Festivals & Workshops: The Purbeck Literary Festival

This month Elaine Roberts takes us to the beautiful county of Dorset where she interviews Emma Fernandez about the Purbeck Literary Festival.

Welcome, Emma. Can you tell us something about your festival, how it came about and how long its been running?

It came about as I was working locally promoting the area, there seemed to be so many inter-woven

stories not celebrated like TE Lawrence, so much more than Hardy. As part of the role I had a year long Enid Blyton campaign celebrating seventy years of the Famous Five, which was hugely successful and it went from there.  2017 will be our fourth year.

Who are your main speakers this year? 

We have a lovely list around our theme of 'Wild' from Nick Hunt Travel writer, to Andrew Lownie biographer, and the Fabulous Rowan Coleman

As our blog is for writers can you tell me how your festival would benefit our members? 

Andrew Lownie

It's a chance to discover an amazing part of the UK, some of the best Coast and Countryside, and be inspired by it's legacy.

Is there anything to enter (maybe a writing competition), if so could details be provided? 

There is a short story competition with details on the website

Link

How about staying over for the whole event. Where can people stay?

There are a fantastic range small B&B's that are very family friendly. The author and festival team member, Lyn Fegan, owns the Limes Hotel. And The Grand Hotel is Victorian and has wonderful views, and several events taking place there.

What does it cost to attend?

From £3 for a library talk to about £18 for our highlight tea

Do workshops and talks fill up quickly? 

There is usually room, although libraries can be very popular. Key authors running workshops can

Rowan Coleman

sell out.

How much time does it take to organise the festival? 

Goodness a year!

What are the dates for this year and possibly next:

16-25^th February

Link to the Purbeck Literary Festival website

About Elaine:

Elaine is a member of the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme and is currently working on a family saga. She has sold short stories worldwide and enjoys attending RNA events such as the London chapter and our annual conference. Elaine is a great fan of writing retreats either week long by the sea with friends or one-day retreats with fellow writers in her home town of Dartford. Elaine runs a writing blog along with writer, Francesca Capaldi Burgess called WriteMindWritePlace.

Thank you, Elaine and also Emma for answering the questions.

Would you like to write for the RNA blog? Please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Festivals and Workshops: Julie Cohen

This month Elaine Roberts interviews well known author, Julie Cohen about her writing retreats.

Can you tell us something about your workshops—how you decide the subject matter?

On my guided retreats, I let the participants’ own needs decide the subject of the workshops. The participants have to submit a sample of their work before the retreat—usually the first chapter and a

synopsis—and from that, I (and my teaching partner) identify several common areas to focus on, be that whole-text issues like plotting, voice, character, pacing, or sentence-level issues like showing and telling or creating convincing dialogue, or larger career issues like how to brand yourself as a writer or how to write the breakout novel.

Do you usually run them by yourself?

I sometimes run my own guided retreats (I’ll be running one at Chez Castillon, in France, in June), but I’m running my next retreat with bestselling author and Faber Academy writing tutor Rowan Coleman. Rowan and I have been teaching together for several years now, and have run courses for The Guardian and Literature Wales, as well as our own retreats.

In March we will also have a special guest: super agent Lizzy Kremer of David Higham Associates, who will deliver a Q&A on getting an agent, publishing, and building your career.

As our blog is for writers, can you tell me how your workshop would benefit RNA members?

Rowan and I are both highly experienced in writing across the spectrum of women’s fiction. Our books have both been selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club and we’ve both been shortlisted, or won, RoNAs and Love Stories Awards. I started my writing career as a member of the RNA New Writers’ Scheme. We’re both passionate about women’s fiction and romantic fiction, and knowledgeable about the markets and the challenges writers face when writing in these genres. Both

Folly Farm

of us have coached writers who have gone onto sign with agents, get publishing deals, and even become bestsellers.

Is there anything participants usually need to do in preparation before attending?

For our March workshop, we ask that the participants send us the first chapter and synopsis of their work in progress. It helps us, as tutors, if we know what a writer would like to get out of the course—then we can make sure we support them.

For my guided retreat at Chez Castillon in June, I’ll ask for a longer sample of the participants’ work and generally I spend extensive time with each writer talking about their manuscript.

Are your workshops usually for one day or longer?

Our guided retreat in March is over a weekend, 3-5 March 2017. There are workshops, time to write, and one-to-one time with Rowan or me to discuss your manuscript.

The guided retreat in June 2017 at Chez Castillon will be for an entire week.

When workshops are longer than one day where can people stay?

The March workshop will take place at Folly Farm, outside Bristol, and includes single en-suite accommodation at this environmentally friendly conference venue in the countryside. All food is provided, usually locally grown, and there are wonderful local walks.

In June, we stay at Chez Castillon in southwest France, in a beautiful 18^th-century house (with swimming pool) in the heart of the town of Castillon la Bataille. Delicious food and local wine are provided and our hosts, Janie and Mickey Wilson, are fantastic.

What does it usually cost to attend your workshops?

The weekend retreat at Folly Farm in March with Rowan Coleman is £525.00 including accommodation and all food, but not travel.

The weeklong-guided retreat at Chez Castillion is likely to cost about £775 (tbc), including accommodation and most food, but not travel.

Do your workshops fill up quickly?

It depends on the workshop, but generally, quite quickly. We have many writers who come back again and again.

How much time does it take you to organise your workshops?

What takes the most time is all the admin stuff: booking forms, receipts, payments, etc. I am fairly organized but it’s an effort when my normal day-to-day career is being creative!

Dates for this year and possibly next:

3-5 March 2017, Folly Farm, outside Bristol, with Rowan Coleman and special guest Lizzy Kremer

June 2017 (exact dates tbc) Chez Castillon, France

Links:

Julie Cohen retreats for writers 

Julie Cohen – Chez Castillon 

Email for queries: juliecohenauthor@gmail.com

About Elaine Roberts:

Elaine is a member of the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme and is currently working on a family saga set in the 1800s. She has sold short stories worldwide and enjoys attending RNA events such as the London Chapter and the annual conference. Elaine is a great fan of writing retreats either week-long by the sea with friends or one-day retreats with fellow writers in her home town of Dartford, Kent.

Elaine runs a writing blog along with writer, Francesca Capaldi Burgess called 

WriteMindWritePlace.

Thank you Elaine and Julie for a most interesting interview.

Please contact the team on elaineeverest@aol.com if you wish to be interviewed for the RNA blog.

TEACH ME TO WRITE: The National Writing School of Wales

 In the first of a new series Lynne Pardoe takes a look at The National Writing School of Wales and what is available for RNA members.

There can’t be many better ways of honing skills in our craft than joining a retreat designed with just that purpose in mind, led by talented and creative experienced authors.

One such event is to be held in July in north Wales, in a beautiful ancient house called Tŷ Newydd, in a village called Llanystumdwy, near Cricieth on the southern side of the Llŷn Peninsula.

Originally the vision of National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke, the house is now a centre dedicated to literature and writing of all sorts. It’s funded by Literature Wales, the national company that promotes literature in Wales, through the Wales Arts Council and the Welsh Government. The building is an inspiration in itself. Dating from the 16^thc with the part most in use by the course as Georgian, its list of occupants, each with their own story is irresistible to an author.

Tŷ Newydd’s most famous occupant is Prime Minister David Lloyd George. Lloyd George bought Tŷ Newydd in 1942 and lived there until his death in 1945. Lloyd George died in the room that is now used as the library, and it is said he asked for his bed to be moved by the window so that he could look out over Cardigan Bay.

A wide variety of creative writing related activities take place there, from residential writing courses and retreats to meetings of young people’s writing squads and international translators groups. There are world-renowned mentors (Carol Ann Duffy amongst them), information and advice about writing, and unusual courses such as writing and yoga and writing for theatre and performance and just about any sort of writing you can imagine. There are bursaries too.

Of particular interest to us is the course ‘Writing Women’s Popular Fiction,’ 20^th-25^th July run by Julie Cohen, Rowan Coleman and Katie Fforde, the latter is guest speaker for one day.

I asked each author for their thoughts on the course and this is what they said.

Julie Cohen

‘Rowan and I have taught writing courses together before and we love working with both new and experienced authors to really get to the heart of their novels. There will be a mixture of practical exercises, inspiring talks and detailed input on the participants’ writing. Between the three of us, we have a wealth of writing and publishing experience which we’ll share with the writers on the course. And of course it’s a chance to meet mega-author Katie Fforde and pick her considerable brains. Mostly, it will be good fun.’

Rowan Coleman

‘What we want most is for everyone who comes to the course to feel inspired and empowered. So much about making it as a writer is about having the tools and willpower to see it through. Julie and I are experts at arming the writers we work with with both. Also we are very good at laughing and having fun and wearing hats.’

Julie and Rowan

Kate Fforde 

Katie says; ‘I love teaching writing, or rather talking to other writers about writing and hoping that I might say something that will cause a leaner to nod and think, ah, I get that now.  I do think writers are born not made but even if you know you’re a writer you can save a lot of time by going on courses, learning things it might otherwise take you a while to pick up. It’s also good to read your work aloud to others.  It may be hard, but you learn such a lot.’

It sounds like a brilliant way to spend a week, especially since the centre has offered us a special discount of 10% off groups of four people attending.

For more details and information go to www.literaturewales.org/courses/ or get in touch with Tŷ Newydd: tynewydd@literaturewales.org / 01766 522 811

Thank you, Lynne for a most informative article and thank you to Tŷ Newydd for the generous offer to our members.

The RNA blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest & Natalie Kleinman

If you would like to write for the RNA blog please contact us on elaineeverest@aol.com

Jane Holland: 21 Ways to Write a Commercial Novel

Today we welcome Jane Holland who tells us how she went ‘From Blog to Book’

Last year I went a bit crazy and decided it would be fun to write a How-To blog for writers who were not necessarily beginners but felt lost within the publishing industry. I called it 52 Ways To Write A Novel, with the cheerful thought that I could blog a few hundred words every week for a year, and it wouldn’t hurt too much or distract from my novel-writing.

I was wrong, of course. Writing intelligently about our unforgiving industry is not easy to do in a soundbite, and I didn’t like putting out posts that felt rushed or unpolished. So it did take more time than I liked. But the feedback I received from other writers encouraged me to keep going.

52 Ways doesn’t deal specifically with romantic or historical fiction, both of which I have written in abundance, but any kind of commercial novel. However, many of the writers who chatted about their own experiences in the comments section are fellow members of the RNA. So the blog developed a slight kink, if you’ll pardon the word, in the direction of romance. But I was writing a crime novel at the time, so crime crept in too. My hope was that the blog would help commercial writers, so I focused on that rather than genre.

After Week 20, it occurred to me that I was totting up thousands of words of free advice on my blog, and wouldn’t it be nice to publish an ebook of my wisdom so far and charge a few pennies in return? (I’m a mercenary type, you understand.)

But when I sat down to convert my blog into an ebook, I discovered that it wasn’t as simple as transferring all the posts into one file and publishing it. For a start, I had dozens of photos and captions in my blog. All that needed to be stripped out and the formatting simplified. Furthermore, my blog was not in a coherent order. For instance, I had given advice on making friends with other writers before advice on how to write a chapter opening, and while we all like to relax at RNA lunches, I thought I had better put business before pleasure!

So I cut and pasted the posts into a more logical order, wrote an Introduction and an Afterword, then expanded each post into a full chapter. I had used short paragraphing on the blog, but that looked odd so I increased paragraph length. To keep things dynamic, I got permission to use a selection of comments left on the blog by other writers, then sprinkled them throughout the text.

The result is 21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel, a combination of my blog posts with other writers’ comments, plus a fantastic letter of advice to new writers by Rowan Coleman, addressed in the first instance to our mutual friend, Sarah Callejo. ‘Write the damn book!’ Rowan urges Sarah … advice even the most experienced writers can take to heart.

Jane Holland writes as herself, plus Victoria Lamb, Elizabeth Moss and Beth Good among others. Her archived blog is here and you can chat with her most days on Twitter: @janeholland1

21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel is £1.99, published by Jane’s imprint Thimblerig Press, and is ONLY available on Amazon Kindle (but can be read on most devices): Amazon:  

Thank you joining us today and good luck with the book.

The RNA Blog is brought to you by

Elaine Everest and Natalie Kleinman.

If you would like to appear on the Blog please contact us at elaineeverest@aol.com

September Releases

Liz Harris THE ROAD BACK

Choc Lit

Paperback

7.99

7th September, 2012

When Patricia accompanies her father, Major George Carstairs, on a trip to Ladakh, north of the Himalayas, in the early 1960s, she sees it as a chance to finally win his love. What she could never have foreseen is meeting Kalden - a local man destined by circumstances beyond his control to be a monk, but fated to be the love of her life. Despite her father's fury, the lovers are determined to stay together, but can their forbidden love survive?

http://www.lizharrisauthor.com/

Rowan Coleman DEAREST ROSE

Arrow

27 Sep 2012

£5.99

 'You are a remarkable woman and you deserve all the happiness, contentment and love in the world. I, for one, know that I have never met anyone quite like you.'

When Rose Pritchard turns up on the doorstep of a Cumbrian B&B it is her last resort. She and her seven-year-old daughter Maddie have left everything behind. And they have come to the village of Millthwaite in search of the person who once offered Rose hope.

Almost immediately Rose wonders if she's made a terrible mistake - if she's chasing a dream - but she knows in her heart that she cannot go back. She's been given a second chance - at life, and love - but will she have the courage to take it?

http://www.rowancoleman.co.uk/

Amanda Grange DEAR MR DARCY

Penguin

Paperback

6th September 2012

In this imaginative retelling of Pride and Prejudice, Amanda Grange now tells the classic story through the eyes of its compelling romantic hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy, in a series of revealing letters covering the life-changing events that defined him—from the death of his father, to his control of his Derbyshire estate of Pemberley to his conflicted courtship with the lively, intelligent, and delightfully willful Elizabeth Bennet. Try as he may, he cannot deny his attraction to this woman with fine eyes, a playful spirit, a mind of her own… and an embarrassing family that is frankly, and utterly, beneath him. But it is Elizabeth who controls both their destinies, and whose surprises will change Darcy’s life yet again.

www.amandagrange.com

Scarlet Wilson A BOND BETWEEN STRANGERS

Mills and Boon

Paperback

£5.49

7 September 2012

Yesterday John Carter and Lily Grayson were strangers.  Now, following an IVF mix up, their genes are bound together forever - only someone else is carrying their child!  John's only thought is to get his baby back...until he realises that Lily is the person he truly needs to complete his life.

www.scarlet-wilson.com

Jane Jackson DANGEROUS WATERS

Accent Press

ebook

Free until Sept 5th then £1.97

Sept 1st

No longer welcome in her uncle's home, twenty-year-old Phoebe Dymond, a trained herbalist and midwife, boards the packet ship Providence bound for Jamaica and a forced marriage. Incidents on board provoke clashes between Phoebe and ship's doctor, Jowan Crossley. But professional antagonism turns to mutual respect and a deepening attraction neither dare acknowledge.  Following a skirmish with a French privateer they eventually arrive in Kingston to find the town in the grip of a slave revolt.  Terrifying events on the plantation of which she will be mistress force Phoebe to relinquish all hope of the happiness she has glimpsed. But fate has one more trick to play.

www.janejackson.net

Jane Jackson A PLACE OF BIRDS

Accent Press

ebook

£1.97

Sept 1st

Nineteen-year-old Susanna Elliot rebels against her strict Quaker background which alienates her from her family and community. Rejected by the doctor she admires and refused permission to take her dead brother's place in the family business, she flees to join her two cousins on their mission to China. All three leave Falmouth for Shanghai aboard a schooner owned by Lowell Hawke.  

Hawke’s daring exploits have made him a legend along the China coast and Susanna finds herself involved in terrible danger – and love...

 www.janejackson.net

Noelene Jenkinson WOMBAT CREEK

Linford large print romance

£8.99

1 September 2012

*Wombat Creek, Australia*

The heart of the lush pastoral country and stud merino sheep flocks in Western Victoria.

The story of two people’s longing to learn from the past and create a better future for themselves, together.

*Ethan Bourke* owns /Karingal Park/ sheep station, fighting personal demons, torn between a long term comfortable relationship and his instant attraction for a radical newcomer to the district.

Single mother *SUMMER DALTON* inherits the small 100 acre farmlet, /Greenbanks/, and arrives in the Western District to investigate the viability of settling on her grandfather’s property. The daughter of hippy parents banished for their free-loving morals decades before, the scandal of her family’s past lingers in people’s memories.

Initially prejudiced, Ethan offers to buy Summer out. Planning to stay, she rejects his bid, hoping to succeed and become part of the local community. Can they resolve their attraction against the odds of a jealous old flame and Ethan’s snobbish disapproving mother who throws down the ultimate vindictive challenge?

www.noelenejenkinson.com

Margaret Mounsdon  MY SECRET LOVE

Thorpe

Large Print paperback

ISBN 978 1444812541

£8.99

Tamara Cameron receives the shock of her life when Phyllis Morton appears on her doorstep. She is the great aunt of Adam Penrose, a man whose marriage proposal Tamara turned down years earlier before she became a super model

www.margaretmounsdon.co.uk 

www.margaretsromanceworld.blogspot.com

Sylvia Broady THE YEARNING HEART

Magna Large Print

Hard Cover

Family Saga

£20.99

August 2012

It is war-time Britain and seduced by her brother-in-law, Frances, 16, becomes pregnant and is banished to a lonely farm.

She gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, whom her mother heartlessly wrenches from her.

And when told her baby daughter has died, Frances is overcome with grief.

After years of loneliness, Frances is reunited  with her son, Michael, and yearns to tell him the truth of his birth.

Michael however, has grown up believing Frances’s sister is his mother. She has taken him to live in Australia along with her new husband.

Could Frances shatter her son’s joy?

June Francis MAN BEHIND THE FACADE

Mills & Boon Historical

Paperback - 7th September £4.67

ebook - 1st September £3.99

As a renowned ravelling player - with a dangerous sideline career in political intrigue - no one understands better than Philip Hurst the masks that people wear.

But the effort it takse to school his reactions to Rebecca Clifton tests even his theatrical expertise as he is drawn into the tangled web of her family affairs.

 www.junefrancis.co.uk

Jane Odiwe SEARCHING FOR CAPTAIN WENTWORTH

Paintbox Publishing

£9.99

7th September 2012

When aspiring writer, Sophie Elliot receives the keys to the family townhouse in Bath, it's an invitation she can't turn down, especially when she learns that she will be living next door to the house Jane Austen lived in. On discovering that an ancient glove belonging to her mysterious neighbour, Josh Strafford, will transport her back in time to Regency Bath, she questions her sanity, but Sophie is soon caught up in two dimensions, each reality as certain as the other. Torn between her life in the modern world and that of her ancestor Sophie's story travels two hundred years across time, and back again, to unite this modern heroine with her own Captain Wentworth. Blending fact and fiction together, the tale of Jane Austen's own quest for happiness weaves alongside, creating a believable world of new possibilities for the inspiration behind the beloved novel, Persuasion.

Freda Lightfoot MY LADY DECEIVER

Allison & Busby

Hardcover

24 September

£19.99 (RRP)

 1905. Rosie Belsfield feels as if her life has ended when she is rejected from Ellis Island and put on the next boat back to England, leaving her family behind. But fate gives her a second chance when she befriends Lady Rosalind, a pregnant widow on her way to the home of her late husband's father, the wealthy Sir Ralph Tregowan. Having boarded the ship with one identity, fate decrees that Rosie leave it with another...As Rosie arrives in Cornwall as 'Rosalind', she must fend for herself amongst a new and bitterly resentful family. Rosie becomes increasingly trapped by her deception and the cruelty of those around her - the only light at the end of the tunnel seems to be the enigmatic Bryce Tregowan. With him the promise of a new life beckons, one of riches and even a title in beautiful Cornwall, but it is also one fraught with danger should her deceit be discovered. As she falls deeper into love and lies, can Rosie keep up the act, or will her secrets reveal themselves? And to what consequences?

Freda Lightfoot THE PROMISE

Allison & Busby

Paperback

26 September

£.7.99 (RRP)

San Francisco, 1904. Georgia Briscoe, a young woman from a good family, is unwillingly betrothed to businessman Drew Kemp when she falls for handsome British sailor Ellis Cowper. Drew had the charm to dazzle everyone around him, but when the couple are married, it soon transpires that Drew's charm is only skin-deep, and that he is in fact a greedy gambling addict with a penchant for other women, including Georgia's maid Maura and jealous sister Prudence. When Georgia and Maura fall pregnant, both women decide to escape to be with the men they love, providing Prudence with an opportunity to seize Drew - and much more besides. London, 1948. When Chrissie Kemp travels to the Lake District to visit her grandmother Georgia, she is not prepared for the shocking revelation that is about to throw her family into turmoil. As a last act of vengeance on her death bed, Prudence claims that Chrissie's mother Vanessa and her late father Aaran are brother and sister. As the truth unfurls, the passion, emotion and astounding love that occurred in San Francisco forty years ago is revealed, and three generations of the family are tested to their limits.

 

www.fredalightfoot.blogspot.com

www.fredalightfoot.co.uk

Catherine King STOLEN PASSION

Hachette Digital

Ebook novella

September

£0.99

Period upstairs downstairs romance.

Vanessa Devereaux FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

Cobblestone Press-Blue Line

electronic short story

99 cents

Ashley James thought stepping in for her friend Shannon and teaching the Introduction to Baking at night school was going to be routine...and boring. However, when Andy Logan decides to sign up, the class is anything but that. Ashley learns that doing a friend a favor has its many rewards.

www.vanessadevereaux.com