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  • https://emmadarwin.substack.com/9f42c2c1

    To celebrate the Itch’s first birthday on Substack and help spread the word Emma is offering 20% off all new annual or monthly subscriptions. Click the link before 6th December:

  • My view is that publishers are in it for the money, and celebrity sells more – and more reliably – than as-yet-unknown novelists (potentially supplying a profit which might enable them to take more chances on unknowns?) It might be seen as ‘not fair’, but in my view is more honest to trust readers’ appreciation of well-written novels than bombard…[Read more]

    • Sandra, it isn’t so much a bombardment campaign, rather a sharing of a meme to ask for support. I appreciate the view that regular novelists are enabled to be taken on because of the success of celebrity books, but the avalanche of them in such an unlevel playing field is instrumental in creating this huge imbalance, and I think the dishonesty is…[Read more]

      • I suspect, lacking conviction in my opinions, I’m not a campaigner.

        • I have bowed out of this. My intention was to be supportive, but the feelings stirred and opposing views given have me concluding that I should leave it to published authors and their representatives to fight the battle. Lesson learned.

  • Bella posted an update 1 year, 11 months ago

    Does anyone have any experience of pitching a non-fiction title to publishers or agents? I’m part of a small team (mostly North American) writing a book about Complex PTSD. We’re reaching the stage of having a decent manuscript and would like to try pitching it even if we do end up self-publishing. But none of us really has a clue…

    • I have an old school friend who I’m still in contact with. He was senior non-fiction editor for Penguin Random House in Canada, and although he’s just retired he knows the business inside out and still manages a couple of clients for them. I’ll see what he says.

  • This is not my take on the headline, but I’ve posted it here because I could not come up with anything more ludicrous.

     

    “Short hair hints may be ‘sabotage” study finds.

    Publishing her research on the ’Science Direct’ website, under the heading  ‘Personality and individual Differences’  Danielle Sulikowski details how women were asked to giv…[Read more]

  • Find an item of news – online, in the local paper, or on TV – and, in no more than 500 words, write the background story.

     

  • Thanks, Knicky, for the challenge and for seeing something in my effort I wasn’t sure was there.

    Thanks also to Terrie, Libby and Alex. I would have been more than happy to say I’d written any one of yours ☺️

  • Thank you for setting Octobers comp, Knicks.

    I enjoy seeing  how  differently  we  all approach  the monthly challenges. this months were wonderfully varied.

    Congratulations to Seagreen  for  such an atmospheric winning  offering.

  • Congratulations to Seagreen, and to everyone else who supplied an entertaining and impressive piece to October’s comp. And to Knicks for setting it,

  • Congratulations, Seagreen! Thank you, Knicks, for a great prompt and your judge’s insights.

  • Darn it! Missed it! A fab selection though.

  • Apologies, Knicks, I’m not going to submit anything this month – torn three ways with something that will not knit.

  • What’s Brought to the Table

    796 words

     

    Grace was sitting on the floor of Lily’s bedroom, leaning against Lily’s wardrobe. She looked at Lily, who was lying on her single bed with her arms spread wide like an act of supplication.

    Lily had just said she was aiming for paradoxy. Grace wondered what psychodrama had produced this.…[Read more]

  • A rhyming effort  from me for this challenge 

    <u>All in my head</u>

    Emotion, bright as a shooting star, trails across the bowl of dark-light, caught

    crackling and spluttering, straining against the speckle and spackle of midnight thought.

     I feel it drift, almost mutely, into a cascade of unspoken dreams, tumbling, and falling

    slowly, into an…[Read more]

  • Fiercely reaching yet afraid of letting go. (756 words)

     

    He wakes. Slowly. Reluctantly. To a feeling of being underground. Air heavy and thick with dust. Throat dry and aching. Eyes full of grit.

    He is pinned, lying sideways on a surface, twisted and unforgiving, one arm beneath his hip and the other across his chest. He cannot feel his feet,…[Read more]

  • RichardB posted an update 2 years ago

    Back in 1966, while Ralph (Streets of London) McTell was earning his living busking on the streets of Paris, he met a Norwegian girl called Nanna Stein, and wrote a song for her, simply called Nanna’s Song, which is the most moving evocation I know of the joy of young love. By the end of that year they were married. They stayed together through…[Read more]

    • Sad to hear. 58 years is a long time, and in the world of arts and entertainment must be close to a miracle. I’ve always liked Ralph McTell, although Streets of London isn’t my favourite of his songs. I have a taste for some of the more “hippy folksy” stuff like Nettle Wine.
      Oddly enough, when your post appeared, I was reading about the…[Read more]

      • Ah yes. From memory:
        Fetching water from the brook
        Wondering who it was who took
        The stones from the mountain to build this cottage here
        Two up and two down
        Miles from the nearest town
        I don’t know who he was though the reason why is clear.
        McTell once said that the reason why there aren’t many love songs in his canon was that ‘I got all that…[Read more]

        • They’re very different, but it reminds me of some of the old Incredible String Band stuff

          • Ath, listening to this, I was reminded of the songs of Andy Comley who comes from Southampton way and wondered whether you knew of him?

            • When you said the name it rang a bell, but after looking at his web site and listening to some songs, I don’t think I did know of him. Might have heard his name from my brother who is more seriously into folk music than me.
              Edit: although listening to a couple more songs, he’s not actually that folksy, is he?

            • Sandra Davies
              11:09 (0 minutes ago)
              to Den

              My younger son lived in Southampton for a bit; one of his housemates took him along to gigs and I benefitted from 3 CDs, much played in the days I was working in my studio, liking the lyrics.

    • I liked Southampton. I lived there from Autumn 1977 to Summer 1985 and always felt at home in the town. Only left because of work.

      • Not in Southampton, but I’m lucky to have lived in the New Forest all my life, find it very inspirational.

  • Congratulations, Knicky, a most excellent story!

    Thank you, Sandra, for the comp, and for allowing me to imagine another Piety/Freedom Jones episode.

    And thanks to all the entrants for being amazing writers and keeping me inspired  🙂

  • Fabulous competition! Hooray for all of us, especially Knicks. Thank you Sandra.

  • What  a productive  monthly challenge ,Sandra.

    Everyone of the stories so enjoyable. I’m glad it wasn’t me having to make that choice on who to pass the baton to.

    Congratulations Knicks  for such a great piece, and well done everyone else for their  offerings too.

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