...it's alive! The new Wordwatchers site that is.Which of course, if you're reading this, you'll know already.Welcome anyway...
The Unseen - paperback out Nov 24th
From Katherine Webb's Facebook page..."Only two weeks and two days until the paperback release of The Unseen... I had a fantastic lunch to celebrate with some lovely Orion people yesterday, and got the great news that the book will be stocked in pretty much every UK supermarket and major bookstore, and will be The Times/WHSmith book of the week from November 24th... Plenty of time to grab a copy as a Christmas present for somebody, folks!"Fantastic news, Katherine. So excited that The Unseen is about to get its turn in the limelight. Well deserved!
New competition underway - Identity
As you can see from some of the previous entries on this site, every six months or so, we set ourselves a short story competition. It's a great opportunity to try out different writing styles or different genres... or stick with what we already know and hope our voice continues to get stronger for the practice.This time, we've decided to align our competition with a public short story competition being run by the Writers and Artists Yearbook. It's on the theme of Identity, and details can be found here. The public competition's entry date is Valentine's Day next year. We'll be handing ours in at the December meeting, ready for voting by January, so hopefully we'll all be ready in good time for the February date, should we decide to enter.It seems only five minutes since the last batch of stories (misleadingly titled 'light and fluffy') got dragged into existence (at least, that's how most of us seemed to feel by the time we'd made our attempts at what should have been the simplest of styles). And now it's Identity. Interestingly, one piece of advice for would-be entrants to the W&A competition was how refreshing the judges found it when they came across something that made them laugh... or presumably just not plunge them into some angst-ridden patch of purple prose.So, who knows, maybe all that sweating over 'light and fluffy' will pay off after all.
Wordwatchers joins Facebook
Well, it had to happen eventually didn't it? Wordwatchers now has a group page on Facebook. It's currently open to everybody on Facebook (an estimated 700 million individuals) so this may change when we start getting 100s of requests per day (one can hope (or is that fear?)).The members of Wordwatchers who are currently also on Facebook have been dragged in as the initial members, so I don't look like billy-no-mates. Next part of the plan is to drag in the Alumni members (doesn't Alumni sound much nicer than "ex"?) and then other authors I also know on Facebook.After that, who knows, perhaps one big virtual writers love-in!Find us here.
The Legacy goes from strength to strength
WordWatcher's Alumni Katherine Webb is continuing to enjoy international success with The Legacy's latest international release. Taken from Katherine's Facebook page, her September 14th post says:"Just had the most amazing news that The Legacy (aka Das Geheime Vermachtnis) has sold 70,000 copies in its first two weeks of release in Germany! Absolutely fantastic - thank you so much, German readers!"Congratulations Katherine!
Charlotte Betts - Shortlisted for Choc Lit
Charlotte's done it again - she's got herself short-listed for another award. The Apothecary's Daughter is up for Choc Lit Best Historical Read Award, for novels of any romance genre set prior to 1961.As Charlotte states on her web site:The winners will be announced at the Festival of Romance Have A Heart Ball and Awards on Saturday 22 October, along with the Festival of Romance New Talent Award to recognise writers of great talent who have not yet been commercially published. The Festival of Romance takes place on 21st and 22nd October at Hunton Park in Hertfordshire. Supported by over 30 authors and six publishers, the literary event is a celebration of the romantic fiction genre for readers, with chocolate and cupcakes alongside literary debate.Read more about it on Charlotte's web site.
Charlotte's Light and Fluffy winner
A tough short story competition has given us all a new found respect for authors of so-called light and fluffy stories. Every six months we give ourselves a new challenge to test our story-telling, and this summer saw us wrestling with something that (judging by all the complaints going around on email) proved to be a new direction for most of the group - the light and fluffy, uplifting story.Lorum diddly humpty dumpty piddly poosie woosie.
Summer 2011 Short Story Competition: Uplifting
The 2011 WordWatchers Short Story Competition is well and truly underway. The theme for this one is 'Uplifting' - a feel good story on any subject. Submissions are due at the July meeting.