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25 May 2015 - What's new

25 May 2015
  • Our Writing Opportunity this week is the MslexiaStylish and lively site for quarterly UK literary magazine read by 12,000 'committed' women writers. Good range of quality writing, information and advice with news, reviews, competitions and interviews, all presented in a friendly fashion. Praised by Helen Dunmore as 'astute, invigorating and above all an excellent read.' www.mslexia.co.uk Poetry and Pamphlet Prizes, both only open to women and closing on 15 June. The Poetry Prize is £2,000, the Pamphlet Prize winner gets publication of the pamphlet by Seren BooksClick for Seren Books Publishers References listing.
  • Our ten-part WritersServices Self-Publishing Guide by Joanne PhillipsUK-based freelance writer and ghostwriter. She has had articles published in national writing magazines, and has ghostwritten books on subjects as diverse as hairdressing and keeping chickens. Visit her at www.joannephillips.co.uk takes you through the process step-by-step. 'Self-publishing has changed so much over the past few years it's hard to believe it was once looked down upon by the publishing industry as the last resort of the vain and desperate. At the time of writing many self-publishing authors are identifying with the term ‘indie author', which acknowledges that to professionally publish today, you don't actually have to do everything yourself!...'
  • ‘In talking to other writers and getting a bit older and realising how it works, (I discovered) that the gestation period for a new book is very tender - it's like a new shoot, you can't expose it to the light too quickly or it might wither. You'll lose the impetus, you'll lose the belief in it.' Laura Barnett, whose three-pronged first novel, sold in 18 countries, is The Versions of Us, in the Bookseller, our Comment this week.
  • Don't give up the day job makes you think twice about your prospects before launching yourself into being a full-time author. Can you really be sure your writing will support you and yours?
  • Independent London publishing house Atlantic has recently had a new managing director, Will Atkinson. He put forward the company's publishing philosophy very clearly in an article for Bookbrunch, which sadly is behind their paywall. It is possible however to quote what he says in his article, ‘Publishing culture and commerce'. News Review.
  • Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of Services for Self-publishers which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well.
  • Our links this week: novelist Ian McEwan has defended free speech in an address to students at a US college, criticising the authors who pulled out of a PENSupported by eminent writers, this is the English branch of International Pen, which has centres in nearly 100 countries. It fights for freedom of expression and against political censorship. It campaigns for writers harassed, imprisoned and sometimes murdered for their views. http://www.englishpen.org/ event that honoured the Charlie Hebdo journalists, McEwan defends freedom of expression | The Bookseller; publishing is returning to its pre-industrial models in which everyone was a creator and is transforming into a network where emotions matter most, Richard Nash on the Democratization of Publishing; and Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai has won the Man Booker International 2015, Krasznahorkai wins Man Booker International | The Bookseller.
  • And more links: thoughts about publishing history and the ending of eras, Publishing Leaders are Temporary Custodians of Their Houses; more on why novels are getting more and more enormous, The Year of the Very Long Novel -- Vulture; and (once you've got past a lot of red carpet stuff), the NY literary scouts who work for film and TV companies, The Next 'Gone Girl'? Meet the 6 NYC Book Scouts Most Likely to Find It - Hollywood Reporter.
  • 'Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear.' H P Lovecraft in our Writers' Quotes.