Stuart Aken's Blog, page 347

You Gotta Read Reviews

You Gotta Read Reviews is a blog running a monthly contest on the popularity of books based on their covers and the short blurb accompanying them. Out of interest, I've entered the contest this month. Voting begins today. You might like to vote for my book, Breaking Faith. Alternatively, you might find one of the other entries attractive or may even want to enter your own. If you decide to do that, let me know, via the comments space, and we might all vote for each other or even have our own ...

Claude Bouchard Interview

Claude was born in Montreal, Canada, where he still resides with his spouse, Joanne as well as the rulers of the household, Krystalle and Midnight, their cats. He completed his studies in human resources, accounting and management at McGill University and worked in various management capacities in the fields of HR and finance for a handful of firms for too many years.
His first stab at writing was in 1995, the result being his first novel, Vigilante. This was subsequently followed by The...

EVERYONE NEEDS AN EDITOR

Stolen, with permission, from FFW SMALL MARKETS, a weekly newsletter edited by Hope Clark.Writer's Digest's 101 Best Websites for Writers
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010Editor: C. Hope Clark
Mailto: Hope@FundsforWriters.com
Web Site: www.fundsforwriters.com
The best best-selling authors sound like crap before an
editor gets his hands on the manuscript.Well, maybe not crap, but the work is still rough - rough
enough for the publisher to want it touched up, chapters

Linda Swift, Author, Interviewed

At ten, Linda Swift wrote her first poems and a play. She wrote her first romance novel at sixteen. Then life happened. She married, had a son and daughter, went to college and began a teaching career. . . in that order.
Resuming her poetry writing, she attended the Jesse Stuart Creative Writing Workshop and, for the first time, met other serious authors. This led to writing short stories and articles, and being published.
Her dream, however, was to write books. She wrote a second novel, and...

The Last Early Rising as Published in Scribble

I threatened to start a series on magazines that take fiction writing, so here goes. I'm introducing the first along with a sample of the stories they take; one of my own from 2005, as I own copyright and don't have to ask permission.Scribble is a small press magazine taking short stories from writers of all ability levels from the absolute newbie to the most professional. Publishing stories up to 3,000 words in length, they will consider almost all topics and genres. The tendency is for the...

Scottish writer, Kristal McKerrington, Interviewed.

Image by stuartaken via Flickr
Kristal McKerrington is a 20 year old writer from Scotland UK, who loves Tetley Tea, Mochas, Lattés andMcDonalds. She's a writer who wants to break new ground in writing. 
Hello,Am so glad to be here today and I would like to thank Stuart Aken for giving me the time on his wonderful blog. Currently we are getting ready for two releases of mine at XOXO Publishing. One is 'Freedom Is Earned' a story about a young woman's struggle to find out who tried   to kill her...

Competitions and Magazines

I am intending an expansion of the competition details under the 'Competitions' tab. This will be an organic and irregular update, which I'll flag each time I add something new. So, if you're into contests with your writing, keep an eye out for this source of news of opportunities.
Magazines: I'm also intending to set up a new tab, labelled 'Magazines' where I will give details of those magazines which provide outlets for fiction, of any sort. So, if you're a magazine editor and would like to ...

Interview with Valmore Daniels, Author of Forbidden The Stars.

 In true nomadic spirit, Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.

An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.
Tell us about Forbidden The Stars in a few...

Review of From Pitch to Publication by Carole Blake

From Pitch to Publication, subtitled Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published, is the insider's guide to getting published successfully. Carole Blake has worked in the book industry for 47 years. That's a lot of time and it shows in her excellent volume on getting your fiction published. She's been a literary agent for a large part of that time, starting her own agency in 1977, after spending 14 years in publishing. She is now co-director of the agency she set up with Julian...

Neil White, Author Interview

Neil White works as a criminal lawyer by day and a crime fiction writer by night. Born 1965, above a shoe shop, in Mexborough, a small South Yorkshire mining town, as the middle son of the manager and his teenage bride. His father's career in the retail trade took the family back to where they started, Wakefield in West Yorkshire where Neil gained an accent and a love of rugby league.Kettlethorpe, a rough council estate on the edge of the tough city, was where he lived but that isn't how he r...