19 January 2015 - What's new
19 January 2015
- Nielsen Children's Book Summit has presented a very encouraging picture of what's going on in the children's book world. Children's sales have been rising steadily and, as previously noted, the sales of children's books in the UK market recently exceeded sales of Adult Fiction. Middle grade and YA Fiction has been doing particularly well. But this News Review looks at the surprise statistic that 80% of YA titles are purchased by adults for themselves.
- You have until 1 February to enter this week's poetry-based Writing Opportunity, The Interpreter's House's Open House 2015, which is open to anyone over 18 with an entry fee of £4 for single poems, £10 for three poems.
- Have you got something you'd like to say to our community of writers? My Say gives writers a chance to air their views about writing and the writer's life. So we have Natasha Mostert: There are few things as satisfying as typing THE END to a manuscript and Richard Hall "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
- ‘I had about 24 hours when I hovered under my covers and was like, "I killed feminism. Why did I do that? Rats... Then I quickly felt comfortable with what I had written. Women shouldn't be expected only to play nurturing, kind caretakers. That's always been part of my goal - to show the dark side of women... Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl, in the New York Times, quoted in our Comment column.
- Our expert script editor provides a service for scripts, plays and screenplays. He is a skilled professional with particular expertise in assessing and editing writing for performance. Scriptwriting assessment service
- Links of the week: what's the most difficult book you've ever read? Readability Is a Myth - The Atlantic; looking forward to the coming year, Five Trade Publishing Predictions for 2015; a conversation with Amazon, Amazon Says It's Healthy to Give Publishers, Authors Choice; the author of The Satanic Verses stands up again for free speech, Salman Rushdie, Threatened Over Book, Defends Free Speech - ABC News; the supreme importance of reading to children, Study Finds Reading to Children of All Ages Grooms Them to Read More on Their Own - NYTimes.com; and a contributin from Oxford University Press to the debate on children's books, No, we haven't banned books on pigs - but sensitivity is key in global publishing | Jane Harley | Comment is free | theguardian.com.
- 'Retiring from writing is not to retire from life, but retiring from writing is to avoid the inevitable bitterness which a writing career is bound to deliver as its end product, in almost every case.' Jim Crace in downbeat mode in our Writers' Quotes.
