International organisation supporting the careers of both aspiring and published children's authors via mentoring, community platform, courses, awards, magazine, podcasts, and more.
The celebrated Arvon creative writing courses cover four and a half days and range from Novel Writing to Starting to Write. Some grants are available. (http://www.arvonfoundation.org)
Site focused on helping writers get in touch with their own creativity through drawing, story telling and personal memoir, with a view to developing 'expanded perception, innovative problem solving and new ways of looking at one's work'. International workshops. www.creativityworkshop.com
Site created to increase profile of UK children's books on the Internet. Useful articles on writing for children and free monthly newsletter. http://www.wordpool.co.uk/
The website for the friends' network supporting the Arvon FoundationThe celebrated Arvon creative writing courses cover four and a half days and range from Novel Writing to Starting to Write. Some grants are available. (http://www.arvonfoundation.org), which runs creative writing courses for writers. This has a miscellany of writers' own work and articles on associated topics. http://www.arvonfriends.org/
UK website set up by seven literature organisations which provides a mass of information about writing courses and professional development for writers, including funding, events and resources. www.literaturetraining.com
Based in London, this runs a number of courses for aspiring film-makers, including its flagship From Story to Screen course which can run over 8 weeks full-time, plus shorter courses on script-writing. http://www.metfilmschool.co.uk/
Major new initiative to establish a national academy in the UK. More than 100 established writer patrons support its aims and will be visiting the Academy to help deliver the programme. Applicants for the one year vocational course will have to submit a portfolio of writing. www.writingacademy.org
Well-organised and highly-regarded training centre for UK publishing, which has recently introduced online distance learning copy editing, proof-reading and copywriting courses. www.train4publishing.co.uk
London organisation running creative writing workshops for writers at all stages, with a focus on new writing and live literature, and encouraging innovation and experimentation. www.spreadtheword.org.uk
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers
'All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.'