The 'publishing less' conundrum
thebookseller.com – Thursday May 18, 2023
Yes, publishers are overstretched — but fewer books won’t really help.
Do we need to care for authors better, rethink staff workloads and pay more attention to each book? Yes. But the short answer to "can we publish less, but better?" is: not necessarily.
Most would agree we don’t want lists reduced, teams shrunk and only safe titles published. This wouldn’t be serving readers, writers, the industry or society. So what we need is a situation where authors are better communicated with, books are given more attention, and the changed nature of publishing roles is recognised.
As someone who has tried to do exactly that, from the luxury of a fresh start with a new company, it’s worth highlighting our aims and our realisations.
New Literary Agent Listing: Arley Sorg
firstwriter.com – Wednesday May 17, 2023
Primarily interested in adult speculative titles, including science fiction, fantasy, and horror with speculative/fantastic elements, literary speculative fiction, and climate fiction.
How One of the Biggest Literary Agencies in Publishing Lost Almost All Credibility Overnight
themarysue.com – Wednesday May 17, 2023
The entertainment industry is going through a reckoning. The WGA has writers banding together to advocate for themselves and their work, which has given us a peek behind the curtain of the frankly appalling treatment writers have had to put up with from studios.
But that’s not the only struggle writers have been dealing with.
In the past week, dozens of authors have reported that a major literary agency, New Leaf Literary Agency, has dropped them from representation. Some of these authors were in the middle of contract negotiations with publishers and will now be left without agents representing them. Some authors were notified of this loss in representation via a 10PM email on Friday evening.
New Publisher Listing: 404 Ink
firstwriter.com – Wednesday May 17, 2023
Publishes fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry. No children's books. Particularly likes humour, gritty women-led fiction, anti-heroes, parodies, the weird and wonderful, hard-hitting social issue non-fiction, inspirational stories and accessible political engagement. Would quite like to publish a crime book that’s an unusual take on the genre.
New Literary Agent Listing: Catherine Clarke
firstwriter.com – Wednesday May 17, 2023
I have been building a list of adult non-fiction and children’s fiction writers since 2001. In non-fiction, I particularly love history and philosophy and biography, especially from authors who have the academic credentials or expertise but also have the ambition and vision and writerly skill to make us see their subjects in a new light, or to overturn received wisdom. I also love outstanding nature writing with a dash of compelling memoir.
New Magazine Listing: Under the Radar
firstwriter.com – Tuesday May 16, 2023
A magazine of new contemporary poetry and fiction. Submit up to six poems, or short fiction up to 2,500 words. Submit only previously unpublished work.
How to get published in a literary magazine: ‘Whatever excites you will excite us’
irishtimes.com – Sunday May 14, 2023
Gemma Tipton offers a beginner’s guide to taking up a new cultural pursuit
If there was an Olympics for philosophical musings, Ireland’s Chat Team would surely win gold. Some get their deep thoughts down on paper, but how do you take the next step and get it in print? Lisa McInerney is editor of the Stinging Fly.
Aren’t literary magazines for people who write stuff that’s hard to read?
Absolutely not. Danielle McLaughlin says she credits the Stinging Fly with enabling her to be a writer today, “something that would once have seemed as remote a possibility as becoming an astronaut”, while Anne Enright says, when people ask her how to break into publishing, she tells them “try there first”.
Scots poet 'hounded' by Scotland's snobby literary elite for her views on toxic trans debate
scottishdailyexpress.co.uk – Saturday May 13, 2023
Jenny Lindsay says Scotland's proud literary culture is in danger of being destroyed because too many well-paid authors are afraid to speak out – or even join in with the trans bullies
One of Scotland's leading writers has warned the country's literary culture is being "destroyed" by the failure to stand up to extremist trans activists.
Ayrshire poet Jenny Lindsay weighed into the debate following the high-profile row over SNP MP Joanna Cherry's cancellation by The Stand comedy club.
The venue – owned by fellow Nat Tommy Sheppard – was forced into a humiliating climbdown on Friday after she threatened legal action.
But Lindsay, who was abused by a "seemingly endless army of misogynists" after being labelled a "terf" by trans activists in 2019, said the "damage has already been done".
Writing in the Daily Mail, she said: "This is a systemic issue, affecting hundreds. As the knock-on effects of the Cherry episode show, 'cancel culture' affects more than just the person targeted. This is not a healthy atmosphere for any literary culture in a democracy."
George R.R. Martin Addresses Mini-Rooms, Calls Them An “Abomination”
deadline.com – Wednesday May 10, 2023
George R.R. Martin has no patience with mini-rooms and how they make it impossible for new writers to succeed.
In his latest blog post, the author talks about how he got his start in TV by writing for The Twilight Zone in 1985. Had it not been for the old system where writers worked their way up, he never would have learned how to actually make a series.
“For the first fourteen years of my career, I wrote only prose; a few novels, and lots of stories for Analog, Asimov’s, and various other SF magazines and anthologies. Much as I enjoyed television, I never dreamt of writing for it until 1985, when CBS decided to launch a new version of The Twilight Zone, and executive producer Phil DeGuere invited me to write an episode for them. A freelance script; that was how you began back then. I decided to give it a shot… and Phil and his team liked what I did. So much so that within days of delivery, I got an offer to come on staff. Before I quite knew what had happened, I was on my way to LA with a six-week deal as a Staff Writer, at the Guild minimum salary, scripts against. (In the 80s, Staff Writer was the lowest rung on the ladder. You could tell, because it was the only job with “writer” in the title).”
What Teaching Shakespeare Taught Me About Writing Horror
lithub.com – Monday May 8, 2023
Titus Andronicus May Be Bloody, but the Scottish Play and Othello Are Psychological Horror Perfection
A desolate moor, haunted by incomprehensible supernatural beings. Chains rattling in a dark castle, ghosts prowling the ramparts. A grisly corpse, hands chopped off and tongue sliced out. For any horror-lovers, whether the Gothic classics or the contemporary greats, these tropes will ring familiar.
They come, of course, from Shakespeare.
In fact, after more than a decade of teaching his work, I’ve come to see Shakespeare—at least when he’s writing tragedies—as primarily a horror writer. He might perhaps be the most significant influence in the entire English language to the Gothic, and consequently the modern, horror tradition.
On the surface, no play epitomizes this more than his first tragedy, the grisly Titus Andronicus. It is the Saw franchise of Elizabethan theatre, filled with as much shock and gore as Shakespeare could possibly have packed into a single play. As well as a full complement of stabbings, hangings, and beheadings, the audience is treated to Aaron being buried up to his neck until he starves to death, seeing Lavinia’s hands removed and tongue cut out, watching on as Alarbus’s arms and legs are cut off and he is thrown into a fire, and finally, Shakespeare delivers the coup-de-grace as Chiron and Demetrius are baked into a pie and then fed to their mother. Let it not be said that gore is a new thing in popular entertainment.
Get the free newsletter | Submit a news item or article | Get Writers' News for your website
