Gill James's Blog, page 5

News 1 September 2020

  Zooming around I’m continuing to enjoy some excellent on-line events. I even managed to attend a book launch in Florida recently.  It was eight o’clock here and lunch-time there.  I think this was deliberate as the launch was of an anthology that included some UK writers.  One of the speakers came from just a few miles from where I’m based. We missed the Bolton Food festival, always a great event this summer bank holiday weekend. However, the online version was pretty good. You don’t get the smell and tastes as you wander around but there were a lot of interesting demonstrations and you could buy online many of the items they usually sell at the stalls.  I now have three events arranged myself. You are all cordially invited to all of them. The first  is the Lancashire Authors Association’s talk led by Nick Oldham, a local writer and publisher. This is by invite and if you would like to be invited, please contact me. It takes place on 12 September at 2 p.m. Then on 17 September at 8 p.m. I will be speaking with three colleagues about writing the 1940s. There will be readings, a Q & A, possibly the opportunity for an open mic and digital giveaways for everyone who attends. Join here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1940s-writers-and-readers-tickets-118201910095On 26 Sep I’ll be reading from my short story collection and will be joined by two other readers. Again there will be readings, a Q & A, an open mic, if there’s time and again there will be digital giveaways for all attendees.      Do join us: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-afternoon-with-some-of-our-authors-tickets-118046896445              News about my writing and other creative projects I’m still carrying on much as before: The Round Robin, the fifth book in the Schellberg Cycle, Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, and I’m still working on The Business of Writing.  And of course I’m interspersing this with short stories and flash fiction. I’m also continuing to write stories relating to what might happen after the virus leaves us – if it does. This is Aftermath, an invitation to write speculative and near future fiction about what may happen after the virus. Reflective writing about what is actually happening now is also welcome, along with stories set now or a little into the future.         The Young Person’s Library The full catalogue is gradually moving from http://www.gilljameswriter.eu/p/blog-page_81.htmlto https://www.theyoungpersonslibrary.co.uk/I’ve added new this month:  The B on Your Thumb: 60 Poems to Boost Reading and Spelling by Colette Hillier (writer) Tor Freeman (illustrator)This a book of poems that help with spelling and pronunciation. It is suitable for primary school. I am Brown by Ashok Banker (writer) Sandhya Prabhat (illustrator)This a picture book for the pre-school child and presents multiculturalism effectively. Eagle Strike by Anthony Horowitz and Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz These books are becoming even more exciting – and they’re getting thicker and longer. Alex is growing up.    Current reading recommendationI’m still making my way through the full series of the Anne Shirley and the Alex Rider books and also the 2019 short list for the Man Booker prize. This month’s choice therefore has to be The Testaments by Margaret Atwood . These accounts by three individual witnesses are beautifully written. Margaret Atwood has created a unique voice for each of the narrators. We have the accounts of two young women, both of whom are training to be Aunts in the Gilead system. We also have the voice of the feared and revered Aunt Lydia. All is not well in or outside Gilead. It would be difficult to understand these accounts if you are not familiar with The Handmaid’s Tale. You really need to have read that first book or have seen the TV productions. The story in this volume contradicts a little what we have seen in the TV series. It is the story of what happens after Baby Nicole is smuggled out of Gilead. Certainly the events described here happen when Nicole is a teenager. However, we still don’t have the full story. Will there be one? Or must we use our imaginations? I gave this a five star review on both Amazon and Good Reads.  It was interesting reading other reviews including some one and two star ones.  Yes, even the literary greats get those! For me this remains one of those rare books that I’d gladly read again. Perhaps this is partly because I feel I may have missed something. It is also in part because I find the prose so enchanting and not as one reviewer said: “dull and lifeless with no linguistic subtleties that Atwood is so very good at.” So, take heart if you’re a writer and get some one or two star reviews. It’s all so subjective after all.               Giveaway Note: these are usually mobi-files to be downloaded to a Kindle.  Occasionally there are PDFs. This moth I’m giving away Fibbin’ Archie, a young adult text that is also a writing experiment using the Fibonacci series.  I hope you like the pun.  Here’s the blurb: Archie has quite a reputation as a practised fibber. Normally his lies are harmless but as time goes by they begin to get him into more and more trouble. They lose him his girlfriend, and bizarrely, his hearing as his ears begin to react in a very strange way every time he is less than truthful.  Giving honest opinions isn’t enough. Deep truth is called for. But finding that isn’t easy. Some truths are very hard to face. Then numbers become interesting, too. Fibbin’ Archie, is, however, more than the story of a disenchanted young man. It is also a writing experiment based on a fascinating number series (Fibonacci!) It is a piece of experimental writing, a humorous story of love and sex, an examination of social issues affecting young adults and a story of coming of age.
You can download it and lots of other free materials here.Please, please, please review it if you read it.     Note, that normally my books and the books supplied by the imprints I manage sell for anything from £0.99 to £10.99, with most on Kindle being about £2.99 and the average price for paperback being £7.00. We have to allow our writers to make a living. But I’m offering these free samples so that you can try before you buy.  The Schellberg Project The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust and also for other writers of historical fiction.This month I’ve highlighted a few useful accounts of the Nazi era in five books that might be of interest to younger readers. You can find this post here. I’ve also written more about the BDM girls.  You can find that discussion here. This topic is a crucial aspect of the whole project. What was life like for young German women during and in the years surrounding World War II? Their membership of the BDM has to be very significant.    
School visits I’ve suspended these until further notice. I’m now starting work on a series of on-line materials.   Some notes about my newsletters and blogsThey do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.
Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.
Chapeltown Books News about our books. Sign up here.
The Creative Café Project News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   
Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   
Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  
Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.
A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   
The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   
CaféLit Stories Find these here
Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.
Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve highlighted in this newsletter.      
Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.
The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.
Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.       
Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 
The Young Person’s Library I am gradually moving the children’s book catalogue over to this site.  Access it here.
Fair Submissions I am gradually moving the Opportunities List to this site.  Find it here.   New ones are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I go through it and take out all of the out of date ones. At that point I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.   Happy reading and writing. 
Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Stages of revision 16: final copyedit and some further suggestions

  The end or not the end? This is the last time you’ll look at your script ….  until it’s accepted and you go through it with an editor or it’s rejected and you take another look at it, some months down the  line, before you send it out again. Oh yes, by the time you get to this stage you’ve really polished it … and the first thing the publishing house’s editor is going to do is take it apart. You yourself will do this as well at a later date – because fashions in writing change and you move on as a writer anyway. To be honest, editing never ends.  More of a proof read? You’ve probably got rid of most of the more obvious mistakes by now. The read aloud edit helps a lot. It may be wise here to concentrate on a few specific things. There are some things that we all get wrong frequently and there will be your own specific common mistakes. E.g. I often type “form” when I mean “from” 
Here is a suggested list but it is by no means comprehensive. It’s a good idea to develop your own list over time. ·         Is dialogue set out correctly?·         Are you using a word too often e.g. “Gosh” “seems” ·         Is your use of the apostrophe correct?·         Look out for confusions  such as o   who’s / whose o   its / it’so    your / you’re,  o   to/too/two o   their / there o   bare / bearo   affect / effect  ·         Are you consistent in the way you hyphenate words?  ·         Are you consistent in the way you write numbers as words (different styles recommend numbers up to twenty, up to fifty or up to one hundred – can you see which style I’m using?)·         Are you distinguishing between generic relations – mum, dad, grandpa, and proper  nouns Mum, Dad, Grandpa  Some proof-reading tricksCan you bear to start at the end reading one paragraph at a time? Complete this edit in small chunks.But perhaps the wisest of all: ask someone else to proof read, or even pay someone else to do it.   
Change the way the text looksThis will help you to get some objectivity. You can: Change the font.  Single spaceSet it out as bookletPrint it out as a booklet  A final tip Start each stage of revision in a different place. Otherwise, you tend to rush as you get towards the end and your final chapters will receive less attention.  How many pages does your text have? Divide that by 16.  Say you come up with 25.  So start revisions 1 on page 1, revision 2 on page 26, revision 3 on page 52 etc.Then get submitting!       
Image by  Lorenzo Cafaro from Pixabay 

Another interview with a Waterloo Festival Writing Competition winner, Mehreen Ahmed

Another interview with a Waterloo Festival Writing Competition  winner. I've been very pleased to be involved in judging the Waterloo Festival Writing Competition  over the last three years. We're currently putting the three e-books we've produced of the winning entries into one paperback book to be launched on 5 December. In recognition of this, I'm publishing an occasional series of interviews with some of the winners. Today I welcome Mehreen Ahmed.       

We chat about writing in particular and the winning story in particular. There is also an excerpt of the story. 

What do you write? Why this in particular? I write literary fiction. As an English graduate, I grew up on a steady feed of literary fiction to an extent that it has influenced me so much that it has become a part of me. 
What got you started on writing in the first place?My journals. I always wrote them as a child. I penned whatever little event was happening at the time. Or create stories at times too, based on my surroundings.
Do you have a particular routine? Not really. I write when I feel inspired. Anything can inspire me, be it a wet path, or trembling of a leaf, raindrops or rainbow.
Do you have a dedicated working space?Yes, I usually write in bed on my laptop in my pyjamas sometimes, with a pot of tea by my side.
When did you decide you could call yourself a writer? Do you do that in fact?When I began to get recognised by reader reviews, and prizes.
How supportive are your friends and family? Do they understand what you're doing?I hope so. I hope they understand what I am writing. My mother has been very supportive although she did complain about the lack of punctuations in my stream- of-consciousness fiction.
What are you most proud of in your writing?I love writing in stream-of-consciousness fiction. I love this style of writing. I find it both challenging and artistic. A successful stream-of-consciousness style of writing entails a fine balance between presenting chaos in the raw as they appear in the head with a semblance of filter for the sake of art. That is hard to achieve, I think. 
How do you get on with editing and research?I don't edit much. I think too much editing distances the end product from the wilderness in the writer's head. There should be some of that left, I think to touch base with reality so to speak. The reality in the head. However, the research must be top notch.
Do you have any goals for the future?Yes, I would like to write a few more books. And I would love to see my books used in education.
Which writers have inspired you?Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, Nazrul Islam, Tagore to name a few.

Tell me about your story in the collection. Dolly is about a flower girl. She sells flowers on the streets. One day, she came across a car. As she came to the car, to sell her flowers, she got kidnapped. However, for her personal protection, the girl always carried a doll. She believed in this doll that it would save her from danger one day. And it did. The doll came through when she needed her most. She saved her from her kidnapper.

What inspired you to write this? Flower girls. Once I was sitting in a car when a lad came up to the car to sell garlands, I gave him money and asked him to keep the garlands and sell them elsewhere. He told me that I needed to keep them, because if I didn't then a super power would punish him. He dropped the garlands on my lap through the car window and he disappeared.

How did you hear about the competition?  I heard about it via one of your emails.

Have you had any other success in short-story writing? I have been published by nearly 160 publishers internationally. I have also published a short story collection and two more short and flash fiction in the pipeline.

I am still writing them and publishing.
What for you makes a good short story? The one which comes out of reality but gradually fades into absurdity or impossibility.

Do you have any tips for new writers or writers seeking publication?  Be imaginative, transcend reality.

An excerpt from Mehreen's story:   Dolly Not without her,” Ana screamed. “I’m not leaving without Dolly.”
But the police officer kept pestering. She put Ana’s hands in hand-cuff. Ana yelled at the constable. She told Ana that she must leave without her doll. For it was really she who was in trouble, not her doll. Ana realised that police officer didn’t understand that Dolly was her security blanket, now and always. Ever since she was five, now fifteen.
“Trouble?” she screamed. You say, I’m in trouble? A parasite? Under the radar until you caught me out?”
“What else would you call yourselves? You, downy mildews of fester? You steal buns from that bakery, there.
“I only steal for hunger.”
“Little snitch! I’ll get you sorted out.”
“Ha! You make me laugh. I have been like this since five. I sold flowers on Harlon Street, an orphan, and a phantom to most. Those who saw my flowers, never saw me; invisible like a camouflaged screech owl on a living bark. Then one day, someone noticed me,” she said.
“Who? Who noticed you?” asked the police constable.
“He did. The big man. One evening, it rained. I appeared at his car window with a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums. He rolled down his windows and offered me money. He told me to take the money, and re-sell the wet bunch. Just when the lights changed, I dropped the flowers on his lap, saying that he must take them or else Dolly would get offended and she would punish me. The man drove away.”  She looked down at the grooved pavement littered with torn plastic bags. A bed made out of slippery bags for a slippery life. Her doll lay there, too.
“Is this a way to live? You should be ashamed of your life?” the constable yelled.
“Yeah? You have a better idea? Where were you when they took me? Those big men’s playing doll that I had almost become. Where were you when those leeches nearly lay me down in their valley? The dark night’s under-bridge.”Read more here: 
https://www.waterloofestival.com/post/writing-competition-2020-and-the-winners-are
http://authorshout.com/2019-reader-ready-awards-winners/
amazon.com/author/amazon.com.mehreenahmed
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5267169.Mehreen_Ahmed
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/may_17.htm#fiction
https://theeditorschoice.wordpress.com/

Dawn Knox - one of the winners in the 2020 Waterloo Festival Writing Competition.

I've been very pleased to be involved in judging the Waterloo Festival Writing Competition  over the last three years. We're currently putting the three e-books we've produced of the winning entries into one paperback book to be launched on 5 December. In recognition of this, I'm publishing an occasional series of interviews with some of the winners. Today I welcome Dawn Knox.      
We chat about writing in particular and the winning story in particular. There is also an excerpt of the story.   
What do you write? Why this in particular?  There are three genres in which I mainly write.
Firstly, quirky, humorous stories, secondly, historical romance and thirdly, horror.
I find the quirky, humorous writing such as ‘The Basilwade Chronicles’ mybook.to/TheBasilwadeChronicles and ‘The Macaroon Chronicles’ (coming soon, both published by Chapeltown Books), the easiest and most enjoyable to write and I love creating eccentric characters and putting them in whacky situations. So that’s probably my favourite way to write. 
Historical romance, I find harder to write and yet, I feel drawn to it and to the research needed to be able to – hopefully - give the story some realism. It usually takes me much longer to write but once I’m finished, I’m always really pleased I persisted. And occasionally, I’m tempted to indulge the darker side I didn’t know I had, and to write horror!
What got you started on writing in the first place?I’ve always made up stories in my head but never had the urge to write them down until about eighteen years ago when I was trying to help my son with his essay homework. I tried to give him a few ideas to inspire him to get his homework done – and I failed completely! The ideas didn’t motivate him but they did me, and I went on to write the story myself.
Do you have a particular routine?  During lockdown, I’ve been getting up earlier than I used to and going for a walk in the garden. I dictate my current work in progress into my phone as I walk, and it converts speech to text. Later, I transfer that to my computer. Other than that, I don’t have a routine. I do everything I need to do to keep the household running and then any spare time is mine to do as I like. While I’m doing chores, I listen to audiobooks. The time that remains, is precious so I don’t use it to watch television – I either read or write – but mostly write.
Do you have a dedicated working space? I’m really lucky to have an office just off my bedroom in the attic which is quiet and since it’s up three flights of stairs, I don’t get interrupted very often!
When did you decide you could call yourself a writer? Do you do that in fact? It took me a long time to refer to myself as a writer and if I meet someone new, I don’t usually have the nerve to describe myself as such. I still feel a bit of a fraud. I’m more likely to write that I’m a writer, than to say it!

What are you most proud of in your writing? I’m most proud of my two World War One plays which were performed by a professional production company in England, France and Germany. Using research from the plays, I wrote the book ‘The Great War – 100 Stories of 100 Words Honouring Those Who Lived And Died 100 Years Ago’ that I describe as ‘the book in which you’ll find my heart and soul’. I’ve had some touching organic reviews for the book which was shortlisted for three book awards mybook.to/TheGreatWar100.  
How do you get on with editing and research?I try to immerse myself in any research by reading and listening to audiobooks about that particular subject and/or era. I’m currently writing a book set during the 18th century and have several factual and fiction books set during that time which I’m reading and listening to so that I can get a feel for that time period, the people who lived in it and the language they used.
Some people recommend that a writer shouldn’t start editing until a piece of work is complete but I often edit partially-finished work and try to get it into shape. I don’t like to get too far into a work in progress without tidying up a bit. I like to feel that I’m not leaving too much of a mess when I move on to the next bit!  
Do you have any goals for the future? Not any specific goals. I’d like to keep writing for my own enjoyment and hopefully, for others’!
Which writers have inspired you?I think I was probably particularly inspired by any author whose book I read when I was young. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was absorbing their styles and their voices and developing a deep love of reading and story-telling.
Now let's talk about your stories in the Waterloo Festival collections I have a story called ‘Never a Coward’ in the 2018 collection and one called ‘Rising from the Ashes’ in the 2020 collection.
What inspired you to write these?The first story, ‘Never a Coward,’ was set during the First World War. I’ve often wondered about the women of the ‘White Feather Movement’, who handed out white feathers to men they assumed were shirking the fighting. I wondered how they felt when the true horror of what the men faced in the trenches became known. It would be interesting to find out how many of them, regretted their actions and how many believed what they’d done in trying to shame the men was justified. 
The second story, ‘Rising from the Ashes’, was inspired by the dreadful bush fires which raged across Australia at the end of 2019 and into 2020. My family and I went to Australia for Christmas and were rather nervous about doing so, but miraculously, we didn’t see any evidence of the fires – other than on the news reports. In one interview, a woman said that her life was usually filled with music but since she’d lost everything to the flames, the music had died - and that phrase struck me and remained with me, inspiring my story.  
How did you hear about the competition?  I heard about it at the Chapeltown book launch at the end of 2017
Have you had any other success in short-story writing? I’ve had short horror and speculative fiction stories accepted for anthologies, as well as romances for women’s magazine such as My Weekly and People’s Friend. In addition, Bridge House Books have published a single author anthology of my speculative fiction, sci-fi and quirky stories entitled Extraordinary– stories to take you out of this world! mybook.to/Extraordinary
What for you makes a good short story? It doesn’t matter how short it is, it has to have a beginning, middle and a satisfying or a funny ending.
Do you have any tips for new writers or writers seeking publication?  Read and write. Write and read. And keep going. Don’t take rejection personally. Take note of any criticism and make changes if necessary and then submit elsewhere.
And now an excerpt from one of Dawn's stories:
Rising from the Ashes 

Drops of rain pitter-pattered on the scorched, mangled metal which had once been Amy’s roof. The storm was welcome but it would’ve been more useful if it had arrived several weeks before, during the height of the drought. Such a deluge might not have halted the bushfire which had swept through the small township of Warringa, but it might have prevented it from escalatingto the inferno which had capriciously consumed one building, yet spared another. Such blazeswere common around Warringa at this time of year but Amy’s neighbour, Peggy, who’d beenborn in the township eighty-nine years before, had never experienced anything like it. And now, like Amy, Peggy had lost her home and everything in it to the bushfire. “Warringa!” the elderly lady scoffed, “What a joke!” The town’s name was an Aboriginal word, meaning “Cool Place”.
Peggy had looked after the newly-weds, Amy and Mike, when they’d arrived from Sydney, thirty years before – young and eager to build their own house and start a family. Twins, Ben and Josh, had been born several years later but at age eighteen, they’d left for Sydney and had not returned. Amy and Mike had stayed in Warringa, missing their sons, but content in the idyllic backwater, in the house they’d built together.
And now, here at Amy’s feet, lay the twisted, tangled remains of everything they owned. A buckled saucepan lay next to the charred skeleton of a chair. It alone remained whilst itscompanions and the table they’d surrounded had been reduced to ashes by the fickle flames. Incongruously, in the garden, the stone birdbath appeared untouched. 


Dawn’s Blog – www.dawnknox.com Dawn’s Amazon Author Page -  mybook.to/DawnKnox

Special Offer on Author Talks

I’m offering special author talks about my book Girl in a Smart Uniform. This might be suitable for your NWR, U3A, reading group or your class at school. 
The subjects of interest are: the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, 1940s, World War II, feminism, disability, sexuality, writing process, research process. 
I’m offering 40 minute talks free of charge, followed by a Q & A. I can offer longer talks for a fee and in any case I welcome opportunities to sell the book. The talks will be on-line via Zoom or a similar platform. They will be recorded and a copy of the recording will be made available to you.  If you are interested, please contact me via the contact form. 
Details of the book are shown below. Click on the image above to take you to Amazon.

"Girl in a Smart Uniform" is the third book in the Schellberg Cycle, a collection of novels inspired by a bundle of photocopied letters that arrived at a small cottage in Wales in 1979. The letters give us first-hand insights into what life was like growing up in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s.

It is the most fictional of the stories to date, though some characters, familiar to those who have read the first two books, appear again here. Clara Lehrs, Karl Schubert and Dr Kühn really existed. We have a few, a very few, verifiable facts about them. The rest we have had to find out by repeating some of their experiences and by using the careful writer's imagination.

Gisela adores her brother Bear, her gorgeous BDM uniform, and her little half-brother Jens. She does her best to be a good German citizen, and is keen to help restore Germany to its former glory. She becomes a competent and respected BDM leader. But life begins to turn sour. Her oldest brother Kurt can be violent, she soon realises that she is different from other girls, she feels uncomfortable around her mother’s new lover, and there is something not quite right about Jens. It becomes more and more difficult to be the perfect German young woman.

We know that BDM girls set fire to the house in Schellberg Street but got the children out first. This story seeks to explain what motivated the girls to do that, and what happened to them afterwards."

Stages of revision 15: Overall flow

One down side of completing all of these edits in isolation is that you can lose the overall flow or the essential voice of the piece. The best way to test for overall flow is to read out loud.  Oh yes, that’s right – all 100,000 words of your thick-spined novel.    A daunting physical task? Yes it is. But drink plenty of water, limit yourself to a couple of hours at a time and have a few mints to suck. Some advantages of reading aloud Because you’re reading more slowly you are more likely to notice typos, missing words, spelling mistakes and punctuation mistakes.
You will also notice odd phrases that don’t quite work.
The rhythm of the piece will also show up.  Are there too many short or long sentences together? Does a paragraph go on for too long? Should you have an audience?Well you could try your cat. Mine used to give me a funny look when I started reading out loud but then she would start purring, Unbelievable, perhaps, she would fall asleep or walk out of the room at precisely those parts where the language jarred or where something was amiss and it made me hesitant. Alas, she is no more and we currently have no other pet. I have to make do with my miniature Buddhas.  
But here’s another suggestion. Make a video recording of you reading. When you come across a tricky bit you don’t need to stop and alter the text. You can do that when you go back and listen to or watch your recording. It is good to watch yourself.  If you notice a sudden frown there is probably something that needs altering in the text.
It’s an added bonus anyway.  You can see what you look like when you’re reading and maybe cultivate something that looks really good. 
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

News 2 August 2020

Well today I’m officially out of shielding and I’ve been to the hairdresser’s. “You can go to work on,” say the government – on the day after they’ve partially locked-down Greater Manchester again. Go to work on a Saturday? In some ways I’ll be doing a less work than I normally do, because I’ve been to the hairdresser’s. Did I mention that? The masks seemed less spooky than I’d feared. Most people are wearing them and there are some very attractive ones about. One young man on the bus wasn’t, but I was behind him so possibly wasn’t exposed to too much of his breathing. It was all very well organised on the bus, in the shopping centre and at the hairdresser’s. Odd thing.  On the whole people were very good at keeping the two metres apart and adhering to the one way system in the shopping centre. Vertically, that is.  Not so good horizontally and certainly not “crossing safely”.  A few youths, without masks, came towards me on the wrong side. I think I gave them one of my school teacher looks, which I must have managed despite the mask. They soon scurried over to the “right” side of the mall.    I’ve continued to enjoy some excellent on-line events organised by the Society of Authors, The Working Class Movement Library, the University of Salford, National Women’s Register, Home, Classic FM, The Literary Hub and some private book events.  I even managed to join one taking place in Florida. Yes, I’m getting to events I wouldn’t normally be able to attend and these same events are being attended by more people than usual.  Where I can I make a donation. Is this something we could hang on to when and if we return to normal? Is it a silver lining to the lockdown? As well my U3A groups and writers’ groups are meeting via Zoom and similar platforms.  We’re meeting more regularly and meetings are better attended.  Might this be a more permanent solution for that generation that is growing reluctant to leave home and to drive? Some will need to learn the technology but I’m sure it can work.  And talking of sliver linings, I have a new hairstyle.  I decided not to go back to my very short style but take advantage the extra length I’ve acquired in my hair, which is quite sliver by the way, to have it cut into a neat layered bob.                News about my writing and other creative projects I was delighted to be involved, as a culture champion and also as a creative writing teacher, with Bury Art Museum. I ran the three hour workshop I mentioned last month, using some of the resources at the museum and some that participants can find at home. The participants have produced some excellent writing some of which will be showcased on the BAM website.I’ll also post some on my Writing Teacher Blog.    I’ve also provided my own creative response to a talk held by the museum so that will also be published later on the site.
I’m still carrying on much as before: The Round Robin, the fifth book in the Schellberg Cycle, Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, and I’m still working on The Business of Writing.  And of course I’m interspersing this with short stories and flash fiction. I’m also continuing to write stories relating to what might happen after the virus leaves us – if it does. This is Aftermath, an invitation to write speculative and near future fiction about what may happen after the virus. Reflective writing about what is actually happening now is also welcome, along with stories set now or a little into the future.         The Young Person’s Library The full catalogue is gradually moving from http://www.gilljameswriter.eu/p/blog-page_81.htmlto https://www.theyoungpersonslibrary.co.uk/I’ve added new this month:    Goggle Eyes by Anne Fine    YA and slightly dated but taking a look at the step-parent.   Hipp-o-Dee-Doo-Dah    Suitable for primary school children and with a forward form Michael Morpurgo. I had the privilege of editing this one.  
We’re Goin on A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen An iconic timeless classic and at the same time a modern picture book. 
Point Blanc by Anthony Horrowitz Suitable for fluent readers and younger teens. Another James Bond type thriller,
The Bird Within Me by Sara Lundberg, translated by BJ Epstein An illustrated text for emergent readers inspired by paintings, letters and diaries of the Swedish painter Berta Hansson.  
Anne of the Island L M Montgomery Another of the Anne Shirley books, this time suitable for young adults.   Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty  A slightly dated book about a teen pregnancy but non-the-less useful and authentic.
Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz The third of the Alex Rider books.  Alex grows up with his readers.  There is a mild love interest in this one.  
.   Current reading recommendationI’m making my way through the full series of the Anne Shirley and the Alex Rider books and also the 2019 short list for the Man Booker prize. I bought these three collections at a very reasonable price ass par to The Book People’s closing down sale. Some of my writing friends may be relieved at the demise of this company who sold books very cheaply.  I have mixed feelings. Yes, I believe that writers should be paid properly.  But you could also argue that The Book People sold many more books than other retailers so writers got the same royalty in the end as from other sellers. Also, they did encourage some people to read who otherwise wouldn’t. They delivered books to people’s places of work and so made buying books easy. And it was a company that loved books anyway. So, I remain ambivalent.  I’m really enjoying the books for younger readers but thought I should offer something more for adults.My favourite to date form the Man-Booker list is Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other.    Bernadine Evaristo uses a type of prose poetry to introduce us to a variety of women whose stories interweave and who come together at the after party of a play written by one of the women. Evaristo presents us with a multitude of concerns that these women face. They are all black or mixed race except one who nevertheless finds she has mixed ethnicity when she takes a DNA test. The women are from diverse backgrounds. We get to know them really well and Evaristo has given each one her unique voice.     Giveaway Note: these are usually mobi-files to be downloaded to a Kindle.  Occasionally there are PDFs. The month I’m offering my Build a Book Workshop which is a manual for teachers and writers about how to publish a book with a group of school children. I have worked with several schools on this and it is very rewarding.    You can download it and lots of other free materials here.Please, please, please review it if you read it.     Note, that normally my books and the books supplied by the imprints I manage sell for anything from £0.99 to £10.99, with most on Kindle being about £2.99 and the average price for paperback being £7.00. We have to allow our writers to make a living. But I’m offering these free samples so that you can try before you buy.  The Schellberg Project The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust and also for other writers of historical fiction.The month I’ve written a little more about Girl in a Smart Uniform and some of the issues it deals with.  You can read the post here.You can also read an extract of it here.I have all three paperbacks on offer at the moment. Find the details here.     In writing The Round Robin I’ve found that there were other problems part form the war and the Holocaust for people living in these times.  One of them was TB and so I’ve included a character that falls victim to the disease.  See Hardships other than war.  School visits I’ve suspended these until further notice. I’m now starting work on a series of on-line materials.   Some notes about my newsletters and blogsThey do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.
Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.
Chapeltown Books News about our books. Sign up here.
The Creative Café Project News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   
Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   
Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  
Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.
A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   
The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   
CaféLit Stories Find these here
Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.
Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve highlighted in this newsletter.      
Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.
The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.
Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.       
Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 
The Young Person’s Library I am gradually moving the children’s book catalogue over to this site.  Access it here.
Fair Submissions I am gradually moving the Opportunities List to this site.  Find it here.   New ones are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I go through it and take out all of the out of date ones. At that point I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.   Happy reading and writing.

In conversation with Paula Readman after the recent release of her single author collection, Days Pass Like a Shadow

We have recently had the privilege of publishing Paula's single author collection. Here's what she had to say.   
Thank you for inviting me to your blog Gill to talk about my book, Days Pass like a Shadow a collection of thirteen dark tales which are all linked by the theme of Death and Loss. This collection features my most favourite stories that I have written so far. Though I’ve been busy writing almost every day since finishing working full-time nine years ago, it has only been in these last couple of years that my confidence has grown enough for me to feel I fully understand the process needed to create stories to a high enough standard that they are selected for publication.Each of stories in Days Pass like a Shadow has its own story behind its creation. The first story in the collection The Meetings began life as a submission for the magazine, People’s Friend. I received some positive feedback from their editor but he didn’t like the ending and wanted me to rewrite the story. I did, but then he told me it had lost its sparkle in the rewrite. Shortly after its rejection I came across a writing competition and decided to change The Meetings back to its original story line and entered it. To my utter delight and amazement, it was overall winner in the competition. It proved to me; if your work suffers rejection in one place try somewhere else.The idea behind On the Streets of Kabul came to me in a dream. It seemed so real and shocking it woke me. So not to wake my husband, I got out of bed, went to the kitchen and turned on the light so I could write down the dream while it was fresh in my mind. It seemed so real I could feel the heat, taste the dust and smell the fear. For Days Pass like a Shadow, I extended the story to give it a rounded ending.Perfect Justice is another story that came about under extraordinary circumstances. When I was working full-time in an electronics factory, I would go in early so I could get a parking space. Before it was time to start work, I would either make notes of plot ideas or read books on how to write to be published. I did the same during my lunch breaks too. Of course, my work colleagues knew about my crazy dream to become a published writer.One day I noticed a supervisor was always watching me. My job was to hand-build units. If I had shortages of parts, I had to make notes of what I needed, and then go and collect the parts from the storeroom.  On three occasions my supervisor called me out for writing in company’s time.  So Perfect Justice was born. As they say, don’t get mad, get even.  The surname Perfect came about when my work colleague, Kathy told me about a girl she knew who had the same surname. She said, she wasn’t Perfect, but horrible. 
What’s next for me? Now my focus is more on writing novels, though I won’t be giving up writing short stories, Gill. I’m busy constructing a new novel, which is a follow-up of my novella, The Funeral Birds . It’s the continuing story about a failing private detective agency, but it has a twist as there’s a four hundred year old witch in the story. I do have a couple of other projects I need to finish first before I can concentrate on it solely.
I had planned to do a garden party at my home to launch my book but unfortunately, the Covid-19 put a stop to that. My writing group was going to get involved with the local radio station. They were to come to the group to do an interview with us but again that was cancelled. I’m hoping by next year things will be a lot easier and the village WI will want speakers to come along again as I had put my name forward. I’m busy marketing online with thousands of other writers but I’m not sure whether it will reap the rewards we all hope for.  
  To buy a copy of Days Pass like a Shadow, you can purchase it from the publisher at Bridge House, from Amazon online or order it through your local bookshop.
What got me started was the need to prove to myself that I could.  I left school poorly educated and it was a comment made by a Polish colleague who laughed at me when I said I didn’t understand the working of English grammar. She explained that they learnt English at school. I felt ashamed as English was my birth language yet I didn’t understand how it worked when written down.  That’s when I decided to teach myself from the second-hand books bought off EBay by my husband as we couldn’t afford to pay for a writing course at the time.Reading about English Grammar was like reading a foreign language, I had no idea want they were talking about, but I persevered and now I think I understand though I do have moments of doubts. Do I have a routine? Yes, I suppose I do. I’m at my most productive in the morning. I have a small office at the top of the stairs where I work facing a wall of books. I sometimes have music on in the background, a mixture of classic and new age music, but mainly instrumentals. I find it helps me to stay focused. The winter months are the best for writing long pieces of work, as I don’t have to worry about the garden.My husband has always been supportive of me, but was mainly friends to start with. Now the rest of my family are on board once my work became more widely published. What am I most proud of with my writing? That I never gave up and kept the faith in my ability.  

Writing Girl in a Smart Uniform

About the bookThe story is based on something that really happened but for which we have a yet had no real explanation. A house in Germany held a special class in its cellar. Disabled children and children with learning difficulties came as day students to a little school in a house that belonged to woman by race defined as a Jewess even though she was no longer Jewish by religion.  There is an irony there.  The school survived and continued to operate from the house until the 1960s and only moved because it became too big. We believe that the equivalents of Dad’s Army were asked to destroy the house and its occupants. They refused. The Hitler Youth were then asked to clear the house and they also refused. So it was down to the BDM girls. The BDM was the girls’ version of the Hitler Youth. They really were threatened with dire consequences if they didn’t obey.  So, they set fire to the cellar – but got the children out first. The story came to us via my mother-in-law who was the granddaughter of Clara Lehrs, owner of the house where the school was held. In this instance I’ve used fiction as a way of uncovering the facts. We’re not even certain if this is the school she used to tell us about but some of my further research had led us to believe that this was the school she meant.
Research for this bookIt all started with a sabbatical from the University of Salford and was based on some letters my mother-in-law received in 1979. Renate James (nee Edler) started to write her story but sadly lost her life to breast cancer in 1986. I decided to finish the story for her. The letters were from her classmates at a school that she went to in Nuremberg. The school had to close because it wasn’t teaching the Nazi curriculum. Renate thought she was going to Stuttgart. In fact she was sent to England on the Kindertransport only days after her parents told her she was Jewish.  That has stopped many a publisher wanting to publish the books. How she could have not known, they asked. Well, she didn’t. So, I’ve published them through my own publishing company. The girls kept a round robin letter going for several years and they filled three exercise books. One lady had found the middle one in her attic and made it her duty to contact every single one of the girls, including Renate. The letters give a real insight to what it was like being a young woman during World War II in Germany. Before I started writing I transcribed all of the letters- some of them were very difficult to read - and then I translated them.  I really got to know these young women quite well that way.   As I worked on telling Renate’s story as a novel, I found out more and more about her grandmother, who became the subject for the next book, Clara’s Story.             Why I was inspired to write thisI wanted to explore a little more how young German women thought and why there was this resistance to authority just in time. Have I got it right? Who knows? I’ve given the protagonist a hard time: her parents separate, she has a Down syndrome step-brother, an abusive older brother and a nicer older brother who is killed in the war.  And there are many other problems as well.        What's next? Well Face to Face with the Führer is the story of Renate’s mother, also a remarkable woman. The cover has a handbag and an antique pistol on it.  I say no more. But what might have been one of her achievements?  That is waiting in the queue to be published. I’m also on my second draft of The Round Robin. I’m exploring in more detail three of the girls who were involved in the letters and their class teacher. The book is really fictional and only very loosely based on the original girls. Then I’m planning a book about Helga who is a fictional character in Girl in a Smart Uniform. She is another Holocaust survivor but her story will be mainly in the 21st century. As I wrote the first draft of The Round Robin I encountered another interesting character. One of the girls has an aunt who is involved in the German resistance. Will this series ever stop?        
How can we get a copy of the book?Just click on the picture above. Links to the other two books are down below.
Do you have any events planned?I have a whole workshop for schools. See details here. I’m happy to adapt to facilitating this via Zoom or other similar video-conferencing facilities.    

Paul Williams and The Art of Losing

Today I'm talking to Paul Williams about his book The Art of Losing. I had the honour of editing this for Paul. The stories in it are compelling and it was a great pleasure workign with him on this collection.   

Tell me about your book. The Art of Losing is a collection of short stories I wrote in my various journeys around the world. I have lived in Africa, the Middle East, USA, UK  and Australia, and each story is a window into some crucial experience I had in each of these countries. Most of the stories have been published in leading international literary journals and some (to my surprise!) won literary awards. As I gathered these stories together for this collection, I realised that most of them were about loss, and how to deal with loss – of country, home, faith, identity, loved ones. Much of the world is in exile, many millions are refugees, and I have had a little taste of this. We all deal with loss differently, and I deal with it by writing. Writing is catharsis and therapy and helps the pain of loss, but also is a positive way out. That makes it sound painful but many of the stories are humourous, absurd even.  Tell us about your research for this book.  As many of the stories are based on personal experience, the research was what academics call autoethnographic – describing and systematically analysing my own personal experience in order to understand the cultural experience of being alive here and now in this particular place and time. Researching your ‘self’ as a subject may seem weird but it is a valuable and important way to gain self knowledge, insight and epiphany ( self realisation).
What inspired you to write this?
I teach Creative Writing at a university in Australia and teach a very popular course in particular called Writing the Short Story (over 100 students this semester!) where we look at this amazing art form that captures the essence of a distilled experience in a few thousand words. I wanted to gather all the stories I had written and share my experiences with the world. All the stories are true in some sense, and each story was inspired by some deep emotional event – the death of my father, falling in love, rescuing a baby bird, how a friend of mine dealt with her child abuse with fantasies of revenge, and each story deals with an epiphany of some sort- some self realisation or insight I have had about myself, the world and I wanted to share this miracle of being alive, survival, personal growth and consciousness.     
What's next?Since publishing this book I continue to write short stories – one appeared in the Chicago Quarterly Review this year (about loss!). I have also fallen in love with crime writing and published a bestselling closed/ locked room mystery called Twelve Days  (Bloodhound Books 2019) which is a tribute to Agatha Christie and a modern version of her amazing novel And Then There Were None.  I have another crime novel coming out this year with the same publisher, called Don’t Tell, about gas lighting, serial killers and deception in relationships (!). My text book Novel Ideas : Writing Innovative Fiction came out this year too, about my love affair with the novel form.    
How can we get a copy of the book?
The Art of Losing is available directly from Bridgehouse Publishing and also on Amazon.  Just a note here of praise to Gill and BridgeHouse – it is amazing independent publishers like her who keep the literary conversations going, so please all writers and readers support this essential fabric of the publishing industry, so necessary in this corporate conglomerate publishing world that subsumes and homogenises everything.  
Do you have any events planned?
COVIT 19 has put an end to the book launches l had planned this year, but (and here is one positive coming out of the pandemic) people are reading more books, taking time to live in literary worlds, and I have had increased sales of all my books, some wonderful emails from readers, good reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. We have had to adapt to moving events and activities online and we are now more in tune with the virtual and online social media environment. It is important to be visible here, so please, if you read my books, visit my website, leave a comment on Amazon or Goodreads and let’s keep the conversation going and our community alive!