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2 November 2015 - What's new

2 November 2015
  • 'I remember telling myself that I had yet to live an interesting life. What could this twenty-something woman who'd lived only in Massachusetts write about? Weren't there enough poems singing the praises of New England leaves? I decided to stop writing. I needed to go out and extend the margins of my world before I'd know anything worthy of a poem...' Susan Rich provides this week's Comment.
  • Our Writing Opportunity is Discovery Day Online 2015 on 26 November, which is open to anyone on Twitter. It's the opportunity to take part in four consecutive sessions which will show you how to find a literary agent and give advice on routes to becoming a published author, run by agencies Curtis BrownSee Curtis Brown listing and Conville and Walsh.
  • Getting ready to publish your book? Do you want to self-publish your work? WritersServices offers a suite of services which help writers get their work into shape before they self-publish. From Copy editing to Blurb-writing with much else as well. There's also our new Translation editing service.
  • To self-publish or to go for a publisher? To publish your own book confidently as an indie author or to feel that only a publisher will be able to give you what you want? Views on this are gradually changing and the major success of self-publishing authors - who often then turn to traditional publishers - has altered a lot of writers' views on the subject. Self-publishing or traditional publishing, which is best? is this week's News Review.
  • 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; Richard Hall "Write about what you know" - does this adage always make sense? and Jae Watson's Magic formula. Contributions should ideally be 200 to 400 words in length and of general interest. Please email them to us.
  • Our links: an unpublished author writes with great clarity on how to go about it, The Holy Trinity of Success: write like an angel, market like a demon and be a lovely human being, | Jo Hogan Writes; an interview with the inspiring Jane Friedman of Open Road, who is busy reinventing backlist publishing for the digital age, Jane Friedman on bringing books 'back to life' | The Bookseller; John Bond reports on a new generation of writers for whom self-publishing is a matter of choice, BookBrunch - Outliers, not outsiders; and the rather shocking idea that writers should pay to be considered by literary magazines, Should Literary Journals Charge Writers for Submissions? - The Atlantic.
  • This elegant and intriguing pictograph of Old World Language Families has been drawn to my attention by the poet George Szirtes, who has an excellent blog about poetry.
  • More links: from a publishers' point of view but still interesting as a summary of possibilities in Africa, BookBrunch - Africa rising: digital opportunities; American novelist Joshua Cohen is setting himself a larger target - of the internet at large - as he embarks on an a mission to reinterpret Dickens' debut live online, In Rewriting Dickens Live Online, Author Critiques the Internet Age - Publishing Perspectives; and the Women's Media Group chew things over, The Latest Trends in YA Publishing.
  • And from our Writers' Quotes: 'Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.' Louise Glück.