Newsletter 3 February 2017

A real feeling of getting there

It’s all very good timing. Last Saturday I caught up with my self-imposed writing deadlines: four hours a day, 3,000 words.  I was up to date and even a little ahead by 9.00 p.m. My SCBWI group met on that day and amongst many other very enjoyable and worthwhile activities we reviewed last year’s goals. Mine had been simply to find more writing time. Well that has happened. In 2017 I aim to finish my Schellberg Cycle and go back to science fiction.   

I may slip a little now as I’m teaching at the University of Salford again. I have two full days per week and this will last for twelve weeks with a three week gap in the middle. Then there will be all the marking. I do enjoy it though and at least now I’m just teaching. I do my research and writing in my own time. I only have a little admin. I find working with the students actually enhances my own writing. So, it’s a winner.             

 

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. We’ll be putting a description out about this soon but 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. Stories can be “one you prepared earlier” or a brand new one, with a cut-off date of 31 January, though this may very well be extended. Stories between 1,000 and 4,000 words. Submit to editor at bridgehousepublishing dot co dot uk. 

Yes, okay so the cut-off date has gone. We’ll now keep going until we’ve got enough, so please submit. 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 now 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 currently looking for collections of Flash Fiction. 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 CafeLit. 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.  

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. I’m offering this half price to schools that apply in January 2017 and schools that apply in February 2017 can book two for the price of one.  Contact me here.     

Also, I’m developing a kit for schools so that they can deliver the workshop themselves. This is almost ready. If you would like to be notified when this is ready, contact me here.    

I’m now adding in materials for schools. See them here:       

Query for a school visit here.

I am also happy to do standard author visits which include readings from my books, Q & A sessions and creative writing exercises.

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.        

 

Books and short stories

I continue to make good progress on Shooting Hitler.

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. Shooting Hitler is Renate’s mother’s version of events. In The Round Robin we learn about what happens to Renate’s friends.  

 

Upcoming events

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 free copies of the e-book (Kindle) of Spooking. I'm also offering: 

·         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     

Sign up for all freebies here.  

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.

Newsletter January 2015

2015 has got off to a good start now. I’m coming to the end of huge marking load at the University of Salford. I have had to mark 44 scripts on my own module, two dissertations, and co-mark 60 on another module. Yet to come are eight MA assignments.  In addition I’ve had to moderate 40 scripts. That’s 308,000 words to read and comment on. I’ve written already about 10,000 in comments.

Next week lectures begin. I’m looking forward to that though there is always the slight worry on the first session that you may go to the wrong room and find either no students or a bunch of people you don’t know.

Oh, mind, no pressure by the way: I’m lecturing on writing autobiography on Tuesday. We use Jackie Kay’s Red Dust Road. Jackie Kay is our new chancellor. Oh hum!                                 
Still writing remains the priority: I must put in that 2,000 words  / two hours a day even if I have to work late into the night to get the other things done. I must be able to say “I am a writer, therefore I write.”

Newsletter July 2014

I’m back at work now, and extremely busy at the university, getting ready for next academic year. I’m also dealing with students facing resits and new students applying through Clearing, though the real push comes after A-Level day – 14 August.

Today, though, I have a day off because I’ve a demanding dress and technical rehearsal this evening with a choir I’ve joined. This is something extra and over and above the choir I normally sing with. We’re involved with a special project, Honour, that remembers the Great War. Do take a look. It is going to be spectacular. Come along if you live in the Greater Manchester area.    

And if you’re a writer who feels a little isolated, I can really recommend joining a choir. You work with people and singing is good for both your physical and mental health. Find a choir in your local area here.

Introduction to Children;s Literature

I have started teaching a new course at the university. I am delighted with the response of the students. Each week they have a mini-lecture which summarises the main points from the theoretical material they have been asked to read. They also present work they have looked at during the week. They are asked to give a close reading of the type of text we looked at the week before. Finally, in small groups, we look at texts of the type we are studying in the current week.
I take two different groups. A colleague takes a third. In one group, I get round everybody. In the second group, each student has so much to say that we only get through two or three. I keep a strict register so that I can give everyone a fair chance to speak.
These particular students seem to have taken on board that their course is 120 hours long. They have twenty hours fifteen minutes contact time with me. A little less perhaps – we have a ten minute break in the middle of each session.
We ‘re looking at many aspects of children’s literature, mainly 21st Century, though the first session was on the history of children’s literature. This week we looked at picture book texts. Then we’ll move on to chapter book, books for fluent readers, books for teens, books for young adults, high-lows and graphic novels.
We practise an analysis method I call text autopsy. It’s a very special form of close reading and resembles the French “explication de texte”. It allows the student to analyse a text quite objectively, and resembles a little also the way a pathologist describes the body on the slab – moving form the generic to the specific and establishing the unusual. Students are asked to comment on: what the text actually is, how the content is developed, any linguistic and visual devices used, how the text conceded to the reader and how it fits with other texts of its own generation and historically.
So far, the students have taken this on with gusto. I know a lot about this topic but I’m also learning with them.

Vital Signs Neil Campbell at the University of Salford

This visit actually formed part of a module I’m teaching on at the University of Salford. My students on the Writing Short Fiction were invited to attend both a reading and a workshop. I also attended both and I’m really glad I did.
It’s quite nice, when your day job involves putting people through these sorts of experience, to actually sit back a little and have a go at a workshop yourself. I did just that this afternoon.
Neil’s reading was very interesting and he showed us several scenes form ordinary working lives. He admits to having held several uninteresting jobs and he treated us to some of the characters and situations he had met in these.
The workshop began with some reading of short story theory, which I found very useful and shall add to my collection of the same. We then read and unpicked a short story by Hemingway. We were also invited to create our own stories from memories of jobs we had done and funny / sad incidents. Mine was about donuts – based on my remembering working as a Saturday girl at Woolworth’s and being put on the donut machine because I had short hair.
We wrote for twenty minutes and by the end of that time I had about a third of a short story. I think it is one I’ll try to finish. In fact, it’s one I’m looking forward to finishing.

Hobbies for Dream-Livers

If you’re living the dream, what do you do for fun? If your day job is what you’re most passionate about, how do you have weekends and holidays?

I think I’m not the only writer who finds it difficult to answer the question “What do you do in your spare time?” One gut reaction is to say “What spare time?” If you’re self-employed, and writers living the dream are, spare time is time you’re not earning money, so the temptation is to keep on working. But you love your work anyway, so what’s the problem?

Sure, I go to the gym, but that’s about keeping the body healthy so the mind can work well on the texts and anyway, I think about my plots and characters as I plough up and down the swimming pool. There’s the odd movie – but the critical voice analyses the “text” and the writer learns form it. Even sitting in a café or a bus and people watching is part of your work. Very pleasant work, but work all the same. I do mix with friends, go to the pub with colleagues (yes, I’m employed as well, but my job is to do with my writing, ain’t I the lucky one?) and I love getting out of my head and out of my shed. I never use friends as characters. Friends are too precious for that, but I guess something about the way people are does go to the back of the subconscious all the same. Those occasions are great when they happen, but I don’t miss them if they don’t because I’m so contented with my writing life. Not my writing of course. Part of the life is ever seeking to improve and set yourself challenges.

So what is it that I now look forward to? Apart form the gin and tonic on a Saturday night and the dinner excellently prepared by my husband?

Well, I’ll tell you. It’s singing with a choir. The Ordsall Acapella Singers to be precise. I hate it if for reasons beyond my control I can’t make it to a rehearsal on a Tuesday evening. We currently meet in Ordsall Hall itself, a fantastic old house in the middle of Ordsall and not far from Salford Quays. Our choirmaster, Jeff Borradaile, is a genius at getting the best out of us. Well, he got me singing didn’t he? He makes it fun, but is strict enough with us that we wouldn’t dare offer less than our best. He’s there every week, working hard with us, and gives us confidence at the ever-increasing number of gigs we’re getting these days. On the odd occasion that he can’t be there, our chair, Andy Townsend is a very competent substitute, as well as being a talented singer. And everyone is so nice. We even had a two day workshop last weekend. People singing instead of enjoying their gardens in the rare sunshine. Wonderful!

Why do I enjoy it so much? Yep, it gets me out of my shed and out of my head. But there’s something else about singing. It lifts the sprits. I’d swear I write better the day after I’ve been to a choir practice or a gig. One of the other ladies in my section works in the NHS and she’s been accessing articles which describe in technical detail how singing causes changes n the brain, though if you’re professional, there are other stresses. There’s also something about team work. You have to blend in with the others. There’s no room for egos – even if you get to sing a solo part. It’s a group effort and a great antidote to the solitude a writer needs. Oh dear, does it mean that even this is part of my work? Well, so be it.

I was rather bemused when a colleague I met at my new position at the University of Salford was being very persuasive about the choir. She is also on the Creative Writing team, and I became so intrigued by her enthusiasm that I thought I’d better give it a go. I’d not sung in a choir for years, thought I had helped out, with other staff, at one school I taught in when the music teacher needed to encourage volume in the students singing in “Joseph”. After getting to the end of school on a Wednesday after a day of stressful interaction with demanding teeageers I would think “Heck, I’ve got all this marking to do and get ready for tomorrow. I really could do without this choir practice.” But then I’d go along anyway, becaue I don’t like to break promises, and I’d sing my heart out, then come back to my classroom. The marking was still there. It somehow didn’t bother me so much. “Piece of cake,” I thought. “It’ll only take me an hour.”

Do you know what? There’s three of us from the Creative Writing team at the University of Salford now members of the choir. Chances are, singing is the great hobby for dream-living writers.

When I was a full-time teacher in secondary schools, I used to get a similar contrast to the day job through being in a drama group. Drama is too similar to what I now do daily, with the same stresses.

So, any more writers stuck in heads and sheds living within striking distance of Ordsall, near Salford Quays? Come and join us on a Tuesday evening at 7.00 p.m at Ordsall Hall.

Maintaining a Web Presence

I guess that is what I am doing right now, in writing this blog. I’m often amazed to see that people have read it. Okay, just a handful, but it’s earning me money on Adsense and it’s a strange feeling that there are people out there, people I don’t know, who are reading my words. In some cases, they are even coming back for a second look.

It would be great, actually, if any of you who are reading this would let me know who you are, and if you keep coming, why. But if you want to remain anonymous, that’s okay, too.

There has been much debate recently on a couple of forums I’m a member of about:

· Why we need to have a web presence

· How much time it takes to keep that going

· Whether or not it takes us away from our writing.

Well I think presence, web or otherwise, is vital writers who take themselves seriously. Yes you have to write well, and then you have to get yourself out there. Get the public interested in you. After all, what does “publish” really mean? It has to be something to do with making your work public. You are part of your work.

Anyway I enjoy writing my blogs. I do this one, a fictional one, “Rozia” that is about a quite important character who has just left anoterh story. This is what happens to her after she leaves. It’s quite an experiment for me. Firstly, as a fictional blog and secondly as an experiment in writing from character. Thirdly, I never plan what I’m going to writer before I start. Then there is my “The Language Expert” blog, which is all about language learning. After all, in a former life, I spent twenty-four years teaching languages and I still write a few materials for language learning. I used to also maintain two other blogs – one about property investment and the other about the silly things which are happening in the 21^st Century. However, having decided I’m first and foremost a writer, I’ve abandoned the latter two. Other people do these things better. However, I have not taken the content down.

What I love about blogging is that is it instant publication. It also gets my writing muscles warmed up, as it’s the first writing task I do each day.

For your convenience, and if you’re interested I’ve listed my other blogs and websites on this page.

What about all those other places? My Space, Facebook, Shelfari, Twitter, Wiki and Eacademy? Oh yes, I’m there. But I don’t use those all that much. I will respond to anyone who contacts me that way and I do always list my events and new books on My Space and Facebook. Authors’ Den is also great. It’s in effect a web site you can build yourself. I am, however, using this less now and I prefer the Blogger blogging provider to the Author’s Den one.

I’m very fortunate in having a husband who maintains my personal web site. I just send him emails about what I want doing and he does it. I do spend time every now and then reviewing that site. And if I see a great idea on somebody else’s, I copy it. No shame, this woman.

Plus there are the forums: Wordpool, Bristish SCBWI and Children’s Writers.

All of this helps you to network without leaving your desk. The chat also stops the loneliness.

However, I do issue a word of caution. Remember, by being there you are putting yourself in the public eye. I do also have a writing related day job. I work as a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Salford. I keep myself in check by reminding myself never to post anything I would be ashamed of the Vice-Chancellor knowing about me.

An Excuse to Travel

There has been something really great about this schools’ tour that I have been making recently: getting to see so many different parts of the country. Yesterday I was in Somerset. This time, I did manage to find a nice pub for a good lunch. I had just a Ploughman’s but it was a very filling one and I didn’t eat anything else for the rest of the day. More often, I pass lots of enticing pubs on the way. But because I’m usually on my way home or one my way up to Salford, I go back a different way and don’t see them again. Or it’s too early, and by the time it is the right time, I’m on the motorway.

Of course the journeys are mainly motorway. The last few miles are the interesting ones. Then you get to see the variety of countryside and the variety of architecture. Actually, one of the most beautiful parts of this country I’ve seen is the Peak District, and in particular High Peak. That was just forty minutes away from my flat in Salford. Thirty-five minutes was through Manchester traffic and just five in the most fantastic countryside. It was a wet, misty sort of day and it gave the Peaks an air of mystery.

The schools vary, too. Mainly the children are fine and the vast majority of them are interested. I’m amazed that the younger children find Old Fuzzy Locks hilarious, though the older ones just take him in their stride. The teachers do vary from place to place, though. I think it may be stress. Some don’t seem to engage. They are elsewhere. Others are totally with you, totally in the world of the story and as enthusiastic as the children about the writing process and the world of the imagination.

Travel is good, too. I always get ideas as I travel. In fact, the places and people, the atmospheres are fodder for my prose poetry. I wonder how long it will take me to get that collection together. It does need some work and I’m not finding it all that easy.

Schools Tour

Well, I’ve done three school visits this week. The children listened attentively, mainly, as I read form The Lombardy Grotto to them. They asked lots of questions. They didn’t ask that question – the one all writers dread – “Where do you get your ideas from?” That may be because I pre-empted that and asked them what they thought the question was that most writers get asked and dread answering and then I asked them where they got their ideas from for their stories.
The strangest question was “Is your study a mess, because you work in Southampton and Salford?” I’d mentioned living in two places when one of them asked me what I was working on at the time – I work on Peace Child in Southampton and Potatoes in Spring when I’m in Salford. I do that so I can leave my bits and pieces on the appropriate desk.
I did tell them a lot about how The Lombardy Grotto came to me, almost packaged as a whole, when I visited the Cider Press Centre and Totnes, Devon. How when we got back from the Riverside Walk, it was so very quiet, and we wondered, what if everyone had gone away?
I asked the children in all three schools to tell me what Sparky looked like, how old they thought Jayne was, how old they thought Michael and Toby were, why Old Fuzzy Locks was called Old Fuzzy Locks and how they would describe chocolate to someone who had never tried it before. The responses were good.
Some children asked me for my autograph. I think I’m going to get some postcards made, which I can sign for them. They will show images of my books and have details of my web site, where they can buy signed copes, or link to Amazon.

Working with Students

I had a lovely time with the four Level 2 students who turned for their class at 4.00 p.m. yesterday. It is very near to the end of term and they have already given in their assignments so in this class we talk about publishing possibilities. I myself am editing three books this year: anthologies, one about Salford, an Advent Calendar of stories and other short pieces and the Twelve Days of Christmas, slightly longer pieces.
We ate chocolates and discussed the vagaries of the publishing world and methods of critiquing work.
I guess I’ve got a pretty good day job. My favourite occupation is, of course, writing and my second favourite is talking to other writers about writing. I’m sure I learn as much from them as they learn from me.

Workshop at Padgate High School, Warrington

I did enjoy this yesterday. This was part of the Masterclass series we offer from the University of Salford. I did a two hour gig with Year 13. I started off with a couple of warm-up sessions. The first was the “Angels / Gargoyles” exercise. This gets the students using language in perhaps a surprising way. They then moved on to do their own “opposite” word storm. Next was a mind-map of words and phrases about themselves, of which they then had to replace any one containing an ‘e’ with words or phrases without ‘e’. This gets rid of the clichés and stretches the imagination.
We then moved on to three ways of getting in to a story:
· The Stephen King method – take a scene and go from there. We examined that scene with our senses. This always leads to good writing in my opinion.
· Story theory – inciting incident, ratchet, crisis, climax, resolution – hints of golden segment
· Characters – hero, friend, enemy, mentor (who always steps out of the way at the right moment).
Finally, we did my character magic exercise – with fingers crossed behind my back again – and it did work. I actually worked with the teacher on that one.
I think they all enjoyed it. And you could have heard a pin drop whilst they wrote their little scene, having created their two characters. Lots of questions at the end. That felt good.
Yes, very satisfying.

Sometimes you have a good day

Last Friday was one of those. I had a letter form Academi – the Welsh Academy, concerned with literature promotion. I have been invited to become a Full Member. Full membership is by invitation only and offered “only to those who have made a contribution to the literature of Wales”. Yes, you have to pay subs, but they’re only £20.00 per year and it does give you access to the literary community in Wales. So I feel quite pleased. On top of that, I had two publishing contracts for signing and one contract which has now also been signed by a publisher. Friday it was also confirmed that I shall be doing a Masterclass on behalf of the University of Salford at a school in Warrington. My private contact with schools in the area is booming as well. I’ve had the idea of doing a schools tour. A free author visit to launch The Lombardy Grotto and signings- with, of course, sales of the book. And hopefully, of some of my others.