Warming up with A Winter’s Tale
A three-inch binder sits on the shelf above my writing desk, stuffed full of hopeful notes on different aspects of grammar, poetry, writing for the screen, writing for children, young adult , romance and historical novels. My inspiration wall keeps inspirational snippets collected from here and there in safekeeping. Most of these wise nuggets were all gleaned from ten years’ worth of attendance at weekend writing workshops, squeezed in between all the busiest parts of my life.
I admit it: I’m a workshop junkie.
Read More»Our Words Can (and Do) Travel
by Allan Hudson
While doing research for my novel, Dark Side of a Promise, which takes place mainly in Bangladesh, I learned about a dangerous industry based on dismantling old ships. The work of the ‘ship breakers’ is difficult, with no safety standards whatsoever. Many children and illiterate people are employed in the yards and I could not imagine what it must be like to need that kind of work.
Chittagong is one of the largest yards in the world, where 25,000 men break 250 ships a year. I wanted to write a story on what this might be like, and about the people who might need the work. I had no idea how far those words could travel.
Read More»From novel to screenplay
by Jason Lawson
I recently sold the movie rights of my novel, The Vision, to Canadian film producer Sam Grana (pr. The Boys of St. Vincent’s). Once Grana acquired the rights, he hired me to transform the novel into a screenplay. The experience turned into a highlight of my writing career, but was also a huge learning curve, as I’d never written a screenplay before.
Read More»Step right up to self-publishing
Though the line of respectability between traditionally-published and self-published material is blurring, the line regarding publicity has almost disappeared. Promotion budgets are getting smaller and these days, authors must create their own buzz.
Read More»Self-promotion: making it work
by Chuck Bowie
I’m a New Brunswick author who writes genre fiction. I write for a small ‘new model’ publishing house in Quebec. It’s ‘southward-facing’ in the sense that a big chunk of the target audience is American. Most of the authors write solely for the eBook audience. I’m published in print and as eBooks. I’ve written this article to share my promotional experiences of the past two months.
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