Jhalak Prize 2019

The winner of the Jhalak Prize is to be announced on the evening of 1st May. As is by now traditional, Catriona Troth has been reading all of the shortlist (and most of the long list) and here presents her round-up of this year’s contenders, her personal favourites and her prediction for the winner.

It is always such a pleasure each year to discover what books have been chosen for the Jhalak Prize longlist, and to delve into the ones I have not already read.

This year, non-fiction titles have made a particularly strong showing - as, not surprisingly, did themes of identity, class and the perpetually unacknowledged hangover of Empire. The longlist consisted of three novels, two poetry collections, one children’s novel, a memoir, plus five other non-fiction titles. Surviving into the shortlist were two novels, one poetry collection, the children’s novel and two very different non-fiction titles.

So, my run down of the top six, with links to my full reviews on BookMuseUK:

*WINNER: In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne

Guy Gunaratne’s mad and furious city is London - the rough estates of modern, multi-cultural, working class London. A soldier has been murdered on these streets in broad daylight and the city is turning on itself. Far Right groups are marching, threatening the mosque. And in response, the new Imam is summoning up a vigilante group of young men, the Muhajiroun, to protect, but also to police, their community.

A powerful novel that rips a window onto contemporary London in all its multicultural complexity - its violence, its vibrancy and its endurance.

Read my full review here.

The Perseverance by Raymond Atrobus

Raymond Antrobus’s stunning debut collection has also been shortlisted for the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize International. Antrobus is Deaf, and as he points out, Deaf culture has too often been silenced, patronised and misrepresented. Antrobus’s cuts through that with shining clarity. This is an exceptionally talented poet at the very start of his career.

Read my full review here. 

Happiness by Aminatta Forna

So many layers of complexity are woven into this story of two lives colliding (literally) on Waterloo Bridge. In the course of a story that takes place over a mere handful of days, the novel takes on the brutality of the Hostile Environment and the failings of the care system. It challenges the Western notions of ‘normality’ that underpin psychologists’ assumptions about trauma and PTSD. And it questions our relationship with urbanised wild animals like coyotes and foxes. Even the notion of happiness, captured in the title, is questioned, its place taken instead by the more enduring notion of hope.

Read my full review here. 

 

The Boy At the Back of the Class by Onjali K Raúf

The Boy At the Back of the Class centres on Ahmet, a refugee child from Syria. But it is not the story of his perilous journey escaping a war zone and making his way to England. Rather it is the story of four friends at the primary school he starts to attend and how they react to learning his story. The story is told by nine year old Alexa, who doesn’t understand why with the new boy at the back of the class doesn’t speak or smile, or why he disappears every break and lunchtime. And she certainly doesn’t understand the way some adults talk about him - what is a refugee kid anyway?

A joyous, life-affirming book for middle readers about acceptance and the power to change the world

Read my full review here.

Built: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures by Roma Agrawal

Roma Agrawal’s Built is filled with infectious enthusiasm. A structural engineer who has worked on bridges and buildings including London’s iconic Shard, she takes you on a journey under the skin of city skylines and deep into their infrastructure.

This book was a joy to read! All the principles are explained simply and accessibly (with diagrams). And even if you don’t grasp some of the details, enthusiasm and wonder will carry you through. Agrawal will leave you with a profound respect for engineers and the magic they weave - magic that most of us scarcely give a passing thought to as we go about our daily lives.

Read my full review here.

Natives - Race and Class in the ruins of Empire, by Akala

Natives takes aspects of modern British society and traces their roots back into Britain’s imperial past - a past which present-day citizens have been taught to see only through blinkers and some heavily rose-tinted spectacles. Akala forensically examines Britain’s role in the slave trade (conveniently forgotten in our haste to pat ourselves on our backs for our part in ending it). He shows how class is systematically used to trap white and black people alike - but how the few that break free may escape class, but that race follows them wherever they go.

Both scholarly and personal, this is a book that will challenge your world view - particularly those of us who have, however unwittingly, inherited the benefits and privileges of our imperialist forebears.

Read my full review here.

I do not envy the judges the choice they have to make in picking a winner. I loved every single one of these. I have a personal soft spot for Roma Agrawal’s Built, because it rekindled the excitement and pleasure in maths and engineering that I had as a student . But if I must predict a winner it has to be Raymond Atrobus’s The Perseverance for giving voice so eloquently to the Deaf Community. We shall see!

[*EDIT] And as you can see - the winner was Guy Gunaratne's brilliant, eloquent debut novel, In Our Mad and Furious City.


And below, from the long list: 

The Healing Next Time by Roy McFarlane

Three sequences of poems by the former Poet Laureate of Birmingham that rage against the violence inflicted on Black people by the state. Reminiscent of poems like Di Great Insohrekshan and Inglan is a Bitch by Linton Kwesi Johnson, written in the wake of the New Cross Fire and the Brixton Uprisings, The Healing Next Time moves the story on another 30 or 40 years and, sadly, shows how little has changed.

Full review to come on BookMuseUK.

Ponti by Sharlene Teo

Ponti is a debut novel by Sharlene Teo, set in Singapore, where Teo was born. It’s a sophisticated coming-of-age story that explores grief, loss, disappointment and their physical manifestations in teenage and young adult bodies. The rich language vividly evokes a world that will be unfamiliar to many readers, without the need to exoticise it. If your only reference for Singapore is an image of a skyline of glass and concrete tower blocks, this is an entry into a whole different world, that of the city’s ordinary inhabitants.

Read my full review here.

The Stopping Places: a journey through Gypsy Britain, by Damian le Bas

Damian le Bas comes from a long line of English Romanies based around Surrey. He was raised in a Romany family, speaks the Romani language and has suffered his fair share of anti-Roma prejudice. But because he is of mixed blood - with fair skin and fair hair - even some of his own family don’t fully accept him as a true Gypsy (the word, always capitalised, that he himself most often uses to describe his people). So one autumn he sets out in a white transit van to discover the aitchin tans - stopping places - used by Romanies and Travellers around the country. In the course of the journey, le Bas reveals there was a time when Romany life slotted in with the seasonal nature of farm work and a kind of coexistence was possible. The present day almost complete lack of tolerance by settled communities of Travellers and Romanies is, in the end , in the interests of no one.

Full review to come on BookMuseUK.

Brit(ish) - on race identity and belonging - by Afua Hirsch

Rarely have I gone through a book highlighting so many passages. Hirsch brilliantly captures both the positive and negative aspects of having multiple cultural identities. On the one hand, it: “offers the possibility of full-body immersion, deep-sea diving; an experience that is difficult to pin down, but feels mystical and profound.” On the other, “at its worse ... (it) can feel like being helplessly adrift, unable to embrace the beauty of any one place, fearful of the water, awkward on land.”

Despite the depth of racism - structural and otherwise - in British society that it exposes, this book feels optimistic. But if we are truly to become a post-racial society, it is vital that we stop trying to pretend that we already are. We have to have the courage to have to difficult conversations, to acknowledge ugly truths about ourselves. To have humility.

Read my full review here.

Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Children - Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff (ed)

It is the bitterest of ironies that the Windrush Scandal blew up in the year that was supposed to have been a celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the arrival of the “Windrush Generation” - those British subjects from colonies and former colonies who answered the cry of the “Mother Country” to come and fill the massive labour shortage resulting from years of war. There is a lot to unpick in that oversimplified summary of the situation, and Mother Country, telling as it does the individual stories of twenty-two of those immigrants and their descendents, does a lot to show the true complexity of their history.

Full review to come on BookMuseUK.

The Long Road to Publication

By Andy (Red)Smith


The end is nigh. The end of the long road to publication, that is. Breaking the Lore will be published on April 15th, and I will have reached my destination. I’m officially listed on Canelo’s website as one of their authors, I’ve seen the book on pre-order on Amazon, and I’m still pinching myself. So this is the last of these articles that I’ll be writing. (What do you mean “Hoorah!”?!)

Having got Breaking the Lore off to the publishers for them to do all their stuff (whatever that entails, as I said last time), I’ve spent the last few months writing a sequel at breakneck pace. I’m very grateful to have a great bunch of folks in South Manchester Writers’ Workshop who have offered comments and critiques, and generally helped to keep me on track. The sequel should be out in July (and might even have a name by then.) At the moment it is in the editing stage, prior to it going off to the publishers. Then I might have a break!

Getting to this point has been a long and sometimes rocky road. I’m very grateful to the WWJ team for their support along the way. If I could offer any advice to would-be authors travelling the same road it would be: Keep writing the novel that you want to write. Make it as good as you can. Hope for a bit of luck along the way. And, most of all, keep going. Writing a novel is big undertaking, even if you’re only doing it one word at a time. As the ancient Chinese proverb says: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Unless you go by car. And somebody carries you from your house to the car. And from your bed to the front door.” (Luckily enough, the ancient Chinese had a very good marketing team who refined the proverb a tad.)

So what next for me? Sell 14 million copies and retire to The Bahamas? Probably not. But you never know…..

Thanks for listening and best of luck in all of your endeavours.

Andy

(Breaking the Lore will be published on Kindle, Kobo, etc. from April 15^th. Under my pen-name Andy Redsmith. Available on Amazon for pre-order now!)

Message from the Words with JAM team: We couldn't be happier to see Andy's First Page Winner emerge as a complete novel, with a sequel in the pipeline. Love that cover! Many thanks to Andy for sharing his journey and we encourage everyone to discover Inspector Paris and Breaking the Lore. Good luck, Andy, and please come back once in a while to share your successes. Cheers! 

The Author's Website

Robert Mening, founder of WebsiteSetup.org talks JJ Marsh through the considerations when setting up an author's website.


What are the must-haves for a writer's website?

Some writers create their website in order to achieve their ultimate goal; which is mainly reaching their target audience and get people to read their site content and maybe to have their books sold to them. While it’s easy and quickly to set up a website, it is important for writers to remember that a website represents who they are and what they have to offer.

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

The must-haves for a writer's website are:

- About/Bio Page: To have a bio and links to online social media pages. A writer needs to create a separate page with a more detailed bio and a professional author photo.

- Portfolio Page: A page of portfolio of work detailing any work a writer has made and always include links to where the writer's work can be read or purchased. Also, writers might have a separate page for books and products/services, or they might combine everything in a single page if there is only a few things.

- Blog: A blog platform is highly recommended to keep readers coming back to the writer website. It should be updated regularly with articles relating to writing experiences and journeys.

- Email newsletter: A writer needs to start collecting email subscribers to stay in touch with readers who visit their site. Whether they send it once a month or once a week, Email newsletter is always a great way to keep writers audience comping back to the website.

- Contact page: It is a vital part of a website, so writers should take a good amount of time to make it excellent! Make it as easy as possible for someone to get your contact details because visitors might be potential clients, they will more than likely want to contact a writer at some point time.


How does one keep it fresh?

The single most important thing a writer needs to have to do when creating their first unique website is posting regular content, because often updated blogs do perform well against inconsistent ones. It's a no-brainer that once a writer abandons their website, their audience would stop visiting the website and they would see a drastic decrease in terms of website traffic. That said, writers should keep their blog as fresh as a daisy by adding fresh content and updating old blog posts. To do so, consider using these tips:

- Decide on a blog posting frequency, it may be every other day or once a week. Whatever you decide, let your readers know so that they can expect when you're going to post a new content.

- Accept that there will times when you don’t have time or just won’t feel like updating your blog. Then prepare for it and take advantage of the option to schedule posts in advance.

- Always keep your eyes out for new content by visiting regularly other related author sites. What are they doing? You’d be surprised how many times you would find something relevant to your own website.

- Encourage readers to comment on your blog posts or to contact you. You'd be wondering how that will help you maintain your blog. Your readers are sometimes the best sources of new content so keep interacting with as much as possible.

- Make sure your site is up to date with your current book information and as mentioned above always include links to where your hard work can be read or purchased.

- Check your site stats, by using a tool to check your website statistics, you’ll start collecting data on your website traffic, your will see the most popular content, and how your visitors navigate or use the site. For instance, if you find out one section of your site that is popular, consider rewriting and expanding that section to offer more.

Photo by José Alejandro Cuffia on Unsplash

What sort of things should writers avoid?

- Start Fast and Expect better Results: You know your schedule and abilities better than anyone else, so don’t try posting every day. Start out by posting weekly until you get your feet wet then you can increase your posting.

- Limit your word count: If you have got something to say, write it. Readers prefer to read comprehensive content (More than 500 words). This doesn’t mean you can’t feature shorter pieces, of course you can but when the time is right, go long.

- Make grammar mistakes: If you ever want readers to take you seriously, you have to take your website seriously. So if you do grammar mistakes, correct them as soon as possible. Give your website the professional quality it deserves.

- Be negative: It’s generally unacceptable to be negative when writing your blog posts, you will develop your professional career as an author by being positive, inspirational and supportive to the community that you’re writing to.

- Avoid trying new things: It’s important to let your blog evolve over time and take risks from time to time. Whether it’s adding infographs or personal stories or guest bloggers. If you feel it can add value to your blog, do it and don't be afraid.


Any top tips for authors who have never created a website before?

A website is your most critical tool for book promotion and long-term platform development. When you create your very first website, consider doing it right. These tips listed below will help you launch your website effectively.

- Know the audience you're targeting and get ideas from other relevant authors.

- Be consistent, once you get going on, consistency is key. Try to keep you blog updated by posting at least once a week.

- Write catchy headlines and don't be shy to ask your audience to share your content on social media.

- Create good content that keeps your readers coming back over and over.

- Monetize your blog with products and services that are related and valued to your content and your readers.

- Build your email list and start sending your subscribers email about your blog.

- Build a community, start engaging on other blogs/forums in your niche, and include a link to your blog every time you post a comment.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Does that sound doable?

Creating a website was once a tricky and expensive process. Fortunately, nowadays we have website builders who come into play and have made it easier than ever to create a stunning website without any knowledge of coding. It allows anyone and everyone to create a great website under just an hour.

Website Builders have a handy feature that shows you exactly what your site will look like as you're editing it. As you edit your site in the back-end, it's a matter of drag and drop to build the ideal website, this means that anyone can create a website, even without past experience of doing so.

Thank you, Robert, for such practical advice.


For more information on which website-builder to use, read the results of Robert's research in https://websitesetup.org/website-builders/

One Woman's Struggle - Nasrin Parvaz discusses oppression, survival and the strength of women

by Catriona Troth

Many Prisoners in One Room by Nasrin Parvaz

In 1979, Nasrin Parvaz returned from England, where she had been studying, and became a member of a socialist party in Iran fighting for a non-Islamic state in which women had the same rights as men. Three years later, at the age of 23, she was betrayed by a comrade and arrested by the regime’s secret police.

Nasrin spent the next eight years in Iran’s prison system. She was systematically tortured, threatened with execution, starved and forced to live in appalling, horribly overcrowded conditions. One Woman’s Struggle in Iran is both an account of what happened to her during those eight years, and evidence that her spirit was never broken.

In 1990 she was released and in 1993 she fled to England, where she has been a client of Freedom From Torture. She has given talks on the violation of human rights in Iran, both in Farsi and in English, in a number of countries. She has spoken at Southbank Centre (2015 and 2016), Bare Lit Festival (2016 and 2017), and for organizations such as Amnesty International, Cambridge PEN and Freedom From Torture.

Nasrin’s prison memoir was published in Farsi in 2002, and in Italian in 2006. The English edition has now been published by Victorina Press. Her novel, The Secret Letters from X to A, is also published by Victorina.

Here Nasrin talks to Catriona Troth about her hopes for her memoir, for Iran and for women the world over.

Prison by Nasrin Parvaz

When you started writing One Woman’s Struggle, did you imagine it would be published one day, or was it initially something you did for yourself, as part of the healing process?

I started writing it to publish it. Publishing was my only aim as my prime aim was to communicate. My personal experience is not just personal but is part of the universal history of oppression and struggle.


How did Freedom from Torture and the Write to Life group help you?

I received therapy from FFT for a few years and my therapist was really kind and helpful. She helped me in other areas of life, as well as in the therapy room. For example, I wanted to study psychology and she helped me to find a bursary, so I only had to pay half the price of the course. Things like this that I wasn’t aware of!

When Sonja Linden started the Write to Life group, I was one of her first clients and I must say, if it wasn’t for Sonja, and later on, Hubert Moore who was my mentor, I might have not continued writing! English was not my first language and I was trying to learn it by exchanging one-to-one lessons with people who wanted to learn Farsi.

The Write to Life group helped me in many different ways - including learning how to put my prison experience into words and how to write a story.

Your memoir has already been published in Farsi. Why is it important for you that it is being published in English as well?

Actually I first started to write it in English, but half way into it I realised it wasn’t good enough, so I began to write it in Farsi. I want to tell the world what is happening in Iran and to tell them that the government is carrying out crimes such as imprisoning and executing people for what they believe in - or what they don’t believe in.

Because of my personal experience when I started to write my book, I could only see that torture and execution were happening in Iran; but now I can see that this is happening everywhere. Some might say it’s not happening in western countries, then I’ll tell them that I see it whenever I walk down the road. Yes, the homeless people living in the streets of London and other cities of the world are subject to physical and mental torture. I no longer see that torture - as a means of crushing people - is something that happens only in prison, but as something that is part of the world’s system. Witnessing something so dehumanising is psychological torture for passers-by: it is for me. Every time I see a homeless person, the same feelings of frustration and helplessness I experienced in prison when I was being tortured or my cellmates were being beaten come over me and I feel depressed. 

 

As much as the book is an indictment of oppression, it is a celebration of the strength of women and women’s friendship. How do you think that spirit survives when everything in the system is designed to crush it?

The strength of women and our friendship was one of the ways in which prisoners put up resistance to that system. The Iranian women’s resistance started in 1979, when only a few days after Khomeini arrived in Iran, he announced women should wear the chador - which is like a burqa, except that the woman’s face is uncovered. The next day, on the 8th of March women poured into the streets of Tehran and many other towns. It’s true that the regime eventually forced women to cover their hair; but it took three years till they made it a law and they couldn’t put women into sacks; head scarves became compulsory and nowadays, women are arrested if they don’t observe this law.

Unfortunately so many men have not supported women’s struggle against this sexual apartheid and actively benefit from it.

You've also written a novel based on your experiences - The Secret Letters from X to A. Can you tell us a bit about it?

In Tehran there is a historic circular building once known as the Joint Committee Interrogation Centre. Its designers were German, so the balcony railings were decorated with Nazi symbols. Reza Shah ordered it in 1932 and it was ready in 1937. Political prisoners were tortured there. The Islamic Republic renamed it Towhid and started using it to crush the revolution of young generation who upon toppling the Shah were enjoying freedom of expression. Closed down in 2000, Towhid opened again in 2003 with a new identity: the Ebrat Museum of Iran, exhibiting displays of torture that the Islamic regime says were committed only under the Shah’s regime, and never under their own. I spent six months of my eight years' imprisonment in the interrogation centre that is now known as the Ebrat Museum. ‘Ebrat’ means ‘warning’. Children are frequently taken there on school trips.

The Secret Letters from X to A tells the story of Faraz, a young man who accepts a summer job converting one of Tehran’s prisons into a museum of the repressive rule of the Shah. He understands too late that this will mean destroying all evidence that the present regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran, has tortured and executed prisoners in this same building. Then he discovers a series of secret notebooks written by Xavar, a pregnant young woman who was interned there in 1984.

  

You can read chapter one of the Secret Letters from X to A:
https://www.victorinapress.com/the-secret-letters-from-x-to-a-chapter-1/

Why did you decide to turn your experiences into fiction, and how did it differ from writing the memoir?
I started to write about twenty years ago and my aim was to share my prison experience with people, as an act of struggling against the Islamic regime and to stop execution, torture and prison. At the time I was attending Write to Life workshops. During those workshops I wrote pieces which were not related to my own life or prison experiences. After a while I realised I had two piles of writing: one was related to my prison experience and the other pile was based on other people's life. So I worked on the second pile to make fictional stories and novels. Some of my short stories are publishes, and I have other novels to finish.

In writing fiction I could use my imagination freely and I enjoyed it, but writing my prison memoir was painful!

How optimistic are you for the future of Iran, and particularly for the role of women in the country?

I can’t separate Iran from the rest of the world. We all are in the same boat that is running fast with the current towards a future full of more misery, unless we do something about it. In Iran - the same as in the rest of the world - we need a just system that safeguards freedom and equality.

Regarding the women of Iran, I must say that they haven’t given up their struggle for freedom and equality with men. Since marriage gives all the rights such as divorce and custody to men, for many years it has been common practice for some women to ask their husbands to sign papers giving both parties equal rights. Many of the new generation don’t even bother with marriage and simply live together, even though this is illegal.

What is the most important message you would like people to derive from the book?

That we need to struggle for a just world: a world without torture and execution.

Thank you, Nasrin. I hope many people will support your book. It deserves to be widely read.

You can read Catriona Troth's review of  One Woman's Struggle in Iran  on BookMuseUK.

The Long Road to Publication: Part 7

by Andy Smith

SO: I’ve recovered from the shock of getting a publishing contract. What happens next? Two things.

Photo by Alex Loup on Unsplash

First, my completed novel ‘Breaking the Lore’ disappears into the publisher’s offices for copy editing, proof reading and various other processes. What these are, I don’t know. There seems to be lot involved in turning “finished manuscript” into “book ready for publication”, and I have no idea what mysterious practices go on to make that happen. (I’m sure the WWJ folks could explain it, if they wanted a suggestion for another article?) Anyway, all I know is it seems to take longer than you would imagine!

Now, being sensible and fair, I know there’s more to it than that. My book is just one of many being published by Canelo, and it has to be fitted into a suitable slot in the overall schedule. The time of the proofreaders, editors, cover designers, etc. has to be allocated to work on lots of different titles. I do know that, and I do appreciate that there are a lot of things which have to be done - but I still want to see it available! Unfortunately, I’ve got to wait until April.

Second, I need something to keep me occupied until then. As I said last time, I’ve signed a two-book contract with Canelo. The idea is that book 2 (with working title very subtly not mentioned) will be out next summer. Before that, however, I’ve got to write it. So I’m working what feels like 24X7 on doing so. I’d started on a sequel some time back, although very slowly. At the time I was more concerned with getting somebody to take on the first one. Now that they have done, I’ve got no more excuses. Crack on.
 

Photo by Wadi Lissa on Unsplash

So far it’s going reasonably well (I think), but the next few months will probably be a bit hectic. If I had to give myself some advice I would say: work on the assumption that the first book will (eventually) be taken on, and get moving on the second one earlier than I have done.

Fingers crossed that both books do well (I’ll hopefully confirm publication dates next time.) However, if they do, then book 3 will probably need to be written 25X7! For now though it’s time to have a break for Christmas.

Until next time, Merry Humbug.

Young Muslim Writers Awards 2018

by Catriona Troth

On the first of December this year, I had the pleasure of once again attending the annual Young Muslim Writers Awards, organised by the Muslim Hands charity. This event has been showcasing young talent since 2010. One of the early winners, Mina B Mohammad, went on to turn her short story into a novel which she published at the age of just 16. So the event, held this year in Senate House, University of London, is one I always look forward to.

In addition to the awards for writers in different age groups, YMWA also gives out a Special Award to a young person who has made an exceptional contribution to the education and empowerment of young people. In the first year I attended, three years ago, the award went to Malala. This year it was given to the children of Grenfell. The award was accepted by a group of eight children of all backgrounds who were all members of Kids on the Green - an organisation that is helping the young people to come to terms with the trauma they have suffered through music, art and drama. The group spoke movingly about dealing with panic attacks and flashback, of losing their homes and having to live in overcrowded hotel accommodation. Then they asked the audience to stand and hold a minutes silence in honour of the 72 Grenfell residents who lost their lives.

Once again, those presenting the awards reiterated the importance of hearing stories from the voices of all our communities.

Zainub Chohan, the awards’ organiser, reminded us of the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the danger of the single story.

Irfan Master, author of Out of Heart, spoke of giving a writing workshop in a school where many of the children were of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage. When he invited them to begin by creating a character, they all started with character with white British names. When he challenged them, they told him, “No one wants to read stories about us.”

Tim Robinson from the Anne Frank Trust pointed out that he was standing on the stage where - in the recent BBC television drama, Bodyguard - the Home Secretary was blown up by a bomb. Many viewers followed the gripping series, only to be disappointed that the showrunners fell back in the end on the tired trope of a Muslim terrorist. These stereotypes need to be challenged, he said, and it is the voices of young Muslims that will do it.

As always, it was the children’s own words that spoke most powerfully. Robinson quoted from a Instruments of Harmony by Amiera, shortlisted in the KS4 poetry category.

We will catch the lost voices of the bold, 

And let their stories be passionately told. 

Finally the instruments of harmony will be played, 

And our voices will sing in unity - no longer afraid.

Ameerah, winner of the KS 3 journalism award for Daggers Drawn, her piece examining knife crime in London described a woman who has just lost her son.

She sits across the table from me, clothed in a light Nigerian robe. Her hair is pulled pack in a neat bun; her face is perfectly made up. The only sign of trauma is in her eyes. Eyes that wander with no fixed point, glistening with tears. Eyes that do not seem to acknowledge there is another person in the room.

But these young writers also showed that they would not be pigeonholed into writing only about ‘Muslim issues.’

Umar who was shortlisted last year for his poem Oggletrog, won the KS1 poetry category this year for his poem Gluttbuts and Trumpalots that again channelled the linguistic playfulness of Edward Lear and Roald Dahl - but this time demonstrated an edge of political satire with its swipe at greed and excess consumption.

Gofradump Gluttbutt, greedy and sly,
Suited and booted in his dotty red tie
...
Pie factory owner and Chief Taster
Eats like a pig and a horrid food waster

Fatema, winner of the KS2 poetry award held the room spellbound reading her poem, Awakening: the wonderous journey from seed to flower.’

Dormant
we lie
swathed in robes
of cimmerian
shade

Winner of the KS2 short story award, Numa’s story A Feathery Tale, praised for the judges for its accomplished storytelling and elegant use of language, was a fantasy whose central character was a bird.

Lulu was a hoopoe, with a majestic crown of black-tipped feather that constantly opened and closed like an elaborate book. It was the closing of the day, the blood-shot sun bleeding into the sunset and diamonds encrusted the sky.

Finally, the Writer of the Year was chosen - winner of the KS4 short story award, Sabir Hussain Miah for his story The Worst Plan Ever. Caught on the hop - until he received the news that he’d been shortlisted he had forgotten he had even submitted his story to the event, and certainly didn’t expect to win! - he nonetheless spoke movingly about being inspired by his own experience of bullying to write his story about overcoming prejudice and finding the strength to come out of darkness.

This year, Muslim Hands had announced that was giving the Writer of the Year and someone from their family the chance to visit one of the schools that they have built around around the world. I hope the trip inspires Sabir to yet more amazing writing!

It is always such a pleasure to attend this event. The 2019 event is already open to submission - so parents and teachers, if you have a talented young Muslim writer in your midst, please do encourage them to submit!

Asian Writer Festival 2018

by Catriona Troth

Having missed last year’s inaugural Asian Writer Festival, I was delighted to find I could make it to the 2018 Festival - particularly as it coincided with the tenth anniversary of Asian Writer magazine.

Asian Writer is produced by Farhana Sheikh, who is also the brains and energy behind Dahlia Publishing. She has been a tireless champion of Asian voices, and for the Festival she had assembled an impressive array of talent from across a range of genres. If you haven’t already discovered these authors, then treat this as an introduction to your next list of must-reads. 

Call Me A Writer

The day opened with a keynote address from Vaseem Khan, author of the Baby Ganesh series of detective novels set in modern day Bombay. In Call Me a Writer, he addressed the perennial reluctance to own that label. Put the cart before the horse, he exhorted his audience - think ‘I am an author’ (not ‘One day I will be...’). In his Commandments of Khan, he also addressed some of the dilemmas peculiar to authors from a non-mainstream background. Put diversity in perspective, he told his audience. Lend your voice to change, but don’t get wrapped up in it.

Write What You Know?

The first panel of the day addressed the validity of the perennial advice given to novice writers - should you write what you know? Both Winnie M Li and Gautam Malkani have followed that advice to an extent. Li’s novel Dark Chapter, which won the 2017 Not the Booker Prize, is closely based on her own experience of being raped by a stranger while out hiking. And Malkani’s second novel, Distortion, was inspired by his own experience as a young carer. But both have stretched their work well beyond the boundaries of their own experience. Li also wrote through the eyes of her 17 year old rapist - or someone very like him - imagining what could have led him to carry out the attack. On the other hand Malkani drew on the experiences of a much wider pool of young carers to create his character Dhilan, while Anappara used what she learnt as a journalist to create her cast of young street beggars, allowing their funny, cheeky side to emerge in a way that wasn’t possible in journalism.

The Asian Writer Anthology 

In honour of the Asian Writer’s tenth birthday, the festival also saw the launch of a new Asian Writer Anthology, featuring writers they have worked with over those ten years. Emma Smith-Barton read an extract from her novel The Million Pieces of Nina Gill which explores a young woman’s anxiety disorder following the disappearance of her brother disappears. Mona Dash read Formations, a short story which explores food as a basis for relationships and identity. And CG Menon’s read her lyrical short story Seascapes was also one of my favourite stories from her anthology Subjunctive Moods (reviewed here).

Menon also talked about how submitting a story to the Leicester Writes Prize had changed her writing life, and urged the audience not be afraid to get their stories out there. “It’s empowering. Every time you are listed, it’s a candle propped up against the howling darkness.”

The Only Way is Commercial 

It has often been particularly difficult for writers from a minority background to break into commercial fiction. As Vaseem Khan discussed in his opening address, too often there is pressure from those within the publishing industry to stick to writing about (as they see it) ‘minority issues’. But after lunch, we heard from two authors who have managed to bust out of those restrictions: Ayisha Malik and Amer Anwar.

I loved Malik’s first novel, Sofia Khan is Not Obliged, a romantic comedy with I described in my review as Bridget Jones with real heart. The sequel, The Other Half Of Happiness is now out and moves on from the minefield of dating to the complexities of marriage. Amer Anwar is an author I had not read before, though I’d heard a lot about him. His debut novel, Blood Brothers, is set in and around West London’s Sikh and Muslim dominated communities of Southall and Hounslow and follows Zaq, a young ex-prisoner manipulated into helping his boss track down his runaway daughter.

SI Leeds Literary Prize 

The final treat of the day was to hear from the all the finalists of the SI Leeds Literary Prize, the results of which had been announced just days before. This is a prize awarded biennially for a work of unpublished fiction by UK-based Black and Asian women, aged 18 and above. Previous finalists have included Kit de Waal and Winnie M Li. This year’s finalists were:

• Mona Dash, the opening paragraph of whose Let Us Look Elsewhere might serve as a mission statement for the Asian Writer Festival. 

I imagine you come here with expectations. You want to hear tales, of the sari, of the mango, of cow hooves kicking up a dry dust you will want to wipe off with a scented handkerchief. You want to hear of lavender, of turmeric, of jasmine soothing the hot summer evening in a distant tropical country. You expect to be told stories of a certain woman, a certain man in a certain way. You want to feel, but nothing beyond the ordinary, nothing you cannot stomach along with a thick steak, the knife a tad bloody from the rare meat.

• Yoanna Pak, whose novel Wolnam looks at trans-generational trauma through the eyes of a Korean father and a Canadian daughter. 

• Khavita Bhanot whose novel Baba ji on Boulton Road, about a young guru in Handsworth was awarded Third Prize. 

• Yvonne Singh, whose One Man’s Revolution - set during the aftershocks of the financial crisis and which follows a young man drawn into religious sect that declares capitalism the enemy - took 2nd prize. 

• Omega Douglas, who won the Readers’ Choice award for her novel Hibiscus Rose Jacaranda which captured the shattered sense of belonging of a new resident in London in the face of the government’s ‘hostile environment.’ 

And the overall winner was Shereen Tadros. Her novel Say Goodbye To Her is set in Egypt in the 1950s and addresses the tension between tradition and modernity through the voice of a child narrator. The stunning passage she read broached difficult subject of female genital mutilation with empathy and tenderness. If this does not find a publisher very soon so that I can read the rest, I shall be bitterly disappointed!

You can read extracts of all the shortlisted novels here.

All in all, this was a wonderful event, seamlessly organised. I look forward to next year!

The Staunch Prize - Shortlist

In February this year,we interviewed Bridget Lawless on the new Staunch Prize. The shortlist is out now! Congrats to all the authors and we look forward to reading your work.

The Staunch Book Prize team are delighted to announce that the six original novels shortlisted for the inaugural award are, in no particular order:

• The Appraisal by Anna Porter
• East of Hounslow by Kurrum Rhamen
• If I Die Tonight by A L Gaylin
• On the Java Ridge by Jock Serong
• Cops and Queens by Joyce Thompson
• The Kennedy Moment by Peter Adamson

To qualify for the shortlist, entries to the Staunch Book Prize had to fulfill the criteria of being a thriller novel in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.

The Prize was launched in response to the prevalence of violence against women depicted in fiction and the need for this subject to be taken more seriously, especially in the wake of #MeToo.

In an impassioned speech at Variety's Power of Women event earlier this month, Natalie Portman called for "A year off from violence against women", challenging her audience to "Tell a new story".

Bridget Lawless - Photo by Clare Park

Bridget Lawless, writer and founder of the Staunch Book Prize, says,
"In a climate where women are fighting to be heard and believed about real incidents of violence and sexual assault, more and more people are saying they are weary of depictions of women as victims and prey being presented as entertainment. The quality and originality of the entries we have received for the inaugural Staunch Book Prize has shown that there are some very talented thriller authors ready to shake up the genre. We can't wait to introduce audiences to our six shortlisted novels."

The Staunch Book Prize has received worldwide media coverage due to its timely and somewhat controversial theme. Despite criticism from some members of the crime writing community, the prize has been warmly welcomed by supporters, including readers, writers and those campaigning for an end to violence against women.

The winner will be announced on Monday 26th November, following the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Author biographies and interviews, plus an extract of each shortlisted novel, can be found on the Shortlist page of the prize website from Thursday 1st November.

#StaunchBookPrize

The Long Road to Publication - Part 6

¨

By Andy Smith

Hello!

By Gum, it’s been a while since we had one of these, isn’t it? The good folks at WWJ have been running their creative writing workshops over the summer, so they asked me to hold off doing any more Long Road stuff until they’d finished. And I did. So what’s been happening since last time? Well, quite a lot actually…

Let’s rewind a bit. Back in April I was getting nowhere, with lots of letters out to agents and publishers and lots of ‘no thanks’ in reply. I was, to be honest, getting close to chucking the whole thing in. I’d also gone through the process of trying to work out if my entire submission was wrong, and had asked the WWJ Clinic to dissect my cover letter and synopsis. I got some great feedback from the Clinic (as discussed in LRTP part 5 in May.) I started looking at re-writing the cover letter and synopsis, based on this feedback. 

Then, out of the blue, I had three replies which weren’t ‘no thanks’. An agent and two independent publishers all said they’d enjoyed my submission and asked me to send the full manuscript. Next thing you know, I’m in discussions about who to sign up with. In other words: I GOT A PUBLISHING DEAL!!!!!

Congrats to Andy from the team at WWJ!

To be more precise, I signed a two-book contract with Canelo Digital Publishing (https://www.canelo.co/), for Breaking the Lore and the currently-in-progress sequel. I think the word I’m looking for (still) is “gobsmacked”. Breaking the Lore will be available in Spring 2019 and book 2 will follow in the Summer. 

 

You might remember from previous posts that I’ve talked about the need for a pseudonym, since ‘Andy Smith’ is not exactly a memorable name. Consequently, both books (and maybe more?) will come out under the name of ‘Andy Redsmith.’ (A redsmith is someone who works with copper, and I’m a Smith working with A copper - geddit?) You can find Andy Redsmith on Facebook, AndyRedsmith (no space) on Twitter and “his” website http://www.andyredsmith.com/. On all of them there’s a photo of me, but they’re not bad apart from that.

So what does all this mean in regards to what I’m writing here? Two things.

First: I’ve spoken in previous posts about how I thought my submission was OK, provided it got to people who were interested in the sort of thing I was writing, but I thought I’d missed my chance with all of them. Turns out I hadn’t. Perseverance paid off. So everyone: don’t give up. Keep going.

Second: the three replies who showed an interest all came before I’d had chance to rewrite my cover letter and synopsis, i.e. before I had chance to include the suggestions from the WWJ Clinic. The advice from the Clinic was very good and would doubtless have given me a better shot if I had to carry on submitting, but I didn’t need to use it. That, basically, is luck. BUT make sure your submission is as good as possible, so that when your lucky break comes around you are in the best possible position to make use of it.

If the WWJ folks will let me, I’ll keep posting things on here to keep you updated on release dates etc. The long road to publication has turned out to be a long and hard road, and we haven’t reached the end yet. But I’m on the way. I hope I’ll see you there!

Andy

Photo by Alasdair Elmes on Unsplash

Creative Kicks - Week 10: With a Little Help from our Friends

“My job is to make you see and that is all.” - Joseph Conrad  

For the last three summers, we at Triskele Books and Words with JAM have run a Creative Writing Course to stretch the imagination.
We asked our friends and allies to contribute, who responded magnificently. Thank you to every single kind person who donated their ideas to help other writers. And a special thank you to JD Lewis, for permission to use her beautiful images.

Here are just a few examples of the contributions which most exercised ourselves and our readers.

Rebecca Lang, Stoking the Creative Fires

Take a blank piece of paper and divide it into four quarters by drawing two intersecting lines. In the first quarter, write a location for your story and draw it (it could be a map of a place, a house, a tree, a planet - be creative!).

In the second quarter, imagine your main character and sketch something representative (it could be a person or maybe an animal).

In the third quarter, illustrate an action - it could be someone doing something (perhaps exciting) like driving a fast car or running, or an event taking place.

In the fourth quarter, think of your ending or resolution and draw it as best you can.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, these are just markers for your story.

Roz Morris, Character and Story Development

Describe the same scene from two characters’ viewpoints; one happy, one angry. To help you enter the two different experiences, the happy character will think in shades of blue or white - imagery, descriptions of feelings, figures of speech and objects they notice. The angry character will use phrases, images and observations that involve the colour red. Use this mental colour palette to create two distinct experiences. 

Jessica Bell, Polish Your Prose

Be dynamic. Use strong verbs and fewer adjectives:

Weak example:
The darkness of the thick grey low-hanging clouds made the massive decorative rocks in our backyard look like animated gravestone-giants.

Strong example:
The thick clouds hung low and shadowed our backyard. The decorative rocks doubled in size and morphed into gravestone-giants. 

Bret Lott, On Detail

Themes can be rooted in detail. Work with a partner. Each takes two minutes to write down a list of what’s on your bedside table.

Now swap and use your partner’s list as the basis for the beginning of a short story. The objects belong to your narrator’s spouse. It’s either the day after the spouse’s funeral, or the day before s/he is going to ask the spouse for a divorce.

Jo Furniss, The Essence of Character

Exercise : Most people don’t know what they need in life—we’re too distracted by our desires—and your character is no different. Someone else can probably see into their heart more clearly than they see it themselves.

So… what does your character need?

Your character walks into a café / pub / restaurant to meet someone they know well, a friend or family member. There is also a waitress/ barman / cleaner. Write a 360° description of the scene from three POVs; how the friend sees the character, how the stranger sees the character, and how the character sees the scene.

Jason Donald, Filtering

What is filtering? It’s words or phrases tacked onto the start of sentence that show the world as it is filtered through the main character’s eyes. Meaning, the character is placed between the reader and the action in the story.

Janet felt a sinking feeling as she ran through the diner and out the front doors. She wondered if Jake would really just get up and leave her. She saw him throw the suitcase into the car and slam the door. He seemed cold as his gaze met hers. He pointed a finger, dropping his thumb like a gun. Now she knew he would take the money and disappear, leaving her to take the heat. She decided to beg and ran across the parking lot, sinking to her knees on the cold cement. The car's tires spun, and she felt the gravel spitting at her as she saw the convertible careen onto the road.

Do you see how the highlighted words come before the action? This forces the reader to step back and watch the character, rather than the action. It moves the reader away from the events on the page. An extra step has been inserted between the reader and the story. A filter.

Here is the same piece of writing after filtering is removed:

Janet's stomach sank as she ran through the diner and out the front doors. Would he really just get up and leave? Jake threw the suitcase into the car and slammed the door. He turned. Her gaze met his, and his eyes narrowed. He pointed a finger, dropping his thumb like a gun. A cold chill enveloped her; he would take the money and disappear, leaving her to take the heat. She ran across the parking lot, sinking to her knees on the cold cement. The car's tires spun, spitting gravel at her as the convertible careened onto the road.

Creative Kicks - Week 9 - Using Narrative Twists and Turns

By Chris Curran
Images by JD Lewis

Surprise! Surprise!

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a plot twist as an unexpected development in a book, film, television programme. Collins defines it as a decisive change of direction, aim, meaning or character. In a novel, play etc. an unexpected event, revelation etc.

Plot twists are often associated with crime fiction and any list of books featuring great plot twists will probably include the likes of Gone Girl, Before I Go To Sleep, Shutter Island, Rebecca and at least one Agatha Christie.

These lists invariably mention books that introduce a huge surprise, often at the climax of the story, which overturns everything the reader has believed so far. But while such twists can be incredibly powerful - think of We Need to Talk About Kevin and Fight Club - they are not the only game in town.

Plotting a book involves building a narrative; showing readers what happens in a particular scenario and finding ways to keep them wondering what’s going to happen next. Twists and turns are a vital element in retaining that involvement. I’m not talking now about the kind of mega-twists that have readers gasping: that is amazing, but about unexpected developments and revelations which, as well as helping to make the book lively and give it that crucial page-turning factor, can help reveal its true meaning, highlight its themes and illuminate what has gone before.

Coleridge regarded the plot of Fielding’s Tom Jones, as perfectly planned and it is chockfull of twists and turns. And one of the reasons Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s most popular novel (apart from the allure of Darcy) has to be because it contains so many surprises and reversals.

So how can we use twists and turns most effectively in our writing?

Above all by ensuring they are believable in the context of this particular story world and its characters. By the time we learn Maxim De Winter hated rather than loved Rebecca, as the narrator believes, we know she aroused great passions, ridiculed men, probably had a lover and that Maxim can’t bear to talk about her. In Pride and Prejudice Darcy’s apparently unfair and snobbish rejection of Wickham makes perfect sense when we, and Lizzie, learn what Wickham has done, not only to Lydia, but to Darcy’s own sister.

It’s vital not to make readers feel cheated by a twist. There’s nothing more annoying or unsatisfactory than a shock event that comes out of nowhere: a deus ex machina. This is where a big twist can fail spectacularly as readers are left shaking their heads in disbelief. If you’ve firmly established a character, especially a narrator, as a model of honesty it isn’t fair to reveal they are actually a liar unless you have dropped sufficient hints that these impressions may be false. And if a murderer is to use an unusual method of killing or disposing of a body it’s important to set up in advance the fact that they have the expertise or the wherewithal required.

This is where foreshadowing comes in. Planting subtle clues that hint at the twist ensures that readers won’t shake their heads and think: where on earth did that come from? instead of the response you want which is: ah, I see now, but why didn’t I see it before?
Foreshadowing can take many forms. Passing references to an object, a pet, a minor character or event can come to be recognised as hugely significant indications of a future twist. Or you can be more direct with a prologue or flash forward. Daphne Du Maurier uses foreshadowing in the most direct way in the famous opening lines of Rebecca. She does the same kind of thing at the start of My Cousin Rachel with, ‘They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days. Not any more though.’

Confound expectations. If you’ve set up a situation where readers are likely to assume certain outcomes: boy meets girl, for instance, or police officer arrives at the scene of a murder, the twist can come when these characters behave in surprising ways that overturn the conventions. In Dickens’ Great Expectations a rich woman takes an interest in the young hero. When he is left enough money to become a gentleman the identity of his benefactor seems obvious. But Dickens fools us, while at the same time ensuring we have all the clues to work out the truth.

Twists can come at any point in the narrative. And they can be very effective midway through a story not least because we’re not primed to expect them at this point. Gillian Flynn knocks us off balance so well in Gone Girl partly because of when her big reveal occurs. As does Hitchcock in the movie, Psycho. An early twist can also lead on to multiple convolutions and has the added advantage that it allows the story to continue and reveal the twist’s consequences.

Misdirect readers. While foreshadowing helps the writer to play fair with readers it’s important to keep them from guessing the twist too soon. Unreliable narrators or misleading POV characters can help with misdirection. Agatha Christie is famous for her untruthful narrators in books like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Endless Night. Henry James makes brilliant use of an unreliable narrator in Turn of the Screw. Unreliable POV characters are not necessarily liars, or amnesiacs like Christine in Before I Go To Sleep. They may have been deceived themselves or misread a situation. They could be very young, naïve or blinded by love or prejudice. If you use several narrators, as Wilkie Collins does in The Woman in White and The Moonstone, you have the opportunity to show a variety of possible truths.

Be flexible even if you like to start with a carefully planned plot and a detailed outline. As the story comes to life situations or characters may suggest twists or surprising developments that can add depth to the narrative or offer a better way to reach the resolution. At this point you may need to go back and add in some foreshadowing or misdirection.

Exercise

Add a twist to the Cinderella story. Confound expectations by having the prince fall for one of the ugly sisters either temporarily or permanently. How many possible scenarios does this suggest? How will you alter the characters or events to make it believable?

Experiment with the twist occurring at different points in the story. How does it change the narrative if it happens early on, in the middle or close to the end?

Now add another twist. The sister rejects the prince. Why? What happens next? How are the other characters affected?

And how would the story change if instead of the omniscient story-teller you turned one of the characters into your narrator? A narrator who could of course be unreliable.

Try something similar with other fairy stories.

Chris Curran is the author of Mindsight, Her Turn To Cry, and Her Deadly Secret, all published by Harper Collins Killer Reads. Chris was born in London but now lives in St Leonards-on-Sea near Hastings, on the south coast of England, in a house groaning with books. She left school at sixteen to work in the local library - her dream job then and now - and spent an idyllic few months reading her way around the shelves. Reluctantly returning to full-time education she gained her degree from Sussex University. Since then she has worked as an actress, script writer, copy editor and teacher, all the time looking forward to the day when she would see her own books gracing those library shelves.

https://chriscurranauthor.com/
Facebook author page

Or follow me on twitter @Christi_Curran

Igniting Writing

by Alex Baker, Igniting Writing

The stereotypical image of a writer is someone solitary, secluding themselves in the corner of a café as they type away at a laptop and fuel themselves with endless cups of coffee. But with many writers first getting into storytelling in their teen years, how do they develop their writing voice in solitude? Alex Baker, founder and group leader of teen creative writing group Igniting Writing, gives his thoughts on how it’s important to give teens the support to share their ideas with other aspiring writers and what sort of writing activities will keep them engaged…

Picture the scene: you’re a teenager, sitting alone at your computer at an ungodly hour of night, and you’ve just finished your first ever piece of creative writing that wasn’t for homework. Maybe it’s a poem, or a short story, but it’s yours. You feel like a cross between William Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling and Charles Dickens. Objectively what you’ve written is probably terrible, with dodgy clichés and dubious grammar (when is a semi-colon supposed to be used, anyway?), but for that brief moment of triumph you want to share it with everyone.

And then that moment fades and the self-doubt kicks in. There’s no way you can even consider sharing this with your friends or family! What if they don’t like it and think it’s naff? Or what if they’re not interested and react to your work with an indifferent shrug? 

If the above scenario sounds remotely familiar to you, you’re not alone. The success of websites like Wattpad and Archive of Our Own in the teen demographic show that young writers out there want a platform to display and develop their storytelling skills, but sadly many schools only give creative writing a token glance on the curriculum and whilst most towns and cities have creative writing clubs, almost all of these are for adults. Other than the internet, which has its own pitfalls, what options are there for teens to explore their writing skills together?

Enter Igniting Writing, Wokingham Library’s creative writing club exclusively for 11-18 year olds. The group meets regularly on Saturday mornings, 10:30am-12:00pm, and gives teens the opportunity to write together, sharing their story ideas and building friendships with other young aspiring writers in a fun, relaxed group setting. It’s completely free to attend and open to any teens that want to join, whether they’ve got prior writing experience or are complete novices.

Explaining his writing origins, Alex said: “I started writing stories at around 16 years old. It was mostly really bad fanfiction - it’s probably still lurking in a folder somewhere on my computer! - which I kept hidden. None of my friends at the time were interested in writing stories and it would have been beyond embarrassing to share with my family. It only changed when I started university and discovered their Creative Writing Society. I decided to give it a try and it was the best decision I ever made - it showed me the benefits of writing as part of a group, particularly for young writers that are just starting out, and the group atmosphere helped boost my confidence, so much so that in my last year at university I became co-president of the Society.”

After graduating, Alex wanted to keep that same creative writing group spirit alive, but was initially disappointed. “I’d hoped to find a group that would reach out to that 16 year old me, who didn’t have anyone to share his fanfiction with and was doing it purely for fun. But the more I looked, the more I saw that there was nothing in Berkshire for teens. Even nationally there are very few clubs for teen writers, compared to the masses for adults.”

And so, with support from Wokingham Library, Alex decided to create his own group. Elaborating on his leadership, Alex outlined the three main considerations he bears in mind when planning an Igniting Writing session. “First, I focus on a different writing topic each week. One week we’ll cover building settings, the next sci-fi stories, the next creating an antagonist and so on. Making each session self-contained means there’s something for everyone and helps new members integrate into the group easily. It’s also good to show the group members genres they’ve never experienced before - very few teens will have tried something like travel writing for example, so one session on the topic acts as a nice introduction.

“Secondly, the session needs to be interactive. Beginning with a group discussion helps; if I were leading a session all about superhero stories, I’d start by asking the group what superpower they would pick if they could have one. That always generates a positive buzz as they debate which powers would be most useful, and helps get their brains active for the writing tasks. Additionally, we also host ‘guest speaker’ sessions, where local authors, poets, literary agents and other people experienced in the world of writing come and share their knowledge and advice. It’s a chance for the teens to ask questions and hear from the pros.

“Lastly, for the writing activities I aim to get the teens thinking outside the box. Random prompts from a hat help to give the group members some direction, but simultaneously the freedom to explore it in their own way. For example, recently we led a horror-themed session and I wrote a whole load of fake B-movie titles and put them into a hat. The teens each drew one out at random and had to write a story to go with the title, which would be something ridiculous like ‘The Revenge of the Zombie Penguins’! The random selection gets the teens thinking on their feet and if the prompts are fun it can really get them energised to write.”

Igniting Writing has attracted over 100 teens and been invited into over a dozen schools across Berkshire to lead creative writing taster sessions to pupils. You can find the group online here:
Website: https://directory.wokingham.gov.uk/kb5/wokingham/directory/service.page?id=Wi6ijfJao4E Twitter: https://twitter.com/IgnitingWritingFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/829509490414536/Blog: http://ignitingwriting.tumblr.com/