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Writers' News

Agony Editor: How to tell a fellow writer it’s time to move on

quillandquire.com – Wednesday October 30, 2024

Dear Agony Editor,

A guy in my writing group has been working on a short story for three years. Every time it’s his turn to submit work for the group to critique, it’s the same story with only minor adjustments. I’ve said everything I have to say, and truthfully, the story isn’t working. If I have to read it one more time, I’ll scream. I want to tell him to move on, but how do I do it delicately?

Signed,

Rinse and Repeat

[Read the full article]

Seven of the best UK retreats for aspiring writers

thetimes.com – Tuesday October 29, 2024

These weekends away will get your creative juices flowing with journaling workshops, special guests and, of course, desks with stirring views

Some say everyone has a novel in them — and the recent boom in self-published books suggests it could be true. According to the website Wordsrated, 300 million self-published books are sold each year, while the newsletter platform Substack has reported a 50 per cent growth in new writers over the past 12 months. But whether you’re writing for yourself or you have a three-book publishing deal, the hardest part of the process is often getting started. We’ve found seven retreats to help you to put pen to paper, each somewhere lovely.

[Read the full article]

New Publisher Listing: Oh MG Press

firstwriter.com – Tuesday October 29, 2024

Traditional middle grade publisher. No advance. High royalties. Welcomes submissions from authors based in the United States and Canada exclusively. Accepts early middle grade fiction between 16,000 and 30,000 words, and middle grade fiction between 30,000 and 65,000 words. Offers manuscript editing services for a fee.

[See the full listing]

Applications now open for George R.R. Martin Summer Intensive Writing Workshop

medill.northwestern.edu – Monday October 28, 2024

Applications are now open for the second George R.R. Martin Summer Intensive Writing Workshop at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

Taught by award-winning novelists and writing instructors, this seven-day, fully-funded writing intensive will support up to 10 mid-career journalists as they seek to publish their first novel. The workshop will take place in Evanston, Illinois, and will run from July 9-16.

“The story telling skills journalists employ every day can be extended into creative works,” said Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, Medill’s George R.R. Martin Chair in Storytelling, who will be leading the workshop. “In our first year of the program, we had 12 fellows who made great strides on their first novels after spending just a week at Medill.”

George R.R. Martin (BSJ70, MSJ71, ’21 H), author of the acclaimed “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels and co-executive producer of the Emmy award-winning “Game of Thrones” series, is generously funding the workshop with a $3 million gift.

[Read the full article]

RSL launches free writing residencies in Bernardine Evaristo's Ramsgate cottage

thebookseller.com – Saturday October 26, 2024

The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is launching the Scriptorium Awards, offering free writing residencies in President Bernardine Evaristo’s Ramsgate cottage. 

The retreats can be for up to a month at a time and the aim is to offer uninterrupted time for "professionally active" writers to focus on their projects. 

Participating writers could be finishing a manuscript against a deadline or starting a new project. They will have exclusive use of the house so they can focus on writing but will not be permitted to bring guests.

"The RSL Scriptorium Awards will reward excellent writers of all literary genres who are struggling to find the time and space to write," Evaristo said. "Many writers don’t have a dedicated writing room to themselves, and there might be financial or family demands that are challenges to completing writing projects [...] As a society, we need to build a more supportive infrastructure to help writers from every background thrive and, in so doing, keep literature, in all its life-enhancing manifestations, alive."

[Read the full article]

When bestsellers fail to deliver: Don’t fall for the promises of book tok reviews

tribune.com.pk – Saturday October 26, 2024

Every few weeks, I head on over to our local library and come back home with as many books as my backpack can carry. Where others dream of holidaying in the Bahamas (or Switzerland or Dubai or what have you), my dreams are just as ambitious: I yearn to sink into the sofa with a Really Good Book.

You would think, with all the untold promises of book tok and the liberal abundance of five-star reviews on Goodreads, that successfully nagging a Really Good Book would be as easy as buying bread. Please bury this foolish pipe dream immediately. If my library haunts have taught me anything, it is that it is easier to book and pay for that Bahamas holiday, or even a weekend away on Mars, than it is to find a good book in the league of, say, John Grisham of the late nineties. Or JK Rowling during the Harry Potter days. Or even the Hardy Boys. Or, if we are open to facing dead and buried memories, Sweet Valley High.

Which neatly segues us into our burning issue of the day: the mediocrity of modern books. Why, pray, is the psychological thriller and Sunday Times bestseller that promised me a “haunting” and “dazzling” read less interesting than the back of a cereal box? In order to answer this grave and burning question, I invite you all to dissect Exhibit A, aforementioned haunting and dazzling thriller Her Sister's Lie by Debbie Howells. I was forced to endure this book after an ill-fated library expedition comprising five other uninspiring reads, and I see no good reason you, too, should not suffer.

[Read the full article]

New Literary Agent Listing: Ben Dunn

firstwriter.com – Friday October 25, 2024

I am happy to consider submissions in the following areas:

Fiction: off-beat thriller, reading group, speculative, issue-led women’s fiction.

Non-fiction: Memoir, narrative-led non-fiction, nature writing, media tie-in (TV, Radio, Social Media, Podcast), pop-science, and big ideas.

For fiction, I enjoy off-beat characters, unusual plots and writing that extends the margins of what is traditionally expected within a genre. I am drawn to unique voices, and often novels written with humour, not ‘funny’ novels per se, but writing that stands out as different and unexpected.

For non-fiction, I made my start in publishing just as it was embracing popular culture. This led me into a career of following and anticipating trends, and I have continued that course into my time as an agent.

[See the full listing]

New Literary Agent Listing: Des Salazar

firstwriter.com – Monday October 21, 2024

Open to queries in January and July.

[See the full listing]

Has publishing abandoned teen boys?

thebookseller.com – Sunday October 20, 2024

Teen boys can be tempted back to books, but the industry needs to refocus its efforts.

Recently, I asked social media a question—are we ready to have the ‘there is nothing out there for teen boy readers’ discussion yet? What transpired on that thread was authors, booksellers, librarians, readers and parents all chiming in with fascinating responses. By far the most common was that there is a dearth of books for boys in the post-Middle Grade space.

Now, MG is filled with wonderful books for boys, but Teen and YA unquestionably lean towards girl readers. During my school talks all over this country, I’ve heard boys say: "I can never find a book I like" or, "Yours is the first book I’ve read in ages". You might think hearing that is nice, but more than anything it’s frustrating. Because it means publishing isn’t serving them in the way they deserve. And if this industry isn’t serving its young readers, particularly at a time when you either capture them for life or lose them forever, then change is desperately needed.

A crucial point made on the thread was that all Teen publishing is underserved. I agree, and there seems to be two key reasons for this. The first is that there is no industry-accepted term for children 13-16. ’Teen’ is a term that is sometimes used, but it’s by no means universally acknowledged. While some online retailers have a Teen and YA category, most brick-and-mortar bookshops have either a Teen or YA section, not both. Which means that a 15-year-old walking into a bookshop must make their way through countless books that are not written with them in mind before they find one that is. This is particularly true for teen boys, who are increasingly unlikely to find books for them on tables or face-out on shelves. Booksellers are well aware of this, and I’m convinced that it’s only with their knowledge and expertise that that boy would walk away with a book that is for him.

[Read the full article]

Lara Pawson: “I like to write with rules. It pushes my mind into strange places”

newstatesman.com – Sunday October 20, 2024

The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author on making art from objects, and what civil wars taught her about human nature.

Lara Pawson was born in London in 1968 and studied politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Between 1996 and 2007, she worked as a journalist, mainly for the BBC World Service. She lived in Angola, Ivory Coast, Mali and Ghana, and travelled throughout Africa, before returning to London, where she now lives. Her first book In the Name of the People: Angola’s Forgotten Massacre was published in 2014, and her experiences as a reporter covering civil wars in Angola and Ivory Coast informed her “fragmentary memoir” This Is the Place to Be (2016).

Pawson’s third book, Spent Light – another fragmentary work – is a book of objects. From a toaster that recalls a story of horrifying violence heard on a bus ride in Andalucía to a brass door handle that retains the spirit of the east London ironmonger who made it, everything that meets the narrator’s eye connects to a personal memory or historical event, in a chain of shocking, funny, revelatory associations. “It is impossible to predict,” the Goldsmiths Prize judge Sara Baume wrote, “at the beginning of almost every paragraph of Spent Light, where it will have taken the reader by the end.”

[Read the full article]

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