Why Enter Our Escalator Literature Writing Competition?

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 15 November 2012

More to the point, why wouldn’t you enter Escalator? Escalator isn’t your ordinary writing competition- it offers so much more than prize money or a one-off publication. Escalator helps you develop as a writer, and it offers you the tools to carve out a writing career. Open to genre writers living in the East of England, Escalator is looking for high-quality entries.

If you are one of our ten Escalator winners (that gives you pretty good odds by the way) then you get a years mentorship with an established professional writer. This year’s judges and mentors are Natasha Cooper, Tobias Hill, David Rain Michelle Spring and Cathi Unsworth. (Read their biographies)

You will also receive a series of professional development workshops, which will help you improve your writing, and navigate the tricky route  towards publication. Of course, your fellow Escalatees will also provide peer support, and feedback, meaning that you always have your fellow winners to depend on.

Wait, there’s more!

Writers’ Centre Norwich will give you advice on how to apply for Arts Council grants, and coach you through the process as well as helping you with the always intimidating  form-filling. Your work will also benefit from exposure to agents and publishers.

And after you’ve completed your year’s mentorship, you get to celebrate. Last years winners commemorated their achievement at Foyles, in the company of agents, publishers and of course, WCN staff.  There are some lovely pictures from the launch, and an account of the evening on our latest news page.

Still not sure whether or not to enter?

Three of our past Escalator winners have very kindly each written us a blog which combined, are sure to convince you. Hayley Webster writes about how Escalator helped her discover her writing style, and made her realise that she didn’t have to conform to others expectations of her writing. Belona Greenwood blogged about how winning Escalator meant she could make her living from words, and Emma Sweeney’s piece is a moving exploration of her writing motivation.

This year we’re looking for entries from genre writers living in the East of England (that’s  Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk).

Whether you’ve completed your novel or just begun it, we’re looking to see your entries! Send in your best piece of work by Wednesday 28th November 5pm.

And remember, we’re looking for genre writing, so crime, thriller, horror, fantasy, science-fiction, romance, historical fiction, genre mash-ups and a whole host of other genres are all welcome.

Visit our Escalator homepage to find out more.

Past Escalator Winner Hayley Webster Blogs About Finding Her Writing Style

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 09 November 2012

Hayley Webster, Escalator winner in 2005, has kindly written us a blog about her writing experiences:

I remember how I felt when I found out I'd won an Escalator award. Jubilant, excited, and a bit scared. Maybe a bit smug too, although I wouldn't have admitted that. I had about ten pages of Jar Baby written and no plan of where it was going. I like to write without planning, to surprise myself, but being backed by a prize felt very serious. Which, it turned out, was a good thing.

I'd already been writing for a long time when I got the award. I had been a  magazine journalist and completed my MA in Creative Writing at UEA the year before. The best thing about Escalator was the time it gave me to dedicate to writing nearly the whole book, and also the chance I had to meet some really inspiring and interesting other writers. It also gave me an extra boost to be 'taken seriously'. Filling in the grant forms was hellish – but being an Escalator winner meant we had help with that. Which, for me who can barely read a train timetable, was invaluable.

Having 6 months to do nothing but write was wonderful, challenging and, in the end a struggle for me – which was another benefit of Escalator – it helped me find the sort of writer I am, and helped me get into a rhythm that suited me.

I think, the best advice a published writer can give an unpublished one is that there are no exact rules or ways of getting published. You have to be honest with yourself about the sort of person and sort of writer you are. We met various agents and publishers through my MA and Escalator but I met my publisher, Robert Hastings of Dexter Haven, at a reading I was doing, unrelated to Escalator. We signed a three book deal. I am lucky to have found a publisher who champions and 'gets' the work. This is invaluable too.

You hear the advice 'write 1000 words a day, without fail, if you are serious about writing'. I've never done that. During Escalator I discovered I like to write nothing for two months. Then 10,000 words in three days. Then some serious editing. Then maybe nothing for four months. Then another 10,000 words. I'm happy with that. At least I will be when I've finished the next one...


Hayley Webster was born in 1977 and grew up in Burghclere, Hampshire and Thatcham, Berkshire. She is a graduate of the prestigious MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where she was awarded a distinction. She was given an Escalator Award for Literature in 2005 and the writing of Jar Baby was backed by Arts Council East, who gave her a grant in 2006 to help in its completion. She has worked in women’s magazines, and now lives in Norfolk with her family. Jar Baby was released on the 25th October of this year.

Follow Hayley on Twitter.



Find out more about Escalator Literature Competition, currently open for entries. (Closing date 28th November)

Up the Escalator: Two Years On

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 12 September 2012

Belona Greenwood has very kindly written us a blog about her experience of being an Escalator winner and how it changed her writing career:

I don’t know if it is a writer thing but I find it very uncomfortable when I tot up the passage of time.  I have always managed to smudge the edges of dates, forget the anniversaries of things, lose my way in any calculation of when and where so it comes as a shock to realise that two years have passed since my year of mentoring on the Escalator scheme.

 My still-ongoing book is a creative non-fiction book, Shadow Madonnas, an Exploration of the Map of Spite; a history of unmarried mothers. My Escalator year was invaluable but nipped past at quite a rate.  The danger is that research flowers into procrastination. Personally too, in those two years I struggled with writing my own narrative as a single mother as the spine on which to hang the histories of others. I have now turned the book on its head and I am writing it as a lively account of the lives of others. I watch very carefully the new months that pass and impose new deadlines on myself.  It is a relief that although some books do get written very quickly with knife-sharp focus, some take years to complete.  It is a relief that I am not alone in having to answer the question, ‘is it finished yet?’ and say almost sheepishly, ‘No, not yet, ‘I’m still writing it.’ After a while nobody asks anymore and in a perverse kind of way there is a freedom in that sideline state and the only pressure on its long walk to the final full stop is my own.

For those of us of an impatient nature, I think it takes a particular ability not to panic but to hold back and keep faith with a long project.  It is easy to feel scared as those years creep past and a book is still not ready to slip into the current of words streaming into publication.  Sometimes, I do panic, other times I add up everything else I am doing and don’t give myself such a hard time.  

Since my Escalator year I have been lucky to earn my living with words in one form or another.  I have written a non-fiction How To Write A Play book, thousands of words on features, plays and a children’s novel for 9-12 year olds, The Circus of Miracles, finally edited and broken into chapters.  Writing features for the excellent, independent Norwich Magazine and for a less excellent lifestyle magazine plus a monthly column with an Italian Magazine, has been like a flexing of writing muscle, a daily workout.  Writing plays is a passion and my world is happily full of words. The trick I am still trying to work out is how to make sure it is also full of the time I need for the diet of writing that has a deadline measured in years rather than weeks or days.

The Writers’ Centre is a great support for emerging writers because it doesn’t measure your work only on short timescales.  What a relief!  It keeps faith in all the chrysalids it has seen start the transformative process into professional writers.

Our new Escalator Literature Writing Competition will be opening soon. Keep an eye on the Escalator homepage and sign up for our e-newsletter to be the first in the know.  

A Novel's Progress: A Guest Blog Post from TLC Free Reads Winner Tracy Ann Baines

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 15 August 2012

Tracy Ann Baines blogs about writers' fears, novel-writing and the benefits that a TLC Free Read can provide:

Every writer’s different.  We all have our own way of working.  There’s no right or wrong way - no right place to start.  But my novel started with NaNoWriMo.  I sat at my computer, stared at the blank virtual paper, and realised - I had no idea what to write.  But write I did.  I had to.  I’d taken up the challenge - write at least 50,000 words in a month. 

A character came to me - he had a name, a little brother, but he didn’t have a story.  I made it up as I went along.  No plan, no synopsis, nothing.  I let the story lead me into all kinds of places. Things I’d read or seen; newspaper reports, advertisements, a TV documentary all wove themselves into the narrative.  And then I stopped.  Something wasn’t right.  I started all over again. 

The story stayed the same but the POV changed.  The story needed to be told from different perspectives, each character as important as the next.  Five different characters = five different voices; two teenage boys, a teenage girl, a ten-year-old boy and a grandfather.  Each voice needed to be distinctive and believable.  Occasionally I’d write something which moved me to tears and I’d wonder- Is this real or am I deluding myself?  Would others care about the characters I’d grown to love.  And so it began….

The voice of self-doubt, growing ever louder…  It’s too complicated.  I don’t know what I’m doing.  It’s rubbish.  I can’t write.  The voices don’t work.  The story doesn’t work.  Just give up now!  
The self-doubt remained but I kept on going until finally I’d typed ‘The End.’ I’d done it.  I’d finished my novel in a month.  Hurrah!  But now what?

I left it to gather dust.  But then I heard about Writers’ Centre Norwich offering six writers the chance of a free manuscript report from TLC.  This was an opportunity I’d be foolish to miss.  Anyway, I knew I wouldn’t win.  So with the deadline looming, and with no time to talk myself out of it, I posted my submission.

I won!  I was awarded a TLC FreeRead.  Thrilled to be chosen, I edited my manuscript and sent it away.  Nothing to lose.  Everything to gain. 

I opened the report with nervous anticipation…
 
‘an awful lot of potential…  I enjoyed reading it.’ 

‘Your main characters are believable and likeable…  your writing style is, for the most part, eloquent and commanding.’

‘Overall I think you demonstrate an excellent command of dialogue.’

‘I found your plot entertaining and well conceived.’

‘Overall your manuscript shows a keen attention to narrative, both in terms of style and substance…  it’s an engaging and, in parts, genuinely moving story.’

Fantastic!  Vindication that perhaps my writing wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.  That’s not to say there wasn’t work to be done.  The reader thought I could do a little more to make the voices as distinctive as possible.  I could perhaps streamline the plot and make it less hurried in the final third.    

‘teenage first person narratives are hard to write at the best of times… multiple narrators is even more of a complicated task…’      

To have your self-doubts dismissed or confirmed by a professional provides an important stepping stone.  When we sit at our computers, staring at the words we’ve written, sometimes it’s hard to see things clearly.  Sometimes, the only way to find the courage to move forward is to have a professional read your work and suggest ways to proceed.

So be brave.  Grasp the opportunity.  Because who knows where a TLC Free Read may lead…


Tracy worked for several years in the film industry but now focuses on writing novels and scripts.  Her writing has achieved some recognition with a variety of achievements.  Her first children's novel, Pig-Boy & the Quest for the Cinnamon Forest, was shortlisted in Cornerstones Wowfactor competition 2007 and received an Honorary Mention in SCBWI-BI's Undiscovered Voices anthology competition 2008.  Her children's fantasy, Escape From Above, was chosen as a promising entry in the 2011 Times/Chicken House competition and an extract published on The Times website. In 2011 Writers' Centre Norwich awarded her YA novel, Scarred, with a manuscript assessment from The Literary Consultancy.  Her blog, tall tales & short stories, has been rated as one of the UK's Top 10 Children's Literature Blogs for the second time.

Read Tracy's blog.
Follow Tracy on Twitter.

Visit the TLC Free Reads Submissions Page to find out more.

Not Sure What Step to Take Next With Your Writing? Submit Your Manuscript to our TLC Free Reads Scheme.

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 20 July 2012

So you’ve written a book. Or a collection of short stories, or a play, or a treatment, or a collection of poetry...

Congratulations!

Now, what’s next?

It is difficult to negotiate the tricky world of publishing- what in the past was complicated is now made infinitely more so with the advent of online self-publishing. The TLC Free Reads scheme helps you to develop and promote your manuscript by providing you with sage industry advice and honest and constructive feedback.

Writers’ Centre Norwich, The Literary Consultancy and Arts Council England have teamed up to provide you with the opportunity to have your manuscript entered into the scheme. Specifically geared towards those on a low income (find out more about what low-income means) the TLC Free Reads provides a valuable service for aspiring writers across all genres in the East of England. If you don’t fit exactly into the low-income criteria but feel that the service would otherwise be out of your financial reach then please do still apply and just attach an explanation!

Writing is, by necessity, a lonely activity, but eventually you will need someone else’s opinion- unless you are marvellously self-assured. You get to the stage when you’ve sweated blood to write something which you love (or you reach the stage where, actually, you hate everything you’ve written and think it’s the biggest load of rubbish ever typed) and you need somebody neutral to read it and give their opinion and advice. That’s the service that TLC Free Reads provide: constructive criticism and counsel.

And it helps! Here’s what a few of our previous Free Reads winners had to say:

‘The TLC Free Read was constructive;...the whole process sharpened my writing and has been really positive and encouraging. I'm very grateful for the opportunity you gave and the belief you extended to my work!’
Tista Austin, Winner, 2011/12

‘It was a huge motivation and encouragement to be offered the free read... the free read report on my book was helpful, and answered the questions I had. I particularly appreciated having a writer looking at my work and I found their perspective and analysis useful.’
Winner, 2010/11

You can visit The Literary Consultancy’s website for more testimonials and success stories.

What are you waiting for? Give your writing a chance to shine with the TLC Free Reads scheme!

Find out more information on our TLC Free Reads submissions page.
Visit The Literary Consultancy’s Website
For writing tips visit our Pinterest page.

Taking the Leap: A Guest Blog Post from Author Carol Rifka Brunt

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 11 July 2012

Carol Rifka Brunt was a runner-up for the New Writing Ventures Award in 2006, organised by Writers' Centre Norwich in our previous incarnation of New Writing Partnership. Carol began writing her debut novel, Tell the Wolves I'm Home because of the support and mentorship she received through the New Writing Ventures Award . Tell the Wolves I'm Home was published in the UK by Pan Macmillan in June of this year and was chosen as an Oprah Summer Reading book.

Carol's kindly written WCN a blog about her writing career, and the jump from writing short stories to creating novels:

I’m thinking about those times when you have to jump across a chasm. Maybe ‘chasm’ is a bit melodramatic, so let’s just say gap. I’m thinking of the kind of gap that’s just a few inches wider than feels comfortable. Something in your mind is not letting your body take the risk, so you wobble on the edge, almost leaping, but then pulling back again and again. I’m thinking about how there are lots of things in life that have that exact same feel. One of those things for me was the leap from writing short stories to becoming a novelist.

I’d been writing short fiction for about ten years. Short stories are difficult to master. It’s hard to get enough in each one without overloading it with too much. It’s a balancing act.  This meant that I could spend a lot of time tweaking and tinkering.  And once all that was done I could spend a lot of time submitting to the best journals and being rejected.  I contend to this day that it’s harder to get a story accepted at one of the top tier UK or American journals than it is to get a novel published. And the thing is, even when stories were accepted or shortlisted for prizes like New Writing Ventures, I knew a relatively small number of people would read them.

What I didn’t realise until years later, was that there was a comfort in that. I was on the safe side of success. Nothing could change if I stuck to shorts. It was easy to tell myself that a novel was too daunting. That I wasn’t suited to the form. That was the chasm, the gap. That was my brain telling me not to take the risk. 

Being shortlisted for the New Writing Ventures award in fiction came with the wonderful prize of a year-long mentorship program. Three times over the year I would be able to submit up to 20,000 words to my mentor. For someone who hadn’t had the opportunity to enroll in an MA program, this was a true gift. At first I calculated the number of short stories I would be able to turn in. And during the first submission period I did turn in three well-polished short stories. I hovered on the edge of the chasm.

Then something clicked. This was it. If I couldn’t take the leap under these circumstances, with all this support in place, when would I do it? What was I waiting for? I looked at what I had. There was one story that wouldn’t leave me alone. There was a dying uncle painting a final portrait of his niece. I could smell the lavender and orange in the air of the Manhattan apartment. I could feel the tension between the two of them. What was the uncle dying of? Why was the girl so defensive? Seven hundred words turned into a few thousand and the pages kept mounting. I wasn’t really writing a novel, I told myself. I was just seeing where this took me. And then, before I knew I was doing it, I had jumped to the other side of the gap. I was standing there looking back, understanding that if things went the way of my wildest dreams, many, many people might read my work.

At the time I wasn’t sure how I had done it. The moment of jumping the gap was a blur.  But looking back I think maybe it wasn’t a leap at all. Maybe when the right support is in place, it’s more like building a bridge.

Visit Carol's website.

Follow Carol on Twitter @CarolRifka

Find out more about the Writers Services WCN provides.

Discover Escalator, our yearly creative writing competition.

The Greenhouse Funny Prize

Posted By: Rowan Whiteside, 30 May 2012

Julia Churchil from the Greenhouse Literary Agency got in touch to tell us all about The Greenhouse Funny Prize earlier on in the month. We thought it sounded brilliant, so we asked her to write us a blog telling us all about the prize and what Greenhouse are looking for. If your writing gets kids giggling, guffawing or cackling with glee, then read on!

Here's what Julia has to say about the Greenhouse Funny Prize:

Are you funny?

At the Greenhouse Literary Agency we love all sorts of writing for children. We love edgy, wincingly close-to-the-bone YA fiction, we love thrilling, commercial concepts with big surprises, and beautiful and heartfelt younger stories. I could keep going, but in short, we love quality. And there’s something that Sarah and I agree that we don’t see enough of: Funny.

I had the idea for a prize because every time I sit down with an editor and ask what they’re looking for, they generally say, ‘Funny. We need humour’. When I was little, half of my reading was humour – Dahl, the Ahlbergs, Just William, Mr Majeika, What-A-Mess, Fudge, Asterix.  And there is loads of great humour on the market today - Wimpy Kid, Andy Stanton, Lauren Child, Dave Pilkey, David Walliams. Funny is selling in the shops, publishers are wide open to it, and yet we don’t see that represented in our submissions inbox. We want more laughs.

The Greenhouse Funny prize is open to un-agented writers who are currently resident in the UK and Ireland. Entries will be judged by me and guest judge Leah Thaxton, Publishing Director of Egmont Children’s Books (and discoverer of Andy Stanton).

The winner will get an offer of representation from the Greenhouse and a full weekend ticket to the wonderful Festival of Writing that runs 7-9 September ’12 (worth £525). The winner will also be presented with a bottle of champagne at the Festival’s gala dinner on the Saturday night. The runners up will each get five of my favourite funny books, and maybe even a comedy mug.

Our judging criteria is very simple. Funny, and we are wide open to all ages. The winner may be a picture book like Olivia or Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, or a young series à la Horrid Henry, Flat Stanley, The Great Hamster Massacre or Undead Pets, or for 8-12 year olds like Lemony Snicket or Ramona. It could even be for teen readers, like Louise Rennison, Does My Head Look Big in This? or The Princess Diaries. It’s going to be the person with funny in their DNA.

Funny is subjective, of course. Perhaps the winner will have a slow-burning, gentle wit. Perhaps a Python-esque sense of the absurd. Or maybe the concept, and the freshness and immediacy of it, will do much of the heavy lifting.

Entry guidelines:

1) To get a good sense of the voice and where the character is headed, we’d like to see the first 5,000 words PLUS a short description (a few lines) of the book AND a one page outline that shows the spine of the plot. The book does not need to be completed at the time of entry.

2) Please attach the 5,000 words to a word document and send your entries to funny@greenhouseliterary.com If you are submitting a picture book (or shorter fiction that comes in under 5,000 words), then send the complete text in a word document. The short description of the book and outline should be in the body of the email. PLEASE NOTE: This is different to our general Greenhouse submissions policy. If submitting work to the Greenhouse in the future (outside of the Greenhouse Prize), visit the How to Submit section of the website to find our submission guidelines.

3) You must be resident in the UK or Ireland.

4) The deadline for submissions is Monday 30 July.

The shortlist will be announced Monday 6 August. We anticipate that 6 writers will be shortlisted.

The winner will be announced Monday 13 August. If we get two or more outstanding entries, we may offer representation to more than one writer.

Entrants will not be acknowledged on receipt, but all entrants will be emailed when the shortlist is announced. 

I’ll confess it feels a bit disingenuous to offer representation as a prize, because when those great books come along, I’d offer to represent anyway. It also feels a bit reckless. What happens if it’s all unfunny?! But I’m confident that at least one brilliant new voice will come to me if I open my arms and say out loud, ‘Show me the funny’. I’m happy to be transparent and say this is a totally self-serving competition.

We just want to wave the flag to all those new writers tapping away in their sheds and spare rooms, and say, ‘Hey! If it’s funny, send to us! That’s what we’re looking for.’

Find out more on the Greenhouse Website.

Follow me on Twitter:@juliachurchill

Escalator Fiction: Meet our Ten Winning Writers

Posted By: Richard White, 03 February 2012

At last we have our ten winning writers!

Before I introduce you, let’s begin with a quick rundown on how they got here, and what they have to look forward to.

In October 2011 we once again put the call out to talented, unpublished novelists from the East of England, asking them to submit their writing for the Escalator Fiction Competition. Rather than the usual cash prize normally associated with literary competitions, the winners enjoy a year’s worth of development from professional writers including one-to-one mentoring and professional development workshops, culminating in a showcase event in London in September 2012. Not bad, eh?

It’s a unique offer, so we were absolutely delighted to receive the highest number of Escalator applications yet, and not only that, the quality across the board was outstanding.

Escalator winners have a satisfying habit of impressing agents and publishers (previous winners include Guy Saville, Helen Ivory, Ruth Dugdall,  Susan Sellers and Nicola Upson) and our judges/mentors and all here at WCN have no doubt this year’s winners will follow in their tracks.

Enough of the context, let’s meet our winners.

Our Ten 2011/12 Escalator Literature Novel Writing Competition Winners Are:

Rebecca Atkinson
Elaine Bishop
Armando Celayo
Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown
BTI Larsson
K J Packer
Teresa Rogers
Erin Soros
Shereen Tadros
Kate Worsley 

View biogs and read extracts of their writing.

Commended Writers Are:

More Good News: Catching Up With Escalator Writer Liz Ferretti

Posted By: Katy Carr, 21 November 2011

"I would never have even thought about writing without Escalator!"

One of the nicest parts of my job is the constant flow of updates that ping into the WCN inbox from past Escalator graduates as to their progress.

The writers update us on their literary developments which makes for gratifying reading, and quite perks one up (especially if what you're working on is Access Database related).

This news is just in from Elizabeth Ferretti, who went through the Escalator Literature programme in 2007. Rather than paraphrase her news, here it is direct from Liz herself:

"Having 'finished' Archipelago at the end of this summer I started sending it out into the big wide world. Last week, I found out that the novel has been longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Competition. I was doubly pleased when Guy Saville told me that 100 books had been longlisted out of 1800 entries! I have also been shortlisted for a competition run by Words With Jam. The extract I sent in will be published in the December issue I think.
 
The book is currently with an agent who I am waiting to hear from...
 
I always think with great gratitude of the work you all did for me through Escalator...I would never have even thought about writing without Escalator!"

Ahhhh. Warm glow.

If you're someone who'd like to join the long list of Escalator Alumni who continue to perk us all up with their good news, then it's not too late to get on board the 20011/12 Escalator Fiction Competition.

Deadline November 29th. Come on - what are you waiting for?

The 2012 Café Writers Norfolk Commission is open for submissions

Posted By: Richard White, 17 November 2011

The Escalator Literature Fiction Competition is Open!

Posted By: Richard White, 18 October 2011

Deadline: Tuesday 29th November

The Escalator Literature is a unique writing competition which offers you much more than the usual cash prize. Open now, the Escalator Literature Competition 2011 is for you if you are a novelist from the East of England who wants to get professional. Enter now if you think you would benefit from:

•    One-To-One Mentoring

A year’s worth of support from professional writers (Tobias Hill, Joanna Hines, Bernardine Evaristo, Katharine McMahon and Michelle Spring) – invaluable. Read their biogs here.

    

•    Supported Applications For Grant

You will be coached through an application for an Arts Council England Grant for the Arts award.

•    Professional Development Workshops

A tailored range of workshops designed to give you the information you need to get ahead in the writing world.

•    Introductions To Agents and Publishers

Your work will be introduced to agents, publishers and other industry professionals and you will take part in a special London reception at the end of the year promoting you and your work.

•    Peer Support

Across 2012, ten winning fiction writers will be supported through Escalator Literature. Many of our Escalator graduates are still in touch with their group and find it of invaluable benefit to go through the year talking to each other.

When?
The Escalator Literature Fiction Competition is open now. Submissions must reach us by Tuesday 29th November.

TLC Free Reads: Deadline approaches for our free manuscript appraisal service for serious writers

Posted By: Anonymous, 20 July 2011

    A reminder of the TLC Free Reads opportunity, open to any writer in the East of England who would benefit from feedback on their manuscript from a professional but who would struggle to pay for this service. The deadline is the end of this month, so if you're interested, now is the time to apply.

If you’re a serious writer living in the East of England and want your manuscript appraised - we might be able to help!

For those who could do with a professional reading service but can’t afford it: The Literary Consultancy (TLC) is offering a free manuscript appraisal service, funded by Arts Council England and managed by Writers’ Centre Norwich throughout the East of England. Free Reads is open to writers of prose (fiction and non-fiction), poetry, and scripts for TV, film, radio or theatre who could otherwise not afford the fees.

As the UK’s leading manuscript assessment service, The Literary Consultancy provides expert, market-aware editorial advice to writers at all levels writing in English. You can gain constructive feedback from professional editors and find ideal publishers for your work. TLC has a strong track record of helping writers get into print as well as being an aid to their creative development.

Manuscripts are selected for Free Reads based on artistic merit and financial need.

Deadline for entries: 29th July 2011
Winners will be announced by: 26th August

To apply please submit:

·   a completed application form: Download Application Form.doc
·   a short covering letter saying why a Free Read would be useful to you at this stage in your career as a writer and addressing your financial need
·   a short sample of the work that you want to be assessed by TLC (no more than 3 pages for prose, 50 lines for poetry, 2 pages for scripts)
·   a short (half page) summary of the full work you would submit if selected, giving details of the overall length of manuscript or number of poems.

Am I eligible? Applicants must

•   not otherwise be able to afford the TLC manuscript service
•   submit an extract of the work they plan to submit to TLC if accepted
•   be aged 18 or older
•   be resident in the East of England (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk)
•   submit their application in English
•   submit single authored works only
•   enter under their own name and home address; pen names and c/o addresses will not be eligible
•   ensure your entry is received by the closing date (29th July 2011). Entries postmarked with the closing date will not be accepted
•   agree that if you win you will submit your final manuscript to Writers’ Centre Norwich by 1st February 2012

Applicants must not

•   be (or have been) studying for a full time academic qualification in creative writing within the past twelve months (as of 1st June 2011)
•   have ever benefitted from TLC Free Reads or TLCs regular manuscript feedback service
•   have been previously published (in anything other than an anthology or pamphlet) or received a professional production of a script
•   be employees of Writers’ Centre Norwich
•   apply more than once

These criteria can also be found on the Application Form (see below).

All submissions should be double-spaced, in a 12pt font, and printed on one side of the A4 page. Each page should be marked with your contact details.

APPLICATION FAQ’S

What should I put on my covering letter?

Covering letters should comprise a short explanation of why a Free Read would be useful to you at this stage in your career as a writer and refer also to your financial needs eligibility. It should be no more than one side of A4.

What does ‘financial need’ mean?

TLC’s regular fees are enclosed. If you feel these prices prevent or dissuade you from making use of TLC’s regular manuscript appraisal service then we’d encourage you to apply for a Free Read.

We are asking you to self-certify your financial need, and simply ask for a statement from you as to why you might not otherwise be able to afford this service.

How will winners be selected?

Winners will be selected on the quality of the work submitted, financial need, and a judgement of how useful we think a Free Read could be at this particular stage of your writing career.

Who will judge entries?

Entries will be judged by Writers’ Centre Norwich.

Escalator Poetry Competition 2010/11: The Winners

Posted By: Laura Stimson, 25 January 2011

Writers’ Centre Norwich catapulted into 2011 with a very tough decision to make. Or rather, our panel of Escalator judges did.  With over 300 applications for this year’s Escalator scheme, the judges had a poetry mountain to scale.

After vigorous debate between Tom Chivers, Mimi Khalvati and Sean O’Brien, we’re delighted to announce the six winning poets (below).  Throughout 2011, each poet will work with a creative mentor to develop their craft. Our mentors are feted poets Mimi Khalvati, Daljit Nagra and George Szirtes, with mentoring super-woman Michelle Spring managing the process. Winners will also take part in a residential weekend at the University of East Anglia, devised by Writers’ Centre Norwich. At the end of the year, each winner will showcase their work in a dedicated Escalator pamphlet.

Winners’ poetry explores influences as disparate as mathematics, music, spirituality and sculpture.  Each poet captured the judge’s attention with their rich wordplay, experimentation, vision and risk. With an inspirational year ahead of them, we very much look forward to reading more from this fantastic group of writers.

“…it is an exciting, very valuable scheme and offers so much to up-and-coming writers”
Escalator Judge 2011

The 2010/11 winners are:

Geraldine Clarkson
Geraldine Clarkson started writing poetry three years ago. She was mentored by Jo Shapcott under the Jerwood/Arvon Mentoring Scheme during 2010, and shortlisted for the 2010 Arvon Poetry Competition. She has had poems published in Smiths Knoll, the Daily Mirror, Twin art & fashion magazine, Poetry Digest [on cupcakes!], online at Eyewear, and forthcoming in Fuselit. Two of her prose poems are included in This Line is not for Turning: Anthology of Contemporary British Poetry, forthcoming from Cinnamon Press in autumn 2011.


Maitreyabandhu
Maitreyabandhu won the Keats-Shelley Prize, The Basil Bunting Award, the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, and 1st prize in the New Writer Prose and Poetry competition in 2009. He won the Ledbury Poetry Festival Competition in 2010. His article on poetry as a spiritual practice is due out in the spring edition of Poetry Review. He lives and works in the London Buddhist Centre and has been ordained into the Triratna Buddhist Order for 20 years. He has written two books on Buddhism.

Frank Newsum
Frank Newsum is from London, and has lived in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Germany. He began writing seriously in 2004, and since then writing has gradually encroached on most of his time, largely replacing fell-walking, leisure cycling and dinghy-sailing. He has a soft spot for mathematics, and another for Early Music. He is also interested in literature from other languages.


Eileen Pun
Eileen Pun was born in New York, US and moved to northwest England after her study as a foreign exchange student at Lancaster University. Eileen won the Manchester Metropolitan and Royal Northern College of Music, 2009 Rosamond Prize for best collaborative piece of poetry and music. She was commissioned to write a short chamber opera, The Red Knot which was performed in May 2010. Several of her poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies in both the US and UK. Her work is most recently featured in The Rialto’s November 2010, young poet’s feature.

Sarah Roby

Sarah Roby won the Mslexia Poetry Competition in 2009 for her poem The Inland Waterways. Her work features in this year's Templar Anthology and has been admired by Carol Ann Duffy for its 'willingness to experiment and to play.' She has recently completed a verse narrative on the working holidays taken in Happisburgh, North Norfolk, by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. Sarah developed a crush on this form having read Adam Foulds’ verse narrative The Broken Word. This interest then became the focus for an MA in Creative Writing (Lancaster University) for which she was awarded Distinction. Sarah lives in Norwich. 



Tom Warner
Tom Warner was born in Mansfield. In 2001 he won an Eric Gregory Award and graduated from the University of East Anglia’s MA in Creative Writing with Distinction. He received a Faber New Poets Award in 2010 and in 2009-2010 was Poet-in-residence to Newark-on-Trent. A pamphlet of his poetry was published by Faber in 2010. He currently lives in Norwich.

Three poets were commended:

Helen Mort
Edward Mackay
Rachel Rooney

Find out more about Escalator Literature on the project page.

We run Escalator Literature on behalf of Arts Council England and we’d like to thank them for their support. 

 

TLC Free Reads - The Winners

Posted By: Anonymous, 06 December 2010

The Free Reads scheme offered a free manuscript consultation with a professional from the Literary Consultancy to those writers who demonstrated potential in their writing and who would not otherwise be able to afford the service.

We are delighted to have chosen the eight winners and to have sent them on their way to the TLC.  The eight manuscripts covered fiction, life-writing, non-fiction, children’s verse, children’s fiction, and a poetry play for radio, and we're looking forward to following these writers as they move forwards in their careers.

If you applied for a Free Read and have not been notified as a winner, then this means you were not successful on this occasion. Thank you for your application and please keep writing!

Overall the entries, as well as the winners demonstrated that the East of England has plenty of great writers working away out there, and we're very much looking forward to seeing them all develop.

What’s on? Quite a bit, actually...

Posted By: Richard White, 12 October 2010

Free manuscript reading service, you say? A nationwide poetry competition, you say? And the Jarrold / EDP East Anglian Book Award winners announced on Wednesday 20th October... you guessed it: you say?

Now this isn’t a shameless blog designed to solely promote our literary goodies on offer. Well, it is, but the reasoning isn’t quite that shallow.

Firstly, an attendee at one of our writing workshops told us about some recent success she’s had with her book thanks to some of the above schemes we’re running – a great excuse to extol their virtues!

Secondly, we don’t want you to miss out.

The workshop attendee I mention is Charlotte Paton. Charlotte kindly emailed to tell us that her book, The King of the Norfolk Poachers, had been shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards – great news. But even better that we had a small (we’re being gracious) hand in helping her to achieve this.

In her own words:

“The support of Writers Centre Norwich was invaluable to me as I struggled to complete it [The King of the Norfolk Poachers]. Stephen Foster read a chapter and was very encouraging, and the bursary you awarded me to have the book read by The Literary Consultancy determined me to keep going!! It has been a seven year slog, but it is a wonderful feeling to see it in print.”

So the moral of the story is... get involved! Take a chance and who knows where it will lead you. Here’s the rundown:

Free Manuscript Reading Service
This is the scheme that Charlotte mentioned, above. If you’re based in the East of England and can’t ordinarily afford a manuscript reading service, then this is for you: sage industry advice from The Literary Consultancy and the holy grail – honest, constructive feedback.

Download the application form and see if it’s for you.

2010 Jarrold East Anglian Book Awards
Pop along and wish Charlotte luck. We announced the shortlisted authors a little while ago, and we’re now nearing the business end of the awards ceremony.

Held at the Assembly House, in Norwich, on the evening of Wednesday 20th October and presented by BBC Look East's Carol Bundock, you can buy tickets at the EDP shop in the Archant building, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich - or visit customer services at Jarrold on London Street, Norwich.

Escalator Poetry Competition
If you haven’t heard about this already, then I’m ashamed to call myself a marketeer (perhaps I need two companions... you know where I’m heading with this). A year’s worth of development towards your poetry, including: mentoring from established poets; a summer school residential based at the UEA and support in making an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts bid.

All invaluable, and available at the click of a button. Application form.

Enough. And apologies if this looks like a shameless marketing post. I suppose it is. But it’s a caring - we want you to do really well – one.