MacNovel on Twitter- Isabel Costello Literary Sofa
- XX or XY? Do readers care about gender of author? June 17, 2013
- Guest Author – Susan Elliot Wright on Writing a Dual Narrative June 10, 2013
- Let’s all talk about GONE GIRL June 4, 2013
- This Itch of Writing
- Guardian Book Blog
- A note on Neil Gaiman's politics June 18, 2013 Paul Owen
- Neil Gaiman in conversation – live coverage June 17, 2013 Paul Owen
- Tips, links and suggestions: What are you reading this week? June 17, 2013 Guardian readers, Hannah Freeman
- The Forest for the Trees — Betsy Lerner
- I Love You Just the Way You Are June 16, 2013
- I’m Trying To Beat Life Cause I Can’t Cheat Death June 3, 2013
- Could It Be That It Was All So Simple Then May 30, 2013
- Kathy Greethurst’s Blog
- Untitled January 10, 2013 Kathy Greethurst
- Bloody Flies by Andrew J Keir - Review by Helena Frith Powell June 7, 2012 Kathy Greethurst
- A wonderful afternoon in Avebury February 22, 2012 Kathy Greethurst
- How Publishing Really Works
- Does The Self-Publishing Review Fall For Robert Duperre? March 29, 2012
- The Self-Publishing Review Goes In Search Of The Menopause Ranch March 22, 2012
- Travelling To The Self-Published Review March 15, 2012
- Female PTSD — A Blog By A Brave Female Victim of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Help I Need A Publisher
- I'm still here... December 31, 2012
- All my advice about publishing and writing September 4, 2012
- Two last questions for DEAR CRABBIT September 3, 2012
- The Elephant in the Writing Room
- Sunshine and Showers June 15, 2013
- Not a lot of writing but a whole load of reading... June 5, 2013
- Jon and the Pacemakers May 31, 2013
- Bren Gosling’s Blog (ex-City Novel coursemate)
- Short listed for the Harry Bowling Prize ! January 30, 2012 Bren Gosling
- About - Sweeping up the Village- by Bren Gosling January 16, 2012 Bren Gosling
- A taster... December 22, 2011 Bren Gosling
- Charlotte Haigh MacNeil’s Blog (ex-City Novel Coursemate and Journalist)
- The real reason insomniacs can’t sleep June 7, 2013
- The myth of delayed motherhood May 18, 2013
- The extreme female brain February 21, 2013
- Michael Braga Writes (ex-City Novel coursemate)
- THE SIGNS -A short story by Michael Braga Oct 2010 October 10, 2010
- Friday thoughts on a Monday afternoon September 6, 2010
- The pursuit of sadness August 25, 2010
- Sometimes I Lie A Little
- Some Things That
- Moira Garland’s Blog
- Partisan writing April 11, 2013
- Brain error? April 7, 2013
- Longing April 4, 2013
- Talli Roland
- Pavilion in the Park June 17, 2013
- Sex. On Tuesdays. Or Not. June 10, 2013
- Notting Hill Press Launches! June 3, 2013
- Charlie Mackle
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Tag Archives: Publishing
Alexis Cole — Transcendence
One of the questions that recurs in my novel is the importance of location — especially for artists.In my novel Kim is a German artist who has arrived to London from Berlin in the expectation that it’s the place to … Continue reading
Posted in Research
Tagged agents, Alexis Cole, art, art galleries, artists, bookshops, Brick Lane, Damien Hirst, Kim, London, Mat Collishaw, Publishing, Research, setting, Shoreditch, theme, Transcendence
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Agent Hunter
Sounds like some kind of Skyfall clone doesn’t it, but Agent Hunter is a new source of information that might be almost as valuable to aspiring authors as state secrets to 007. It’s a new website that has collated a huge … Continue reading
Posted in Publishing
Tagged Agent Hunter, agents, Harry Bingham, Publishing, Twitter, websites, Writers' Workshop.
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York Festival Of Writing
Apologies for the absence of recent updates: writing time has recently become increasingly hard to come by, although mostly in a good way, via holidays and other enjoyable events that I have hopes of getting around to writing blog posts … Continue reading
Was It Worth It?
Last Saturday morning five of us ex of the City course met for our last workshopping session of the current year (although it’s two years since we finished the course we’re still loosely following the Sep-June academic year). I sent … Continue reading
Posted in Frustrations, Writing Process
Tagged agents, artists, Creative Writing Classes, Delia Smith, editing, frustration, holidays, London, motivation, Olympics, Publishing, Shoreditch, subconscious, synopsis, time management, time passing, tiredness, work, workshops
3 Comments
Agents and the Changing World of Publishing — An MA Perspective
In the MMU Creative Writing MA we don’t just work on our novels-in-progress. That’s the main body of work but we need to take a broader perspective so we understand the context of  modern literature and the publishing world. One … Continue reading
The Documentary on Books I Really Didn’t Like To Watch
A week last Saturday there was a documentary on BBC2 that was ostensibly about the sorry state of the world of books (riven as it’s meant to be by factionalism between literary and genre) but I found that, ironically, the … Continue reading
Posted in General Life
Tagged 'The Books We Really Read', BBC, commercial fiction, criticism, genre, Lee Child, literary fiction, narrative, narrative arc, Publishing, quest, snobbery, Sue Perkins, World Book Night
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One Day
‘One Day’ by David Nicholls won the Sainsbury’s Popular Fiction prize at the Galaxy National Book Awards last week. I’ve mentioned this book in passing a couple of times on this blog since I read it in the summer. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in character, Fictional Genres, Plot, Publishing, Structure
Tagged adverbs, Amazon reviews, book covers, character, cinematic novels, Creative Writing Classes, David Nicholls, dialogue, Galaxy National Book Awards, genre, marketing, One Day, pop music, Publishing, Structure, the Smiths, workshops, writing from opposite gender POV
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‘A Beginning, A Muddle and An End’?
Interesting blog on the Guardian Books website today by Robert McCrum. He talks about Ford Madox Ford’s advice that the literary quality or narrative power of a novel should never be judged by the opening alone but by reading a … Continue reading
Posted in Publishing
Tagged agents, book promotion, consistency, e-books, Ford Madox Ford, marketing, motivation, opening chapters, Page 99 test, Philip Larkin, Publishing, readings, Robert McCrum, Structure, theme
2 Comments
Arts Bloodbath?
The Guardian reports today that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is preparing to inflict cuts on itself of up to 50% as part of the forthcoming government spending clampdown. This reduction in its own staff is in keeping … Continue reading
Visit from Penny Rudge
I posted briefly, about a month ago on our final visit from  figure from the publishing industry — one of our course’s published alumni, Penny Rudge. She came to see us on 9th June and I’ll try to summarise the … Continue reading
Positive Feedback from Agents and A Publisher
I’ve been so busy preparing for Wednesday’s reading that I haven’t had time to blog about other events that may have more eventual significance. I went to the Winchester Writers’ Conference last Friday and had three appointments — two with … Continue reading
Useful, if not Uplifting, Advice
Following a few links from links I came across this blog entry from ‘Help I Need A Publisher’ by Nicola Morgan which has some sobering thoughts on the state of the publishing industry. There’s a very interesting bullet-pointed list of … Continue reading
Fascinating Lessons in Writing and POV
We had a visit from another published course alumnus last night — Penny Rudge, author of ‘Foolish Lessons in Life and Love’, as mentioned in a previous post. I’ll blog later at more length about what she said about the … Continue reading
Posted in Publishing
Tagged Certificate in Novel Writing course, computer programming, gender, Penny Rudge, point of view, Publishing, sex
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A Meeting with ‘God’
Last Wednesday, as mentioned in a previous post below we had a visit from a real-life commissioning editor — Francesca Main from Simon and Schuster. I think I’d been expecting a visitor from ‘an editor’ so was quite awestruck when … Continue reading
No Magic Bullets
Just on the train back after another fascinating visit from a guest speaker in one of our sessions — Francesca Main who’s a commissioning editor at Simon and Schuster — and a very successful one too as one of her … Continue reading
Posted in Publishing
Tagged Certificate in Novel Writing course, Francesca Main, Publishing
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Visit from Kirstan Hawkins
On Wednesday evening we had a visit from an author who has just had her first novel published — Kirstan Hawkins whose book is ‘Doña Nicanora’s Hat Shop’. What was particularly special about this author visit is that Kirstan is … Continue reading
Crises of Confidence
One of our course (see the links to Bren Gosling’s blog on the sidebar) prompted an interesting e-mail exchange between several of us when he asked if anyone else had crises of confidence, particularly once they’d read a passage from … Continue reading
Posted in Writing Process
Tagged art, Carole Blake, Creative Writing Classes, feedback, motivation, Open University, Publishing, quality, redrafting
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Encouraging Alumnus
Later this term we’re having a visit from a ‘real-life’ author but, as an encouraging testament, she is an alumnus of the Certificate in Novel Writing course itself. It is Kirstan Hawkins whose novel, Doña Nicanora’s Hat Shop, is being … Continue reading
Best New Novelists of 2010
I came across a couple of interesting articles on the Telegraph website that may be of interest to some.  The first is one of these predictive pieces that tips the ‘next big thing’ — in this case new novelists. It’s … Continue reading
