Amanda Harris to leave YMU in 2025 and set up new literary agency
thebookseller.com – Friday July 26, 2024
Literary agent Amanda Harris is leaving YMU to set up her own literary agency. Harris will be leaving the company in early 2025, however she will continue to work with YMU clients on future projects.
Speaking exclusively to The Bookseller, Harris, managing director of Literary, said: "I have had a great time at YMU, and I am thrilled to be continuing my work with YMU clients as I take the next step in my agenting career. I feel very honoured to have launched a bespoke literary business within the company, and to have worked with such a talented team of award-winning agents.
"YMU Literary’s impact on the group, and the UK publishing industry, is reflected in the bestseller charts, national book awards and huge TCM sales figures achieved by our authors and their publishers."
Plans for national writing centre put to government
bbc.co.uk – Wednesday July 24, 2024
Plans to create a national writing centre in the North East have been put to the government.
The Centre for Writing would be based at Bolbec Hall in Westgate Road, Newcastle, and would support community writing and reading initiatives.
New Writing North, the charity behind the plan, said the centre would cost £14m and it was seeking £5m from the government's Cultural Development Fund.
Claire Malcolm, the charity's CEO, said the investment would "help train and develop a new generation of local talent".
"I want young people here to be able to grow up to be publishers, writers and creatives without presuming they need to leave the North East to achieve their ambition," she added.
If approved, the centre would provide support for professional writers and publishing businesses across the north of England.
Peng Shepherd On Writing A Choose-You-Own-Adventure Speculative Mystery
crimereads.com – Tuesday July 23, 2024
Having just survived writing a speculative mystery novel that allows readers choose what happens at certain points in the story, when CrimReads asked me to write an essay about the experience in the same format, I felt:
Terror
Excitement
TERROR
It’s already hard enough to write a book. But to write one in which there are multiple versions of the main character’s story, all of which make sense, and more importantly, all of which feel just as true, was a whole new beast entirely. What if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew? What if readers think it’s too weird? What if I fail? The writing of the manuscript really was like a microcosm for life.
And this is the thing, both about writing and about life: one of the best parts is getting to make choices about what’s most important, because that’s how you define yourself as “you”—and one of the hardest parts is having to make choices about what’s most important, because you might get it wrong. And if you do, how do you live with that?
Nostalgia
No Good Options
NOSTALGIA
Many of us are familiar with the children’s Choose Your Own Adventure series of books from our childhood, in which you start as a blank “You” canvas and are immediately launched into an outlandishly fun adventure in outer space or on the open seas or deep in some jungle.
Why did we all love that series so much as kids? What was it about those paperbacks that could transport us somewhere else for entire afternoons at a time? My personal theory is that choice is exciting to children because at that age, you almost never get to make them. Most of your life is dictated by your parents or your teachers, and so any opportunity to exercise some autonomy, no matter how trivial, is thrilling. If you put on a blue shirt for bed, will the aliens invade Earth? If you have the granola instead of the chocolate puffs, will a portal open in your basement?
But when you’re an adult, the game changes. Now you have entirely too much choice, none of which leads to extraterrestrials or SCUBA diving for lost treasure in the Bermuda Triangle. The responsibilities can be so much, we might almost wish that sometimes, the pressure of choosing could briefly be taken away from us again.
Then it was.
You can only go to “No Good Options”
Max Edwards leaves Aevitas to return to Apple Tree Literary
thebookseller.com – Monday July 22, 2024
Max Edwards has left Aevitas Creative Management after five years to re-open his own agency, Apple Tree Literary.
Having originally founded Apple Tree in February 2019, Edwards merged it with Aevitas later that year. He brings his list of authors with him to the re-launched Apple Tree Literary.
Edwards said: “I’m excited to be re-launching Apple Tree Literary. I have learnt so much over the last five years and will miss all my former colleagues at Aevitas Creative Management. But the opportunity to grow my own agency from a sapling once more is a thrilling one. I look forward to nurturing the continued successes of my brilliant clients, and to working closely with their publishers around the world.”
Toby Mundy, c.e.o. of ACM UK, said: “I think I speak for everyone at Aevitas Creative Management when I wish Max the very best with his new venture. I look forward to seeing him and his clients flourish in their new home."
Thoughts on writer’s block and other first word problems
auburn-reporter.com – Sunday July 21, 2024
“I once heard an anecdote about a writer who’d spent a week in his apartment working on his novel, without a break. Compassionate friends finally dragged him away to dinner for the sake of sanity, and for a much needed breather.
“What did you get done this week?” the writer’s chums inquired.
“In the mornings, I put in a comma,” he answered gloomily, “and at night, I took it out again.”
Perhaps the guy had a creative block, who knows? But I’ll wager he’d also neither read nor followed the great Ray Bradbury’s advice in his book, “Zen in the Art of Writing.”
“This afternoon, burn down the house,” Bradbury wrote. “Tomorrow, pour critical water upon the simmering coals.”
In other words: don’t judge what you’re writing while you’re at it. Reserve your critiques for the editing phase. That’s the time to correct errors.
Of course, Bradbury is saying, the creative and judgement moods must be separated. Failing to recognize this is one sure way to get nothing done but spin your wheels, like our unfortunate writer with his vexing comma. When the creative fire is under you, go nuts.
Working with Roald Dahl helped me find Harry Potter
bbc.co.uk – Saturday July 20, 2024
he publisher who discovered Harry Potter has said working with Cardiff-born children's author Roald Dahl helped him see the potential in JK Rowling's novel.
Barry Cunningham has worked with some of the most well-known children's authors in the world.
He said Roald Dahl was "a tall, quite grumpy, rather heroic, very frank author" who was adored by children.
"He was occasionally extremely grumpy and short tempered with adults, but never with children," he told the Books That Made Me programme on BBC Radio Wales.
Roald Dahl was born on 13 September 1916 in the Llandaff area of the Welsh capital, and died on 23 November 1990, aged 74.
As marketing director for Puffin, Mr Cunningham travelled around the country with him.
It was during one of those marketing trips that Dahl revealed what he believed was the secret to the success of his books.
First romantic fiction festival held in Manchester
thebookseller.com – Saturday July 20, 2024
The first romantic fiction festival was held in Manchester last week, which saw readers and writers gather from across the country.
Manchester Central Library hosted Love Stories etc festival on 13th July, with 28 author panels, five writing workshops and an immensely popular book stall staffed by romance experts from Waterstones Arndale.
Co-directed and co-founded by Simon & Schuster’s brand development director Sara-Jade Virtue and HarperNorth’s head of marketing and publicity Alice Murphy-Pyle, the cross-publishing festival featured authors from several publishers at all stages of their careers. Authors including Milly Johnson, Harriet Evans, Cesca Major, P J Ellis, Veronica Henry and Isabelle Broom took to the performance space, while workshops from literary agent Lisa Highton, the RNA and publishing staff helped inspire writers.
Digital Audio Up 15 Percent: A 23-Percent Jump YTD
publishingperspectives.com – Saturday July 20, 2024
In its May 2024 StatShot report released this morning (July 18), the Association of American Publishers (AAP) cites total revenues across all categories up 10.8 percent over May 2023, at US$1.1 billion.
Year-to-date revenues, the AAP reports, were up 5.5 percent, at US$5.2 billion for the first five months of the year.
For a second month, the United States’ book publishing industry—as assessed by the StatShot program—shows a significant boost. The analysis shows total gross sales increasing 5 percent, with net sales rising 11 percent, according to the report’s authors.
The trade itself—the commercial books industry and the part of the international business most closely followed by Publishing Perspectives—saw gross sales of 9 percent, but because of a 31-percent decrease in returns, that gross-sales figure jumped to 31 percent. Hardback and paperback formats in the trade saw increases of 21 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in net sales, boosting the year-to-date trade net sales to 5 percent.
United Agents' Kat Aitken and Seren Adams launch new agency Lexington Literary
thebookseller.com – Wednesday July 17, 2024
Kat Aitken and Seren Adams have left United Agents after nine years to found new agency, Lexington Literary.
The agency will be looking for new writers of bold and emotive literary and upmarket fiction, narrative non-fiction with a strong hook, and general non-fiction by experts and academics.
Their clients include Caleb Azumah Nelson, winner of the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize and bestselling author of Open Water and Small Worlds (Viking), #Merky Books Prize-winning debut novelist William Rayfet Hunter, Granta Best Young British Novelist Lauren Aimee Curtis, and forthcoming debut novelist Róisín Lanigan.
In non-fiction, Lexington Literary represents Forward Prize-shortlisted Ralf Webb, academic Orlando Reade, and Fitzcarraldo Essay Prize shortlistees Asa Seresin and Benoît Loiseau, among others.
Harrogate to welcome crime-writing celebs for return of annual festival
yourharrogate.co.uk – Wednesday July 17, 2024
The 21st Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is set to return to Harrogate this weekend, organised by Harrogate International Festivals.
The Festival, which takes place at Harrogate’s Old Swan Hotel from 18th-21st July, has been curated by 2024’s Festival Chair, bestselling crime novelist Ruth Ware.
Programme highlights include an all-star lineup of acclaimed writers and global bestsellers including Mick Herron, Louise Candlish, M.W. Craven, James Comey, Lucy Foley and Richard Osman.
It was also include the crowning of the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the much-anticipated Critics’ New Blood panel which showcases four talented debut novelists.
This year’s cohort, selected by a panel of the UK’s leading crime fiction critics, are Jonny Sweet, Martta Kaukonen, Claire Coughlan and Colin Walsh.
For aspiring writers, Creative Thursday offers an immersive day of workshops and talks led by bestselling writers and industry experts, with the unique opportunity to pitch work in the ‘Dragon’s Pen’.
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