpernickelhouse.com

Baffling Magazine is a project of Neon Hemlock Press, ‘ an emerging pur veyor of queer chapbooks and speculative fiction’ Co edited by Craig L Gidney and dave ring (dave is they and in lower case) the quarterly online magazine publishes fantasy, science fiction and horror stories with a queer bent

The team are open to all sorts of ideas Start the submission procedure with an email to them with ideas and suggestions, and they will start talking about it with you Website: https://letterreview.com

Peatsmoke is another journal ‘committed to diverse voices’ They seek ‘exciting new work that inspires, stirs, surprises, and sparks the empathetic imagination’ in poetr y, fiction, and non fiction Poetr y: give them ‘ a stellar combination of image and sound’, poems that sound great read aloud Send 1 3 poems of any length Fiction should ‘explore the human condition with empathy and curiosity’ Speculative, experimental, and flash fiction are welcomed. here Submit one stor y of no more than 7,000 words, or three flash pieces. Non fiction could be anything from ‘ a brief flash prose poem using academic language that’s also a sonnet ’ to essays ‘that (like poetr y) emphasize image, that show the process of discover y ’ Limit prose to 7,000 words Submit online at: www peatsmokejournal com

Anomaly is an international journal of literature and the arts. The editorial team aim ‘ to provide a platform for works of art that challenge conventions of form and format, of voice and genre ’ They despise the notion of ‘literar y merit’ calling it ‘ an inherently and inescapably racist principle’ a definition ‘by a white supremacist institution’ Give them ‘innovative and experimental literature and arts poetr y, fiction, non fiction, and translations’ as well as comics. Submissions are open until 1 Sept, then 1 Nov 1 March Submit one to five poems in a single document, or fiction and non fiction, up to 5,000 words, especially ‘work that is recalcitrant, wayward, rebellious, whether formally, linguistically, politically, generically, or in some clever way that hasn’t occurred to us yet ’ Submit through the website: https:// anmly org Response time is 3 4 months

From Australia comes a new zine, Letter Review, which is an online literar y journal with an editorial team ‘dedicated to assisting writers to get published, performed, and produced’ The zine ‘features inter views with professional writers, publishes helpful information, runs competitions with cash prizes, and is open to submissions of fiction, and poetr y ’ . They encourage professional writers ‘ to share hard won tips and insights, to create a supportive community to benefit the next generation of writers ’ Check out the website and read the guidelines

The entry fee for adults is £4 per poem/£10 for three The closing date is 1 September Website: www soldiersarts academy org/ poetry competition Ruth Ozeki has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction for The Book of Form and Emptiness (Viking). The author recei ved a £30,0 0 0 award and a bronze trophy, known as ‘Bessie’ Good news for author s Major publisher Bloomsbury UK is growing and taking on 10 0 new member s of staff ‘These positions are targeted where our business is growing, where we want to increase support for our authors and grow the global presence of our most important brands,’ a spokesperson told The Bookseller ‘Don’ t be afraid of being sh*t Fir st drafts aren’ t final drafts, so if they’re dreadful it doesn’ t matter it’s the beginning of a process ’ Dominic Nolan

GLOBAL LITERARY MARKET

An independent family owned company founded in 1949 and based in London with a sister company in New York, high end illustrated non fiction specialist Thames and Hudson takes its name from the rivers flowing through those two cities It has the aim of creating ‘the world of art and the research of top scholars’ available to a wide readership In addition to a children’s list it has ver y specific subject categories for its adult list and these include art, architecture, photography, design, fashion, popular culture, histor y and archaeology. See website for a full list In the first instance submit a proposal for your book This should be brief and include a suggested book title and subtitle, a content over view of maximum 500 words and chapter outlines Include also a note on the audience you have in mind for your book and a list of competing titles with author names, publisher and year of publication For children’s books indicate the target age range for your book Your contact details, plus co writer details if relevant, and a bio should also be included along with a maximum of six sample images as low (72dpi) or medium res (150dpi) files Submit your proposal by post or as an email attachment of no more than 4MB If there is interest in your proposal you will be contacted within three months.

Get into the ar tistic flow UK NON-FICTION MARKET Jenny Roche FLASHES

There is a first prize of £250 and a runner up prize of a £50 Waterstones book voucher This year ’ s judges are Call the Midwife stars Jenny Agutter, who is Ovacome’s patron, and Stephen McGann Winning stories will be published online

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 78 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk

Hit a ner ve for Hidden Peak

For full length works submit by email the full completed manuscript Poetr y manuscripts should be 70 to 120 pages There is no page limit on fiction Email the book with Book submission, and surname in the subject line or Poetr y submission and surname Don’t forget full contact details in the body of the email along with a brief bio up to 250 words. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but not multiple subs or reprints

The adult winner ’s prize is £50 and poetry books, and the young poets winner will recei ve poetry books Enter poems up to 40 lines on any theme

thamesandhudson com/page/getting

When the magazine, Hidden Peak Review, is open to submissions the editor welcomes subs of poetr y or short fiction. Writers may email five poems or one short fiction stor y of no more than 10,000 words as a doc attachment. Check the Do Not Submit list which includes ‘rhyming/form poetr y, fan fiction, romance or anything that might other wise be mistaken for Hallmark ’

Response time is ‘usually 1 to 2 months, but could be faster. Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract but usually include First North American Serial Rights and First Electronic Rights. Website: https://hiddenpeakpress com S e n s e o f p e r s p e c t i v e

The competition is for original, unpublished short stories up to 1,500 words, on the ‘Perspective’ theme Stories do not have to be about health or ovarian cancer The entry fee is £5 or £10 for entry plus donation The closing date is 30 September. Website: www.ovacome.org.uk

The Soldier s Arts Academy International Poetry Competition is running for a second year The competition is open to all member s of the military community, including relati ves, and has categories for adults and young poets

The theme for the Ovacome Writing Competition 2022 is ‘Perspective’ Now in its third year, the competition is in aid of ovarian cancer support services and awareness projects.

PDR Lindsay Salmon Hidden Peak Press is an independent publisher of poetr y and fiction The editorial team like to publish ‘ gut punch free verse and eye opening prose from across the US and abroad’ The editorial team call themselves ‘ a no frills, cut to the core publisher,’ which is ‘the place for relevant, grounded, engaging and sublime literature ’ Check their website, guidelines and the publisher’s list Note that ‘the only steadfast rule here at Hidden Peak Press is: ‘Do not bore us. ’

Details: FAO Submissions, Thames and Hudson, 181A High Holborn, London WC1V 7QX; email: submissions@thameshudson.co.uk; website: https:// published

Editorial director Emma Grundy Shortlisted writers will receive editorial feedback Submit a full length book manuscript which has been written in English along with a synopsis and your biography before the deadline of 23 59pm BST on 30 September Email to: prize@joffebooks.com

Website: www joffebooks com/prize

GLOBAL SPECFIC MARKET PDR Lindsay-Salmon

W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 79SEPTEMBER 2020 Aqueduct Press is a US small press which dedicates itself to publishing challenging, feminist science fiction, as well as works about feminist sf or of particular interest to readers of feminist sf. Founded in 2004, this award winning press has published over 160 books, including titles by Suzy McKee Charnas, Gemma Files, Karen Joy Fowler, NK Jemisin, Ursula K Le Guin, Tanith Lee, Maureen McHugh, Nnedi Okorafor, Nisi Shawl, Lisa Tuttle, Jo Walton and Cynthia Ward. They have occasionally published work by men, including Richard Bowes and Geoff Ryman Managing editor Kathr yn Wilham will consider feminist science fiction novels of any length, as well as, for the Conversation Pieces Series, novellas, poetr y, and prose work of ever y kind at lengths ranging from 20,000 35,000 words Electronic submission is greatly preferred Send by email to editor@aqueductpress.com Attach your manuscript in one file and a cover letter in a second Your letter should be a brief introduction of yourself and your work to date; include your website or other web locations that showcase your writing Attach a third file with s synopsis of your submission, not more than two pages single spaced Attachments should be doc or rtf files. For non fiction and collections enquire before submitting. Follow the full guidelines at www aqueductpress com/submissions php which include detailed formatting requirements Feminist SF wanted GLOBAL SF MARKET Gary Dalkin D I V E R S I T Y O F C R I M E W R I T E R S WA N T E D I n k d Pu b l i s h i n g h a v e a n e d i t o r i a l t e a m w h o w a n t t o p u b l i s h ‘ B o l d , i m a g i n a t i v e f a n t a s y, h o r r o r, a n d s c i f i s c u l p t e d t o t h r i l l a n d e n t e r t a i n r e a d e r s w i t h t h e b i z a r r e o r d e l v e i n t o t h e s h a d o w s ’ A s a n e w p r e s s t h e t e a m a r e w o r k i n g w i t h a n t h o l o g i e s a t t h e m o m e n t a n d s e e k s t o r i e s f o r a n a n t h o l o g y H i d d e n V i l l a i n s : A r i s e T h e t e a m w a n t w r i t e r s t o t h i n k a b o u t t h e t h e m e w o r d ‘A r i s e ’ It c o u l d m e a n ‘ t o a p p e a r, e m e r g e , c o m e t o l i g h t , s u r f a c e , b e f a l l , e n s u e , s t a n d u p , t r a n s p i r e , e t c ’ T h e y w a n t w r i t e r s t o e x p r e s s t h e m s e l v e s a s t h e t h e m e m o v e s t h e m a n d w r i t e b r i l l i a n t s t o r i e s St o r i e s , u p t o 7 , 0 0 0 w o r d s , i n t h e g e n r e s o f f a n t a s y, h o r r o r, a n d S F s h o u l d ‘ w e a v e t h e t h e m e i n t o a n e n g a g i n g s t o r y w i t h w e l l d e v e l o p e d c h a r a c t e r s a n d d e e p e m o t i o n ’ T h i n k o f a P G l e v e l i f w r i t i n g a b o u t s e x a n d / o r v i o l e n c e Su b m i t a d o c f i l e o n l i n e a n d s t r i c t l y n o r e p r i n t s , s i m u l t a n e o u s o r m u l t i p l e s u b m i s s i o n s T h e d e a d l i n e i s 3 1 A u g u s t . R e s p o n s e t i m e i s ‘ r e a s o n a b l e ’ . Pa y m e n t i s ‘ a t l e a s t 5 ¢ p e r w o r d ’ p l u s a c o p y f o r e l e c t r o n i c a n d p r i n t f i r s t p u b l i c a t i o n r i g h t s We b s i t e : h t t p s : / / i n k d p u b . c o m Na t u r e c a l l s The Working Class Writers Nature Prize 2022 is inviting entries The competition from Octopus Publishing Group imprint Gaia, Class Nature and the Working Class Writers Festival is for new nature writing by unpublished writers who identify as working class The winner will receive a £300 commission to write a National Parks inspired piece for Viewpoint Magazine, a year ’ s membership to Campaign for National Parks, a free Ar von course, three mentoring sessions with a Gaia commissioner and a book bundle from Octopus Two runners up will each receive an Octopus bundle. To enter, send up to 1,000 words of original nature writing (fiction, non fiction or poetr y). Entr y is free The closing date is 5 September Website: https://m.lndg.page/SD5dkW Baddies bouncing back

The second Joffe Books Prize wants to discover unagented crime fiction writers from Black, Asian, Indigenous and minority ethic backgrounds with the aim of encouraging the publication of more diverse voices in this genre Favourites in this genre are ‘electrifying psychological thrillers, cosy mysteries, gritty police procedurals, twisty thrillers, unputdownable suspense mysteries and shocking domestic noirs’

Specialising in commercial fiction, especially crime and myster y fiction, Joffe Books is an independent publisher, founded in 2014, which has published over 500 books by more than seventy authors and sold over 10m copies of their books

The winner of the prize will receive £1,000 and a two book publishing deal along with a two year Society of Authors membership and an editorial consultation with one of the judges, who this year are author Oyinkan Braithwaite, literar y agent Ella Diamond and Joffe Books

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Fo r m e r C h i l d re n ’ s L a u re a t e Ma l o r i e Bl a c k m a n , a u t h o r o f t h e Y A a l t e r n a t i v e h i s t o r y s e r i e s No u g h t s & C r o s s e s , i s t h e w i n n e r o f t h e 2 0 2 2 PE N Pi n t e r Pr i z e , a w a rd e d a n n u a l l y t o a w r i t e r o f o u t s t a n d i n g l i t

Writers from a British South Asian background can submit to Fox & Windmill by sending the first three chapters and a one page synopsis Writers published by Fox & Windmill will be paid an advance and royalties Website: https://foxandwindmill.co.uk/

A fantastic place South A sian writers e r a r y m e r i t re s i d e n t i n t h e Un i t e d K i n g d o m , t h e Re p u b l i c o f Ire l a n d o r t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h w h o c a s t s a n ‘ u n f l i n c h i n g , u n s w e r v i n g ’ , s h ow i n g a ‘f i e r c e i n t e l l e c t u a l d e t e r m i n a t i o n t o d e f i n e t h e re a l t r u t h o f o u r l i v e s a n d o u r s o c i e t i e s . ’ Bl a c k m a n w i l l n ow s e l e c t a c o w i n n e r f r o m a s h o r t l i s t o f i n t e r n a t i o n a l w r i t e r s , a w r i t e r w h o i s a c t i v e i n d e f e n c e o f f re e d o m o f e x p re s s i o n , o f t e n a t g re a t r i s k t o t h e i r ow n s a f e t y a n d l i b e r t y, w h o w i l l b e h o n o u re d a s a n In t e r n a t i o n a l Wr i t e r o f C o u r a g e Bl a c k m a n w i l l re c e i v e h e r Pr i z e a n d h e r c o w i n n e r w i l l b e a n n o u n c e d a t a c e re m o n y i n O c t o b e r a t t h e Br i t i s h L i b r a r y. T h e PE N Pi n t e r Pr i z e w a s e s t a b l i s h e d i n 2 0 0 9 b y t h e c h a r i t y E n g l i s h PE N , w h i c h d e f e n d s f re e d o m o f e x p re s s i o n a n d c e l e b r a t e s l i t e r a t u re , i n m e m o r y o f No b e l L a u re a t e p l a y w r i g h t H a r o l d Pi n t e r

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Sa r a a n d H a b i b a a re l o o k i n g f o r w a rd t o b u i l d i n g o n w h a t t h e y ’ v e s t a r t e d . ‘ We h o p e t o b e r u n n i n g Fo x & Wi n d m i l l f u l l t i m e a n d l o o k f o r w a rd t o s h a r i n g a m a z i n g s t o r i e s I f w e ’ re a b l e t o p u b l i s h a s t o r y t h a t re s o n a t e s w i t h o n e p e r s o n , t h e n w e ’ v e d o n e o u r j o b. We w a n t t o c o n t i n u e w o r k i n g w i t h s c h o o l s , f e s t i v a l s a n d l i b r a r i e s t o d e v e l o p a n d a l l ow Fo x & Wi n d m i l l t o b e c o m e a h u b f o r c re a t i v e s t o s h a re t h e i r i d e a s ’ Fox & Windmill is currently are looking for fantasy and sci fi manuscripts ‘A

Fox & Windmill is the UK’s first independent book company for British South Asian writers, set up in Bradford in 2021 by Habiba Desai and Sara Razzaq Since launching it has been shortlisted in The Bookseller FutureBook Awards and the British Muslim Awards. ‘Fox & Windmill will be publishing YA and literar y fiction,’ said Sara and Habiba ‘ We are specifically looking for fantasy and sci fi manuscripts ’ Fox & Windmill set up in April 2021 by publishing and partnerships director Habiba and submissions director Sara while the UK was under lockdown The co founders of Fox & Windmill met while volunteering at the Bradford Literature Festival in 2016 and began having conversations about diversity in publishing ‘ With the help of our mentor Kevin Duffy, of Bluemoose Books, we launched last year and launched our first publication on 24 June 2022 at the Bradford Literature Festival, which is Into the Wilds, an anthology of short stories and poetr y from British South Asian writers ’ Sara and Habiba are hoping to start off by publishing two manuscripts a year ‘and then as many stories as we can possibly share! received some really exciting stories so far and we look for ward working with the writers on their manuscripts ’ good book to Fox & Windmill is a stor y that some else,’ they say ‘ We look for a unique plot line, interesting character development and an inspirational journey This is why we ask for the first three chapters and synopsis as it allows us to immediately understand the premise of the book and we can work out if it’s a good fit for us We look for a stor y that draws us in straight away We are also ver y keen to know the inspirations behind the stor y and we ’ re always excited when our writers get in touch with us ’ Mentor Kevin Duffy has inspired Sara and Habiba in terms of their approach ‘ We would advise prospective authors to do something small ever y day. This is a piece of advice we stick to, and it was given to us by our mentor ’ Their other advice to writers seeking publication reflects their own warm, hard working ethos ‘ Work on your stor y and hone your craft It’s always a great idea to give your book to others to read for their opinion, but also leave your work for a bit and then come back to it Sometimes it’s good to take your eyes away from the pages in order to recognise where you would like to make any edits and changes. We’d also say to network and make conversation with people in the publishing community There are so many pathways to publishing a book now and social media plays a great tool in helping you make those connections Don’t be shy to email people, get in touch with publishing companies whose dynamic fits with yours and who you think is a good fit for you ’

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W R I T E R S ’ N E W S 80 SEPTEMBER 2022 www wr iter s online co uk

‘Shiver was the first book I actually planned, spending a month plotting scenes onto Post it notes (different colours for different timelines and viewpoints), shuffling them about to find the best order and sticking them on a giant whiteboard After creating character profiles and timelines, I wrote the book in six months.

hen Allie Reynolds was fourteen she had a Saturday job in a second-hand bookstore and dreamed of being a writer. After several years competing at snowboarding, she trained as a teacher and taught English for fifteen years. Writing was a hobby until her dream came true with a book deal for her debut thriller, Shiver, which allowed her to become a full time novelist.

‘Shiver came out during the UK lockdown when bookstores were closed so my publisher, Headline Books, lined up lots of interviews which I did via Zoom In the months before the launch, I wrote articles and short fiction which appeared in magazines and newspapers around publication, and I answered questions for bloggers’ interviews. Before my book deal I hated the idea of social media but, to my surprise, I really enjoy it and have found a whole community of readers and writers.

‘I live in Queensland, Australia and am a keen surfer but had to ban myself from surfing while I wrote The Bay ironic when surfing plays a big part in the story. It took several months to plan and over a year to write, with numerous structural edits and several different endings. My amazing agent (Kate Burke at Blake Friedmann) is very hands on with the editing, as are the editors at my publishers, which was a fantastic help but my self confidence took a battering with all the changes I was being asked to make.

81www wr iter s online co uk Allie Reynolds W R I T I N G P L A C E M Y W R I T I N G D A Y T h e A u s t r a l i a n t h r i l l e r a u t h o r t a l k s s u r f i n g , s u n s h i n e a n d i n q u i s i t i ve p a r ro t s w i t h

‘Writing is my dream job, but it’s definitely not a nine to five. Weekends no longer exist for me since my book deal. I worked Christmas Day and Easter Day last year It’s hard to switch off Some of my best ideas arrive when I’m trying to sleep and need to be scribbled down. I need to work on a better life work balance

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‘My writing days are frequently all too short,’ she says ‘I’m a single mum of two small and very energetic boys. They’re early risers so my day starts about 6am with a mug of coffee. I juggle my boys with social media for a couple of hours before school, then return to my desk by nine to write, breaking off for morning tea and lunch I snack constantly as I write. After lunch I write until 2.50 then drop everything to do the school run I check social media again in the evening and, if I have any energy left, continue writing once my kids are in bed

‘ The lockdown was a very distracting time. Recently divorced, I found myself at home with my sons for weeks on end, suffering the effects of a head injury a surfing accident The final draft was delivered to my publishers a year overdue.

81SEPTEMBER i2022

‘I wrote Shiver without knowing if anyone would ever read it With The Bay, I felt so much pressure to impress my publishers and readers. I was full of self doubt and second guessing myself, plus every single idea seemed too similar in some way to Shiver.

‘Shiver needed almost no research, as I’d lived and trained as a snowboarder like the characters in the story. For The Bay I researched the psychology of extreme sports athletes, injuries and traumas, big wave surfing, rock climbing, cliff jumping, Australian flora and fauna, cyclones and spear guns.

‘My second novel, The Bay, out now, is set on a remote Australian beach. A strong sense of place is so important to me in fiction and I wanted a totally different setting to Shiver’s snowy mountains The Bay combines aspects of two of my favourite stories The Beach and Point Break. I love the way these stories take us to whole new worlds the world of young backpackers in an apparent beachside paradise, and the world of thrill seekers The Bay traps a cast of young surfers in an idyllic but dangerous natural environment and asks how well do you really know your friends?

‘For my third book, I hope to return to snow for another mountain set thriller ’

‘I’m a messy writer My first draft is terrible, with lots of crossings out and scribbles. I edit as I go. By the time I reach the end, most sentences have been edited hundreds of times.

‘My first draft is written in a notebook at the kitchen table Every few pages, I head to my desk in the bedroom to type it up on my laptop, editing as I go With my long history of back injuries, a comfortable seat is vital My physiotherapist recommended a saddle stool and it’s brilliant Sometimes I use the table on my balcony with sunshine on my back and the breeze fluttering the palm tree leaves Inquisitive parrots perch on the railing to watch me but the insects are a huge distraction and after a few mosquito bites I escape back inside ’

‘Look over there?’ ‘ Where?’ ‘ There, Bessie, just over the fence ’ ‘ Wow, that’s some lush grass right there.’ ‘I know, right? And ours is dried up and coarse ’ ‘Man, that sheep is so lucky.’ ‘I know right? Moo ’ We all know the saying about the grass being greener on the other side Until recently, like most people, I assumed it was a saying coined by two cows in conversation on a farm Turns out, it’s actually a 16th centur y proverb who knew?! And in fact the original sentiment can be dated back to a chap named Ovid who was penning poetr y back in BC: the har vest is always more fruitful in another man ’ s fields Yes. Of course. Of course he was a writer. Because writerly insecurity has been around, no doubt, ever since the first cave woman picked up a stone and scratched something on the wall, then wondered whether she could have phrased it better We will never know what caused Ovid to write these insightful lines Perhaps he was on social media comparing his writing accolades to others’. Or perhaps he realised he didn’t have as many followers on Twitter as one of his peers 2,000 years on, we can only speculate But regardless of what rattled Ovid’s chain, I think most of us will relate to the sentiment: will recognise that horrible feeling you get as a writer when your personal chips are down and ever yone else seems to be on the up Some call this feeling professional envy. But when it comes to writers, I think it needs a different name. Because envy suggests we ’ re coveting something someone else has (the grass, in Bessie’s case), wanting to take it for ourselves. And I don’t think any of us want to take something away from another writer. We want to join them, not beat them

And I don’t believe it is envy in the real sense It’s admiration, self doubt and renewed determination to work hard and get to where we want to be Experiencing a mild case of Ovid doesn’t have to make you a bovid. Do writers always think the grass is greener on the other side? Gillian Harvey chews the cud

A m i l d c a s e o f O v i d

Anyway, now, I’m actually in the greener field; writing my second novel for Boldwood And believe me, while it’s nice to have found a home for my work, it’s still tough to get pen to paper at times. I suppose I’ve come to realise that no matter how successful you get, you will probably experience something others might describe as ‘professional envy ’ from time to time. And it’s completely normal. Just ask Ovid. Or Bessie the English Longhorn

U N D E R T H E C O V E R S www wr iter s online co uk82 SEPTEMBER 2022

So if you you ’ re currently going through a bout of Ovid don’t feel bad about yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad person It just makes you a writer It’s impor tant, too, to remember that even when the grass seems greener, it’s often an illusion Bessie herself discovered this when she finally burst through the fence only to find the land the sheep were grazing on was boggy and covered in dung Similarly, I recently discovered even writers at the top of their game seem to suffer from bouts of insecurity. I’d always assumed that becoming a bestseller or a household name would mark the end of writerly angst. But recently someone told me of a writer who’d achieved the #1 spot, but then felt like a failure when her second book only made #2 In that case, maybe it’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder looking up, than being at the top, afraid you might fall at any moment If I ever make it more than a couple of r ungs up, I’ll let you know My most recent bout of ‘ grass is greener syndrome’ came a few months ago when I was out of contract I was writing A Year at the French Farmhouse but didn’t know if it would ever go anywhere, so had a mild case of Ovid on hearing friends who were still in contract MOANING at how difficult it was. ‘Don’t they realise how LUCKY they are?’ I thought to myself ‘If I was in their shoes, I’d be over the moon ’ Since then, one of these lucky contract havers has written a novel that her editor didn’t like, and had to star t from scratch Others have stressed over deadlines, or have bitten their nails to the quick waiting to hear whether their book is on point Clearly, even when in contract, an easy passage is not guaranteed. Plus, for the record, the cow who jumped over the moon? Afraid that’s just a nurser y rhyme

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‘The course gives a student conf idence in their work and the know how to increase their chances of publication,’ explains Susie. ‘Unfor tunately, the untrained writer is more likely to have their work retur ned to them, not because they can’t write, but because they haven’t followed the r ules of the publishing world And that, in a large par t, is what we teach how to make your work acceptable to those who will pay for it.’

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‘Most people can be taught to write for publication,’ claims Susie Busby, Principal of the writing college, ‘as long as they want to write, are willing to lear n and put in the time and effor t required Our students prove that They come from all walks of life and have ver y different educational backg rounds. Yet, after studying with us many will see their name in print for the f irst time ’

The college also provides a whole suppor t system to novice writers that includes their tutors, their advisors, free resources and chance to converse with other writing students on their website The Writers Bureau is so conf ident in the training and suppor t it provides that it gives an amazing money back guarantee if a student doesn’t ear n their fees back through published writing by the end of their course the college will refund them in full Plus, the course comes on 15 day trial so you can see for yourself the quality of the training on offer To f ind out more about how The Writers Bureau can help you become a successful, published writer contact them for a free prospectus. Find out what sort of writer you want to be with our free, online only, course. It has been designed to help you explore what being a writer is all about, introduce you to the major forms of creative writing and help you decide what your next steps should be to take your writing forward

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The Creative Writing course offered by The Writers Bureau covers all genres ar ticles, shor t stories, novels, books, scripts etc. so students get a chance to explore all types of writing to f ind where their interests and talents lie

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