Mslexia Magazine - Issue 80

Agenda: what’s happening to writers’ earnings?

PLUS: Surviving troll on social media • True crime • When to give up your novel • Writing for Mills and Boon

Editor
Debbie Taylor

Plus

Carol Ann Duffy • A L Kennedy • Anna Soubry • Suzanne O’Sullivan • Bidisha

Agenda

• Money matters: Grace Holliday weighs the evidence on author earnings

Forum

• What you’re saying about… literary agents, elitism and literary comp judging
• What happened when you wrote your aspirational writer’s biography
• For the love of it: local history with Tania Rahman
• Blogwatch
• Noticeboard
• Writing in the world: mental health with Caroline Butterwick

Showcase

• Carol Ann Duffy introduces the winners of the PBS/Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition

Craft

• Creativity news
• Writing exercises
• What works for Bidisha
• Poetry challenge: Rondeau Redoublé, selected by Linda France
• Ghost town: Margaret Wilkinson on the pros and cons of visiting the location she’s writing about
• Tara Bergin’s Achilles’ heel
• Flash genre: Wendy Dove
• First page surgery with Vicky Grut
• On giving up: Kat Sommers asks if it’s ever okay to admit defeat

Interview

• Suzanne O’Sullivan talks to Debbie Taylor

Off the page

• Script news
• Play list with Dawn King
• Rehearsals and warm-ups with Malika Booker
• Listen up with Helen Mort
• Bedtime story: ‘Tinker Boy’
• Moving words with Claire Trévien
• Sister acts with Kirsten Luckins
• Monologue: ‘Preston and free’ by A L Kennedy

Career

• Publishing news
• Crystal ball
• #hutchrabbitgirls: Kim Moore on being silenced by social media trolls
• Pitch surgery with Karolina Sutton
• Pitch calendar
• Self-help book test drive with Meg Clothier

Doors open

• Open for submissions
• Insight: pitch prospects
• Three of a kind: women-only publishing
• Insight: script submissions to UK Film Festival Script Competition
• Open for entries: competitions and awards
• Insight: literary agent Jenny Hewson’s manuscript wishlist
• Insight: The K Blundell Trust
• Insight: Writers’ & Artists’ YearbookShort Story Competition
• Time away: writing holidays

Out now

• Début author interview: Kate Milner
• Poet laureate by Vicky Allen
• Six best translated novels by women
• Poetry news
• Poetry review by Mary Jean Chan
• Non-fiction: true crime with Caroline Sanderson
• L is for…
• Fiction issues: on writing Mills & Boon by Julia Williams
• Short story news
• Short story review by Angela Readman
• Short story heroes: Katherine Mansfield
• Books about writing
• I confess

Don’t miss

• Events and courses

And finally

• Anna Soubry’s bedtime reading
• What we’re up to
• Submitting and subscribing to Mslexia