A little celebration that I hope doesn’t break any rules… my novel, Perotine, was one of the top ten shortlisted in last year’s competition. It was subsequently picked up by a small publisher, and launches on Tuesday. This weekend, I’ve travelled from Jersey (home) to Gloucester to give two talks and then in the coming weeks I’ve got two appearances at home, plus a trip to the Guernsey Literary festival to discuss the book. In May, I’m also making several appearances in Wales. Exciting and very busy times! 📚 I’ve also dropped my Marlowe and C placement in several times in my promo. 😄 Good luck to everyone, this year!

Hi there all! I received some (not M&C) competition feedback this morning. I've had bad experiences with feedback in the past, with comments that had little to do with my manuscript or were bland generic restatings of the submission guidelines. In this case the reader clearly had read and commented directly on the submission, praised the prose, the plotting and the use of formatting and epistolary elements... Once my heart settled a little I realised that it gave me absolutely nothing to work on, nothing to improve. It's not as though it was the greatest thing their readers had ever seen, I didn't make the list let alone place. Where do you go for constructive feedback? Are there competitions and publications/sites that you've found helpful on the past? Does the necessity of payment go hand in hand with people just wanting to please you?

Question for those who have written or published more than one book: how long do you leave between projects (if anything)? And how do you juggle promotion (and celebration!) of the finished book with the process of starting your next project? I mean both the mental challenge of jumping from one to the other - and TIME. I usually go straight into the next but just don’t have capacity to promote and write concurrently this time. I’m interested in what others do or feel about this!

I had high hopes for this excellent idea to create a writers’ forum. But disappointingly your idea has provided yet another promotional platform. I guess that is what the authors’ ecosystem has become. Shame.

Hello everyone. Just wondering, do any of you ever do writing exercises? In the past, I've found them fun and useful for freeing up my brain and subconscious etc. I was thinking I should do some, so looking for new ones. Can you recommend any?