Welciome…

Labouring long and hard over our finely wrought prose

THE WORLD OF WRITING

Sniffing the leather, digging the dirt, rating the greats, laying to rest and poopoo-ing Pooh… it’s a wide, weird world of writing as Derek Hudson discovers

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

We want to hear your news and views on the writing world, your advice for fellow writers – and don’t forget to tell us what you would like to see featured in a future issue…

Away from your desk

Get out of your garret for some upcoming activities and places to visit

Editorial calendar

Strong forward planning will greatly improve your chances with freelance submissions. Here are some themes to consider for the coming months.

WRITERSʼ WEB WATCH

WM‘s resident webcrawler suggests honing your social media writing to create the best impression

WORD worries

PC trainer Greta Powell helps you keep up to date with writing software Word

Helpline

Your writing problems solved with advice from Diana Cambridge

What’s the message

Know what you’re trying to achieve with your novel, urges Michael Allen

From the OTHE SIDE R OF THE DESK

Agent Piers Blofeld thinks self-publishing is not necessarily a good option for authors

ASK A LITERARY CONSULTANT

Literary consultant Helen Corner-Bryant considers the options for a writer whose fantasy novel comes in at a weighty 225,000 words

Building a buzz

Advice on building a vibrant and lasting online sales presence from Bookollective digital marketing expert Aimee Coveney

EXCLUSIVE ONE-TO-ONE ADVICE

WM and Bookollective have teamed up to offer a FREE one-to-one advice session with a digital marketing specialist, editor, designer and publicist for one lucky WM reader.

PROJECT failure

What do you do when a project fails through no fault of your own? Simon Whaley asks three writers how they pick up the pieces.

THE TEN HUNDRED WORD TEST

Technically precise language doesn’t always make your writing easier to read. Science writer Karl Beecher explores how using a smaller pool of words forces you to consider each one more carefully

Productive PROCRASTINATION

Keeping your nose to the grindstone isn’t good for your health or writing. Make time for downtime, and make the most of it, with advice from Sophie Beal

SENSORY inspiration

Stimulate your senses and refresh your creative muscles with inspiring ideas from Kerrie Flanagan

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE MAD… PART 2

Writers need to keep their heads in the clouds but their feet on the ground. Learn how professionals balance delusion and pragmatism, imagination and reality, with Steven Chapman

A lasting legacy

The times change but people are always people, historical drama author Katherine Webb tells Tina Jackson

Creating the PERFECT CRIME

The basic building blocks of crime fiction, explained by creative writing tutor Henry Sutton, aka author Harry Brett

Novel Ideas

Selling your work is more than a business need, says Lynne Hackles

SEEING THE big picture

Author and lecturer James McCreet peers through the lens in search of patterns and universal lessons

THOROUGHLY MODERN myths

Explore the timeless appeal of myths, legends and fairytales with Margaret James

I wish I’d known…

Novelists tell us what they wished they’d known right at the start of their careers.

When characters collide

Characters drive story in a modern classic, explored by Helen M Walters

I, Reboot?

The idea of artificial intelligence, from sentient robots to web-connected hive minds, has always played a significant role in SF, but there is still potential to explore new developments, says Alex Davis

On writing

Tony Rossiter explores great words from great writers

SELF service

Writing demands attention and a certain insularity, but don’t let it tarnish your relationships, urges Adrian Magson

Funny talk

Funny in real life and funny in print are different skills, says Jane Wenham-Jones

NINETY-PERCENT MISTAKES

Indie author Mike Bodnar shares his valuable experience of recording an audiobook

Too good to be TRUE

Some lives are too exciting to be credible, Lorraine Mace discovers

How I got published

Suzanne Jackson’s The Beguiler is published by the new Tickety Boo Press imprint Venus Ascending. She shares her path to publication with Dolores Gordon-Smith

The style & technique of JILLY COOPER

Tony Rossiter examines the glamorous world and racy prose of the Rutshire Chronicles

Shelf life: VERONICA HENRY

Scriptwriter turned novelist Veronica Henry shares her five favourite reads with Judith Spelman

SUBSCRIBER SPOTLIGHT

Share your writing success stories. If you subscribe to Writing Magazine and would like to feature here, email Tina Jackson, tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk

CIRCLES ‘ ROUNDUP

If your writing group would like to feature here, whether you need new members, have an event to publicise or to suggest tips for other groups, email Tina Jackson, tjackson@warnersgroup.co.uk

Spousal SUPPORT

Children‘s authors Charlotte and Adam Guillain discuss their writing process, individually and as a husband and wife team, with Amy Sparkes

CRIME FILE

National newspaper journalist Sabine Durrant discusses her third novel, Lie with Me, with Chris High

XAN BROOKS

Journalist Xan Brooks left a staff role at the Guardian to get his first draft down, he tells Adrian Magson

JANE ISAAC

The crime author’s working routine has changed since she began writing full-time, she tells Lynne Hackles

WIN! £500 IN CASH PRIZES & PUBLICATION

1,000-word SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Until the End of the World

You said that you would wait for me forever. I keep

What‘s your EMERGENCY?

Learn the value of research by workshopping designated roles, with an exercise from Julie Phillips

SUBSCRIBER

Embed three words into your story for this month, as

BYE, BYE, BABY (Baby Goodbye)

Jennifer Moore ‘s fiction has appeared in numerous

Red Editing Pen

Each month, we give you a few sentences which would all benefit from some careful use of your red editing pen. As writers, and regular readers of Writing Magazine, you should not find any of these too difficult. But if you would welcome a little help, you can always check out Richard Bell ‘s suggested solutions below.

Battle lines

Judge Meg Marsden highlights the winning poems from our Bayeux Tapestry Poetry Competition

A GREEK TRAGEDY

Alison Chisholm visits a familiar poetic destination to explore a contemporary tragic theme

Poetry in practice

Think about audience appeal to write performance poetry, says Doris Corti

Poetry from A to Z

Poet Alison Chisholm guides you through the language of poetry

Finding the funny bone

Polish your comic poems for this month‘s competition so they scrub up nicely, advises Alison Chisholm

The nature of a showcase

Take the initiative to showcase, and thus sell, your work at every opportunity, says Patrick Forsyth

Could You Be A Writer?

Marian Ashcroft talks with Susie Busby, Principal of The Writers Bureau, Britain‘s largest independent writing school, about what it takes to be a writer.

How do you BOOKMARK a website?

Keep track of online resources using ‘social bookmarking ‘, as Tarja Moles explains

The right view

How does Google affect travel writers? Patrick Forsyth explains

Fly off on a journey

The Dragonfly Tea Short Story Competition 2017 is open

Poems for the Isle of Arran

The competition is awarded by the Arran Theatre and

Return of the Kitschies

The Kitschies, the literary awards for the year‘s best

Darke stage plays

Honouring playwright Nick Darke, who died in 2005,

Are you the young writer of the year?

The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer

Get your poems write for Winchester

The Winchester Poetry Prize 2017 is inviting entries.

UK MAGAZINE MARKET

Soul & Spirit is a spiritual lifestyle and mindfulness

FLASHES

Patrick Galbraith is the new editor of the weekly Shooting

UK LITERARY MARKET

One of Scotland‘s leading literary magazines, Chapman

Green gawpers

East Anglian arts organisation Flipside has launched

Weigh in at Wigtown

Entries are invited for the Wigtown Poetry Competition

Writing in recovery

A Wild and Precious Life is a forthcoming anthology

GLOBAL MAGAZINE MARKET

Now in its nineteenth year, Cicada is an awardwinning

Revisit the past for Cornish comps

The Royal Cornwall Museum is inviting entries of published

It‘s a Funny Old World

Whether you are grateful to the substance, or looking

FLASHES

The Jackal is a free luxury magazine for men with ‘stylish

GLOBAL MAGAZINE MARKET

Consequence is an international literary annual focusing

Flights of fancy

Bradford on Avon Arts Festival Poetry Competition 2017

Well, well, Wells

The Wells Festival of Literature creative writing competitions

Get a break at Take a Break

Take a Break magazine accepts filler submissions online

UK BOOK MARKET

Publishing in black and white

Can you win this Canterbury contest?

The Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year Competition

You otter enter this competition

The bi-annual Dorset Fiction Award is inviting short

FLASHES

Camping and Caravanning, the monthly magazine for members

GLOBAL LITERARY MARKET

Get your Goat, people

A successful sequence

The Overton Poetry Prize is inviting entries of poetry

Don‘t Ms out if you ‘re a woman writer

Mslexia is inviting entries for the Women‘s Poetry

UK MAGAZINE MARKET

A purr-fect opportunity

The moon on a poetry stick

The Battered Moons Poetry Competition 2017 is open

Poems for the common good

The Bread and Roses Poetry Award is a new poetry prize

And another thing…

‘One of the major misconceptions about poetry is that

FLASHES

The Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Photographic

GLOBAL SPECFIC MARKET

See into Blind Spot

Capital verse

The London Magazine Poetry Prize is open for entries.

Creative futures for under-represented writers

The Creative Future Literary Awards invite entries

GLOBAL HORROR MARKET

Binge on brains

GLOBAL CHILDREN ‘S MARKET

A division of Penguin Young Readers Group, the award

FLASHES

Nigel Harris is managing editor of Rail Magazine for

GLOBAL SPECFIC MARKET

Get up to no good

Write in flight

US small press Pole to Pole Publishing is reading for

Pen entries for PENfro

PENfro Open Poetry Competition 2017 is inviting entries

An eye on the prize

The seventh Eyelands Short Story Competition is inviting

UK MAGAZINE MARKET

Get the Scoop scoop

Write freely

Entries are invited for the Rhyme & Reason Writing

You‘d be mad to submit

Mad Scientists is a fun US print magazine in which

Opening up

Bottlecap Press is a new small press committed to authors

FLASHES

Parrots, a monthly magazine for psittacinophiles, is

UK FICTION MARKET

Progressive publisher

New imprint from leading US publisher

Abrams, the US publisher best known for the Diary of

Going underground

Chthonic: Weird Tales of Inner Earth is to be an anthology

INTERNATIONAL ZINE SCENE

Islanded Quarterly is a new UK zine paying writers

FLASHES

That‘s Life magazine is looking for ‘silly snaps and

GLOBAL SELF-HELP MARKET

Make a change

Opportunity for young Shetland writers

The theme for this year‘s Young Shetland Writer, open

A year in legendary lit

The Legendary Lit competition is the inaugural creative

Prizes for newcomers

The Fiction Desk is inviting entries for The Newcomer

GLOBAL HORROR MARKET

An online horror and dark fiction magazine Nightmare

Children and animals

Young writers and artists aged 7-18 and living in Scotland

FLASHES

The next quarterly 1,000 Word Challenge is for 1,000-word

GLOBAL ROMANCE MARKET

Lore Lush Publishing is a digital-first publisher of

A new look for ebooks

A new app for Apple devices, Oolipo promises to ‘unlock

Book Talk

‘A famous London bookshop recently held a discussion

UK SPECFIC MARKET

Venus Ascending is a new imprint of Tickety Boo Press

Pamphlets for Prole

The competition, which is open to new and established

Prospect of excellence for short story writers

The Royal Society of Literature is inviting entries