New Literary Agency Listing
firstwriter.com – Thursday December 6, 2018
Handles: Fiction; Nonfiction
Markets: Adult
Treatments: Commercial; Literary
See website for agent bios and individual contact details, then submit to one by email only. See website for full guidelines.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday December 3, 2018
Publishes: Fiction;
Areas include: Fantasy; Sci-Fi;
Markets: Adult; Youth;
Preferred styles: Commercial; Contemporary; Experimental; Mainstream; Niche; Popular; Satirical
This magazine is about fiction that isn't fit for "them". What do I mean by "them"? Who in particular are "they"? They are the government. They are your parents. They are your teachers. They are everywhere.
Nine things not to do if you want to write/paint/create
smh.com.au – Sunday December 2, 2018
A decade ago this week the Sydney Opera House architect Jorn Utzon died. I was on the other side of the world when this happened, living in San Francisco driving across the Golden Gate Bridge when his obituary was read out on the BBC World Service. Listening to this Dane’s extraordinary story about the building he dreamt up but never saw complete, I knew this most Sydney of stories would make a great book. By the next month I had pitched the idea to a publisher and spent the best part of the next decade wrestling to find the time to research and write it.
A lot happened in my personal life over those 10 years. But I also spent a lot of time procrastinating. So I dreamt up some tips, from my own hard-wrought experience about what NOT to do if you want to write a book, or indeed undertake any creative endeavour. If the fire burns in your belly for such an undertaking (which is a core ingredient to success) you might find them helpful.
Why I stopped writing
palatinate.org.uk – Wednesday November 28, 2018
What does it mean to write black?
It means that the style of writing, storyline, the whole plot, characters, the book should be based on the only supposedly important aspect of your life, which is your race. The outcome of this is that many upcoming black novelists find it hard to come forward with their own pieces. Unique writings which do not particularly sit well with what a black book is understood to be, and which eventually causes a lack of uniqueness in writing style and diversity in storylines and plots. Battling the preconceived conception of your non-existent novel is one of the many problems that black authors face in the literary industry.
‘It is true that black authors are expected to write what they know- and apparently, in our case, that is ghettos, slavery and racism. You want to write romance, crime, blockbusters or sci-fi? Sorry, people, that’s not your thing’- Dreda Say Mitchell.
The app that makes writing less lonely
bbc.co.uk – Monday November 26, 2018
If you see a writer in a movie, most likely she (or he) will be tapping on a laptop. But many young writers are doing it on mobile phones, and sometimes in teams.
Daniel, who uses the pen name LisVender, begins the story, which his writing team decides to call A Small Case of Writer's Block.
The tapping of Sara's pen against her glasses became so rhythmic that it sounded like a metronome set to allegretto. She spun in her swivel chair, watching the bookcases in her study swing by. She had to admit it: her story was stuck, her characters were stuck, and so was she.
Ella, pen name Elle, who has 313 stories under her belt, then picks up the tale.
Sighing, she slumped forward, forehead hitting the desk with a thump. How was she going to keep the plot rolling forward, give her characters the development they needed? Her eyes swivelled to the window, the glass frosted over with thin ice. Maybe a walk outside in the cold
At 276 characters, Elle has nearly reached her 280 limit, so she stops mid-sentence and passes the story to the next writer. (You can read the rest of the story at the bottom of this page.)
Welcome to the world of Inkvite, one of a number of creative-writing platforms popular with teenagers and young adults in the US. It allows users to share stories, comment on them, and also collaborate.
Here, five Inkvite authors explain its appeal.
New Literary Agency Listing
firstwriter.com – Friday November 23, 2018
Handles: Nonfiction
Markets: Adult
Treatments: Commercial
Specialises in commercial nonfiction. Particularly interested in bold female voices. Send query by email.
Going with gut instinct: Lunch With literary agent Fiona Inglis
smh.com.au – Friday November 16, 2018
By the end of an opening chapter, Fiona Inglis usually has a good idea if the manuscript in her hands is potential bestseller material.
Call it gut instinct, says the well-connected head of the literary agency Curtis Brown who has made a career out of spotting writers readers want to read and counts bestselling clients Liane Moriarty, Markus Zusak, Andy Griffiths and Thomas Keneally as friends.
Story is everything. "Good writing will always rise to the top because it has something to say that is worth paying attention to," Inglis says. "I know immediately when I've found something fabulous because I want to interrupt everyone in the office and say, 'You have to read this!'
The Radicalization of Bedtime Stories
theatlantic.com – Monday November 12, 2018
More than 200 years ago, when books for children first became common, they delivered simple moral lessons about, for instance, cleanliness and the importance of prayer. Today, story time is still propelled by moral forces, but the issues have gotten a good deal more sophisticated.
In recent years, publishers have put out children’s books with political undertones and activist calls to action on topics ranging from Islamophobia to race to gender identity to feminism. “The trend has definitely exploded in recent years with the social-justice books and the activism books,” says Claire Kirch, a senior correspondent at Publishers Weekly who has been covering the book industry for 15 years.
Publica wants to free publishers and authors from Amazon using the blockchain
thebookseller.com – Saturday November 10, 2018
Publica is a new publishing platform that using blockchain and cryptocurrency technology to innovate how books are funded, distributed, bought, and read. For readers, libraries and institutions Publica offers “books without borders” via an ereader-wallet app for digital book ownership, which is portable to any device. For authors and publishers, it offers personalised online storefronts, designed to their own business models and at their own prices, with their book sales cryptographically protected by a global peer-to-peer blockchain network.
Vary Sentence Structure
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Saturday November 10, 2018
This past week I edited a novel written in a way meant to emulate the method used by a handful of successful mystery writers.
"He took the stairs down. He walked into the kitchen. He stood at the refrigerator. He got out a pitcher of cold water."
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