It’s the season for spectator sports, and I don’t mean baseball or playoff hockey. I’m talking about the book awards season, which in my opinion, qualifies as a spectator sport. It’s almost always entertaining, there’s usually an underdog to cheer for, a favourite, a healthy amount of suspense and hoopla, and sometimes even intrigue and dirty pool. Read more
Category: On Publishing
In the Company of Writers
Along with the mid-December blizzards here in Grey County, there’s been a flurry of activity around the launch of a new book.
This blog, I promise, will be the last sentimental gushing from me regarding the Ascribe Writers’ recent project of publishing the short story collection, Beneath the Surface. But gush I must, for just a few paragraphs.
Completing the story-writing marked the end of the project in one sense but once the books were in our hands, the journey continued to unfold. Read more
A dream come true.
From the first word we ever typed, penned, or scribbled, all of us who have written anything have always dreamed of one day seeing our work published.
And that’s what happened this week for The Ascribe Writers: the book launch of the first anthology of our short stories, Beneath the Surface: A Collection of Grey-Bruce Stories. Read more
Married to My Novel
I’m not sure where, but I’ve heard this before: A poem is an affair, a short-story is a relationship and a novel is a marriage. I couldn’t agree more. I’m always amazed so many people write novels considering the time and commitment it takes. And even when we think one novel is done and we’re ready to move on to the next, we may still be revisiting the old novel, working on other projects all while we try and get something going on the new novel.
I’ve been “between” novels for a couple years now. That doesn’t mean I’m not writing, just that I’m not firmly planted in one project or another. Not to mention things come up, other things to be written. I tried my hand at a non-fiction essay, something I hadn’t done in a number of years. I wrote small “story-starters” for the Ontario Writers’ Conference, I wrote blogs, and I wrote letters, lots of them. Read more
Grey-Bruce Story Collection Hits Shelves Soon
The Ascribe Writers are pleased to announce the publication of their first collection of writing by our members entitled Beneath the Surface: A Collection of Grey-Bruce Stories.
Within the pages of this anthology, you will find short stories with subject matters that will appeal to almost everyone: history, romance, fantasy, science fiction, animals, relationships, parenthood, holiday celebrations, antique cars, aging, murder, gardening, werewolves, dragons, health, religion and more.
This book features 14 stories from nine local contributors; all stories varying in different writing styles, genres and topics, as well as several time periods (historical, contemporary and futuristic). In addition to the short stories, the collection includes a foreward by Andrew Armitage, a local author, historian and former librarian who believes in preserving stories about the Grey-Bruce area that would be lost to us, if we didn’t write them down and share with others.
Here is a sneak peek at what is inside this new collection of stories: Read more
The Scary Synopsis
On this morning of Hallowe’en, it seems appropriate to write about something scary. The synopsis! If you’re like me, writing a synopsis for your novel is a frightening task. Just staring at that blank screen makes my neck hair bristle.
The synopsis is a one or two page summary of your novel that is submitted to a literary agent. Some agents require a summary in the form of condensed chapters. How much detail do they want to know? How does your story begin? How does it end? What are the plot twists, and who are the characters? Where does it take place?
Let’s shine a flashlight on the synopsis so we know exactly what we’re dealing with. Read more
World’s Largest Opportunity to Pitch to Top Literary Agents
Last week, I jumped into my “big girl” pants and bravely marched into New York City like I owned the place (even though I was really just a scaredy-pants writer) and attended my first Thrillerfest Conference. What an amazing week! This was easily the BEST writing conference I’ve ever attended. The writing workshops and panels filled with talented famous authors were incredible, as was my added bonus of attending a whole day workshop at FBI Headquarters.
During the week, the International Thriller Writers hosted a special event on Thursday afternoon called Pitchfest. Imagine between 300 to 400 writers who anxiously want an agent to represent them for their yet-to-be published novel, all standing in somewhat of a meandering line in the hallway outside of the five ballrooms on the third floor of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. It’s a huge crowd and it seriously makes your tummy queasy, just thinking about elbowing these people out of the way to talk to an agent, who will probably hate your idea anyway and say: “No. I’m not interested in your novel.”
All I could think about was trying not to cry, when I got rejected. Read more
Behind the Thoughts of a Contest Judge
Truthfully, I’m a writer most of the time, sometimes I’m an editor and occasionally I judge writing contests.
I’ve judged numerous contests, but during the past few weeks of May, I’ve had the honour of helping judge both, a short story contest and a novel contest. I’ve discovered some important things that make a winning submission and also a few things that turn judges off immediately.
Here are a few things judges check for when judging a writing contest: Read more