Cork book publisher Oak Tree acquired by international firm
irishexaminer.com – Thursday January 26, 2023
Cork-based business book publisher, Oak Tree Press has been acquired by international publisher.
Active in both Belgium and Switzerland, Oak Tree's parent company, Cork Publishing Ltd has joined the Corporate Group, which now operates across three countries and five languages. The value of the transaction has not been disclosed.
The international publisher's catalogue extends to over 500 titles, the majority of which cover entrepreneurial domains including economics tax, law, contracts and business, while also offering accountancy and investment management software.
Pan Macmillans’s Cole to join Northbank Talent Management as literary agent
thebookseller.com – Thursday January 26, 2023
Matthew Cole, senior commissioning editor at Pan Macmillan, will join Northbank Talent Management on 20th March as literary agent.
In his new role Cole will assume responsibility for the agency’s non-fiction representation across current affairs, popular science, popular history, memoir and lifestyle books, working in close collaboration with the agency’s broadcast, corporate and brand partnerships agents.
Northbank c.e.o. Diane Banks said: “Matt has an impeccable track record commissioning titles which align perfectly with Northbank’s areas of expertise. He is a natural deal-maker and we are impressed with his entrepreneurial attitude, which makes him the ideal person to take our non-fiction business forward as the agency continues to grow.”
Bournemouth Writing Festival dates and what's on revealed
bournemouthecho.co.uk – Wednesday January 25, 2023
TICKETS are on sale for more than 60 events and activities which will make up Bournemouth’s first Writing Festival.
The mix of free and paid-for sessions will involve more than 70 experienced writers and professionals.
The events have been designed to foster inspiration, networking and creativity, with topics ranging from creating credible characters to publishing contracts, and from writing compelling dialogue to landing an agent.
TV and film screenwriters, best-selling authors, poets, journalists, publicists, writing coaches, editors and publishers will be giving their advice in talks and workshops.
New Writing North launches online writing courses led by Benson, Riches and more
thebookseller.com – Friday January 20, 2023
New Writing North has launched a series of online courses for writers in partnership with the Professional Writing Academy.
New Writing North Academy courses start in March 2023 and enrolment is now open for courses including life writing with Richard Benson, crime fiction with Marnie Riches and short stories with Susmita Bhattacharya, as well as CPD-accredited courses in screenwriting with John Yorke and writing for work with Piers Alder. More details can be found here.
The courses will be taught in small tutor-led groups over four to 16 weeks. Through a mixture of independent work and workshop learning, New Writing North said students would explore the techniques used by leading contemporary writers, learn to feed back on work in progress, develop their own voice and hone their writing craft.
This 22-year-old is trying to save us from ChatGPT before it changes writing forever
npr.org – Wednesday January 18, 2023
While many Americans were nursing hangovers on New Year's Day, 22-year-old Edward Tian was working feverishly on a new app to combat misuse of a powerful, new artificial intelligence tool called ChatGPT.
Given the buzz it's created, there's a good chance you've heard about ChatGPT. It's an interactive chatbot powered by machine learning. The technology has basically devoured the entire Internet, reading the collective works of humanity and learning patterns in language that it can recreate. All you have to do is give it a prompt, and ChatGPT can do an endless array of things: write a story in a particular style, answer a question, explain a concept, compose an email — write a college essay — and it will spit out coherent, seemingly human-written text in seconds.
The technology is both awesome — and terrifying.
"I think we're absolutely at an inflection point," Tian says. "This technology is incredible. I do believe it's the future. But, at the same time, it's like we're opening Pandora's Box. And we need safeguards to adopt it responsibly."
Carter founds new literary agency after 10 years at Janklow & Nesbit
thebookseller.com – Wednesday January 18, 2023
Literary agent Rebecca Carter has launched Rebecca Carter Literary after 10 years at Janklow & Nesbit.
The new agency, which is already up and running, is working in collaboration with PEW Literary in Soho, London, for contracts, accounting and translation rights. Carter can be contacted at rebecca@rebeccacarterliterary.com and Margaret Halton can be reached at margaret@pewliterary.com for foreign rights enquiries.
The agency has already closed two deals: with Kaiya Shang at Chatto & Windus for a new memoir by Xiaolu Guo, and with Sarah Braybrooke at Ithaka for a “powerful” narrative non-fiction book about Ukraine by the BBC’s Andrew Harding. More information on these acquisitions will be forthcoming from the publishers, The Bookseller understands.
Free virtual writing workshops and literary events to check out this January
lithub.com – Wednesday January 11, 2023
If your New Year’s resolution was something along the lines of: attend more events or be a better literary citizen, I have good news for you! Here are a handful of virtual events you can enjoy from the comfort of your couch/bed/bathtub without spending a dime. (Because you’re probably also resolving to spend less money this year, and I feel that.)
Female-only Welsh publisher invites submissions from trans authors
telegraph.co.uk – Tuesday January 3, 2023
As part of a call for new writers, Honno says that the criteria for ‘women’ means ‘women or those who identify as women’
Trans and non-binary authors can submit work to a state-funded publisher intended for female writers, prompting concerns that it has “caved to ideology”.
Honno was established as an independent press in 1986 to promote writing by female authors in Wales, and receives government grant funding to continue its mission of exclusively putting out women’s literature.
However, the publisher has now issued a call for new writers that has invited those who “identify as women” to submit their work, stating that what it takes as the criteria for a woman will include people who are “non-binary and transgender”.
The open invitation has caused concern among authors who have worked with Honno, who fear the organisation has “caved to ideology” and removed a valued female-only service.
Writers defect from Society of Authors to rival union after it was engulfed in freedom of speech row over claims it has not properly defended gender-critical authors from being 'cancelled'
dailymail.co.uk – Monday December 19, 2022
Writers reportedly leave the Society of Authors for a rival union after the former was engulfed in a freedom of speech row over claims it has not properly defended gender-critical authors from being 'cancelled'.
As the UK's largest writers' union, the Society of Authors has upset members over claims it did not support figures like JK Rowling who have been accused of 'transphobia'.
Authors who feared the union was 'lost to cancel culture' are already understood to be defecting to the rival Free Speech Union, which promised to 'come to defence of beleaguered authors'.
He Used AI to Publish a Children’s Book in a Weekend. Artists Are Not Happy About It
time.com – Thursday December 15, 2022
Ammaar Reshi was playing around with ChatGPT, an AI-powered chatbot from OpenAI when he started thinking about the ways artificial intelligence could be used to make a simple children’s book to give to his friends. Just a couple of days later, he published a 12-page picture book, printed it, and started selling it on Amazon without ever picking up a pen and paper.
The feat, which Reshi publicized in a viral Twitter thread, is a testament to the incredible advances in AI-powered tools like ChatGPT—which took the internet by storm two weeks ago with its uncanny ability to mimic human thought and writing. But the book, Alice and Sparkle, also renewed a fierce debate about the ethics of AI-generated art. Many argued that the technology preys on artists and other creatives—using their hard work as source material, while raising the specter of replacing them.
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