What's coming up: December 2015

Hello,

We’re busy preparing the next season’s programme, which will be available and hitting your doormats in the new year, and include events with bestselling authors as well as writing courses and, of course, our regular young writers’ groups.

Our events in December and January

Seven Minute Stories returns on Thursday 10 December at 6pm at the Library of Birmingham. In the summer, writers Mez Packer, Rob Jefferson-Brown, Dragan Todorovic, Justina Hart and Ruth Gilligan were each paired with a reading group who gave them a list of narrative ingredients to weave into a story. The special event features all five writers in conversation with Roz Goddard, the co-ordinator of West Midlands Readers Network, about the process of writing to commission. Each writer will read an extract of the story and there will be a limited edition anthology featuring all the stories in full to take away at the end of the evening.

In January, we’re running a new 6-week short course: Writing Fiction from Start to Finish. The small group of participants will learn about the writing process (characters, plot and dialogue) as well as editing, and learning to juggle your writing career with other work. Run by writer and playwright William Gallagher, sessions will also be led by playwright, journalist and young adults’ workshop leader Alex Townley plus novelist and self-publishing expert Katharine D’Souza.

We’ve partnered with Arvon to offer a weekend course in late January (29th-31st) called Arvon City: Starting to Write, led by acclaimed writers, novelist and journalist Sathnam Sanghera and poet Liz Berry. This non-residential course will help you find your writing voice and make it sing. You’ll experience a powerful mix of workshops, one-to-one tutorials, the support of fellow writers and plenty time and space to write. It allows the time and space of a traditional Arvon course (usually a week’s residency) with a more flexible timeframe, to suit your other commitments. Spaces are limited to 16. 

Happy reading!

The Writing West Midlands team

Events around the region

An Evening with Mel Sherratt
Stoke-on-Trent City Central Library: Friday 4 December, 7.30pm
Acclaimed local crime writer Mel Sherratt will share a fascinating insight into her work. Mel, who writes police procedurals, psychological suspense and “grit-lit”, makes liberal use of her hometown of Stoke-on-Trent as a backdrop for her fantastic thrillers. Books will be available to purchase (at a special discounted price!), and Mel will sign copies for her readers.
Tickets: £3 per person, including refreshments, from 01782 238455 or central.library@stoke.gov.uk. 

Competitions and opportunities for writers

Writers wanted for Megaphone: deadline 24 December 2015
Writers are invited to apply to Megaphone, a new, Birmingham-based writer development scheme supporting ethnic minority writers who want to write for children or teenagers. Successful applicants will get one-to-one support writing their novel, attend masterclasses with experienced children’s authors, receive feedback from editors at major publishers specialising in children’s fiction and will have their work promoted to the publishing industry. The Megaphone scheme is funded by the Arts Council and The Publishers’ Association, with support from Writing West Midlands. It is led by children’s author and tutor on the University of Warwick Writing MA, Leila Rasheed.

Emma Press submissions needed: deadline 13 December 2015
Birmingham-based publisher the Emma Press is looking for poetry and prose pamphlet proposals. Writers are invited to send in 10 poems or the full prose manuscript, which will be read by editors Rachel Piercey and Emma Wright

Scholarship available funded by Kit de Waal: deadline 16 February
Author Kit de Waal is to fund a Creative Writing scholarship at Birkbeck, University of London, for a budding writer from a low-income household or a marginalised background. Among those being targeted by the scholarship are care leavers, ex-prisoners, members of BAME communities, people with a disability and those of low socioeconomic status. The scholarship is for a student who would not otherwise be able to afford the course; it will pay for them to complete Birkbeck’s part- time Creative Writing MA over two years from October 2016. It will also include a travel bursary to enable the student to travel into London for classes, and Waterstones vouchers to buy books on the course’s reading list. For full information and to apply, click here.

Congratulations...

…to Room 204-er Liz Kershaw who’s just won the No Exit Press Crime Fiction Short Story competition with her story The Valentine Murders. Also, along with two of Room 204 colleagues, Liz has had a story selected for the Haunted anthology published by Mantle Arts.

Dr Gulara Vincent is one of the winners of the Transformational Author Experience writing contest 2015. She won the top prize: Book Proposal Review and Consideration for a Traditional Publishing Contract with New World Library (Publisher of Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”), as well as a ticket to a live Transformational Author Breakthrough event in Baltimore, MD in 2016.