Ali Bacon's Blog, page 16

Bristol Women Writers: nothing succeeds like success

If my writing news (and, shamefully, writing) is a bit thin on the ground in the dog days of August, it’s great to have some truly wonderful news to report from two members ofmy writing group who have already appeared here this year.

Hot on the heels of her Cornish novel Time Out of Mind, ShirleyWright is about to launch her first poetry collection with Indigo Press. Shirley’s poetry has already won some huge prizes and with writing that’s lyrical, complex, but also extremely accessible, I’m e...

Selling your books – two great resources

It is a truth universally acknowledged that in our brave new world of publishing (sorry, mixing my literary allusions here) the author has to sell as well as write. This is particularly the case if you are self or indie published, but I know for a fact that even friends signed up by the ‘big six’ are expected to play just as big a part in their own marketing. Very few of us have the time skills or even enthusiasm to go about it in anything resembling a professional manner, and I’m all too awa...

Man Booker Madness

What has caught your eye about the Man Booker longlist? The number of indie publishers? The breadth? The depth? The welcome appearance of small or indie publishers ? All of these have been mentioned in various quarters, but it was when I put my feet up with yesterday’s Telegraph Review that it came to my notice that from a list of thirteen, five have not yet been published. Well, Man Booker judges have rarely been influenced by best-seller lists, but surely anything being discussed as a poten...

Bristol Suffragettes – historical walk, historic day

Well before the tennis action got under way last Sunday, I was over in Clifton learning about Bristol Suffragettes from local authorLucienne Boyce whose book from local publishers Silverwood has just come out.

Annie Kenney lived here

Assuming like many people that the suffragette movement was London-based, I was fascinated to learn on our walk around leafy Clifton how the movement was organised across the country and how big a part Bristol played in the action, from the appointment of local org...

Scottish tennis – Come on Andy!

Growing up in Scotland and loving tennis is a difficult path to follow and I should know. In my home town not a million miles from Dunblane, the weather was always rubbish. A lot of my memories involve sitting in the clubhouse waiting for the puddles on the court to evaporate.I watchedmy first ever grasscourt match at Craiglockart under a brollie. To get to Wimbledon as a spectator was unheard of – as for playing? But for some reason there was never any lack of passion. My Mum and dad were gl...

On demand and in the ether

At last week’s literary lunch inSuffolk I decided to read a short story which is the last (latest?) in a series about a retired couple coming to terms with their newfound life together ( I married him ‘for better or for worse ‘ but not for lunch ). I’m glad to say it went down really well with the fifty strong audience on the day and it reminded me that previous efforts in this series are available to download from the amazing Etherbooks site.

Ether on Android

I have mentioned Etherbooks before...

Events – and a bargain!

Very soon I’m off to Suffolk and a Literary Lunch for which40 tickets have been sold (yes, sold!!) I’m trying not to panic at the size of the audience, but with the ladiesof the WI in charge I have no doubt that the lunch will be great. (Just wondering if I can ask for a doggy bag to eat it after my slot!)

Next up, and easier to get to for local friends is Southville Writers book fair. I’m really looking forward to it as a social event, butdon’t forget that at each and any of my author events...

Leave those darlings alone! – or less may not be more

I came across a random tweet this week that probably sprang from a blog post I didn’t actually read, but the gist was that the aspiring novelist should hack ruthlessly at the MS until every sliver of self-indulgent prose is removed and the story shines forth in slim and graceful clarity. Well this is hardly news. We have all slain darlingsin our time and rightly so, but I think the hack and hack again approach can be dangerous. I think it might even have dealt my first novel a mortal blow.

I’m...

Future of the novel – set menu and a la carte

Nothing like a portentous title to get the comments coming in – well that’s my cunning plan. But it’s a question I do ponder from time to time amongst more mundane issues like what to cook for supper and if my bedding plants (yes I still do bedding plants) will survive another gale. It actually started with Andew Marr (bless, is he better yet?) who wrote a column a few years ago saying he thought he might have ‘gone off’ fiction for the simple reason he was starting (as I recall) to find nove...

The unkindest cut of all. On being edited

Editing. We all do it. We all need it. It’s part of the writing process I actually like: looking at what I’ve done, revising, snipping, polishing. Those of us who are unpublished will probably might rely on our own aptitude or take ourselves along to a group where critical friends will see the howlers our own familiarity has missed. If we’re self-publishing, we might pay for a professional editing job. After all, no one wants to go the market without a serious attempt at quality control. Of c...