Category: News and Editorials
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Salaried Authors, Climate Fiction, Rise of Audiobooks, and more…
New publisher plans to offer budding authors £24,000 salary (The Guardian) De Montfort Literature, a new publishing company that is part of London hedge fund De Montfort Capital, is offering a £24,000 starting salary to writers who pass its selection process, which includes an algorithm that is “designed to identify career novelists”, psychometric tests and…
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Working Class Writers, Science in Crime Novels, and more…
Should You Tell People You’re Writing A Novel? Reddit Users Offer Their Tips (Bustle) Several redditors advised others against telling people about their manuscripts, simply because being in the awkward position of “writing a novel” for five or 20 years can be socially painful. Speaking from a personal standpoint, this does not feel as bad…
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Romance Novels in the Trump Era, Nigerian Authors, “Cockygate,” and more…
How romance novels are getting a makeover in the Trump era (CBC) A day after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, bestselling New York-based author Sarah MacLean said she vowed to use her “very considerable platform” to step up and speak up, as she wants to “make a difference in the world.” MacLean said she realized the book she was…
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Literature Changing Perceptions of Africa, Creative Writing Snobs, and more…
Let’s silence the creative writing course snobs (The Guardian) Writing, like anything – from athletics to nuclear physics – depends on a basic degree of talent, which can be cultivated through training. So let’s stop pretending that devoting a year or two to studying writing in the company of others is anything other than a…
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Flashbacks, Sean Penn’s “Novel,” Amazon Sabotaging Erotica Authors…
Sean Penn’s new novel doesn’t deserve a considerate review — or a reader’s time (Chicago Tribune) But this is not a review of “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff,” because it is not a book that deserves to be taken seriously enough to be reviewed. Speaking from personal experience, it is very difficult to write…
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The Resurgence of Dystopian Literature, Understanding China through Fiction, and more…
Deferred gratification is dead? Tell that to fans of serialised novels (The Guardian) “Binge-watch” was Collins Dictionary’s word of the year in 2015. The popularity of serialised long-form television drama was quickly superseded by networks making entire series available whenever we chose, eliminating that enforced waiting period and losing something of its pleasure in the process.…
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‘Bizarro fiction,’ Writing Memoirs, Dismal Sci-fi, and more…
Bizarro fiction is the next trend in the literary world (Study Breaks) Although bizarro fiction has lurked within the bowels of literature’s murky underground for just over 15 years, the genre has seen recent success with the addition of director Don Coscarelli’s film adaptation of David Wong’s best-selling novel, “John Dies at the End,” to…
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A Black AF Comic Book, Women in Sci-Fi, Octavia Butler’s Legacy, and more…
Kit de Waal: ‘Make room for working class writers’ (The Guardian) But writing as a career? That never entered my head. The only writers I knew were dead. And apart from Enid Blyton, they were dead men. And white. And posh. Even when I began to read widely in my 20s, it was still a case…
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Lazy Writing, Black Superheroes, and more…
The Raised Eyebrow Is the Lazy Writer’s Favorite Cliche (The Daily Beast) For instance, the last book I tried to read was The Black Witch by Laurie Forest. It got stellar reviews, and yet eyebrows get a workout in the very first chapter, including: “My eyebrows flew up at this.” “Rafe raises his eyebrows.” “Tristan cocks an…
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Social Sci-Fi, Literary Fiction, Little Known Book Editors, and more…
Literary fiction conveys the human character (The Guardian) As someone whose tiny, grimy literary novels have attracted the interest of the film industry, the truth is the opposite of what Tim Lott (Why should we subsidise writers who’ve lost the plot?, 2 January) suggests; it’s the screenwriter who needs the literary novelist. Plot is easy to…
Waking Writer 