Writing Magazine

In all my years writing these letters as my Last Job for the month, I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite as relieved as I am this month to be able to say Happy New Year. As usual for this first issue of the year, we’ve canvassed some of our industry in

Publisher: Collette Lloyd, email: collette.lloyd@warnersgroup.co.uk Editor: Jonathan Telfer, email: jtelfer@writersnews.co.uk Senior designer: Nathan Ward, email: nathanw@warnersgroup.co.uk Marketing: Lauren Freeman, email: lauren.freeman@warnersgrou

An editorial director at HarperCollins, and author of four novels, with The Wild Girls due out in April @Phoebe_A_Morgan I think it’s safe to say 2020 has been a curveball for us all. Thankfully, the publishing industry has got through it, and the to

Find out what the SoA could do for you at www.societyofauthors.org and get 15 months for the price of 12 with the code WRITINGMAG The SoA advisory team reviews thousands of contracts sent in by members each year for confidential, clause-byclause cont

I just wanted to say a massive, massive thank you. I’ve been cluelessly stumbling about for a long time trying to find somewhere to place my short stories – and then I discovered Writing Magazine’s invaluable Writers’ News section. I saw a call for s

With a past as a probation officer and a partner who is an ex-murder detective, there is no question that Mari Hannah’s crime fiction bears the stamp of authenticity. But it also involves the kind of emotion you would expect in an epic romance. In he

• 3 April: Coal was rationed in the UK during the coal strike that began in March.• Classic German Expressionist silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari had it US premiere with Englishlanguage dialogue cards.• American mathematician and aerospa

Last month I took you through how to write a cover letter in preparation for your submission package. This month it’s all about the sixparagraph synopsis. Authors seem to dread writing these but if you look at it objectively – knowing what vital elem

Writing this at the beginning of December, the UK news was packed full of unfortunate headlines; Arcadia group went into administration and Debenhams cut their losses, and their staff. As this spells the end of the Great British high street as we kno

• Never query until you’re sure that you are submitting the best possible version of your story. This usually means that you’ve edited your manuscript several times and had people (outside of your very proud best friend and adoring mom) read and crit

‘When I read the submission draft of How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, I was drawn by the immediacy of Lala’s story, the awful brutality that she, her mother and grandmother all endure in different ways, and their stoicism and honesty and ca

The grey metal lockers of the changing rooms slam with a familiar rhythm.1 Some staff carry the end of work day weariness2 in their shoulders, 3others give a cheery ‘See you tomorrow.’ Never to me.4 If I had an identifier it would be “the quiet dark

There’s some very good writing here. It’s difficult to capture the natural rhythms of thought or speech, but that effect is achieved in the juxtaposition of short and longer sentences. It feels like the character is talking directly to us, which make

The Hive Creative Writers started in 2015 when Sana (our founder) couldn’t find a suitable group where she could share her writing and so decided to set up one herself, writes Stacey Harrison. ‘We have ten regular members, some of whom have been with

‘My latest novel, Mine, has been described by award-winning author Kit de Waal as: “A heart-breaking account of love and loss told by a great storyteller”,’ writes subscriber Alison Knight. ‘This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever written because i

‘I was a features writer at my local newspaper, The Chester Chronicle, when I was contacted by Janet Holt from Derbyshire, asking if I could help her to write her life story,’ writes subscriber Helen Parker. ‘She sent me an initial lovely, light-hear

‘We (Anne Forrest and Judy Price), both left school at fifteen with little opportunity for further education until decades later when Judith studied for a BA, and Anne for a Masters, in English Literature with Creative Writing at Wales’ Bangor Univer

‘As we enter a new year we all doubtless look back on a very different kind of year from what we expected and wanted,’ writes Patrick Forsyth. ‘As one of Writing Magazine’s regular contributors, I’ve certainly used some of my lockdown time constructi

‘The two highlights of my lockdown life have been: the arrival of my copy of Writing Magazine, welcomed like an old and trusted friend, and the publication of Fame & Fortune, the eighth book in The Victorian Detectives series, writes subscriber Carol

‘I am very proud to announce the publication of my debut horror novel, Deep Level, and it’s all thanks to Writing Magazine,’ writes subscriber Rhydderch Wilson. ‘In April 2019 I wrote to WM asking if there was still a market for novellas. You publish

SUBSCRIPTION FORM PRICE FREEZE! PRICE FREEZE! Please complete the order form (photocopies accepted) and return to our simple freepost address: Writing Magazine FREEPOST: WARNERSGROUP (WM) • FREE delivery direct to your door every month• SAVE £10 on t

‘At the beginning, I wish I’d known that it is easier to there. In fact, you can only edit words that are actually there. So, rather than obsess about every sentence being perfect as it lands on the page (because, unless you’re a genius, that’s not g

Last year, in a city park, I came across a children’s book, with a tag that said, ‘Whoever you are, this is for you. Happy Book Giving Day!’ I counted six children’s books in the park that day. International Book Giving Day takes place on 14 February

I miss my sister. And I do not knowhow she could leave our green and pleasant realmto feel the weight of air-borne gravity,to move in two planes only and not knowever again the sudden surge of pleasure,the sensual thrill that thrusting upward brings,

It was duskwhen I sprang from the towerhigh over the Cambridgeshire fens.Poised at first on pointed toes,arms out-stretched, I dived ….No practised art this, no feathered bird,no death wish, just a lust for flight.No engine, but the beating of my hea

It might be a dark day – either the weather or some situation causing this. Either way, you have that urge to escape the darkness and write a poem. But although you feel a need to do this perhaps you don’t know what to write about? I have often felt

Q I have an idea for a police procedural set in 1989. It involves a body discovered on school premises in violent circumstances. Based on your knowledge of police investigations how would the police handle such a situation? Also, what would female po

Win a £1,000 prize for an 800-word story featuring a secret location in the Globe Soup Winter 2020 Flash Fiction Competition. Writers entering the competition will be sent the details of the competition when they have paid their entry fee. All entrie

The Correspondent styles itself as a journalism platform focused on constructive, in-depth reporting. Managing editor Eliza Anyangwe says the site places a high value on diversity and wants to impact journalism itself with an approach to stories that

If you are an unrepresented writer over the age of eighten and have an unpublished crime, mystery or thriller novel, the Crucible First Novel Award could help, offering an introduction of your novel to a number of established agents. The award is not

First prize is £1,000 in the New Welsh Writing Awards 2021. The prize is open to fiction and non-fiction, as long as it has a Welsh theme or setting. Entries should be 5,000-30,000 words. The winner will receive an e-publishing deal and feedback from

Entries are invited for The Caterpillar Poetry Prize 2021. Win a €1,000 prize for the best poem for children in the contest, which will be judged by Michael Morpurgo. The annual competition from The Caterpillar journal for children is for a single or

The National Rhys Davies Short Story Competition is inviting entries from Welsh writers. Swansea University’s Cultural Institute has relaunched the competition for Welsh writers, which first ran in 1991. The National Rhys Davies Short Story Competiti

Jo Fletcher Books is part of the Quercus family. Jo proudly states that the imprint is ‘a small but perfectly formed list’, publishing ‘critically acclaimed, award-winning and unputdownable novels right across the fantastical spectrum, encompassing e

Muswell Press is inviting submissions for an anthology of Queer writing, Queer Life, Queer Love. The Queer Life, Queer Love anthology will be dedicated to the memory of Lucy-Jack Reynolds, the trans daughter of Muswell Press publisher Sarah Beal. Luc

The 2021 Bristol Short Story Prize is open for entries. The competition, which is run in association with Tangent Books, has a first prize of £1,000. There is a second prize of £500, and a third prize of £250. Seventeen further shortlisted writers wi

Bridgend Writers’ Circle Annual Open Competition offers £100, £50 and £30 prizes for short stories, 1,500-1,800 words. Entry fee is £5, £2.50 each additional, and the closing date is 1 March. Website: www.bridgendwriters.org Bloomsbury has acquired t

Harriet Shephard is the editor of the online Women & Golf magazine. ‘Women & Golf is a thirty-year-old brand focused on women’s golf, from crowd level to amateur,’ said Harriet. ‘We cover tournaments, but also subjects that affect club golfers, inclu

The Block describes itself as the leading research, analysis and news brand ‘in the digital asset space’. Founded in 2018 and based in NYC, The Block’s team is spread across seven time zones, covers global cryptocurrencies and stories about blockchai

Spirit & Destiny magazine (Bauer) are currently closed to fiction submissions. Features editor, Tracie Couper said, ‘I have a fair few commissioned Spiritual Fictions still to use and therefore feel it wouldn’t be fair to commission any more right no

The Booth editorial team publishes ‘four titles of original literature on the first Friday of every month’ and ‘two print issues yearly, usually in summer and winter’ Booth is published by the staff, students, faculty, and alumni from the Butler Univ

Soft Punk is an international arts and culture quarterly, based in London and New York. The editorial team ‘are intentionally agnostic of a “house style” and liberated from dogmatic conceptions of brow’. The team ‘curate emotive, insightful, and occa

In the biggest shakeup of the industry in years, the ‘big five’ publishers are about to become the ‘big four’, as Penguin Random House (itself part of the giant German media company, Bertelsmann) is in the process of purchasing Simon & Schuster from

Previously unpublished articles that are ‘well written and thoughtful’ are wanted for Australia based Quadrant magazine which sees itself as a ‘journal of ideas, essays, literature, poetry and historical and political debate’ and has a founding bias

Grain Magazine is a quarterly Canadian literary journal published by the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild and is based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The title was launched in 1973 and accepts fiction, literary nonfiction and poetry from writers anywhere in

Lucent Dreaming is a UK print and online quarterly publishing ‘beautiful, strange and surreal short stories, poetry and artwork’ from writers worldwide. They team like ‘fiction that is readable and surreal, especially writing that embraces and explor

Project Northmoor is the name of a campaign to purchase JRR Tolkien’s Oxford home, the house where he wrote The Hobbit and most of The Lord of The Rings. Tolkien lived with his wife, Edith, and family at 20 Northmoor Road, Oxford from 1930-47. Author

Tiny Fox Press is an independent publisher, primarily of speculative fiction. ‘We mainly have a strong scifi/fantasy bend to all our works, but we do dabble in other genres occasionally (fun mysteries and historical fiction for example),’ said editor

Deep Overstock began simply as a journal to support booksellers who dreamed of writing. The editorial team, booksellers themselves, wanted to help their fellow frustrated writers. From this beginning grew the small press which now issues a quarterly

Welcoming unsolicited proposals for non-fiction and children’s books Gill Books work closely with new and more experienced writers to firstly discuss their project its viability and the develop of the manuscript. Their collaborative team will then co

If you are reading a book series over a long period of time as each new volume comes out, it is easy to forget what’s happened before. UK website Recaptains offer a solution, with a mission statement to ‘saving series one book at a time’. The site of

London-based Anamot Press is looking for submissions for its first anthology on queer experiences across borders and other stories told with no shame. Submit original, unpublished poems (up to three) and essays and short stories up to 3,000 words. Se

December magazine is a biannual US literary journal founded in Iowa City in 1958 by a group of poets, writers, and artists who declared, ‘We are humanists… far more concerned with people than dogmatic critical or aesthetic attitudes.’ To date it has

Chapeltown Books is a Manchester small press producing ‘beautiful books’. They publish children’s books, flash fiction anthologies and are looking for books for the Feisty Women series. Submissions are open for all imprints with specific guidelines f

Portal Books are launching a new imprint devoted to fantasy and science fiction. While all subgenres of speculative fiction will be considered, the editorial team of Taran Matharu (author of the multi-million selling Summoner series), Michael Miller

Queer Lit is a new UK online bookshop for readers of LGBTQ+books. Managing director Matthew Cornford said he had the idea to start Queer Lit after visiting ‘the biggest bookshop in the North’ and being shocked to discover it didn’t have an LGBTQ sect

Published three times a year in February, May and September, Poetry London features both acclaimed contemporary and new poets. The magazine has an editorial aim to encourage emerging poets and on average, a third of its pages contain work from poets

Australian publishers Gypsum Sound Tales specialise in short stories and novellas. They have two main publications, Colp and Thuggish Itch, which ‘allow… every author, no matter their experience or background, the opportunity to get their work out th

Prestigious and pro-active US indie Black Lawrence Press are offering $1,000 plus publication in The Big Moose Prize. The prize is for an unpublished novel by writers of any level and accepts traditional and other forms, including novels-in-stories,

Repeater Books publishes intelligent, radical books that present alternative thought for a wide readership. ‘We work across every genre and niche, the two connecting strands being that ours are books that we believe have to be in print, and that they

The Song Between Our Stars is to be a special one issue zine, an outlet for all those creative people frustrated by Covid-19. The editors want to showcase literary and artistic work created in 2020. They want storytelling about ‘listening, managing e

Small press Close 2 the Bone publishes novels and short stories. They need ‘gritty and interesting’ fiction across multiple genres, stories about ‘bank robberies gone bad, double-crossing bastards going at it, serial killers with a heart (maybe liter

Laxfield Literary Associates, working in association with Blake Friedman Agency, represents Norfolk and Suffolk writers, authors from under-represented backgrounds, and of particular interest, authors based in Africa and the Middle East. At the time

The Skyhorse Publishing editorial team call themselves ‘the fastest-growing small publisher in America’. They aim to ‘work hard, move fast, have fun, make money, and change lives for the better by publishing superior books on a wide range of topics f

The Cheshire Prize for Literature 2020 is inviting entries. This year’s competition for Cheshire writers is for writing themed around all aspects of the pandemic. There are four entry categories: short stories up to 1,500 words; poems up to 100 lines

Cahill Davis Publishing is a new independent digitalfirst publisher of full length commercial fiction in English, launched in October 2020. ‘CDP was born from a love for books, stemming from the weekend trips to the library that I took with my grandm

New York born and based author Raven Leilani has won the $50,000 Kirkus Prize For Fiction for her debut novel, Luster. Raven also won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, a remarkable double which establishes her as a major new figure in the US