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Archive for the ‘Writing News’ Category

Brighton-based publisher Myriad Editions has launched a competition for a first graphic novel in progress, with a view to working with the winner to complete and publish the title. The judging panel includes author Ian Rankin, Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell, author and cartoonist Ed Hillyer, graphic novelists Hannah Berry and Bryan Talbot, and Myriad Editions creative director Corinne Pearlman.

Entrants are asked to submit a one-page synopsis and between 15-30 pages of a graphic work in progress. More information from the Myriad Editions site.

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Join Granta Magazine at Foyles, 113-119 Charing Cross Road, WC2H 0EB, on May 18, 6.30pm, to celebrate the launch of their latest issue, ‘The F Word’, which explores  the legacy of feminism in literature.

Contributors Rachel Cusk and Taiye Selasi talk about the writers who inspired them and what the word ‘feminism’ means to them today. Granta‘s publisher Sigrid Rausing will host the discussion. With readings from the issue and drinks. The event is free but you need to email events@granta.com to reserve a place.

This week, ‘super agent’ Ed Victor announced that he is setting up a new digital and print on demand publishing venture, Bedford Square Books, which will release six titles by authors his agency represents this September, with another six planned for January 2012. Authors’ royalties will be 50% as opposed to the 26% traditionally on offer from publishers for ebooks.  Now, The Bookseller reports that agencies Curtis Brown and Blake Friedman are planning to follow his example. Agent Sonia Land has already made 100 of Catherine Cookson’s out of print titles available as e-books, apparently frustrated by the lack of interest from the traditional publishers. She reacted to the news of Bedford Square Books by warning publishers to “rethink their legacy operation”.

In July last year, US literary agent Andrew Wylie (AKA ‘the Jackal’), created an imprint called Odyssey Books and struck a deal with Amazon to make a number of classic titles by some of his extremely famous clients –  for example, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, Nabokov’s Lolita – available on Kindle. Random House reacted furiously by declaring that it now regarded the the Wylie Agency as a direct competitor. In the end Wylie was forced to scale down his plans, although books like Brideshead Revisited and The Naked and the Dead are still available on Odyssey.

As yet, Ed Victor’s move has not attracted such ire. The CEO of the Publishers Association, Richard Mollet, wished Victor luck and added that he “hope[d] he would consider joining the PA”.

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The London Sinfonietta is launching a new programme that offers composers and collaborators from arts and science backgrounds to join them in developing new interdisciplinary works. Collaborators are welcome from a broad range of disciplines, including  writers. First stage application deadline: Monday 6 June 2011. Successful applicants will be awarded a Jerwood Blue Touch Paper bursary in order to support the development of the new work. More information from the London Sinfonietta website or email: LSLab@londonsinfonietta.org.uk

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Sampad, a Birmingham-based organisation promoting south Indian art and culture, is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of  the hugely influential poet Rabindranath Tagore with an international writing competition. The competition is run in partnership with the British Council. Any writer from the age of 8 onwards, with an interest in South Asian Culture, can enter.

More information from the SAMPAD website.  The closing date is 31 January 2012.

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Is it a book? Is it a film? No it’s a networked novel.

Kate Pullinger, novelist and Reader in Creative Writing and New Media at de Montfort Univerity, Leicester, and Chris Joseph, electronic writer and artist, have produced a novel with music and images to be read online.  It explores what happens when diverse worlds collide and an airplane stowaway crashes in on the life of a suburban London housewife. Click here to experience FLIGHT PATHS.

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Francis Ford Coppola’s Ninth Annual American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest opens in June. The early deadline is August 1 and the final deadline September 6. The stated aim of the contest is ‘to seek out and encourage compelling film narratives, and to introduce the next generation of great screenwriters to today’s leading production companies and agencies.’

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Mslexia Magazine has launched a  new competition for novels in any genre for adults or young adults written by previously unpublished (female) authors. Entries should be the first 5,000 words of the novel, which must already have been completed and must total at least 50,000 words. Closing date: 30 September

Entry fee: £25. First Prize £5,000

See the Mslexia website for more information about how to enter.

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Heartening to see that  independent Brighton-based publishers Myriad Editions scooped three awards in one week.  The Spider Truces by Tom Connolly  was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize, London Triptych by Jonathan Kemp won the Authors Club Best First Novel prize and Elizabeth Haynes’ Into the Darkest Corner won the first round of the Amazon Rising Stars prize for 2011.

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