Her best-selling debut has sold 6m copies and been made into a hit TV series. The author discusses how a bad day in the office was the spark for worldwide success
Joanne Harris has spoken out against an "absurd" focus on debuts in the publishing world.
The Chocolat author urged publishers to support existing writers in their careers rather than pursuing one debut after another, during a Q&A held with The Empowered Author founder Sam Missingham on Monday 23rd September. Read more
Authors are being told to write under pseudonyms to present themselves as debut writers and feed the publishing industry's "obsession" with new, marketable voices, Joanne Harris has said. Read more
I continued to work on the manuscript anyway. Two and half years in, I got an agent who promised we'd revise a bit and then send it out. I worked on many revisions with her but they never coalesced into a project she thought she could sell. Through all the effort I learned about character development though; I learned about plotting and pacing; I learned about voice. Read more
There's Granta's list of the Most Promising Authors Under 40. There's The Guardian's 20 Writers Under 40 to Watch. There's The New Yorker's 20 Under 40. And I'm sure there are others. Lots and lots of others.
When did forty become the cut-off age for discussing "promising" debut authors?
Debut novelist Anne Charnock searched for two years for a publisher, and finally self-published. Then Amazon offered her a contract. She has since been in contention for two awards, pipped to a Kitschie this week by Ann Leckie. Read more
Open to unpublished, unagented children’s writers based anywhere in the world.
Entry fee £20
Prize:
First Prize: a publishing contract with Chicken House with an advance of £10,000, plus the offer of representation from literary agent representation by Lydia Silver of Darley Anderson Children's Book Agency.
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up.
A survey of 787 members of the Society of Authors (SoA) has found that a third of translators and a quarter of illustrators have lost work to generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems. Translators are also more likely to use AI to support their work, with 37% of respondents saying they have done so, followed by 25% of non-fiction writers.
The author Lynne Reid Banks, known for her novel The L-Shaped Room and her children's book series The Indian in the Cupboard, has died at the age of 94.
I launched my podcast Making It Up nearly three years ago with the goal of interviewing writers not for any particular work of theirs, but to talk to them about their lives. I didn't want to ask them what famous author they want to have dinner with or what their top five favorite books are ... yech. Read more
Until we have a mechanism to test for artificial intelligence, writers need a tool to maintain trust in their work. So I decided to be completely open with my readers