Debi Alper

Ding ding ding – nope, still true! Brilliant news, Janette. Well done. And yes, it sounds very unusual.

Am I putting this in the right place???
Anyhow, presuming I am, here is another with some exciting news to share. This year I decided to try my hand at external comps, but put them behind me as the lack of news seemed to confirm I was a novice at it.
… until this morning, when I received an email from Pennine Ink Writers’ Workshop, confirming I…[Read more]

You’re welcome, Bren. Lovely to see so many familiar names, indeed

Good luck for when you sub! Xx

Yes, definetly more oblique, great. I wonder if you might change the ‘I hate sharing you’ lime (which makes Ashley sounds possessive) to something like “it’s just… you know how you get.” In other words, have Ashley referring to the problem without quite naming it…

Oh – and it might be good if there was a veiled hint of what was to come, earlier on. I mean heavily veiled, so that its true meaning would only be realised after reading to the end. Just a thought.

I thought this very well written, John; nicely constructed, with the flashback. I kept wanting to read on. The only suggestion I would make is in the ending. “He was my first” is good because you immediately think she means her first time with a man, but quickly we see that’s not what she meant – which gives away the ending too soon. Much as I…[Read more]

FWIW, I actually think the phonemail is a really key pivot point! I would recommend keeping this in, and building the structure of the piece as a whole around it, as Kate highlights.
Remember, even though this story is built of a series of vignettes, it still needs to have a narrative arc. The phone call gives you a useful turning point, and the…[Read more]

Hi Elle,
Sorry it’s taken me a while to get to this.

I really enjoyed this. I think it’s an incredibly realistic portrayal of depression, especially the sense of complete hopelessness and almost indifference that invades. She almost simply accepts and embraces her “fate”, to the point where (for me) suicide in the bath seemed like simply the next…[Read more]