Today I found myself on a trip into central Bristol for a meeting with a consultant for the Arts Council South West who had invited local writing groups to discuss ways of supporting writers. The meeting turned out to be a lively and enjoyable chat over a cup coffee at the Arnolfini. Alec (the consultant, also working for Arts Matrix … Continue reading Support for Writers (yes, please!)
Earlier this year I spent some time with You Write On, the Arts Council site for peer-reviewing. It is interesting and potentially useful, though I found the reviewing time-consuming and sometimes tedious, with submissions of 6,000 – 10,000 words to get through for every review received, many of which seemed to be sci-fi or fantasy, … Continue reading Peer reviewing
Google Alerts service continues to throw up the odd item of interest for my Carte de Tendre search. This week it was an entry on Jahsonic, a cross cultural blog, which seems to focus particularly on the erotic or downright sexual. The author tells us that the map is seen as a representation of the … Continue reading A Wiki called Culture
I’ve had to take a break from the WIP in order to flesh out (literally) my second main character, Ailsa’s mother, Lorraine. She suffers from a medical condition called lupus which I had already looked up on several websites but I felt I needed more in-depth knowledge. Luckily I found Talking About Lupus by Triona Holden, which … Continue reading Work in (slow) Progress
By ‘we’ I mean unpublished writers and the obvious answer is ‘yes’. How else in this cruel world will we ever get something on our c.v. and gain some much needed street-cred with agents and publishers? Such is the received wisdom, and having won a couple of prizes myself (anyone in any doubt please refer to the … Continue reading Competitions, do we need them?
Ali Bacon / Books Etc 