Archive for the ‘Writing News’ Category

The Royal Society of Literature is holding its second series of Masterclasses in collaboration with the Booker Prize Foundation this year. Their autumn programme includes a day on ‘Bio-Fiction’ with  novelist Adam Foulds (8 September), and Tessa Hadley teaching ‘the Short Story’ (Saturday 10th November). You can book for these and other events through the RSL website.

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Mslexia Magazine has launched a competition to find new writing talent for young readers. The competition is open to children’s novels in any genre by previously unpublished women novelists, as long as they’re written for independent readers or young adults. Crossover fiction (i.e. books aimed at both children and adults) is eligible. To qualify as a novel, your book must total at least 30,000 words.

To enter the competition, send up to 3,000 words – which must be the first 3,000 words of the novel. Any preface is included in your 3,000 words. There is no need to submit a synopsis.

First Prize: £5,000. Juding panel: Malorie Blackman, award-winning children’s author; Julia Churchill, literary agent specialising in children’s books for Greenhouse Literary Agency; Julia Eccleshare, children’s books editor at the Guardian newspaper.

Closing date: 10 September 2012. Entry fee: £25. For more information, visit www.mslexia.co.uk or Email novel@mslexia.co.uk

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Ether Books publishes short fiction by new and established writers – including Hilary Mantel, Lionel Shriver, Paul McCartney, Alexander McCall Smith, Fay Weldon and many more – for reading on iPhones,  iPad or iPod touch.

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Submissions are now OPEN for the Hot Keys Young Writers Prize, running in conjunction with the Guardian. The prize is aimed at young writers between the ages of 18 and 25, who are passionate about writing for children. The prize has two categories: fiction for readers aged 9-12 or 13-19. Entrants should be unpublished talents new to the literary world.

To be considered, send 4,000 words plus a full plot synopsis; the full manuscript should be available by October. The winners, one for each age category, will be selected by a panel of judges who will consult with school children. Each winner will be given editorial support and the chance to be published by Hot Key Books. The closing date for entries is May 31st. Winners will be announced at the 2013 London Bookfair.

More details on the Hot Keys website.

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The Bookseller reports that on June 1st, Macmillan Children’s Books will launch a  £10,000 literary prize to be judged by independent booksellers and their customers.

Write Now! is aimed at un-agented, UK-based authors aged 18 and over. The books should be written for children aged between nine and 16 years old.

Editors Rachel Petty and Emma Young came up with the idea for the prize as part of Macmillan’s Innovation from Within programme, which supported the launch of the Bello digital imprint last year.

More information at the Pan Macmillan site.
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The bookshop Shakespeare and Company was established in the Latin Quarter in Paris in 1951 by American George Whitman as a tribute to Sylvia Beach’s 1920s bookshop of the same name.

Last year, in association with the de Groot Foundation, the bookshop established a Literary Prize to champion the novella form and to discover new writers. Judges of the 2011 prize included Times literary editor Erica Wagner, novelist Breyten Breytenbach, Darin Strauss and Dennis Loy Johnson. Over 450 novellas were submitted for the prize and the winner was Rosa Rankin-Gee.

This year, the prize will run again and the closing date is 1 September.

Novellas  (17,000 – 35,000 words) on any subject by previously unpublished writers are eligible.

For more details visit their website:The Paris Literary Prize .

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James Joyce has been in the news recently. N. Quentin Woolf has launched Big Reads, a (free-to-participate) multimedia project designed to tackle ‘one massive book each year’ – beginning with James Joyce’s Ulysses. There will be a monthly podcast, as well as an opportunity for anyone, anywhere to contribute via social media.

Woolf says: “At the end of it all we might just know a little more about the book in question, or we might have more questions than answers – but at least we’ll have read the book.” For more information: email contact@bigreads.co.uk or visit his blog www.nquentinwoolf.com

Also, the Bookseller reports that independent publishers Alma Books are launching a new imprint to make classic titles available via print on demand. Having taken over the Calder Books list in 2007 they already have 300 titles by authors including Raymond Queneau, Dante and F Scott Fitzgerald. Publisher Alessandro Gallenzi promises that the initiative will ‘rediscover more neglected classics and try to bring them to readers inventively and in a new way’.

One hundred of the books are already available via print-on-demand, and Alma aim to have 150 titles available in PoD format by the end of the year. Among the first titles to be published in September –  James Joyce’s Ulysses.

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Congratulations to Annemarie Neary, who attended the first Novelists’ Club in 2009. Having gathered a slew of honours for her short stories in recent years, including winning the 2011 Columbia Journal fiction prize, she is about to publish her first novel: A Parachute in the Lime Tree.

Synopsis: Easter Tuesday 1941, and German bombers are in the air, about to attack Belfast.  Oskar is an unwilling conscript whose Jewish sweetheart Elsa was forced to flee Berlin for Ireland two years before. Alienated from the Nazi state and from his own family, he has taken the fateful decision to bail out over neutral Ireland in search of her.

The unpredictable Kitty awakes in remote Dunkerin and finds a parachute caught in one of the trees on her land. When she discovers Oskar, injured and foraging for food in her kitchen, he becomes a rare and exciting secret. But Ireland during the Emergency is an uneasy place, and news of the parachute soon spreads…. 

Copies will be available from March 1st. To buy a copy of A Parachute in the Lime Tree directly from the publishers, click here: The History Press 

More information about Annemarie on her website: Annemarie Neary.

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Congratulations to Bren Gosling, who attended the Novelists Club in 2010. His novel, Sweeping up the Village,  has been picked as one of five shortlisted titles for the 2012 Harry Bowling Prize, an award dedicated to novels set in London. The  prize is backed by the publisher Headline, and administered by the literary agency MBA.

Novel synopsis: “At 14 in Kosovo his dreams of becoming a professional basketball player were shattered by war. Fast forward to 2002; Almir is 21, newly arrived in London and working as a Walthamstow street sweeper. One day his broom strikes a pair of discarded women’s sandals, triggering a series of crippling flashbacks which threaten his sanity. When he is moved onto a quieter beat – sweeping up Walthamstow’s village – Almir finds himself attracted to an older man with issues of his own. In the weeks surrounding the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, Almir struggles to rebuild his life. Can he conceal the guilty secret tormenting him? Sweeping up the Village is a novel about lost identity, love and the need to belong.”

To follow the fortunes of Bren’s book, visit his blog: Evolution of my novel. Bren is interested in hearing from literary agents and can be contacted  at: <nicke17@clara.co.uk>.

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The Bookseller reports that  Bloomsbury is to launch a new imprint called Bloomsbury Circus. The new  list  will be a mix of debuts and more established names:  “mostly fiction, unashamedly literary, always fresh and sometimes surprising”. In the first year there will be  nine titles, and after that  they will build up to publishing four books a month.

Alexandra Pringle, Bloomsbury’s editor-in-chief, is quoted as saying: “With fiction, you can’t successfully publish more than four titles a month because, selling into the fiction buyer, you have to have your lead, second lead, dark horse and a crime title. If you do more, you lose the focus. If we are going to grow, we have to do it in an exciting, imaginative way. This is a way we can grow, and continue to offer the service we do.”

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