Granite Noir short story competition launched to ‘unearth’ and celebrate north-east talent
pressandjournal.co.uk – Tuesday December 12, 2023
A brand new writing competition in the spirit of Granite Noir has been launched to encourage budding north-east writers.
Have you ever fantasised about the murky world of crime or how best to carry out a murder? Hypothetically of course.
If the answer is yes, Granite Noir might have a new challenge to put your shady skills to the test.
The popular Scottish crime writing festival is returning in February with another year of impressive events but with a delightful twist.
For the first time, a short story writing competition has been launched.
Crime creatives from all over the north-east will have their chance to put their hand at creating a work of suspense and intrigue.
For Sharon Burgess, chief executive of Aberdeen Performing Arts (APA), she hopes this will be a chance to “unearth” – not bodies for all you murky-minded people – but rather talent.
10X Your Writing Quality With These 8 Useful Websites
medium.com – Tuesday December 12, 2023
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Burnham-On-Sea Book Festival 2024 writing competitions are now open for entries
burnham-on-sea.com – Monday December 11, 2023
Burnham-On-Sea Book Festival’s 2024 writing and book-cover competitions are now open for entries.
The 2024 festival – which is set to return from May 17th-19th – is inviting local people to get involved with the new competitions.
Sponsored by Burnham’s best-selling crime author Damien Boyd, entries are now open and close on midnight March 4th, 2024.
Book festival treasurer Jonathan Pinnock says there has been a change this year to the competitions: “Damien has upped the prizes in the children’s categories, hoping to inspire more young people to write. We’ve also made the decision to offer £100 to the winner of the book cover competition.”
“There are competitions for short-story writers and poets in three age categories: 11 and under, 12 – 18, and 19+ (Adults); the book cover competition is open to all ages. There’s a maximum of three entries per author/illustrator in each category.”
Nosy Crow announces multi-year Unicorn Academy publishing deal
thebookseller.com – Saturday December 9, 2023
Nosy Crow has announced a multi-year deal for Unicorn Academy, covering a wide range of formats to be published in the next decade.
Kate Wilson, group c.e.o. of Nosy Crow, worked with Katie Woolley, Nosy Crow’s head of brands and licensing, to buy publishing rights for children’s books in all languages, excluding German, from Spin Master Entertainment. Nosy Crow’s first TV tie-in novelisation, Sophia’s Invitation, was published in October, in time for the global launch on Netflix on 2nd November.
The series is adapted from books originated and published by Nosy Crow, written by Julie Sykes and Linda Chapman and published in North America by Penguin Random House.
6 Non-Obvious Book Publishing Trends From 2023
inc.com – Saturday December 9, 2023
Across hundreds of nonfiction books published this past year, several big themes emerged. Here are six of the most significant -- and why they will matter in 2024.
One of the upsides of having hundreds of books sent to you for an awards program is that you have a chance to look at everything that was published over the past year in an aggregate form.
As we considered titles for the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards this year, there were some macro themes that stood out across multiple books that offer a window into the collective zeitgeist of the past year.
For the past several years, spotlighting these trends has been a part of our annual recap of books. Last year, some of our themes from the year included #emergefromcovid, #talktoanimals, and #underappreciatedwomen. In previous years, themes included #kindness, #overload, #endbias, and #corruptwinners. Each one encompassed multiple books from multiple publishers.
This year, we spotlighted six themes and included an overview of each one -- and the books included in them -- as part of our shortlist announcement show. Here they are, in no particular order:
New Literary Agent Listing: Maeve Bolger
firstwriter.com – Friday December 8, 2023
Trained at RADA and worked as a Stage Manager before becoming an agent in 2016. She represents Sound Designers, Composers, Musical Directors, Set and Costume Designers, Lighting Designers and Directors in Theatre, alongside a list of Writers across all disciplines.
New Publisher Listing: Sparsile Books
firstwriter.com – Thursday December 7, 2023
A small boutique publisher, specializing in literary fiction and high quality non-fiction. We have an old-fashioned approach, which sees publishing in terms of an art. We have undertaken only to publish original and beautifully-crafted works with attention to historical detail and the poetry of language.
Leeke joins the Madeleine Milburn Agency
thebookseller.com – Wednesday December 6, 2023
Jessica Leeke is joining the Madeleine Milburn Literary, Film & TV Agency as literary agent.
She will start on 8th January, specialising in upmarket and book club fiction with global appeal.
Leeke began her career in advertising in New York before spending more than 15 years as an editor at Bloomsbury, Simon & Schuster and most recently Penguin Michael Joseph, where she was fiction publisher.
Shortlisted for the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize, she has acquired and edited authors who have become bestsellers and been shortlisted for prizes such as the Booker, Costa, Desmond Elliott, and Irish Book Award as well as securing picks for Richard & Judy, Radio 2 and the US TV book club.
The Ingredients for a First-Rate (Crime) Novel
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Wednesday December 6, 2023
I’ve been an instructor at Writer’s Online Workshops (from Writer’s Digest) since the start of this century, and a writer and writing instructor since well before that. I’ve taught hundreds of classes, which I can multiply by a modest average of seven students per class, so I’ve seen a lot of student writing, and much of it even credible. Most of the work could use some smoothing out, aka editing, however, and I’ve done a lot of that daily in dealing with the many class assignments students post, plus in editing chapters and whole novels privately. I can find certifiable flaws in almost every piece I look at. If I can’t find defects (rarely), my mouth drops open in astonishment.
In a mystery writing class I taught in August 2019 (my student reminds me), I discovered quite a bit in the assignments from writers that needed improvement—not an unusual situation. But what was different from what I see in most of the class material I work with was a story with elements that were outstanding. The author (Walter Sutton) and I began to work with his pieces of writing in class, and then I worked with him after and since, to this very day, in editing two of his novels (going into the third): Finders Keepers and Losers Weepers, both now in print and ebook at Amazon, and with Flash Finnegan Book 3 to come, working title, Knick Knack Patty Whack.
But because I acted as the editor of the two finished/in print books from a traditional publisher, I couldn’t write a review to post on Amazon—such is the rule of the site—even though I’ve admired Walt’s work from the first, and I still do.
So I decided to write an article about the books and explain what I respect in author Suttons’ crime fiction novels and use that as a sort of lesson for other crime fic and even general fiction writers.
Leaver launches Gemini Books Group
thebookseller.com – Monday December 4, 2023
Marcus Leaver, formerly president of Sterling Publishing, c.e.o. of The Quarto Group and co-founder of the Welbeck Publishing Group, has formed Gemini Books Group, with the acquisitions of Imagine That!, Palazzo Editions, Ad Lib Publishers, Mardle Books and Pimpernel Press.
The announcement said Gemini “will build a publishing business focused on the UK and North American markets through the acquisition of established companies and by incubating start-up businesses in scalable areas of the market”. Gemini’s focus will be on non-fiction gift books and children’s books.
Jon Rippon, currently managing director of Palazzo and Ad Lib/Mardle, will transition to a new role as group finance director of Gemini.
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