Welcome…

Any of you who read my introduction letter last month

THE WORLD OF WRITING

This month the challenges in Writing Land include drizzle, dysentery and absqualated hornswogglers, discovered by Derek Hudson

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…

All’s fair

The world’s biggest booktrade fest provides food for thought for Michael Allen

Per fect pitch

Give your freelance writing the best chance of success by taking Sophie Beal’s advice on pitching feature articles to editors

What works for you

As Margaret James makes her writing resolutions for the year ahead, she shares inspiring nuggets from authors about the importance of finding your own way of working

Invoicing INSTRUCTIONS

If you write for money, you need to make arrangements for payment. Simon Whaley dots the Is and crosses the Ts when it comes to issuing an invoice.

TRUCK STOP

Lorraine Mace thought she’d loads of time to file her copy – until a road trip turned into the journey from hell

On Writing

Tony Rossiter explores great words from great writers

From the OTHE SIDE R OF THE DESK

Agent Piers Blofeld is disturbed by writers losing out to internet piracy

ASK A LITERARY CONSULTANT

How do you juggle different points of view in your novel? Editorial consultant Helen Corner-Bryant offers some guidelines

Uncovering media bias

How can you get to the facts about current events when different media outlets report from differing perspectives? Tarja Moles explains how to see though media bias

BEHIND THE TAPE

Expert advice to get the details right in your crime novel, from serving police officer Lisa Cutts

PDFS PLEASE

Greta Powell looks at working with the increasingly popular pdf format

GLOBAL DIGITAL MARKET

A new root to readers

FLASHES

The Garden magazine from the Royal Horticultural Society

UK DIVERSITY MARKET

Diverse and proud

Audio files

• The Icepick podcast is a ‘literary magazine for your

From screen to screen

Proving new publishing avenues are becoming ever more

GLOBAL CHILDREN’S MARKET

School rules

The Booker winner and Not

The 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been won

Novel Ideas

Lynne Hackles says you can always find new ones

FLASHES

Visordown is a wide-ranging website from Crash Media

Paws for this writing prize

Creative Writing For All is inviting entries with the

Wolf coming out of the darkness

Organised by Write Out Loud in association with Wolverhampton

Changing climatic conditions

There is a $1,000 first prize in the Everything Changes

GLOBAL SPECFIC MARKET

Positive Compelling SF wanted

INTERNATIONAL ZINE SCENE

Carte Blanche is a triannual, Quebecbased non-profit

FLASHES

Jake Tucker edits One Magazine, a free monthly local

UK CRIME MARKET

Time for crime

Groovy prose poems

Tongues & Grooves Prose Poem Prize is open for

Slide in here

The magazine arm of Nine Arches Press, Under the Radar

Keep it short for LISP

Entries of 300-word fiction are invited for the London

A poetic snapshot

Entries are invited for the Snapshot Press Books Awards

GLOBAL MYSTERY MARKET

Get lucky with Black Cat

Enter the Interpreter’s House

With a record of having published over 1,000 writers

Mine the details

A tiny detail can lead to so much more, says Patrick Forsyth

FLASHES

Dawn Neesom is the editor of the Daily Star. If you

UK LITERARY MARKET

Think of your reader

Book Talk

I like to relax with a book at bedtime but usually

Unacceptable practices

The Society of Authors and The Bookseller have joined

UK MAGAZINE MARKET

A moment of mindfulness

UK LITERARY MARKET

This way may be a wise way

A prize retreat

The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition

STRENGTHEN YOUR FICTION

Hone your prose to make it really effective with a writing workout from author and publisher Kerrie Flanagan

Little (story) boxes

Build up your full-length fiction with workmanlike advice from Adrian Magson

Under the microscope

James McCreet scrutinises the first 300 words of a reader’s novella manuscript

In need of a trim

A reader is worried that her agent’s advice to write concisely will alter her style, but Jane Wenham Jones advises her to embrace the edit

MYTH versus REALITY (part two)

Amy Sparkes busts some common preconceptions about the life of a children’s writer

HORROR COMES HOME

How do you ramp up the fear factor in a domestic setting? Alex Davis offers a guide to writing home invasion stories

In The Mood

Helen M Walters looks at the way Ambrose Bierce uses weather to create mood and atmosphere in Beyond the Wall

Murder in mind

Rizzoli and Isles creator Tess Gerritsen talks murder, medicine, movie making and memory with Tina Jackson

How I got published

The author’s debut was actually her sixth novel, she tells Dolores Gordon-Smith

The style & technique of WILKIE COLLINS

Tony Rossiter takes a look at the first full-length English detective novel

STUART MACBRIDE

The Scottish crime writer shares his fi ve 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

CRIME FILE

h2@Crime writer Matthew Sullivan talks bright ideas

NEIL SPRING

The author of ghost fiction shares his spooky stories with Margaret James

My Writing day OMAR EL AKKAD

The journalist and author needs lots of thinking time before he starts to write, he tells Lynne Hackles

Red Editing Pen

Each month, we give you a few sentences which would

Kermesse

I t had become tradition fairly quickly although I

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Inspire your group to embrace the power of the press with an activity, from Julie Phillips

The best medicine

Alison Chisholm chortles as she examines the winners of Writing Magazine’s competition for funny poems

A line to new life

Poet Alison Chisholm looks at a poem inspired by a line from another poet’s work

Poetry from A to Z

Poet Alison Chisholm guides you through the language of poetry

Poetry in practice

Read widely to improve your own poetry, says Doris Corti

Sand, Stone and a Shiver

‘Let’s go down.’ Where? I wonder. Despite hands like

New £5,000 award for Northern writer

The Northern Book Prize is a new award created by independent

Call for Kelpies

The Kelpies Prize 2018, for unpublished Scottish children’s

A month in the sun

The Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship 2018 is inviting

Criminal magic

Otter Libris is an independent publisher of speculative

Fully booked

Fancy running your own bookshop? Want a unique holiday?

Medical verse

The 2018 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

UK MAGAZINE MARKET

GQ, edited since 1999 by Dylan Jones, is the UK’s leading

FLASHES

Jonathan Webb edits Today’s Railways UK, a monthly

GLOBAL ONLINE MARKET

The Verge is a hugely popular US website covering the

Tell a gothic tale

Theatre Cloud’s Tell a Tale competition invites gothic

Chip away!

Running for the third year, the ChipLitFest Short Story

Sun seeking

Entries are invited for the University of Sunderland

UK FICTION MARKET

Louise Walters Books is a newly bundled indie boutique

Becoming Gatsby

The real-life Gatsby estate and mansion is for sale.

It’s a Funny Old World

’GK Chesterton would pick up his bow and shoot arrows

FLASHES

Interzone is the UK’s longestrunning science fiction

GLOBAL LITERARY MARKET

Although submissions of fiction, non fiction and poetry

Express your values creatively

The John Byrne Award invites 16-25 year olds living

A Nobel return

Following last year’s controversial decision to honour

Book boom

Over 750,000 books were self-published in the US in

Asterix and the massive windfall

The original cover art for the classic Asterix graphic

UK FICTION MARKET

Epoque Press is a new independent literary publishing

The price is right

Patrick Forsyth on price setting and value for money

FLASHES

Clare Dowdy edits Furnace, a quarterly online magazine

GLOBAL MOUNTAIN MARKET

Whitefish Review is a US print journal which publishes

Look north

The Northern Writers’ Awards from New Writing North

UK SPECFIC MARKET

Angry Robot Books, one of the UKs leading imprints

Verse for Ver

Ver Poets are inviting entries for the Ver Poets Open

And another thing…

‘Be ruthless about protecting writing days, ie, do

FLASHES

Amateur Gardening weekly magazine now awards a gardening

GLOBAL FICTION MARKET

Founded in 2014, Fiery Seas Publishing has a catalogue

Get lucky with Lucy

The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize welcomes entries for

Backyard beckons

The Patchwork Raven is an indie publisher based in