How to write your own novel, according to podcaster and author Elizabeth Day
stylist.co.uk – Monday August 30, 2021
Have you always dreamed of putting your own story to paper? Perhaps a compelling crime thriller, or a love story for the ages? Whether you’ve already got a killer plot idea, or it’s a pipe dream that feels too far away to reach, it’s tough knowing where to begin. With the publishing industry announcing a surge in manuscripts as soon as the pandemic hit last year, the competition is as fierce as ever, and expert advice is sorely welcome.
Enter Elizabeth Day. As well as hosting her own hit podcast, How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, and interviewing fellow authors for BBC Sounds show Open Book and Sky Arts’ Book Club Live, Elizabeth has written five novels and two non-fiction books to accompany her podcast series. She started writing her first novel, Scissors Paper Stone, aged 29 while working full-time as a feature writer at The Observer.
Indie Publishers Encouraged by 2021 Results
publishersweekly.com – Sunday August 29, 2021
In our second installment on how independent publishers are faring in 2021, presses reported a generally good year through the first six months of 2021, and while they are optimistic about the rest of the year, uncertainty about how the supply chain will hold up is raising concerns.
New Press had a record year in 2020, and publisher Ellen Adler doesn’t think the publisher will reach that sales level again anytime soon. “Beginning in May and continuing well into the fall, sales in 2020 were through the roof,” she said. Like some other publishers, New Press is using 2019 as a comparison for 2021, and by that gauge sales are up 29% from the same period in 2019.
Noirwich Crime Writing Festival to return this September
edp24.co.uk – Friday August 27, 2021
Noirwich Crime Writing Festival, the region’s largest annual celebration of crime writing and one of the fastest-growing literary festivals in the UK, returns to the city next month.
If you’re an avid reader, a budding writer or interested in the craft of literary translation, Noirwich is the perfect opportunity to discover new writers and sharpen your creative skills.
Now in its eighth year, Noirwich interrogates the present and future of the world today through the lens of crime writing. Many incredible writers have attended in recent years, including Val McDermid, Attica Locke, Nicci French, Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, Oyinkan Braithwaite and many more.
LMBPN Publishing LLC
firstwriter.com – Friday August 27, 2021
Publishes fantasy, mystery, science fiction, thrillers, and urban fantasy.
New Literary Agency Listing: Meridian Artists
firstwriter.com – Thursday August 26, 2021
Offers premier full-service entertainment industry representation with principal offices in Toronto and Los Angeles. An established leader in the representation and management of Talent, Screenwriters, Directors, Authors, and Key Creatives.
'The goal is to be as big as Penguin': Ilford writer on her publishing company for teen authors
ilfordrecorder.co.uk – Tuesday August 24, 2021
An Ilford woman who launched a publishing company for young authors is celebrating the publication of its seventh book.
Eleni Sophia, 22, founded Perspective Press after being frustrated by publishers’ lack of interest in teenage writers.
“When I was 13 I had written a novella but I was constantly getting rejected from publishers because I was too young,” she claimed.
3 Tips for Writing Female Friendships in Fiction
writersdigest.com – Tuesday August 24, 2021
“I’d be lost without you.” These words from Nancy Mitford’s Pursuit of Love speak to the primacy of friendships between women—a theme that’s poignantly evoked in the wonderful new television adaptation of the novel. The story follows two young women from their days as little girls to melodramatic teenagers and, finally, into womanhood. In losing each other, they lose themselves.
In the history of the novel, it’s a radical sentiment. Novels that center women’s friendships are a relatively recent invention. A mirror of society and culture, the English novel, which became the precursor for the American novel, privileged the marriage plot. Stretching back at least into the 18th century, courtship and marriage provided both the subject and story arc for fiction.
The Books Briefing: How Fan Fiction Reimagines the Writing Process
theatlantic.com – Monday August 23, 2021
When The Last Jedi came out, some viewers had déjà vu: Certain aspects of the movie’s plot were strikingly similar to the events in several popular stories on the fan-fiction site Archive of Our Own. The coincidence may seem strange, but in many ways it’s unsurprising that the people who were thinking most deeply about a franchise—its creators and devotees alike—would come to the same conclusions about each character’s fate. That alignment might be seen as a testament to both the series’ deep world-building and its fans’ insight.
Writing the Magical Realism Novel
By Lakshmi Raj Sharma
Novelist and Professor of English
firstwriter.com – Monday August 23, 2021
Why are Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez such extra ordinary novelists? The answer is complex. But a reason for their unique achievement is that apart from what virtually every great novelist does – telling the story in a new way in a new vocabulary – they also write in a mode which is hellishly difficult. This mode of narration is called Magical Realism, which Rushdie oversimplifies by defining as the improbable presented as the mundane. That, however, is just the tail of magical realism. The reality of magical realism is intricately connected with the tale on which it is harnessed. It relates more to feeling than to thought though there is a perpetual undercurrent of thought in it. The magical part relates to the feeling because one can have any kind of feeling. But the thought which is often related to some form of oppression is wrapped in the true voice of feeling.
Line-up revealed for Bloody Scotland crime-writing festival
thenational.scot – Thursday August 19, 2021
AUTHORS Stephen King, Karin Slaughter and Ian Rankin are among those who will be taking part in a hybrid crime-writing book festival next month.
The Bloody Scotland festival will feature in-person events while some authors will join digitally from elsewhere, with audiences able to watch live in Stirling or online.
King, Kathy Reichs, Slaughter, Lee Child and Linwood Barclay are among those who will be beamed into the city’s Albert Halls where interviewers will be present to question them in front of a live and digital audience.
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