10 Tips for Writing (Both About Yourself and in General)
juneauempire.com – Sunday October 13, 2019
One of my favorite (and simultaneously most hated) qualities of children is their tendency to be unintentionally blunt.
Over the past year, my daughter, son and their little parliament of friends have called me out on hiding my baldness with a Yankees cap, wearing the same clothes every day and “having claws” (read: grossly unclipped toenails). I don’t even want to tell you the comments I hear at the pool. Suffice to say I need to cut back on the midnight Nutella spoons.
Earlier this week, the apples of my eye point-blankedly asked me why I didn’t have a job. I told them that wasn’t true, that I was a writer, to which they both responded: “no, a real job.” So I printed a copy of my curriculum vitae. I still don’t think they were impressed — even after they checked my references.
New Literary Agent Listings: Jamie Chambliss and Sonali Chanchani
firstwriter.com – Thursday October 10, 2019
Jamie Chambliss and Sonali Chanchani are literary agents at Folio Literary Management, handling both fiction and nonfiction. See their individual listings for specific areas of interests.
UVM Students Launch Literary Magazine 'Crossroads'
sevendaysvt.com – Wednesday October 9, 2019
University of Vermont students launched the literary magazine Crossroads, but its roots can be traced off-campus to Burlington's Light Club Lamp Shop. There, every Monday evening, poets and other writers meet to share their work open-mic style. That's where the Crossroads founders cemented their love of poetry, met future contributors and collaborators, and, most importantly, found a community they thought could be served by a new publication devoted to verse.
Alexander Ellis and Jack Wheaton started Crossroads in 2017 after one of those readings. Production involved a fair amount of furtive feeding of card stock into printers at the UVM library and late-night stapling sessions. That first issue, Ellis said with a laugh, was "really crappy." But to them, it was exciting just to see their words in print.
There Is No Such Thing as 'Too Similar' When Publishers All Want the Same Book
jezebel.com – Wednesday October 9, 2019
A few years ago, when I was shopping my now-shelved first novel, an industry insider told me to put the word “girls” in the title. “Girl” novels were big at the moment: Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, The Girls. But a few months later, I was told I had to change the title. There were too many novels about girls.
That is pretty much the way the publishing industry works. Once a title becomes wildly popular, rival imprints rush to get their hands on books that are slight variants on the same conceit until they have too many books on the same topic—say, a woman with a substance abuse problem who witnesses a crime—and once that topic is oversaturated, they move on to something else. In a recent Buzzfeed article, historical fiction novelist Kim Michele Richardson said that details in bestselling author of MeBeforeYou Jojo Moyes’s new novel are too close for comfort to those included in her own work. However, in an industry that frequently gets stuck on the same idea, the similarities in their work look more like byproducts of how well both women know which details are required of their genre, and the fact that many books are becoming difficult to distinguish from one another.
New Publisher Listing
firstwriter.com – Wednesday October 9, 2019
Publishes: Fiction;
Markets: Children's
Always on the lookout for authors and artists with creative ideas to enhance and broaden their list of children's books. See website for submission guidelines.
New Agent Listings: Amy Fitzgerald; Josephine Hayes; and Rory Scarfe
firstwriter.com – Wednesday October 9, 2019
Amy Fitzgerald, Josephine Hayes, and Rory Scarfe are agents at the Blair Partnership, handling between them fiction and nonfiction for adults, children, and young adults, and screenwriters. Submit to them by email.
New Agent Listing: Chelsea Eberly
firstwriter.com – Tuesday October 8, 2019
Chelsea Eberly is a new agent at the Greenhouse Literary Agency. She handles fiction and nonfiction for adults, children, and young adults, and is open to material that has the potential to stand out in the US marketplace.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday October 7, 2019
Publishes: Poetry; Reviews;
Areas include: Literature;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Publishes poems and reviews of recent poetry collections. Submit via online submission system.
New Literary Agency Listing: Rachel Mills Literary
firstwriter.com – Monday October 7, 2019
Handles nonfiction in the following areas: Biography; Current Affairs; Food; Health; Memoirs; Narrative Nonfiction; Nature; Popular Science; Psychology; Sustainable Living; Upmarket; Wellbeing
Send submissions by email.
Find a room of your own: top 10 tips for women who want to write
theguardian.com – Saturday October 5, 2019
How does a woman write? This woman is writing on her laptop in bed wearing her lipstick. She looks quite ridiculous. She is wishing the teenagers downstairs would make less noise and will go down periodically to shout at them and to get some biscuits, maybe some cheese, a small snack that she needs to sustain herself every other paragraph or so.
This woman wishes she was like the young people she sees writing in cafés or on the bus, who seem to be able to write anywhere. She wishes she wasn’t so precious about peace and quiet and remembers she didn’t used to be. In fact, she used to sit next to a man in a newspaper office who was covered in nicotine patches, chewing nicotine gum and drinking double espressos until he vibrated. Still, she always met the deadline. He didn’t, so was in a constant state of torture.
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