The year still whizzes by. I didn’t write a newsletter at
the end of March. I simply didn’t find the time. Last time I wrote, I was facing a heap of
marking. The first few scripts of the second
round came in yesterday. I’ll have a couple of masters to mark, a few to second
mark and another hundred or so undergrad assignments in ten days’ time.
We’re also getting ready for our
Create festival. A few more details
to follow under
Future Events.
I’ve now self-published a new version of
Spooking
and will be launching this from
Honest
Coffee Chapel Street. Your invite is below.
Life goes on. But the writing life’s good, isn’t it?
Bridge House
We’re currently reading
through the submissions for “Baubles”, those short, snappy, sparkly
stories that brighten up the darker nights like baubles enhance the Christmas
tree. Watch this space. We should have our list out by the end of June.
We’re also looking at doing some single author collections. These
are for authors we’ve already published. 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.
CafeLit
Remember, we’re
always open to submissions. Find out how here. I’m now
making the selection for The Best of
CafeLit 5. I’ve been encouraging my students to submit. I’m beginning to
see some of their work appearing.
Chapeltown
We’re currently looking for collections of Flash Fiction.
See our submissions page
here.
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 – nice, too, to have a
couple of pictures – send it to me here.
Do the same if you find a new café. Naturally the
Honest Coffee café will now be included.
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.
School Visits
I’m proactively promoting my school visits associated with
The House on Schellberg Street
project. I’m still offering visits on this for a donation towards the
project. I’ve devised a whole interactive workshop. It would be a real asset
for any school teaching the Holocaust at Key Stage 3. Even if a school can’t
afford a donation, I’d be happy to run the project.
Here’s some further news about the
Schellberg project. I’ve added in a page
referring to “deleted scenes”. You know, just like you get on some DVDs.
There is also now a page of links to some articles about the
process of writing the novels.
Query for a school visit
here.
The Red Telephone
There will be a
new call for submissions next autumn. We’re leaving it quite a while now so
that we can give our current authors all of our attention.
I’d like to remind
you of our new enterprise - something between a mentoring system and an online
course. Though publication is not guaranteed, we will at least look at your
full book if you’ve attended one of the courses. We’re offering it for free to
a few people at first. We’ll refine as we go along based on feedback from our
clients. We’ll then continue to offer it at a discount for a while before going
to full price when we’re completely happy with it. We’re not sure what the full
price will be. Again, we’ll be guided by our current clients. Find out more here.
Books and
short stories
I have now started Shooting
Hitler. Remember my ten-word pitch.
“A Führer, an anteroom, a pistol. Will she shoot him?”
I’m keeping everything crossed for Clara’s Story which may be serialised. This an interesting new concept
for me. I suppose if it’s good enough for Dickens, it’s probably good enough
for me. I’m actually thinking of changing the title of Clara’s Story to Flowers on
the Table. Only thinking, mind.
Past events
April’s highlight has
to be my Pushing
Boundaries, Flying Higher conference. This built on the success of the 2015
conference. We had again Melvin Burgess as a keynote
speaker. He was also joined by Sara Grant, Nikki Heath, Debz Hobbs-Wyatt and Rachel
McIntyre. A new feature this year was critiquing session led by Debz, Melvin
and Sara. Read full details here.
I’m now hoping that this can become an annual event.
I also really
enjoyed the Author’s Compass organised by the Society of Authors. This gave some
fascinating insights into the process of self-publishing. Kate Harrison reported
on her success that wouldn’t actually have been possible with a traditional publisher.
Kate Pool and Sarah Baxter of the Society of Authors told us of some to the
pitfalls in contracts. Richard Sheehan, Katie
Roden, Helen Lewis and Kevin McCann took us through the nitty-gritty. Dan
Kieran, Kristen Harrison and Michael Schmidt talked us through some interesting
funding models.
Links and further
info here.
Upcoming events
On 21 May 2016 at
2.00 p.m, I’m launching the second edition of my book, Spooking. It will be at the charming Creative Café, Honest Coffee,
within Salford, so highly appropriate for me. Cake, tea, coffee, soft drinks. Do
bring your teenagers along.
Reserve your place here.
Giveaway
This month I’m
giving away a copy of Scream
a Bridge House publication. The first person to message me via Twitter that
they’d like the book - @gilljames – gets it.
Happy reading and
writing.
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