Mass Book launch

 

WE actually hav four book somin out on 21 myy, soI'm hlostingingg a mass on-line book launch.

:Th GLastonbury Specification

asnby Gill James 

 

Can anyone be as challenged as Petri?

A rare and painful skin disease stops her leading a normal young adult life, she is asked to take on the Pease Child role at which her adoptive father, Kaleem, excels and what seemed like a perfect romance becomes complicated when her boyfriend's twin brother appears on the scene.

Can a rare metal alloy pay for a cure? Or should she rather give the gift of imagination? Can she ever be as good a diplomat as Kaleem? Is there any hope for her and Toby?  

Gill James again presents some present day concerns in a glimpse of a possible distant future in The Glastonbury Specification the fifth novel  in the Peace Child series. 

See more here.

And

Ston eAngels by Paula R. C. Readman 

 

Has James Ravencroft left it too late?

He has one last painting to create for a solo exhibition, but the police are closing in. Basil Hallward, his wannabe international art agent, also questions the dark beauty behind the series of paintings known as Stone Angels.  Ravencroft hides among the shadows to create his funereal masterpieces.

Will his methods horrify you or will you admire his tenacity in Paula R C Readman's chilling Stone Angels?   

Warning. Thi story is  afirst person don account from a serial killer and  contains scenes some readers may find disturbing. ..

Find out more here

 

Has James Ravencroft left it too late?

He has one last painting to create for a solo exhibition, but the police are closing in. Basil Hallward, his wannabe international art agent, also questions the dark beauty behind the series of paintings known as Stone Angels.  Ravencroft hides among the shadows to create his funereal masterpieces.

Will his methods horrify you or will you admire his tenacity in Paula R C Readman's chilling Stone Angels?   

 

Th evnet I frr bu r tikedt: reserve you place here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mass-book-launch-tickets-1987490551742?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

Take a look at some of my non-fiction books

 

What shall I do with my Creative Writing group?

Here are a list of suggestions based on what you might do over a year, whether  you meet once a week or once a month. Each suggested session plan allows you to plan an interesting session with your group, and suggests what to do in the session, what you need to prepare before the session and how you might follow it up. Suggested timings are included.     

Have fun with my Let's get Writing. Those creative juices will soon be flowing.  

 

RRP £5.00  pay what you like £1.00+

Buy from me     

There are three prompts a day for the whole of 2023. Some are short and pithy, others are inspired by obscure days e.g. 8 January Bubble Bath Day, and some go into more detail on an aspect of writing craft. There are series that go over a number of days. A few prompts are about works in progress and several give you the choice of working with a text you have already created, creating something new or even editing a completed piece of work. But every prompt gives you the opportunity to write something as well.

These prompts were put together by writers published by the Bridge House, CaféLit and Chapeltown imprints, and their friends.

Happy writing!

 

Buy from Amazon

 

 

 

The last thing most writers want to do is spend a lot of time on marketing. Yet books don't sell themselves by magic, no matter how good they are. Publishers do what they can but time and money is limited, and inevitably they have to move on to the next project. If you can adapt a few useful routines, especially ones you find palatable and fun, you'll hardly notice you're doing it. There are heaps of useful suggestions here and handy check lists to keep you on track.

 

RRP up to £2.13

 

Buy on Amazon

 

 

 

 This step-by step guide for teachers and writers, and the photocopiable resource that goes with it, show you how to organise creative-writing workshops with a difference and with a very tangible end product. Your students can see their work turned into a real book that has a spine and can sit on a shelf, raising money for charity at the same time.

Students will:
•Improve their writing
•Write with a purpose
•Learn about commerce and enterprise
•Engage with the local and wider community

Teachers and writers will learn how to:
•Plan and organise your workshops
•Get the best writing out of your students
•Maximise the impact of your book
•Build a book with little or no financial outlay

RRP: £1.99 

Buy from Amazon  

Also available: photocopiable resource

RRP £8.00 

Buy from Amazon

 

 

A Book Club Guide for 140 x 140

                                                

I enjoy the challenge of writing with restrictions. The challenge here was to write 140 pieces of short prose each 140 words long. The prompt was the first picture I saw on Twitter each day.

Construction

If you have mobile devices with you and Twitter accounts have a look at that now.  What’s the first picture you see? Does that tell a story? 

Themes

Various themes emerge in my collection:

• Anthropomorphism
• Criminality
• Finances
• Loneliness
• Relationships
• Sexuality
• Saving the planet
• Technology,
• The writer’s life
• Weather

And many more.  Can you suggest another couple of themes that are used?  Is there a predominant one in the whole collection? Do you have a favourite theme? 

 

Progression

The collection was started on 13 May 2014 and completed 11 March 2017. Do the pieces change in tone during that that time? In which way?

 

Shape

I always try to give my story shape. Can you pick three stories and find the shape in them.

I start with a hook, then have three or so growing complexities until we reach a crisis point, a point of no return.  The gap between that forms the climax. So we get:

Hook

Growing complexities

• I
• 2
• 3

Crisis point

            Climax

Resolution.

 

What do you like?

Pick three stories that you like and say why you like them.

 

Find the story  

Can you find the story?

1. A romance ends and roses are a comfort.
2. School doesn’t seem like a good option but there’s a nice surprise waiting for Toby
3. This item makes some males look like a particular animal
4. Writing a CV requires a lot of energy
5. Pink beads and pipes

 

1. Homecoming 11 July 2014
2. Breakfast Club 2 September 2014
3. Owly Eyes 6 April  2105  
4. Power Cut 3 December 2015
5. Colours 23 October 016

 

What was the picture?

Pick five of the stories and suggest what might have been the picture that prompted them.  Can you draw or paint? Have a go at making a picture to go with one of the stories?

 

Have a go

Go back to Twitter. Can you write a story prompted by the first picture you see? Try to put a shape into it. Write for ten minutes and polish for ten minutes.  Can you make it exactly 140 words long?

 

Scavenger hunt

Who will be the first to find stories with the following items in them?

1. A flat cap
2. Trees
3. Spectacles
4. Time
5. An inn
6. Story
7. Water
8. Breakfast
9. A sofa
10. Cooking
      

1940s Evening 17 September 2020

It's  all happening on 17 September at 8. p.m. 

The following writers will be talking  about their  work: 

Lin Treadgold

Stuart Larner

Dawn Knox

Gill James

Alison Faye 

You will also be treated to a short radio play. 

If you write about the 1940s there may be an opportunity to share some of your work. Do join us. The event is free but ticketed. 

Book your place here.   

 

 

 Image by Werner Weisser from Pixabay

Special Offer on Author Talks

I’m offering special author talks about my book Girl in a Smart Uniform. This might be suitable for your NWR, U3A, reading group or your class at school. 

The subjects of interest are: the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, 1940s, World War II, feminism, disability, sexuality, writing process, research process. 

I’m offering 40 minute talks free of charge, followed by a Q & A. I can offer longer talks for a fee and in any case I welcome opportunities to sell the book. The talks will be on-line via Zoom or a similar platform. They will be recorded and a copy of the recording will be made available to you.  

If you are interested, please contact me via the contact form. 

Details of the book are shown below. Click on the image above to take you to Amazon.

"Girl in a Smart Uniform" is the third book in the Schellberg Cycle, a collection of novels inspired by a bundle of photocopied letters that arrived at a small cottage in Wales in 1979. The letters give us first-hand insights into what life was like growing up in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

It is the most fictional of the stories to date, though some characters, familiar to those who have read the first two books, appear again here. Clara Lehrs, Karl Schubert and Dr Kühn really existed. We have a few, a very few, verifiable facts about them. The rest we have had to find out by repeating some of their experiences and by using the careful writer's imagination.

Gisela adores her brother Bear, her gorgeous BDM uniform, and her little half-brother Jens. She does her best to be a good German citizen, and is keen to help restore Germany to its former glory. She becomes a competent and respected BDM leader. But life begins to turn sour. Her oldest brother Kurt can be violent, she soon realises that she is different from other girls, she feels uncomfortable around her mother’s new lover, and there is something not quite right about Jens. It becomes more and more difficult to be the perfect German young woman.

We know that BDM girls set fire to the house in Schellberg Street but got the children out first. This story seeks to explain what motivated the girls to do that, and what happened to them afterwards."

Citizens of Nowhere

This book will remain a favourite of mine for a long time, I think. Its sub-title is "stories of the global citizen".  Sound familiar? Yes, that's right, our dear Prime Minister claimed that people who declared themselves to be "global citizens" were in fact "citizens of nowhere".  Sorry, Madam May, I can't help but be a global citizen and perhaps ironically it was my Grammar School education and then my time at a Russell Group university that encouraged me to think that way. So what the heck is going on here? You educate me to be one way and then tell me that way is not valid? 

You see, I have too much of other cultures rubbed off on me to belong just to one. You'll find more about this in the introduction to the book. 

Madam May implies that the global citizen has no loyalty to a community. I argue that the global citizen is in fact loyal to a bigger community. That of the world or even the universe.  

I'm happy to have been one of two editors on this collection. I'm also pleased to have a story in the book. ' The Wedding Next Door' is inspired by some things I noticed  when I was a teenager. It isn't a true story but it is a true reflection of how life was in the 1960s in the West Midlands. 

We approached some writers we knew who we thought might feel the same way as we did. Some stories just made their way to us. Thus we have stories from Ea Anderson, Jenifer Burkinshaw, Sarah Dobbs, Vanessa Gebbie, Alan Gibbons, Vanessa Harbour, Debz Hobbs-Wyatt, Matevž Hönn, Gill James (that’s me), Karen Kendrick and Jenny Palmer.  

There's a great deal of interpretation of what the global citizen is and they all beat May's idea.

I'm happy to give you one at my own expense to throw at your MP. Just contact me if you'd like that. 

Not that we're being political. We're just doing what writers have always done: showing our readers what the world looks like to us. We see it as full of global citizens.