
New Magazine Listing: The Fortnightly Review
firstwriter.com – Tuesday September 27, 2022

Online magazine publishing reviews, essays and reportage, fiction, and poetry.

So you want my arts job: Literary agent
artshub.co.uk – Monday September 26, 2022

Alex Adsett is a literary agent and publishing consultant with over 25 years’ experience working in the publishing and bookselling industry. She has managed Alex Adsett Literary since 2008, and as an agent or consultant has helped thousands of authors review and negotiate their publishing deals.
As an agent she represents more than 50 authors of all ages and genres, including Melissa Lucashenko, Peter Greste, Isobelle Carmody, and many more. As a consultant, she reviews and negotiates publishing contracts for authors without an agent.

New Publishing Imprint Listing: Schiffer Craft
firstwriter.com – Monday September 26, 2022

Publishes to help energize maker and craft communities worldwide. Dedicated to publishing high quality books and kits that inspire, instruct, and educate. Aims to enrich lives through craft.

Gemma Arrowsmith: My top tips on writing for the radio
comedy.co.uk – Friday September 23, 2022

I've been writing and script editing radio for quite a while now and it's a medium I really enjoy working in. Here are some thoughts and observations I've had about writing audio. I hope they might be useful to you as you write your next audio masterpiece.

Save Our Books campaign urges government to keep UK copyright exhaustion scheme
thebookseller.com – Friday September 23, 2022

The Publishers Association (PA) has written to the new secretaries of state for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) and business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) to urge them to continue with the UK’s current copyright exhaustion scheme.
The PA, alongside its Save Our Books campaign partners, including the Association of Authors’ Agents, Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society and Society of Authors, want the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to stick to the current regime when it makes a final decision in March 2023.
The IPO consulted on changes to the UK’s copyright exhaustion regime last year, including considering a move to an international exhaustion regime. The Save Our Books campaign fought to retain the UK’s current regime, arguing that the proposed changes “would cause a projected loss of up to £2.2bn to the publishing industry, disincentivise the UK’s thriving book exports, and flood the UK with international copies of books tailored to other international audiences, typically American”.

Loughman swaps Bev James for The bks Agency
thebookseller.com – Thursday September 22, 2022

Literary agent Morwenna Loughman is departing Bev James Management to join The bks Agency.
Loughman has previously worked as an editor at Ebury, Bonnier and HarperCollins with authors including Hilary Mantel, Nigel Slater, Anna Jones, Marie Kondo, Brené Brown and Tim Ferriss, as well as commissioning books such as Body Positive Power by Megan Jayne Crabbe (Vermilion) and Ask Me His Name by Elle Wright (Lagom). She has since worked as a literary agent at Bev James Management.
Loughman said: “I’m over the moon to be joining the brilliant team at bks. I’ve long admired their spirit, warmth and tenacity, which, when combined with their unparalleled industry expertise, makes an unbeatable combination. The fact that they are also some of the loveliest people in publishing is the icing on the cake.”

New Literary Agent Listing: Lucy Irvine
firstwriter.com – Wednesday September 21, 2022

My taste is generally very broad; I represent anything that falls under the Childrens umbrella, from picture books to YA, as well as Science Fiction and Fantasy in the Adult market.
I’m being very selective with the picture books I take on at the moment, but am particularly looking here for funny stories with returnable potential and unexpected twists on popular themes.
My taste in middle-grade books veers towards the commercial; I’m drawn to quick-paced, adventurous narratives with series potential. I love stories set in worlds that pull you in and stay with you long after you’ve finished reading, and am particularly keen to see original worldbuilding and hooky, plot driven narratives.
On the YA side, I love all kinds of genre fiction, from fantasy to historical to romance to thriller. I’m drawn to romances with a twist, and am particularly looking here for diverse voices and protagonists. SFF wise I’m keen to see original world-building, and love anything that genre bends or offers a fresh take on traditional themes.
Adult wise, I accept submissions in anything that falls under the SFF umbrella, from urban to epic fantasy, from space opera to steampunk, but am not the right person for anything too grimdark, or anything with graphic sexual violence.

AI Writing Assistants: A Cure for Writer's Block or Modern-Day Clippy?
uk.pcmag.com – Tuesday September 20, 2022

In recent years, I've watched AI weave its way into our daily lives. It's written and directed movies, acted as a therapist, and visualized alternate realities. But I was curious to learn if AI is now smart enough to be an "intelligent writing assistant."
It's not too far off. As Microsoft points out in its Future of Work report, "AI is good at learning and scaling patterns, meaning for these activities people can instead focus on doing things in new ways and generating novel ideas. For example, someone might write a document by merely listing the ideas it should include. The details can be fleshed out automatically, much like developers use Copilot to flesh out ideas through code.”
But how realistic is that for the average would-be writer? We tried Jasper, Rytr, and HyperWrite to see if artificial intelligence can give our writing an edge.

Guide on submitting a manuscript
artshub.com.au – Monday September 19, 2022

Dear Emerging Creative,
This is one for the novice authors – because no one tells you how to do some of this stuff.
Submitting a manuscript to a publisher or magazine editor – whether it be short fiction, a non-fiction essay, or a novel – is a bit like writing a job application.
Celebrated New Zealand novelist Catherine Chidgey had this sage and pithy wisdom to offer: ’Make sure your work is typo-free – consider asking someone to proof it for you – and keep your cover letter brief.
‘How is your book similar to other successful books? How does it achieve something new?
‘Under no circumstances include emojis.’
The final sentence goes for most things in life.

Lucy Foley: ‘I never know the murderer when I start writing my books’
inews.co.uk – Sunday September 18, 2022

Lucy Foley’s hit crime novels are always set in glamorous places – a New Year’s Eve getaway at a highland lodge, a wedding at a remote Irish island, a beautiful Parisian apartment – but she usually writes them from somewhere completely different. “I wrote The Hunting Party in Iran, where it was really hot. I was finishing The Guest List [the Irish island] in an Airbnb in Paris when I came up with the idea for The Paris Apartment.” She likes to travel when she’s writing, and when we speak she has recently returned from six weeks in Northern Spain, where she rented an apartment with her toddler and got to work on a new book. Which is set, naturally, in the West Country.
Doesn’t it put her off, visiting wonderful new locations and then trying to immerse herself in entirely different ones while she’s writing? “It’s probably a bit w**ky to invoke Hemingway, but he said that to write properly about a place you have to have left it. And I do think there’s an element of that for me. It means you have to imagine somewhere more vividly.”
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