Papatango Announce 2024 New Writing Prize
theatreweekly.com – Thursday January 18, 2024
Papatango today announce that their 2024 New Writing Prize will open for submissions at noon on Wednesday 17 January, until noon on Monday 11 March. This Prize launches a new partnership with Park Theatre, who will co-produce the winning play with Papatango in a full run on their main stage.
Judged anonymously, the Papatango New Writing Prize was the UK’s first, and remains the only annual, opportunity guaranteeing a new writer a full production – for 2025 in Park200 at Park Theatre, publication by Nick Hern Books, a royalty of 8% of the box office, and a £7,500 commission with full developmental support.
In addition, every entrant receives feedback on their script – a commitment made by no other company, especially significant as the Prize averages more submissions on a yearly basis than any other playwriting award.
How to Write a Query Letter
electricliterature.com – Wednesday January 17, 2024
A practical guide to getting literary agents interested in your book
When submitting to an agent or editor, you will need a query letter. The purpose of a query letter is to briefly introduce yourself and your work to the editor or agent, with the hope they’ll be intrigued enough to want to read more.
Here is a rather typical method I’ve used. Most query letters contain three or four paragraphs, and you’ll want to keep it to no more than a page, single spaced. [Please note: I’ve inserted additional comments in brackets.]
First Paragraph
There are one of two ways to approach the first paragraph. You can keep it simple by stating the name of your work, the genre, and why you are querying this particular agent or editor. For example, here is what I used for How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences.
New Magazine Listing: Butcher's Dog
firstwriter.com – Wednesday January 17, 2024
Proudly edited and published in the heart of North East England. We print two unthemed poetry magazines each year in Spring and Autumn. Every issue features original cover artwork and contains a selection of up to twenty-five exceptional poems. Poems are selected on their merit in an anonymous reading process, supporting a more inclusive body of contemporary writing than the publishing industry currently represents.
R.L. Stine says writing from your heart is overrated
cbc.ca – Wednesday January 17, 2024
R.L. Stine has maintained the same routine for decades. Every day, the author of the phenomenally successful Goosebumps and Fear Street series writes at least 2,000 words, which explains how he's been able to pen more than 350 books over the course of his career.
"I used to be twice as fast," Stine tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "I'm old now. I used to do 4,000 a day."
The 80-year-old master of fright has now released his first non-fiction book, There's Something Strange About My Brain: Writing Horror for Kids, in which he shares everything he knows about crafting a scary story that kids will love.
New Literary Agent Listing: Katie Williams
firstwriter.com – Tuesday January 16, 2024
Represents drama and comedy writers in television, theatre and film.
New Publisher Listing: SRL Publishing Ltd
firstwriter.com – Monday January 15, 2024
We don’t care about your colour; we care about your words.
Writers will never be asked their sexuality, race, or religion – only if the author wishes to disclose, and we will never use this information to generate sales. We advise anyone who is thinking of submitting their work to us, to not put their race in the subject heading. We view all submissions as equal and will not prioritise any submissions from certain minority groups.
We love stories – fiction or non-fiction. We will consider most genres, topics, or formats.
No graphic or eroticised incest/rape; necrophilia; paedophilia; bestiality; erotica, fetishes or porn; or anything that encourages violence, hate, or racism. No poetry, self-help titles, short story collections, anthologies, or faith-based books. No AI-generated submissions in any form. These include works that are written or co-written by AI technology.
Author productivity is a publishing problem
thebookseller.com – Saturday January 13, 2024
Writers struggling to hit their deadlines are a sign of deeper issues in the industry.
George R R Martin was late delivering the sixth instalment of his A Song of Ice and Fire novel series. Over the years, frustrated fans speculated on his delay and procrastination, with one taking to the internet to ask advice of fellow writer Neil Gaiman. The fan, Gareth, complained: “It’s almost as though he is doing everything in his power to avoid working on it. Is it unrealistic to think that by not writing the next chapter Martin is letting me down?” Gaiman’s witty response was simple: “Writers and artists aren’t machines.”
I’ve worked in and around publishing for 20 years and over that time had many different roles. Thinking back, I’ve been guilty of treating authors like machines – sorry Neil.
Take one example where I had responsibility for a list of 200 titles. With forthcoming titles represented as a line on a spreadsheet an author was reduced to a unit of production. Publishing margins are increasingly tight, so the hard commercial reality was that each title, and by extension author, was assessed in terms of financial viability.
Buckley joins Hannah Sheppard Literary Agency after three-year break
thebookseller.com – Friday January 12, 2024
Louise Buckley will join the Hannah Sheppard Literary Agency (HS-LA) this month as associate agent, returning to publishing after a three-year break.
Working alongside its founder, Hannah Sheppard, Buckley joins the agency on 15th January and will build a new list of authors with a focus on upmarket and book-club fiction, as well as further developing the agency’s links with co-agents. Both Buckley and Sheppard will be at London Book Fair in March, a year after the agency was launched.
Buckley was most recently an associate Literary Agent at Zeno Agency Ltd where she represented a roster of commercial and literary fiction, including Anne Griffin’s When All is Said (Sceptre), which spent five weeks at number one in Ireland and sold into 17 territories.
Professor wins national writing competition with new novel – but AI wrote it
readwrite.com – Thursday January 11, 2024
A professor at at Beijing’s Tsinghua University won a national writing competition with a sci-fi novel, using the power of AI.
Chinese Journalism professor Shen Yang weaved together his story of the futuristic realms of the metaverse and humanoid robots to great acclaim and he has pledged to outline how others can emulate him, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
With artificial intelligence well and truly upon us, it is a reminder of the tremendous accessible opportunities and a stark reminder of the threat posed by rapid technological advances.
Shen is said to have initially turned to AI for assistance with his writing. Still, the outcome was a full text generated online, which was so impressive – and challenging to detect – that it won a vote from three of six judges on the contest panel hosted by the Jiangsu Science Writers Association.
One judge was said to have been informed that AI had been deployed in the novel Land of Memories, while another believed that it had been used and did not select the book as the content “lacked emotion.”
How I quit my job to be a full-time writer
thespinoff.co.nz – Thursday January 11, 2024
Just a few weeks ago, I updated my LinkedIn from “Principal Policy Advisor” to “Novelist”. For many, this is a dream, isn’t it? For years, I convinced myself that I didn’t genuinely aspire to be a full-time writer. Perhaps I was fearful of the idea. I was a university student for over a decade, and subsequently, I embarked on a career in policy — a pretty good choice for someone who enjoys writing.
I’ve been writing from the time I learned how to, which admittedly took me longer than most. I’ve been working on novels all my adult life. Early on, each book would take years, but more recently, I’ve learned how to write quickly which is a skillset I’ve found very useful.
My early novels were more on the literary side of “women’s fiction”. They were time-consuming because I had to get into the heads of all the characters, who changed with each book. However, my first love was fantasy. I grew up reading Goosebumps books and Tolkien, but certain influences (my brilliant grandmother was a huge influence on me, but couldn’t stand the supernatural, so I refrained) led me to less fantastical storytelling. It took me years to give myself permission to write more otherworldly books. In 2018, I got an idea for a lucid-dreaming fantasy book I needed to write, and from then on I’ve predominantly written speculative fiction.
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