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A month of writing

Sophie Williamson used to feel guilty about not writing – until she decided to take alternate months off. So forget about October and focus on November (which just happens to be National Novel Writing Month...)

‘Beautiful, experimental and fun’

It’s poetry season in the Mslexia Salon

‘A poem is a closed fist’

From all of us at Mslexia, to all of you women writers out there: a poem about women’s writing for National Poetry Day

Do you have enough poems for a collection?

Pamphlet or full collection? Theme or no theme? Sophia Blackwell, author of The Poetry Writers’ Handbook, advises on how to gather your poems together for publication

Blurbology

The back-cover blurb is one of the most important factors influencing book buying. Anna Davis investigates the tricky art of hype and hot air

Teenage angst

Contemporary YA explores real-world issues through teenage characters. Laura Steven explains how best to tackle realism and darker themes.

‘I lay awake revisiting the creaky old house I'd lived in as a child’

The multi-award-winning children’s author Elizabeth Laird built her formidable reputation writing stories based on her research in far-away lands. But when Covid lockdowns put an end to her journeying, she travelled back in time instead, to turn her childhood memories into fiction.

20 Questions with Sara Barnard

In the run up to our competition for Children’s and YA novels, we caught up with YA-Book Prize-winning author Sara Barnard to see how she goes about writing her bestselling books. Key takeaways? Cut out distractions with rain sounds, and beat writer’s block by fast-forwarding to a different part of the story

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