Check out the latest news from the RLF, WritersMosaic highlights, and Collected – our collection of interviews, reflections and articles exploring the literary life and world of writers today.
You can never revise your work too often. As our scatological friends remark, there are some things you can’t polish,…
The Moomins suffered the same fate… Characters and plots are too gentle for older children, but the text is too…
Be original. Think of the obvious and then go in the opposite direction. Be open to surprises, challenge yourself, inspire…
If I read through that folder’s contents now, I’d probably find a kind of dramatic structure, a story arc; obstacles…
As I nested like a dormouse with all the pillows and cushions I could find, I discovered that I could…
I scribbled notes on pieces of paper. I’d leave them out overnight, and let slugs crawl over them. Whole words,…
It was my mother who dragged me to my first writing group. I was 17, and very against the idea;…
Don’t wait for the right commission, or agent, or reply, or accent, or background. None of that will happen. Don’t…
I believe very much in the spark, the little bit of magic sending a particular idea my way. I’m sure…
I wanted access to people, places, cultures, different from my own; and reading, especially fiction, seemed to give me that.…
I’m resistant to fiction that thinks itself extravagantly imaginative; magic realism, say. Because there’s usually no narrative tension. I’m resistant…
My first draft, or brainstorm, tends to be a bit of a mess, with lots of crossing out. I put…
