The gauzy illumination of fairy lights reveals the coloured spines stacked along every shelf and bedside drawer. There, a poetry book preordered the minute the writer announced it. Here, an anthology produced from a previous commission. And just there, a thoughtfully-selected collection gifted from a friend, with the tiny cursive note forever inked onto the […]
As a writer, we must always seek the word ‘yes’. We want editors to say ‘yes’ to those painstakingly-polished submissions. We want a ‘yes’ from the grant application for that great project idea. We want readers to say ‘yes’ when making the decision to buy our books or read our work. Likewise, we have learned […]
Published in ‘Cheval’ (2015), edited by Jonathan Edwards and Alan Perry It was Jack’s sixth Sunday of being a saint. ‘Next door’s having Sunday dinner,’ said Dan, leaning out through the back door to let the cat in. He watched Delyth-Next-Door’s cardiganed shape move through the steamy windows, the sound of her Madonna CD and […]
A girl snaps on the bedside light and squints against its raw artificial glow. It is two o’clock in the morning. Already she’s dreading the next day at school: the laughter shuddering on a plume of cigarette smoke outside the gates; the laughter as she lurches clumsily onto the schoolyard and feels the deliberate thud […]
We love hearing about other people’s writing processes. And we adore hearing advice from big-name authors, holding onto their every word in the hope that if we just do things the same way they do – down to the number of coffees per day and their designated hours of writing – we’ll somehow follow that […]
What have you achieved this year? Intensified by the hyper-filtered, rose-tinted reel of social media, many of us spend an inordinate of time worrying whether we’ve achieved enough. Perhaps the novel you planned on completing by June is still no more than a 1500 word document you mostly forced yourself through in the first week […]
It seems that for almost every day of the week, there’s an abundance of writing workshops, poetry open mics, book launches, courses and panel talks available to attend. It’s ironic that during these widespread restrictions, we’re actually no longer restrained by geographical location but can attend any event we please from all over the world […]
In the next of the author interview series, poet and musician Lee Prosser tells all about his writing journey, his inspirations and his the best writing advice he ever received. Tell me a little bit about your work – when did you get started and what are you working on currently? I started writing poetry […]
I’ve written a few posts now on overcoming creative blocks and editing your creative work to get it ready for submission. However, a key part of the writing process I haven’t written about – and perhaps we as writers often hide from the outside world – is the whole messiness of the creative process itself. […]
We’re naturally drawn to gossip. Writing rivals? Intriguing. Feuds with publishers? Tell me more. Drama over book awards? Let me pull up my seat. But working together with other writers to create truly unexpected pieces of creative work? Yawn. No one wants any of that. Yet in times where social media trolling is rife, tensions […]
Natalie Ann Holborow 