'Defend and nurture' UK publishing, Wise urges policymakers
thebookseller.com – Monday February 19, 2018
Curtis Brown agent Gordon Wise, former president of the Association of Authors' Agents, has urged parliamentarians to defend the achievements of UK publishers.
Wise stood down as AAA president last month, making way for David Higham agent Lizzy Kremer. Reflecting on his time at the helm of the group, Wise was buoyant about the contributions of the publishing industry to the UK economy after its revenues totalled £4.8bn in 2016, according to the Publishers Association, with "significant growth" of exports in recent years.
John Grisham to appear with Lee Child at crime writing festival
home.bt.com – Sunday February 18, 2018
John Grisham will be a headline author at a UK crime writing festival where he will appear with writer Lee Child.
The author of The Firm, The Pelican Brief and A Time To Kill will be interviewed on stage at the Theakston Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate by Child, who is responsible for the Jack Reacher series.
Grisham will join previously announced special guest and Savages author Don Winslow.
Corvus and A M Heath launch thriller competition
thebookseller.com – Friday February 16, 2018
Atlantic imprint Corvus has joined forces with literary agency A M Heath to launch a crime and thriller competition.
Deviant Minds is a writing prize open to unagented authors in the UK or Ireland, with an unpublished adult crime novel or thriller. The winner will be offered representation by the agency, along with an offer of digital publication from Corvus, and possible print publication to follow.
S&S launches competition with Darley Anderson and Bradford Literature Festival
thebookseller.com – Friday February 16, 2018
Simon & Schuster UK has launched a competition with the Darley Anderson Literary Agency and Bradford Literature Festival to find the next bestselling commercial fiction author.
The theme for the first 'Write Here, Right Now' prize is “new beginnings and discovery”, with writers encouraged to submit the first three chapters and synopsis of their work in any genre. The competition is live and open until 13th April and the winner will be announced at the Bradford Literature Festival in June.
ICM Reveals 2018 New Partner Class
hollywoodreporter.com – Tuesday February 13, 2018
ICM Partners has named six agents to its 2018 new partner class, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
It’s just the third new partner class since the agency’s founding partnership of 29 in 2012. ICM added another 11 partners a year later, and then nine more in 2016. With this third wave, the partnership now stands at 54.
Nosy Crow scoops five nominations for IPG Awards
thebookseller.com – Monday February 12, 2018
Nosy Crow and Bloomsbury have dominated the IPG Independent Publishing Awards shortlists alongside various radical publishers such as Verso and Zed Books.
Nosy Crow has scooped five nominations in four of the 12 categories, while Bloomsbury is nominated three times.
Class Publishing, Kogan Page, Otter-Barry Books and SPCK all have two nominations across the shortlists while 10 publishers—Boydell & Brewer, Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing, Emerald Publishing, Hurst Publishers, Little Tiger Group, Old Barn Books, Otter-Barry Books, Pluto Press, Verso and Zed Books—appear on the shortlists for the first time.
Publishers call on Man Booker prize to drop American authors
theguardian.com – Friday February 2, 2018
Tensions over the decision to allow US authors to enter the Man Booker prizehave flared up yet again, with 30 publishers signing a letter urging the prize organisers to reverse the change, or risk a “homogenised literary future”.
The letter, which was intended to be private and has been seen by the Guardian, argues that the rule change to allow any writer writing in English and published in the UK to enter has restricted the diversity of the prize and led to the domination of American authors since it came into effect in 2014. Previously, the prize only allowed citizens from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland to enter.
SleuthFest 2018 Announces Special Programming Geared Towards Helping Writers Succeed
markets.businessinsider.com – Saturday January 27, 2018
BOCA RATON, Fla., Jan. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Mystery Writers of America's Florida Chapter will host the SleuthFest 2018 Writers Conference March 1-4, 2018 at the Embassy Suites by Hilton in Boca Raton, Florida. One of the country's premier conferences for writers, SleuthFest is an intensive four-day conference featuring writing workshops, social events, and pitch sessions. SleuthFest includes four tracks of workshops, presentations, and panels on the craft of writing, business, traditional and self-publishing, marketing, and forensics. In addition, top literary agents and editors will be available to hear pitches from aspiring writers, offer troubleshooting sessions, and manuscript critiques. SleuthFest also features the annual Freddie Awards for Writing Excellence and the SleuthFest Author Auction, where attendees can bid on such once-in-a-lifetime experiences as one-on-one sessions, critiques, and character naming opportunities featuring the conference's guests of honor, agents, and editors.
ICM Partners Acquires Lit Outfit The Sagalyn Agency, Opens D.C. Office
deadline.com – Friday January 26, 2018
ICM Partners has acquired The Sagalyn Agency, the Washington D.C.-based literary agency that reps leading journalists, historians, biographers, scientists, thought leaders and novelists. The deal comes four years after ICM and Raphael Sagalyn’s company formed an alliance that melded Sagalyn’s strong nonfiction author list and ICM’s roster dominated by fiction authors.
firstwriter.magazine final issue - out now
firstwriter.com – Sunday January 21, 2018
This month sees the launch of the last ever issue of firstwriter.magazine.
firstwriter.magazine has been published twice a year since 2002, making it probably one of the longest-running online journals on the internet. All good things must come to an end, however, and issue 32 will be the last issue of firstwriter.magazine. Managing Editor, J. Paul Dyson, gave the following explanation about the decision to end the long-running publication:
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