George Saunders once said, ‘when you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you'...but what is the best way to start? Read more
People are always saying, "I have an idea for a story." But if a story starts in an idea it might as well give up and be a novel. I think ransacking your mind for story ideas builds up an immunity to the mysterious form itself. At some point you have to bow to the story's elusiveness and refusal of paraphrase, that is, of expression as an idea. Read more
I'm Jo Simmonds, I'm the editor of The Fiction Pool, an online journal which features short stories, flash fiction and occasionally poetry. I'm a published flash and short story writer but I also dabble in poetry and script writing.
I'D ALWAYS thought of myself as a poet, and that was that. I'd gone to graduate school in poetry. I'd had fellowships in poetry. I don't mean to say these things qualified me to be a poet, but that was the label I'd given myself. Fiction had never come up. One day, like many other days, I sat down to write a poem. Read more
It may be a sign of the times that when Amazon announced last week its new Singles Classics offerings-"iconic authors, timeless stories"-the response from the publishing community was fairly muted. Don't mistake that, however, as disinterest. For the most astute observers, that yawn is feigned, and this is an especially notable arrival, considering the backstory.
When Sharon Dodua Otoo moved from Ilford to Hanover as an au pair in 1992, her family were concerned. Would a black girl from outer London cope with provincial Germany? "They were really panicked about it. ‘Don't stay too long,' they said." Read more
Google almost any celebrated short story writer - George Saunders, Kelly Link, Alice Munro, Isak Dinesen, Joy Williams - and you're likely to see the same two words over and over again: "writer's writer." Lest you be tempted to exalt that phrase's use, consider Cynthia Ozick's description: "Every writer understands exactly what that fearful possessive hints at: a modicum of professional admirat Read more
'Booksellers have had many years of making themselves resilient, having had to live through the advent and growth of Amazon - they are entrepreneurial and hard-working, resourceful and creative.
Fifteen years ago, the once powerful book publisher Judith Regan, ruler of her own imprint at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, embarked on a project of dubious distinction. Somehow she convinced O.J. Simpson to get on board with a mea culpa manqué about the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. It would be called If I Did It, and it had the makings of a blockbuster. Read more
The rest of the publishing world should be fifty shades of envious.
On Friday, Sourcebooks announced that they are launching a new imprint with E.L. James. What's more, the author behind the hit Fifty Shades trilogy and The Mister is bringing her entire publishing catalog with her. Read more
In 2016, we had been open for one intense and educational year as the only romance-focused bookstore in the country. After one year of building a community of romance-loving customers, it became abundantly clear to us that readers were looking for more racial diversity in their romance novels. Read more
The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman's poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black. 'My family are too frightened to read my book': meet Europe's most exciting authors Read more Read more
Are you serious about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and finally starting that novel idea you've had for years? Costa and Orange Prize shortlisted writer Monique Roffey offers her top five tips for getting the best out of your writing process - including finding your personal rhythm, getting into the habit of drafting and how to edit successfully.
Young authors may be self-censoring because they worry they will be "trolled" or "cancelled", according to celebrated writer Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.
Sir Kazuo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, warned that a "climate of fear" was preventing some people from writing what they want. Read more
When I first met my agent 10 years ago, I told her about a book I wanted to write about a lighthouse. I had the set-up in mind - a mystery based on the real-life vanishing of three keepers from the Flannan Isles in 1900 - but hadn't worked out yet how to tell it, if I even had it in me to write a novel, or if what I wrote would be any good. Read more
I've been a huge fan of Jeff VanderMeer's fiction since his noir fantasy novel Finch. In the years since, I've grown to admire-and envy-his range as an author, along with the depth of his imagination and his ability to send chills down my spine while enthralling me with his prose.
It's a tough decision for a writer to make, one of the toughest. All your life you've fantasized about one of the big New York publishers buying your book and its subsequent astronomical launch into the stratosphere. But it hasn't happened yet in spite of your eating, sleeping, and researching the craft of writing for years. Read more
Open to writers of any nationality writing in English
Entry fee for Best Unpublished Novel £49
Prize:
£15,000 for Best Unpublished Novel, an advance on a publishing deal with Bonnier and £10,000 for Best Published Novel
Submissions for the two 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prizes are now open. The international prize is now in its sixth year. Entries are accepted from writers of any nationality, writing in English. The deadline is 7 March. Read more
I have discovered that I cannot burn a candle at one end and write a book with the other.'
'All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.'