Hear lots and lots and lots of writers in Hove - get to meet them too!

National Libraries Day 2012 is on Saturday 4th February 2012, and in Hove Library you will get to meet a whole bunch of talented local writers in the Periodicals Room from 1:30pm to 4:30pm.
There will be 11 of us: 

Kate Harrison writes for adults and teenagers - author of the Secret Shopper series

Sarah Rayner -  her new novel The Two Week Wait   is released on February 2nd. Her last one sold over 220 copies...(sorry, that should be 22000)

Susanna Quinn - journalist, ghost writer, Mum. Her first novel Glass Geishas is out next month. (Isn't that a brilliant title and yes, it is set in Japan...)

Lizzie Enfield - journalist and regular contributor to national newspapers and magazines, her  latest novel, Uncoupled is out on Friday February 3rd

Araminta Hall - author of Everything and Nothing  ("takes the Mary Poppins myth and turns it into a menacing tale")

Simon Toyne - author of the Sanctus thriller series 

Julia Crouch - author of the very sexy, very scary Cuckoo (reviewed on this site - go hunt for it), 

Mark Barrowcliffe  author of six novels - latest Wolfangel under the name of MD Lachlan

Dorothy Koomson -  author of seven novels including The Woman He Loved Before

Jo Rees - author of many best sellers including Platinum and Forbidden Pleasures

and me Bridget Whelan. Yep, not sure how I got into this illusterous line up either ....but at least A Good Confession is on the shelves of Hove library (actually hope it's not, hope someone is reading it....) 

Fiction for children - free competition

Commonword - a Manchester based organised with a mission to help new writers - has launched a competition for unpublished authors of children's fiction. (They have a very specific definition of what that means, but basically if you have already published something in another field - as long as it is not a novel for children - you should be ok. Read all the conditions thoroughly before submitting though...)

What they want

(Up to the) First 4000 words of a children's novel already written. Synopsis. Biography.

When they want it

February 29 2012

Special feature

The writing has to "embrace ethnic diversity" OR the author must "through their own ethnicity and culture."

Who can submit

Over 16

Resident in UK

Unpublished - read the terms and condititions

What you get (fingers crossed and a lot of hard work)

£500 cash prize

professional mentoring 

£100 worth of Puffin books of the winner’s choice.

Honour and Glory. (Although it won't help you at Sainsbury's check-out, it could be just what you need to interest an agent or publisher) 

Free Joyce

January 13th 2012 is the 70th anniversary of James Joyce's death. That means his writing is no longer protected by European copyright law so expect an explosion of new productions and adaptions .
Joyce was a notoriously slow writer.  There's many variations of this legendary anecdote, here's one...
     "Productive day today Mr Joyce?"
     " . . . Yes, I completed three sentences."

And I've just come across this one.
     "So, what did you do during the war, Mr Joyce?"
     " . . . I wrote Ulysses. What did you do?"

A website for writers and readers

Read about a desert closing (yep, like Sainsbury's) on today's contribution to Paragraph Planet and well done to Brenda - one of my former students.