YOUTH: THE WRITING CONTEST
dawn.com – Sunday March 21, 2021
Gen Z and millennials are known as the generation of hustlers. We crave the notion of consistent productivity. We respond to texts and non-urgent emails within the hour, as we continuously update our followers on social media platforms about the minutiae of our existence, all the while feigning the image of #livingourbestlives.
Generally, it’s a struggle for us to slow down. In fact, we don’t really know how to. It is our naive belief that a culture of workaholism will somehow translate into a happier life. Even as we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, the same rules apply.
I’ve been a freelance journalist, writer and poet for almost three years. Writing was initially a creative outlet for me, a way to digest all my thoughts about the noise of the world into a well-structured article. Slowly, my writing acquired a sizable readership and soon I was writing for noteworthy publications. However, over time I noticed that, once purely an exciting endeavour, writing assignments now only brought on a wave of anxiety.
How to decide when to ‘rescue’ your darlings and other writing tips
poynter.org – Saturday March 20, 2021
Although I have been unable to teach in-person writing workshops during the pandemic, my Zoom teachings have been zooming. Almost all of these virtual workshops have been pro-bono, but I have received rewards beyond money. A favorite activity is “visiting” a writing class, especially one that is using one of my writing books as a text. I have fun, play a little music, and get treated like Obama or Springsteen.
In other years, I would have walked across the street from the Poynter Institute to visit a class at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. Instead, I taught this week, in my new mode, from a computer perched on our dining room table.
The day before the class, the teacher, veteran journalist Janet Keeler, submitted a list of questions from the students who had been studying my most recent book “Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser.” In short, it’s a writing book about writing books.
The questions were so good, I was inspired to sit down for an hour or so and answer them in writing. Those questions and answers, lightly edited for clarity, may be of use to you in your own work. I hope so.
New Literary Agent Listing: Delia Berrigan Fakis
firstwriter.com – Friday March 19, 2021
Most interested in representing adult nonfiction, but will also consider select fiction and children's picture books.
New Literary Agent Listing: Emma Bal
firstwriter.com – Thursday March 18, 2021
Actively looking for: new perspectives in history, arts & culture, politics, economics, philosophy, psychology, and science; original approaches to travel and nature writing; unusual illustrated projects; thoughtful and dynamic cookery and food writing; and atypical narrative non-fiction and memoir. See agency listing for submission guidelines.
Small Press of the Year regional and country winners unveiled
thebookseller.com – Thursday March 18, 2021
The nine winners of the regional and country round of the British Book Awards Small Press of the Year accolade have been revealed. Presented for the third time in 2021, and sponsored by the CPI Group, the award celebrates the diversity of small presses in the UK and Ireland. This year’s winners include publishers from County Kildare in Ireland, Hackney in London, Leicester, Sheffield, Cardiff, Beaminster in Dorset, and Edinburgh.
Julie Burchill finds new publisher after her book about cancel culture was cancelled
standard.co.uk – Monday March 15, 2021
Edinburgh-based indie, Stirling Publishing has acquired world rights for Julie Burchill’s book, which was dropped by her original publisher Little, Brown, part of Hachette, last December.
Ironically, the journalist’s book, Welcome To The Woke Trials: How #Identity Killed Progressive Politics, which was due out this spring , became a casualty of the very issue it was describing, after Burchill made several comments on Twitter to Muslim “libertarian communist” journalist Ash Sarkar, including a reference to the age of one of the Prophet Mohammed’s wives.
The tweets were branded “deplorable” by Little, Brown’s managing director Charlie King in a letter to staff, the book was dropped and the company issued the following statement: “While there is no legal definition of hate speech in the UK, we believe that Julie’s comments on Islam are not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint, that they crossed a line with regard to race and religion, and that her book has now become inextricably linked with those views.”
New Magazine Listing: The Tusculum Review
firstwriter.com – Monday March 15, 2021
We seek well-crafted writing that takes risks. We publish work in and between all genres: poetry, fiction, essays, and plays--we appreciate work in experimental and traditional modes. We accept prose submissions of less than 6,000 words (24 double-spaced pages) and poetry submissions under 10 pages. We publish scripts in the 10-minute format (10 pages).
Northeast Indie Publishers Stuck with Their Niches in 2020
publishersweekly.com – Sunday March 14, 2021
New England’s independent publishers are known for carving out strong niches and holding steadfast to them, come what may. The extraordinary forces of the last year—pandemic, protests, and climate change—put that model to the test, and for five publishers it appears that strategy paid off.
At the outset of the pandemic, sales took a nosedive at Interlink Publishing Group in Northampton, Mass., as traditional sales channels collapsed. “Most independent booksellers canceled their orders for our spring list, Amazon suspended ordering for a month, and international trade came to a complete halt,” said founder and publisher Michel Moushabeck. “It was a very scary time.”
Sales rebounded in fall, however, and Interlink ended the year up 8% over 2019. Moushabeck attributed the gains to a list that cultivated a dedicated audience who sought out the publisher’s brand of international cultural histories, fiction, cookbooks, and children’s books through new avenues. He helped readers find those new sales channels, including direct-to-home ordering, by writing two customer newsletters a week and ramping up social media.
Sky Studios to inspire next generation of Northern writing talent
prolificnorth.co.uk – Sunday March 14, 2021
Sky Studios has partnered with writing development agency, New Writing North to inspire the next generation of television writers.
Sky Writes has been created to help “diversify the pool” of scriptwriters and will offer an introduction to writing for television for people from under-represented groups and under-served geographical areas in the North of England.
“We are delighted to be working with Sky Studios on this initiative. The programme is an effective and innovative way of addressing issues that we know make it hugely challenging for underrepresented writers to break into screenwriting,” explained Will Mackie, Senior Programme Manager (Writing and Awards) at New Writing North.
“We know that our region is bursting with talent and through a programme like Sky Writes we’re looking to offer the kind of grassroots development that has the potential to open doors and create meaningful long-term opportunities. We have recruited inspirational and hard-working Programme Producers and Writers in Residence to carry out this work.”
Know thy reader
thebookseller.com – Friday March 12, 2021
With the levelling off of e-book sales, many have begun to wonder whether the book publishing industry will be spared the kinds of disruption experienced by other sectors of the media industries. But the digital transformation of the book publishing industry was never fundamentally about e-books anyway: e-books turned out to be just another format by which publishers could deliver their content to readers, not the game-changer that many thought (or feared) it would be. The big question that the digital revolution posed to book publishers is just as pressing today as it was a decade ago: it’s the question of how publishers understand who their ‘customers’ are, and how they relate to and interact with them.
For most of the 500-year history of the book publishing industry, publishers understood their customers to be retailers: publishers were a B2B business, selling books to retailers, and they knew very little about the ultimate customers of their books, the readers. The digital revolution has forced publishers to think again about this model and to consider whether there might be something to be gained by becoming more reader-centric. This fundamental shift in publishers’ self-understanding is likely to be one of the most significant and enduring consequences of the digital revolution in publishing.
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