10 July 2017 - What's new
10 July 2017
- ‘The rise of nationalism, including in the United States, but also through Europe and even in Asia, has underscored the importance of internationalism - as a subject and as an approach to the markets for the publishing community and for writers. This has been coming for a while, although it arrived as a great surprise to many people. The seeds of it have been planted earlier...' Andrew Wylie of The Wylie Agency in Publishing Perspectives, quoted in our Comment column.
- The Winchester Poetry Prize 2017 is open to all poets over 16. Entry fee £5 and £4 for further poems. First Prize £1,000, Second Prize £500, Third Prize £200. Enter now to get your poems in by the 31 July deadline.
- Getting ready to publish your book - are you planning to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of nine services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. Services for Self-publishers.
- This week's News Review: 'Figures from the US continue the trend in book sales which shows children's books doing well and hardback sales outpacing trade paperback and mass market segments. It's good to see positive figures - unit sales for 2017 are 3% higher than in the first 6 months of last year...'
- Bob's Journal is a long-running column from writer Bob Ritchie described by fellow EastEnders script-writer Pippa McCarthy: 'Just discovered your web page... I've just spent the last hour crying with laughter with periodic yelps of 'been there!'... I'm going to make my entire family read your diary. Then perhaps will understand own bizarre behaviour every time I start a script... Anyway, will shut up now but just wanted to say you have cheered me up no end. It's brilliant.'
- Our links: some more good news from the US, Bookstores holding their own against digital onslaught - CBS News; at what point does a writer earn the right to declare they are A Writer without a self-deprecating smirk? When does a writer become a professional? | The Bookseller; you keep telling yourself you're going to "get around to it" but you blink and days, weeks, even months have gone by without typing a single word, How to Write Even When You Don't Feel Like Writing | HuffPost; and why it's fast becoming the preferred choice of writers from the neighbouring countries, India is the new publishing haven for writers from Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Here's why | books$ht-picks | Hindustan Times.
- Getting Your Poetry Published has some suggestions on how to get started with this. 'Don't even try to approach publishers until you have a collection-length amount of material to offer. Your chances will be much better even then if you can point to publication of your poems in magazines. Don't waste any time trying to get a literary agent to represent you...'
- More links: depending on how well you write and how often you publish or change jobs or assignments, other writers come in and out of your life, So You've Decided to Write: Advice from a Great and Notorious Editor | Literary Hub; when Bushra al-Fadil landed in London to receive the 2017 Caine Prize for African Literature, he spent a day perusing the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Sudan's Caine prize winner wants Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa to supports the arts in Africa - Quartz; and, to prove we're now in the silly season, in the northern hemisphere at least, Your Literary Idols and Their Wardrobes - The New York Times.
- Writing Biography & Autobiography is a serialisation from our Archives of the book by Brian D Osborne published by A & C BlackClick for A & C Black Publishers Publishers References listing. In the first excerpt, Managing the matters of truth and objectivity, the author says: 'Just as you need to remember that letters, reports, census forms, legal documents and so forth were not created simply for our convenience, so you also need to remember that what is written in them may not be true...'
- 'No poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.' T S Eliot in our Writers Quotes. For the elegant website devoted to the poet, see tseliot.com.
