New horror publisher Black Crow Books to launch next year
thebookseller.com – Friday August 9, 2024
Black Crow Books, a new horror-dedicated publisher, is set to launch in 2025 with Jamie-Lee Nardone, director of Black Crow PR, and Matt Holland, founder of The Broken Binding, at the helm.
The new independent publisher will initially publish four books a year, including an anthology of "the very best" horror fiction of the year.
The other side of the business will focus on creating exclusive and limited editions of new and backlist titles and will launch a quarterly book box of horror fiction.
The Broken Binding bookshop to launch its own science fiction and fantasy publisher
thebookseller.com – Friday August 9, 2024
The Broken Binding, the independent online bookshop and special edition subscription box, is set to launch The Broken Binding Press in 2025.
The Broken Binding Press will be dedicated to science fiction and fantasy, focusing on "core" genre fiction including the latest works by Ryan Cahill and Richard Swan. The new publisher will work with Angry Robot who will support with sales and distribution.
"Angry Robot has built a strong relationship over the past few years with Matt and his team at The Broken Binding, and we are excited to support his plans to expand into publishing, with our parent company Watkins Media providing sales and distribution for his trade books", said Vicky Hartley, deputy managing director of Watkins Media. "We have always been impressed by Matt’s passion, creativity and ability to spot books and authors that the science fiction and fantasy community will love, and we can’t wait to help get this launch list out into the market."
New Publisher Listing: Compassiviste Publishing
firstwriter.com – Thursday August 8, 2024
Welcomes unsolicited full-length manuscripts and submissions to our quarterly anthology. We welcome writers at any stage of their career, and support authors from disadvantaged and diverse backgrounds. Our work includes fiction and non-fiction books across a wide range of genres, covering important social, cultural and environmental topics aligned with our foundation’s charitable causes. We invest 100% of our net profits back into the charity.
#Merky Books opens submissions for fifth annual New Writers’ Prize
thebookseller.com – Tuesday August 6, 2024
Penguin Random House UK (PRH UK) and Stormzy’s #Merky Books imprint has opened submissions for the fifth annual New Writers’ Prize for "young, under-represented and unpublished writers" from the UK and ROI.
The prize is open to un-agented fiction writers between 18 and 35, whether they have a full manuscript or an idea to submit. According to the organisers, the team is looking for "the next Yomi Adegoke, R F Kuang and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah".
The winner of the competition will get a publishing contract with the imprint, and all shortlisted writers will be invited to #Merky Books’ Writers’ Camp, which includes writing workshops, panel talks, editorial one-to-ones and opportunities to meet the team.
PRH Partners With the James Baldwin Family to Launch New Creative Writing Award for Fiction
global.penguinrandomhouse.com – Tuesday August 6, 2024
Penguin Random House has partnered with James Baldwin family to launch The James Baldwin Award for Fiction, a creative writing award for fiction for public high school students, in honor of the 100th birthday of the literary legend and civil rights champion. The award will recognize a student for an original literary composition in English for fiction with a first-place prize of $10,000.
The James Baldwin Award for Fiction is one of six creative writing awards given by Penguin Random House as part of their signature Creative Writing Awards (CWA) program. Other categories include the Freedom of Expression Award; the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry; the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir; the Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word; and the NYC Entrant Award.
Since 1993, the Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards have awarded more than $2.9 million dollars to public high school students for their original compositions. In partnership with nonprofit We Need Diverse Books, the program empowers and celebrates hundreds of young writers each year and underscores Penguin Random House’s commitment supporting the next generation of readers and authors and amplifying diverse voices and stories. Creative Writing Award winners have gone on to become professional and award-winning authors.
Riposte magazine returns as a ‘visceral’ new literary journal
dazeddigital.com – Saturday August 3, 2024
Danielle Pender’s beloved magazine has undergone a ‘super chic’ rebrand, with its latest issue featuring writing from Sheena Patel, Halima Jibril, Charlie Porter and more
When Riposte Magazine first launched in 2013, it quickly cultivated a space for the culturally avid and curious. Independent magazines were blossoming with fresh points of view, fostering communities with each conceptual revolution and zine drop. Ione Gamble’s Polyester was growing, a sparkling ode to having ‘faith in your own bad taste’ and a challenge to what we should both hold close and explode of girlhood. Kieran Yates’ British Values was celebrating the UK’s immigrant communities, while Strike! Magazine was anarchically swinging at the publishing industry, and Mushpit was running all over London to its own mad melody.
“2013 feels like a really long time ago,” says founder Danielle Pender today. “It was before #MeToo, the women’s march, and the Black Lives Matter movement had just started in July of that year. Tumblr was still at its peak, we hadn’t been Girlbossed yet, and Obama was still president.”
Riposte, founded and edited by writer and Watching Women and Girls author Pender, took on societal pressure points for women and the subsequent solidarity borne from them. “We were originally railing against the narrow representation of women in the media and writing features on forgotten women; it feels almost quaint now,” she says. “The magazine evolved and became a lot more progressive. I’m really proud of the women we platformed and the features we published, especially the more political articles and social commentary pieces.”
Shogun by James Clavell: A Commentary by G. Miki Hayden
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Friday August 2, 2024
Writers need to read their own work as readers, to make sure readers will understand the piece as written; but writers must also read the work of other writers as writers, to pick up writing hints and to understand what these writers had in mind.
So, I have been reading Shogun like a writer and here’s what I picked up, both positives and negatives.
One Shogun positive, of course, is author James Clavell’s extraordinary and specific descriptions. He doesn’t shrink from the horrific, for sure, but gives the unimaginably awful in its full gory glory. He presents a lot of dreadful images in the opening setting, for instance, in which the few remaining sailors on pilot Blackthorne’s ship are starving and their teeth have fallen out from scurvy (not Blackthorne’s teeth since he has secreted an apple or two from which he takes regular small bites). Then comes the storm. Worse follows. Later, people’s heads are cut off quite frequently with sharp swords in the Japan of 1600.
But why is this a positive? The tormenting of characters and readers with unbearable happenings? This is the hook, guys, and given the fame of the novel and its sale of six million copies on its first run from 1975 to 1980, the initial drama did its job. Here comes the hero, and he’s taking a terrible physical and emotional beating.
But Clavell brings us beauty of every type as well, including that of the Willow World of the courtesans, an impressive look at the ritual of the tea ceremony, and the enormous overcoming of the clever hero who learns to appreciate the relaxation and cleanliness of a hot bath—along with the Japanese language and Japanese manners, which are detailed fairly explicitly.
Duckworth Books buys September Publishing for undisclosed sum
thebookseller.com – Thursday August 1, 2024
September Publishing will become an imprint at Duckworth Books after being sold for an undisclosed sum.
The full team of three will transfer over, including September’s publisher Hannah MacDonald who will continue to lead the list, now as an imprint of Duckworth Books.
Founded by MacDonald in 2014, September has won the Regional Small Press of the Year award twice and been shortlisted every year since the award started. It has a core of upmarket mind-body-spirit publishing and has published five titles with author Sharon Blackie, as well as a wider range of illustrated and narrative non-fiction. September also has publishing relationships with the Van Gogh Museum and English Heritage.
New Literary Agent Listing: Amy O'Shea
firstwriter.com – Monday July 29, 2024
Interested in a wide variety of non-fiction from prescriptions for thinking and living better by experts in their field, to humour, history, true crime and memoir whereby the author immerses the reader in a lived experience. In an ever-changing landscape, she is looking for books that bring fresh, practical and accessible solutions to their audience - anything that can teach us more about who we are and the world we share.
Rejecting writer’s block: rediscovering your writing passion this summer
theboar.org – Monday July 29, 2024
There is a sense of irony about writing whilst talking about writer’s block. But this frustrating struggle has been bothering me all throughout the summer months. Whether it’s a sense of burnout after exam season, or just the warm heat getting to my head, writing can be tough during such a long break. Every budding writer has experienced it, so where does it originate, and how do you get over this tendency found in every creative person?
The phenomenon of writer’s block is defined as the “temporary or lasting failure to put words on paper”, often provoked by worry, academic fatigue, or just the fear that your writing will not be good enough. Due to the fact that writing is such a creative process, relying on flow, passion, and courage, the inability to complete such a task is frustrating for the sufferer. Even successful authors, such as the Franz Kafka, have personal accounts of their frustration, with words in his letters poignantly phrasing that his personal worries and woes led to his despair and battle with creativity.
The antidote for writer’s block is often quite, dare I say, trivial. Many articles have told me to go on a walk, or remove distractions, and whilst I cannot deny this works to an extent, it will not hit the nail on the head. Returning to “the roll, the rise, the carol, the creation”, perhaps pretentiously put by Gerard Manley Hopkins, feels like it comes from within. The art of putting pen to paper is a personal thing, and overcoming that is tough.
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