This is the first excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series. This month, the first chapter, Limbering Up: Read more
This is the second excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series. This month, Taking the Plunge. Read more
This is the third excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series. This month, Learning to see the world in a new light. Read more
This is the fourth excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series. This month, Style is everything! Read more
This is the fifth excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series. This month, Who’s the daddy: character or plot? Read more
This is the sixth excerpt from Inspired Creative Writing by Alexander Gordon Smith from the brisk and entertaining 52 Brilliant Ideas series. This month, how to learn to let go. Read more
Linked items...
'The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.'
Open to unpublished, unagented children’s writers based anywhere in the world.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
'You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair - the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Read more