“Writing” a workshop
I’m speeding ahead with getting material ready for my first
school workshop on the Schellberg cycle. As I mentioned last time, I’m also
developing the kit so that schools can work on it on their own. I‘m having most
difficulty in deciding what to charge here. Any suggestions are very welcome.
The kit includes:
·
Six board games
·
Thirty-six profile cards (for role play and
letter-writing)
·
A short story and questions about it.
·
A series of letters and two sections of prose
plus a chart for students to fill in
·
A series of topics for discussion
·
Notes for teachers, on all of the above
sections, plus suggestions for creative outputs
These resources are provided in soft copy and the schools
may then duplicate them as much as they want to. Any teachers out there, what
do you think I should charge?
Bridge House
Bridge
House’s anthology Baubles continues to
sell. You can read a few extracts here. Salford
Stories is out there also. Both could do with a few more reviews. If
you’ve read them, do write a review for them. If you bought via Amazon, leave
one there. You can also leave reviews on Good Reads or your own blog. You may know of other places. I can also
offer review copies for free (PDF or e-mobi) but of course we then don’t get
the review on Amazon. But everything
helps and if you’d like a review copy, then reply to this email. If you do review
or have reviewed, please also send me a copy.
Our new annual anthology for 2107 will be Gliterary Tales. So, glittery stories that have a touch of
literature about them. I wonder what that will add to the debate about the
difference between literary and popular fictions? Debz Hobbs Wyatt
has got the call for submissions out: read the guidelines here.
Remember we’re also
offering to publish single-author collections. These are for authors we’ve
published before and they may include stories we’ve already published, ones
they’ve had published elsewhere and new ones. The description for this is now
on the web site. We’ve already had some enquiries. You may recycle
stories we’ve already included in another anthology, and you may reedit these
if you wish. You may also add in new stories. We’re aiming at a total word
count of between 30,000 and 80,000 words.
If you’re interested in this, contact me here.
We’re being a bit
cheeky and getting a little political. Are we are in danger of getting our
books burnt? Well, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. We’re doing an extra
anthology, Citizens of Nowhere, with
the theme of the global citizen. Oh, I hope we don’t upset Ms May. We’re
commissioning just over half of the work from known authors but there is room
for a few open submissions. It’s now a question of whether your story is good
enough. If it is, we’ll accept it straight away. The call for submissions ends
once we’ve filled the collection. Stories
between 1,000 and 4,000 words. Submit to editor at bridgehousepublishing dot co
dot uk. We’re currently about two thirds of the way there.
CafeLit
Remember, we’re
always open to submissions. Find out how here. I’ve
been encouraging my students to submit. I’m beginning to see some of their work
appearing.
The Best of
CaféLit 5 is available. There are some lovely stories in this. I’m very pleased
that I have a story in this collection. Order your copy here.
Again we need more
reviews for this. Have you read them? Could you write us a review? And again,
I’m offering free copies as PDFs or e-mobi files. Again, also send me a copy of
the review.
Chapeltown
We’re still looking for collections of Flash Fiction. CafeLit
writers might particularly consider this as your stories so often fit this
brief anyway. See our submissions page here. We have now
signed up five writers already and I’ll be putting out one of my collections as
well soon. Take a look here.
Our first volume is out.
See it here. Congratulations to Allison Symes Again,
reviews, reviews please. Email me for free electronic copies.
This call for
submissions will be closing soon so hurry if you want to submit.
Chapeltown is also
excited to be publishing Colin Wyatt’s
Who will be my friend? – a delightful
picture book about friendship and accepting others. Yes, Colin is Debz’s dad.
He is a Disney licensed illustrator and his latest publication is The Jet Set. We feel very
honoured to be publishing him.
Creative Café
We’re always
looking for new cafés. If you visit one
of the cafés in the project
and would like to write a review of between 250 and 350 words – nice, too, to
have a couple of pictures – send it to me here.
Do the same if you find a new café.
I’m now going to send out a welcome letter to each new café
that’s added. This will also offer them the opportunity to join the mailing
list.
I’m also now proactively encouraging cafes to stock The Best of CaféLit. Do you know anyone who
might like to stock it? We can offer a 35% discount to retailers. Query gill at
cafelit dot co dot uk.
The Red Telephone
We are currently
open for submissions. Hoorah! We’re looking for the next great YA novel. Check
out the details here. We’re particularly open to speculative
fiction but we’ll also like anything that is well written and
well-targeted. I welcome others but send
sample chapters and synopsis first. The full details are on the site.
I am now working
on Richard Bradburn’s Evernrood. We
are still open for submissions but this will only be for a limited time
now.
Our mentoring
programme is now full. I’ll update you from time to time on how that is
going.
I’d also like to
mention now that I’ mentoring two of my former students also to help them get
their novels up to publication standard. They won’t start this until they’ve
finished their studies but it is something for them to keep them occupied as
they wait for their results. I’m looking forward, too, to working with
them.
Book tours
If you’re a Bridge House / Red Telephone / CaféLit / Chapeltown
author and you want to get serious about book tours, consider our author’s kit.
We provide twenty books you take to the bookshop and the bookshop can put these
through the till. We then invoice the bookshop, with a 35% discount for any
sold and top up your supply to twenty. At the end of the tour you can either
pay for the remaining books at cost + 10% or keep them until you’ve sold them
and then pay the normal price of 75% of RRP. The latter can in any case be set
against royalties. You need to allow at least ten days between events. Contact
me here if you’re
interested in this.
School Visits
I’m proactively promoting my school visits associated with The House on Schellberg Street
project. I’ve now developed a whole workshop for this. It starts off with a
board game, includes some role play and creative writing and ends with a
discussion.
Costs= travel expenses plus £400 for a full day and £200 for
a half day. This includes all materials and some freebies. Two schools near to
each other might consider splitting the day and halving the travel expenses and
fees. This is open to negotiation in any case.
I’m also continuously adding materials for schools to the
site that are different from the ones I use for the workshops. I’ve recently
added in a resources and books to do with the topic. See them here:
Query for a school visit here.
I’m also happy to tailor a visit for your agreed donation.
This can be for either a Schellberg Cycle
visit or a creative writing workshop. Any monies raised this way will go
specifically to a project I have for a non-fiction book about a journey that
will follow the footsteps of Clara
Lehrs. I’m hoping to do the whole journey by train, including departing via
my nearest Metrolink station. It’s important to feel the rails beneath my
feet.
I offer as well standard
author visits which include readings from my books, Q & A sessions and
creative writing exercises.
Books, short stories and other writings
I continue to make good progress on Facing the Führer. (Yes, I’ve changed the name)
Clara’s Story is
being serialised. The cover makes this theme quite clear. The novel can now be
found on Channillo. You may read it here.
Clara’s Story is
the second in the Schellberg circle. All five stories cover roughly the same
period and are very much happening in and associated with Nazi Germany and the
Holocaust. They can be read in any order. The stories overlap to some extent
but where they repeat we see the happening form another point of view. For
instance The House on Schellberg Street
is mainly about a young girl, Renate, who comes to England on the Kindertranpsort.
Clara’s Story is about her
grandmother. Girl in a Smart Uniform
explains how at least one German girl associated with the story became a Nazi –
and then gave it all up. Facing the
Führer is Renate’s mother’s version of events. In The Round Robin we learn about what happens to Renate’s friends.
I’m also now turning The
House on Schellberg Street into a play. I’ve been working on this during
the odd minutes I get in the days when I’m working at the University of
Salford. So far I’ve worked out which scenes I’ll use and I’m beginning to
write out an outline for each. This is my first go at writing a play. I’m
enjoying it.
Upcoming events
On the 29th
March, 7.00 p.m. until 10 p.m. I’m running an online author event. I already
have five authors and would like a sixth. Any volunteers? Contact me on gill
dot james at btinternet dot com.
Note for your diary: the London Bridge House / CafeLit /
Chapeltown / Red Telephone celebration will be 2 December at the Princess of Wales again. People published
2017 will be invited first and then it will be open to all authors of our
imprints. You are in case invited to bring one friend at the first call. Last
year we “sold out” – the event is free but ticketed. I’m planning a similar event in Manchester in
the summer. Watch this space.
Giveaway
This month I’m
giving away an excerpt of Veiled Dreams. Download here:
You will also find in this dropbox:
·
An
extract from Clara’s story
·
Some
seminars for schools about The House on
Schellberg Street
·
Some
fiction writing exercises
·
The
opening chapters from my manual for writing the young adult novel
Writing opportunities
Remember I keep a
full list of vetted opportunities on my writing
blog. See them here. New
ones are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I go through it and
take out all of the out of date ones. At that point I send it out to a list. If
you would like to be on that list, sign up here.
Happy reading and
writing.
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