The world is a small place. The publishing world smaller still. SmokeLong Quarterly gave me one of my first publication credits and I’m proud to say something of mine has appeared in their excellent annual every year, although I’ll have to get my finger out for this year, as I haven’t subbed anything yet! Excellence […]
Titles (again) I had an illuminating conversation with a teacher of Creative Writing this weekend. He thinks that the model most writers use when choosing a short story title is that of the popular song. And I think he’s onto something. Looking back over the stories I’ve been reading for various places in the past […]
Isolation and the Writer Is it necessary? Is it pernicious? There’s a mythology about the writer who lurks in a garret, producing work of coruscating brilliance. Most of us don’t have so much luck! We have to write surrounded by family members, dogs, cats, deadlines, requests to cook, clean, drive people to places, collect dry […]
Closer, ever closer … Comes the most exciting month of the year. November, when NaNoWriMo takes over my mind, my house and all my waking hours. Last year Brighton (and Hove actually) had 37 new novelists. More than 37 started, on 1 November, full of confidence. At least two of them, by 27 November, were […]
When you get it right … There’s a certain feeling that I suspect is only known to writers, and maybe lyricists. It’s the sensation you get when somebody contacts you and tells you that something you wrote resonated with their own thoughts or experiences in such a way that you illuminated something for them. Maybe […]
Random thoughts – editors, titles and writers It always surprises me how little writers know, or bother to find out, about the process of short story publication. When they send their stories out, they seem to lose all interest in what happens. So let me tell you … Most editors – say over 80% of […]
I’ll tell you something surprising. Three years ago I didn’t know a single novelist – now I reckon I know about thirty. And only a couple of those are people I’ve met at readings and other events, most of them are real-life, down-to-earth, working writers, whom I’ve come into contact with at workshops or through […]
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