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The Writing Coach

Literary Consultancy and Coaching for Writers from Jacqui Lofthouse

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Our Writers’ Community: Group outings

July 29, 2018 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Community, Events, Inspiration, Networking, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers 1 Comment

One of the most unique aspects of The Writing Coach is the strong sense of a writers’ community that we foster amongst all of our clients. We really pride ourselves on this and our community events are open to all our clients from those who enrol in our online course Get Black on White to those who enrol in one of our literary consultancy or coaching and mentoring programmes.

We’re also excited to announce an event which is open to all – our Routes to Publication event at Google Academy on 16th August – a panel event with novelist Louise Doughty, founder of Unbound Books John Mitchinson, Director of the Creative Writing MSt at Oxford University Clare Morgan and founder of Blackbird Digital Books Stephanie Zia. To find out more, click here.

Outing to The Charles Dickens Museum – May 2018

Dickens Museum

This year we had a truly wonderful day at The Dickens Museum. We also had a lovely Carluccio’s lunch prior to our visit where we shared many stories about our writing lives and our writing goals.

In the courtyard garden cafe at The Dickens Museum
Perusing manuscripts


Our writers’ community is also really deepened by our fantastic Facebook group – open to clients only – so that when we do meet our clients often feel as if they know each other already. The Facebook community is a fantastic place for asking questions of others and Jacqui – and also a place where we keep each other accountable to our writing goals.

Outing to The Tate Britain – January 2018

Members of The Writing Coach community at the Tate Britain



Outing to Kew Gardens – Summer 2017

A writers’ summer picnic at Kew Gardens



If you’d like to be a part of our community, you can sign up for our online course Get Black on White which gives you permanent instant access or enrol in any of our writing programmes. To find out more do contact us.

Or come along to our Routes to Publication event at Google Academy on 16th August – a panel event where Jacqui Lofthouse will interview novelist Louise Doughty, founder of Unbound Books John Mitchinson, Director of the Creative Writing MSt at Oxford University Clare Morgan and founder of Blackbird Digital Books Stephanie Zia. To find out more, click here. All attendees will also gain access to our community.

Jacqui says,

What I love about our community is how incredibly supportive the members are to each other. Many of our clients are published writers and our outings are attended by our consultants too, so you get to meet and network with experienced writers and to share your thoughts and discuss your ideas about writing with so many like-minded people. One of my aims here at The Writing Coach is to truly support our members in the deepest possible way and I hope these images give a real sense of how we do this. I attend all of the events personally and get to know everyone. There’s no charge for the events beyond your own expenses for the day – so this really is an invaluable resource for everyone who works with us. I’d love to meet you at a future event!

Routes to Publication: our Event at Google Academy

July 18, 2018 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Bookselling, Community, Corporate, Events, Inspiration, Motivation, Publishing, Self-publishing, The writing coach, Writers Leave a Comment

A Panel Event at Google Academy exploring routes to publication and writerly integrity in the process

Thursday August 16th at 6.30pm- 9.30pm

Jacqui Lofthouse interviews special guests Louise Doughty, John Mitchinson, Clare Morgan and Stephanie Zia

Louise Doughty
Louise Doughty
Unbound, John Mitchinson
John Mitchinson
Jacqui Lofthouse – Founder of The Writing Coach
Clare Morgan, MSt Creative Writing Oxford
Clare Morgan
Blackbird Digital Books
Stephanie Zia

Would you love to find out more about routes to publication – from the traditional route to working with smaller innovative publishers to self-publishing? Are you keen to discuss how to maintain your integrity and individuality as a writer, whilst also having one eye on the marketplace?

We are delighted to announce this one-off special event at Google Digital Academy where you will have an opportunity to network with writers and industry specialists whilst also considering your own best route to market.

Price: £20    Limited to an audience of 60

 

Our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse is thrilled to chair this special panel discussion on 16th August, featuring guests who, between them, know the publishing industry inside-out. Our aim is to help you to unravel the possibilities for your writing – and also to inspire you with a real vision that will enable you to write your very best work – and also to find an audience for it. Our discussion will be full of information and advice to help you make the right choices for your writing – with advice on how to stay true to yourself as a writer and how to choose the ideal route to publication.

Whatever genre you work in, our panel discussion aims to give you the tools to write with confidence and to clarify your vision for publication.

Schedule:

18.30-19.15: Reception drinks, nibbles and Google Virtual Reality Hub

19.15-20.45: Routes to Publication Panel with Jacqui Lofthouse (chair), Louise Doughty, John Mitchinson, Clare Morgan and Stephanie Zia. To be followed by Q & A

20.45-21.30: Networking drinks

Location:

Google Digital Academy, 123 Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria, London, SW1W 9SH

Doors open at 18.30pm, with drinks and nibbles kindly provided by Google

Booking & Payment

The price for this event is £20.

This is not a ticketed event – once you have booked, you don’t need to bring a ticket on the day as your name will be on our guestlist.

 

Our Speakers:

Our speakers have been chosen to give you the broadest view of routes to publication.

Louise Doughty

Louise Doughty is the bestselling author of eight novels, one work of non-fiction and five plays for radio. Her latest book, Black Water was nominated as one of the New York Times Book Review Top 100 Notable Books of 2016. Her previous book was the number one bestseller Apple Tree Yard, shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award and the National Book Award Thriller of the Year and has sold in thirty territories worldwide. A four-part TV adaptation with Emily Watson in the lead role was broadcast on on BBC1. She is a critic and cultural commentator, broadcasts regularly for the BBC and has been the judge for many prizes and awards including the Man Booker Prize and the Costa Novel Award. See: www.louisedoughty.com

 

John Mitchinson

 

John Mitchinson is a writer and publisher and the co-founder of Unbound, the award-winning crowdfunding platform for books. He helped to create the award-winning BBCTV show QI and co-wrote the best-selling series of QI books. As a publisher   he worked in senior positions at Harvill, Orion and Cassell. Before that he was Waterstone’s first marketing director. He is co-host of Unbound’s books podcast Backlisted (@BacklistedPod) and a Vice-President of the Hay Festival of Arts & Literature. See www.unbound.com

 

Clare Morgan

Clare Morgan is founder and director of Oxford University’s Creative Writing programme. Her most recent novel A Book for All and None (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best Novel award, and was described as ‘a spell-binding, effortlessly propulsive unity’ by the Independent; ‘written with eloquence and artistry’ by the Mail on Sunday; and ‘too tantalizing to resist’ by Time Out. She has published a collection of stories, An Affair of the Heart, and her short fiction been widely anthologized, and commissioned by BBC Radio 4. Clare gained her D.Phil. from Oxford University, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from U.E.A. She has chaired the Literature Bursaries Panel of the Arts Council of Wales, been Literary Mentor for Southern Arts and Literature Wales, and a literary assessor for publications funded by the Welsh Books Council. She is now an Academician for the Folio Academy. See www.claremorgan.co.uk

 

Stephanie Zia

Stephanie Zia has worked in the arts all her life: at the BBC, the Guardian and as a published novelist. She is the Founder of Blackbird Digital Books which publishes rights-reverted titles by established authors alongside exciting new talent and has sold over 100,000 books,  sharing over £100,000 in royalties 50/50 with her authors. She strongly believes in the on-going promotion of titles rather than the traditional 3-month window, nurturing the creativity of her #authorpower authors and promoting them with the latest, ever-changing, digital marketing techniques. See www.blackbird-books.com

 

Jacqui Lofthouse

Our chair, Jacqui Lofthouse is a novelist and founder of The Writing Coach. In 1992 she studied for her MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia under Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. She is the author of four novels, The Temple of Hymen, Bluethroat Morning, Een Stille Verdwijning and The Modigliani Girl. Her novels have sold over 100,000 copies in the UK, the USA and Europe. She is currently working on her first YA novel. Jacqui has taught creative writing in a broad variety of settings from City University to Feltham Young Offenders Institution. She is also an actor, training at Identity School of Acting (IDSA). She continues to mentor writers at The Writing Coach where her mission is to help writers to be confident and productive, producing their best work and getting it into print.

 


We can’t wait to meet you at this very special evening for The Writing Coach!

Lucy Kaufman’s Play – Eleanor Marx: The Jewess of Jews Walk

May 2, 2018 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Character, Events, playwriting, The writing coach, Writers Leave a Comment

We are delighted to announce that Lucy Kaufman’s play ‘The Jewess of Jews Walk’ is now playing at The Sydenham Centre, London – there’s still time to grab your tickets…

Lucy Kaufman, Jewess of Jews Walk, Sydenham Centre

Lucy Kaufman is a former client of The Writing Coach and also attended Jacqui Lofthouse’s workshop with Clare Barry for Paradise Road Project – on that workshop, she made a resolution to finish the writing of The Jewess of Jew’s Walk.

This original drama by Lucy Kaufman is produced and directed by Jonathan Kaufman.

The show began its run on Wednesday 18th April and is open until Saturday 12th May 2018 at The Sydenham Centre, London

8pm, Wed-Sat (except Thur 3 May)

Click here to book tickets.

Lucy writes:

In 2015 I attended Paradise Road Project, a day workshop run by Jacqui Lofthouse and Clare Barry. The workshop was intended as a chance for creatives to unplug from technology and cyberspace, refocus our minds, and allow inspiration available in our real, urban environment to inspire us. As both a playwright and author, I juggle a multitude of vying ideas and, back in 2015, struggled with deciding which project or projects to focus my attention and energies on.

For one workshop exercise we created a list of projects we’d love to bring into the world, and were aided in prioritising those projects and allowing a particular project to come to the fore as the one we wanted to tackle next. I made long list of plays, novels, and short stories I wanted to write: projects I had begun working on and some I’d put on the back burner, along with brand new ideas that were generated by the very act of sitting down and allowing what I love to emerge. I still enjoy referring to that list now and again, to see how many of the projects listed there have come to fruition.

On that list is the idea that became Pretty Bubbles, my novel about my mum and Bobby Moore, that came 3rd in ‘Pen to Print: Real Stories, Real Lives’ competition. On the list is an exciting idea for a YA novel I plan to write later this year. On that list is The Wig Show, a short story I had been playing over in my mind for a number of years that I wrote in the days immediately after attending the workshop and can be found here: https://lucykaufman.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/happy-international-womens-day/  And on the list is Eleanor Marx: The Jewess of Jews Walk, my play about Karl Marx’s remarkable youngest daughter that has a four-week run in Sydenham, around the corner from where she lived and died.

The play tells the true story of an inspirational woman and her tragic final days

“Lucy Kaufman’s superb play puts Eleanor Marx centre stage where she belongs” Rachel Holmes, Eleanor Marx’s biographer

When Eleanor Marx moved to 7 Jews Walk, Sydenham, in 1895, she believed she would be happy there. To Eleanor — a self-styled ‘Jewess’ — even the name of the road seemed a good omen. Her hopes could not be further from reality. Within months, Karl Marx’s youngest daughter was suffering at the hands of her common-law husband Edward Aveling, with shocking consequences. To this day, the dramatic events that unfolded at 7 Jews Walk are shrouded in mystery and doubt…

Lucy Kaufman, Jewess of Jews Walk, Sydenham Centre

Now Sydenham’s very own theatre company Spontaneous Productions is bringing this true story to life Upstairs at the Sydenham Centre, just around the corner from where Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling lived out their final few years. Lucy Kaufman’s powerful new drama celebrates this remarkable woman — political activist, translator, early feminist and often neglected figure of historical importance — whilst tackling themes of love, loyalty, identity, betrayal, domestic abuse and the role of women in society.

Click here to book tickets.

Writing in the Dark – by Miranda Gold

September 19, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Events, Guest post, Inspiration, Markets for your work, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

We are delighted to introduce a guest blog by Miranda Gold, novelist and author of ‘Starlings‘ – ‘Writing in the Dark’ explores her experience of working with a writing coach: our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse.

writing in the dark

Miranda Gold – Author of ‘Starlings’

I arrived at the British Library for my session with Jacqui on three hours’ sleep, carrying an embryonic first draft and unsure how this could bring any coherence to my life or my writing.

Jacqui was unperturbed. ‘I have a hunch,’ she said, ‘we might need to focus on the coaching side of things.’ It wasn’t what I wanted to hear of course and Jacqui was intuitive enough not to press the point. Instead she brought out the manuscript I’d sent her and, between offering her responses, began helping me to find way ways I could make writing part of the fabric of my life – I didn’t realise it then, but by shifting between the two she was translating her suggestion with the same precision she would bring to her reading of my work: the writing and the life can be interwoven into a seamless whole.

This has very little to do with writing from life and very much to do with writing in and with life. The impact of this may have been delayed (almost everything is with me) but it has been enduring. Since then writing has been my anchor and it seems it’s impossible to underestimate just how many influences, however apparently fleeting, have laid the foundation for my writing.

The process has been different with each new piece and the blank page becomes more terrifying, not less, but the fabric becomes stronger and more intricate; the sense of urgency to build worlds out of words supersedes the fear. It’s something of a cliché to speak of how a writer will be carried by the momentum of the story once they have breathed life into it, but it holds true. Yes there may be countless returns and revisions but at least it is alive on the page, here is a world that a reader can meet.

Jacqui also recognised that how I pieced together the novel that would become ‘Starlings’ would be inextricable from the story itself, she could read the modernist influences and see that much was being communicated by the rhythm itself, aware that this would be next to impossible to sell or fit neatly into a box but encouraging me regardless.

writing in the dark

Starlings by Miranda Gold

The point is she didn’t try to push me in any direction other than for what clarity would look and sound like for this particular novel. It would have been all too easy for her to urge me to cut away ambiguity, insist on linearity, create something that could be swallowed whole. Instead she listened to it and read it on its own terms and took me – in my blurry-eyed state – on my own terms too. Sometimes what a writer needs most is to be given license to find a the shape for a story even if it isn’t immediately comparable to whatever else might be flying (or not) off the shelves. So I stood by the risks I’d taken because the story of ‘Starlings’ might have been told any number of ways but the way it has now been told is the most honest communication of an experience of living a legacy of half-told stories that couldn’t be easily tidied up into a single meaning.

I would be several drafts into my second novel before I found a publisher for ‘Starlings’ but it now has a home and has found readers who have brought out meanings I wasn’t aware of, reminding me again that a book doesn’t end on the page. Writing is necessarily solitary but making connections is at the heart of it – not only within the book itself but with the books it may be in conversation with and the readers who engage with it.

I’m now working with the pioneering Unbound to publish my second novel, ‘A Small Dark Quiet.’ Though it may be easier to classify, I knew it was likely it might fall through the cracks. That was why Unbound appealed to me – they’re passionate about opening the door to ideas that might not fit easily on a traditional publisher’s list. They’re the first traditional publisher to work through crowd funding and I really feel they are helping to make significant changes in the literary landscape – maybe the reader can help shape the market after all. It’s going to be a challenge but there is a lot of support. I don’t know that any route to publication is easy but I’ll keep taking up the challenge as long as I have a story to tell.

Miranda Gold’s new novel ‘A Small Dark Quiet’ will be published by Unbound – you can support the novel here.

writing in the dark

Miranda Gold will be reading from her new book ‘A Small Dark Quiet’ at Hornsey Library on Saturday 23rd September from 3pm-5pm. She will be joined by fellow Unbound author Caitlin Davis and the event will include a short Unbound screening. More details of the event are here.

Words Away Salon: ‘Be Your Own Writing Coach’

June 25, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Community, Confidence, Events, Interviews, Motivation, Networking, Productivity, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

The Words Away salon is on Monday, July 3, 2017
7:30pm – 9:30pm at The Tea House Theatre, Vauxhall

Do you need some inspiration and motivation tips to get going and keep going this summer? What’s stopping you from finishing that book? Do you start but never quite finish? Would you like to be more confident in your approach to writing?

The Words Away Salon

This month, our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse is delighted to be the July guest at the Words Away Salon – the topic for July is ‘Be Your Own Writing Coach’.

Words Away Salon

The Tea House Theatre, Vauxhall

Words Away creative writing salons concentrate on the writing process. Run by writers Kellie Jackson and Emma Darwin, who every month invite a guest author to join you, the audience, in discussing a particular topic in writing, a genre, or a question of craft.

Emma and Kellie say:

Over tea, cake and a glass of wine, we’ll explore the challenges and opportunities, the difficulties and joys of writing, and the reality of being a writer. We hope you’ll come and join us. The Salons are held once a month on a Monday evening, 7.30pm at the Tea House Theatre, 139 Vauxhall Walk, London, SE11 5HL.

The Be your Own Writing Coach event is on Monday July 3rd and the guest is Jacqui Lofthouse, our Founder, a novelist, writing coach and literary consultant who has a wealth of experience and ideas for making the most of your writing time. The July literary salon is the last before the summer break and should equip you with some new ways to a more productive writing life.

Find out more here

on the ‘Words Away’ website

Click here

Tickets only £10

What is Words Away?

Words Away aims to bring writers together in a creative environment to explore the writing process. They hold monthly salons at the Tea House Theatre Cafe, in London and host creative writing retreats at Rathfinny Wine Estate, East Sussex. Through their Salons they offer a focused exploration on a particular topic with a chance to exchange ideas and ask questions in a friendly setting.

Jacqui Lofthouse

Jacqui Lofthouse, this month’s guest at Words Away

Be inspired. Develop and nurture your craft. Meet other writers. Please join us, all welcome.

Book for the July Salon here

on the ‘Words Away’ website

Click here

Tickets only £10

If you’re looking for other literary events in London, do take a look at our event at Waterstones, Gower Street on Wednesday 12th July: Literary Fiction, a panel discussion where Jacqui Lofthouse will be interviewing authors Roopa Farooki, Miranda Gold, Alice Jolly, Clare Morgan and Charles Palliser.

Literary Fiction – a panel discussion at Waterstones

June 20, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Community, Events, Inspiration, Motivation, Networking, Reading, The writing coach, Writers Leave a Comment

Join us on Wednesday 12th July 2017

A panel discussion chaired by Writing Coach founder Jacqui Lofthouse on the subject of Literary Fiction at Waterstones Gower Street

Roopa Farooki
Miranda Gold
Miranda Gold
Alice Jolly

Jacqui Lofthouse – Founder of The Writing Coach
Clare Morgan, MSt Creative Writing Oxford
Clare Morgan
Charles Palliser

Is literary fiction the antidote we need in the modern world? Redundant or more vital than ever?

We’d love to see you at this panel event, where Writing Coach founder, novelist Jacqui Lofthouse will be interviewing a number of prominent literary authors about the role of literary fiction in the contemporary publishing world.

Our panel features Charles Palliser  whose novel The Quincunx sold over a million copies worldwide, Clare Morgan, author of A Book for All and None, who is director of the MSt Creative Writing at Oxford University, Alice Jolly whose memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns won the PEN Ackerley Prize for memoir in 2016, Roopa Farooki, listed three times for the Orange/Baileys prize, her latest novel is The Good Children and Miranda Gold, debut literary author of Starlings – whose essay Reading as Alchemy – first published on this site – gives the event its name.

Alice Jolly and Roopa Farooki both also teach on the MSt Creative Writing at Oxford University and we’re delighted to have this link with the MSt.

Book here

via the Waterstones website for ‘Reading as Alchemy’

Literary Fiction Panel Event

Tickets only £6

Join Writing Coach Founder Jacqui Lofthouse this evening, chairing a discussion with novelists Roopa Farooki, Miranda Gold, Alice Jolly, Clare Morgan and Charles Palliser  – to explore ideas about literary fiction. How important is literary fiction today? What is its role? Is it valued? What does the term mean to each individual writer?

by Roopa Farooki
Miranda Gold Starlings
by Miranda Gold
by Alice Jolly

People's Book Prize
by Jacqui Lofthouse
by Clare Morgan
by Charles Palliser

Literary fiction, at its best, taps in to poetry’s magic to release significance that goes beyond dictionary definitions. As Virginia Woolf said, “Words don’t live in dictionaries, they live in the mind.” They live in the body too and literary fiction can unlock some of their visceral qualities through rhythm and internal resonances.

Book here

via the Waterstones website for ‘Reading as Alchemy’

Literary Fiction Panel Event

Tickets only £6

Our venue:

literary fiction

On 12th July, our venue is one of London’s most iconic and best-known bookshops, known for its immense academic range alongside a wealth of new and used books on every imaginable subject.

Waterstones Gower Street is Europe’s largest academic/specialist range bookshop. Located in the heart of Bloomsbury, the Grade II listed building was designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll in 1908. The first bookshop on the site was the original Dillon’s, opened by Una Dillon herself in a small area of the ground floor in 1956.

About the panel:

 

literary fiction

Jacqui Lofthouse, chairing the discussion, is Founder of The Writing Coach. In 1992 she studied for her MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia under Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. She is the author of four novels, The Temple of Hymen, Hamish Hamilton/Penguin 1995/1996, Bluethroat Morning, Bloomsbury 2000, Een Stille Verdwijning, De Bezige Bij 2005 and The Modigliani Girl. Her novels have sold over 100,000 copies in the UK, the USA and Europe. She has taught creative writing in a broad variety of settings including at City University, the Cheltenham Festival, for Artemisia holidays in Tuscany, at Richmond Adult and Community College, and at Feltham Young Offenders Institution. She is also the Founder of the small publishing imprint Nightingale Editions.

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literary fiction

Roopa Farooki has published six novels with Headline and Macmillan, which have been listed for the Orange/Baileys Prize three times and translated into 13 languages. Her last novel, The Good Children, was named “outstanding novel of the year” by the Daily Mail. She teaches on the Masters in Creative Writing at Oxford University and lives with her husband and four young children. She was awarded the John C Laurence from the Authors’ Foundation for writing which improves understanding between races. She is currently studying Medicine at St George’s University of London.

*

Clare Morgan is an author, academic and literary critic, and founder and director of Oxford University’s M.St. in Creative Writing. Her most recent novel A Book for All and None (Weidenfeld and Nicholson), was shortlisted for the Author’s Club Best Novel award, and was described as ‘a spell-binding, effortlessly propulsive unity’ by the Independent; ‘written with eloquence and artistry’ by the Mail on Sunday; and ‘too tantalizing to resist’ by Time Out. She has published a collection of stories, An Affair of the Heart, and her short fiction been widely anthologized, and commissioned and broadcast by BBC Radio 4. Clare gained her M.Phil. and D.Phil. from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from University of East Anglia, where she worked with Malcolm Bradbury and Rose Tremain. She is former Chair of the Literature Bursaries Panel of the Arts Council of Wales, and Literary Mentor for Southern Arts and Literature Wales.   She has been engaged as a literary assessor for publications funded by the Welsh Books Council and is now an Academician for the Folio Academy.

*

Alice Jolly is a novelist and playwright. She has published two novels with Simon and Schuster and has been commissioned four times by the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. She has also written for Paines Plough and her work has been performed at The Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden and The Space, East London. Her memoir Dead Babies and Seaside Towns was published by Unbound in July 2015 and won the Pen/Ackerley Prize. In 2014 one of her short stories won The Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize. She teaches creative writing on the Mst at Oxford University.

*

Miranda Gold

Miranda Gold is a writer currently based in London. Before turning her focus to fiction, Miranda took the Soho Theatre Course for young writers, where her play, Lucky Deck, was selected for development and performance. Her first novel Starlings was published by Karnac this year. She is now working on her second novel, A Small Dark Quiet.

*

Charles Palliser‘s work has been hailed as “so compulsively absorbing that reality disappears” (New York Times). Since his extraordinary debut, The Quincunx, his works have sold over one million copies worldwide. With his new novel, Rustication, he returns to the town of Thurchester, which he evoked so hauntingly in The Unburied.

*

Book here

via the Waterstones website for ‘Reading as Alchemy’

Literary Fiction Panel Event

Tickets only £6

Our Founder at The People’s Book Prize

May 25, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Competitions, Events, Inspiration, Modiglini, Motivation, Publishing, The writing coach, Writers 2 Comments

We are delighted to announce that our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse was shortlisted in The People’s Book Prize for her novel The Modigliani Girl. Jacqui attended the prize-giving ceremony at The Stationer’s Hall, the original home of copyright, on the evening of Tuesday 23rd May.

People's Book Prize

Jacqui Lofthouse with her shortlisted novel ‘The Modigliani Girl’

People's Book Prize

Frederick Forsyth announces the winner of The People’s Book Prize

Watch the prize-giving ceremony including Frederick Forsyth’s speech here:

Jacqui writes:

It was such an honour to be shortlisted for this fantastic award, whose founding patron was Beryl Bainbridge and especially to attend with my wonderful publisher Stephanie Zia at Blackbird Books and fellow Blackbird author S.E. Lynes, author of Valentina. I am so grateful to every single person who read the book and voted for me. It was also a pleasure to meet so many other authors, agents and publishers. I particularly enjoyed meeting Avril Joy, author of Sometimes a River Song, who won a special ‘best achievement’ award, agent and publisher David Haviland, Louise Moir, author of Irreplaceable, author Catryn Power whose short stories were also shortlisted, Susan Mears, literary agent and author RJ Mitchell.

People's Book Prize

S E Lynes, Jacqui Lofthouse and Stephanie Zia

 

The fiction prize was won by Paula Wynne for The Grotto’s Secret – I’m very much looking forward to reading her novel. All prize-winners are listed here.

The People’s Book Prize is particularly known for championing independent publishers. At the launch of the prize, Beryl Bainbridge said:

Something like this, this idea – which is absolutely amazing – once it takes off, it will be of enormous importance to writers. I look forward to the time when we mention this particular prize as the greatest – and look back – and remember I was at the meeting at the London Book Fair and think where it has gone! So I wish it tremendously good luck.

Life imitating Art: The People’s Book Prize

May 19, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Books, Events, Inspiration, Marketing, Modiglini, Motivation, Publishing, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

Lately I feel as if I’m living in a hall of mirrors. All around me are reflections of my own imaginings – layer upon layer of slightly distorted repetitions – and I’m still trying very hard to get my head around it. The thing is: my life is imitating my art – in a very peculiar way.

Jeanne Hébuterne by Amedeo Modigliani

On Tuesday 23rd May, I’ll be heading to Stationer’s Hall, London as a finalist in the Fiction category of The People’s Book Prize for my novel The Modigliani Girl .

People's Book Prize

A satire about the vagaries of the literary world

But here’s the thing: the novel is a satire about the vagaries of the literary world. The heroine of the novel is writing a novel called The Modigliani Girl and she takes part in a televised literary competition. The prize in the novel is awarded solely on the basis of viewer votes. So here I am, about to take part in a mainstream literary competition The People’s Book Prize (last year it was filmed for Sky News) where, wait for it, the prize is awarded solely on the basis of public votes (readers have until Sunday 21st May to vote here.)

As I head to Stationer’s Hall for The People’s Book Prize ceremony on Tuesday evening, I’ll doubtless be wearing a rather posh frock. Here’s how such a prize-giving scene is imagined in my novel:

I must smile, only smile, get through it. Make sense of it later. Nobody out there can see quite how much I despise myself for being here. You’ve sold out, Anna Bright. Very soon you’ll be a public commodity with the artistic integrity of an ant. I can see the VT running, on the other side of the podium revealing highlights of the show to come. It’s showing all the usual images of me, at the many parties I’ve recently attended, leaning towards various publishing types, apparently engrossed in conversation. Again that sound: applause. But for what? How many of those who logged onto the website actually got past the pictures, soundbites and logos plastered everywhere and actually read our work? I think they are just voting for the dresses.

The heart of the story

I urge you, of course, not to vote only for the frock (I haven’t bought it yet, that’s tomorrow’s job). I hope, if you’ve read and enjoyed the novel, you will know how it explores the contrast between genuine artistic intent and the modern world of self-improvement, self-marketing and mainstream publishing.  At the heart of the book is the story of Modigliani’s muse and mother of his child, Jeanne Hébuterne. Hébuterne, aged 21 and pregnant with Modigliani’s child, committed suicide after his death by jumping from a high window.

People's Book Prize

Jeanne Hébuterne

Here’s an extract from the novel where Anna imagines Hébuterne’s reaction to her appearance in the literary competition.

This is it, Anna Bright. Sadly I don’t believe my own PR. It’s your time. What does it matter how you got here and what you feel inside? When you put on that dress, you can do exactly what she says: walk onto the stage and work the audience. You can become Fahy and Brown’s next big thing.

But even as I say these words, I am thinking of a girl standing before a high window in Paris. I can’t get her out of my mind. She has lost the only thing that matters to her and she is gazing down at the pavement far beneath, wondering if she will do it, whether the act she is about to commit is one of bravery or one of cowardice. And what would she make of me, that girl? You ar a liar and a thief.

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Open until Sunday 21st May

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Beryl Bainbridge in the mirror: Founding Patron

One of the things that I love about The People’s Book Prize is the fact that the Founding Patron was Beryl Bainbridge. A long time ago, when my novel Bluethroat Morning was published, I was invited to speak on stage with Beryl Bainbridge at a reading for Amnesty International. I met Ms Bainbridge in the cafe beforehand and of course, as a young writer, I was so in awe of her, but she put me at my ease and we shared a cigarette . On stage, I read an extract from my novel and afterwards, Beryl whispered in my ear ‘very good’. I have never forgotten that early encouragement and that incident appears in fictionalised form in The Modigliani Girl. 

James Loftus and Jacqui Lofthouse – reflection on the coaching world

I’m a great fan of Paul Auster and a couple of the things I admire about his books are his insistence on the power of coincidence and also the self-referential nature of his work. So it was that with a nod to Auster (who uses his own name in his fiction) I created James Loftus, the slippery literary guru of my novel. At the time when I wrote The Modigliani Girl, I was struggling with the idea of myself as a coach and feared the idea of the persona created by this very website, the idea that I might be setting myself up as some kind of guru – the last thing I would ever want. So what did I do? I sent myself up in the persona of the ghastly Loftus – a man whose only artistic creation is a book about how to write called How to be a Literary Genius, a man who runs writing retreats in Greece solely for profit, a trickster and a fraud. Perhaps it was only by creating Loftus that I was able to declare to myself what I never wanted to become.

The People’s Book Prize

People's Book Prize

So how do I feel now that I am asking readers of my novel to vote for The Modigliani Girl? Now that I face the mirror and it reflects my own world back at me? Does my reflection mock me? Do I feel as my heroine Anna Bright did? I was discussing the prize with writer friends this week and one of them said ‘all prizes are like this; the winners are chosen by others; any judging process is fraught with difficulty.’ And I remember too that my heroine Anna Bright is full of ambiguity about the process. I take part, as she does, because in the end, I want people to read my books, I want to say something about the literary world, I want to write about the nature of art – and I want to entertain the reader and make people laugh.

So what better prize, in the end, than The People’s Book Prize. Yes, there is irony here in the layers of repetitions, in the way I prefigured this in the competition in my novel The Lit Factor . But I remember too the spirit in which the prize was founded and Beryl Bainbridge’s words at the launch of the prize:

Something like this, this idea – which is absolutely amazing – once it takes off, it will be of enormous importance to writers. I look forward to the time when we mention this particular prize as the greatest – and look back – and remember I was at the meeting at the London Book Fair and think where it has gone! So I wish it tremendously good luck.

You can read more about the evolution of The Modigliani Girl in my post about writing the novel here.

Good luck to all the shortlisted writers, especially my fellow Blackbird author S E Lynes with Valentina. We will be supporting one another on the night. What matters, in the end, is always the work itself.

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How the Bridport Prize kick-started my novel

November 21, 2016 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Competitions, Confidence, Events, Inspiration, Markets for your work, Motivation, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

Carolyn Kirby, a former Writing Coach client, reached the short-list of this year’s Bridport Prize award for a first novel. In this guest post, Carolyn writes about her experience of entering the competition.

Bridport Prize

Carolyn at the prize-giving ceremony talking to Peter Chapman-Andrews about his mother’s life and work. Photograph by Graham Shackleton

A new category in the Bridport Prize

Like many new writers I’d heard of the Bridport Prize. It is well known around the world as a short story and poetry competition with over £16,000 in prize money which has been running since 1973. But I hadn’t realized until this year that the competition is also open to novels. In 2014 the Peggy-Chapman Andrews Award for unpublished first novels was added to the other categories in memory of the inspirational founder of this prestigious literary prize.

I had previously had some success with an early novel, Cloud Cover, a wartime love story that Jacqui had helped me to get started. The book made it to several competition long-lists, including the Lucy Cavendish College Fiction Prize. But that was as far as it got. At the start of 2016, I had put the book away to work on a new idea for a Victorian-set thriller, Half Of You. This story follows a young woman’s search to uncover the dreadful secrets in her past through new ideas about nature versus nurture. I sensed that the opening to this novel was good, possibly better than Cloud Cover, but the work was at a very early stage, much too soon to submit it agents.

So I was excited to realise that the Peggy Chapman-Andrews offered a forum for novels in progress. Only 5000 words were needed to enter, so the competition could provide a wonderfully anonymous and impartial litmus test. I reasoned that if my entry was long-listed, I would have encouragement to keep writing. If it wasn’t, I could re-think of the story without having got too far. But either way, the prize would give me an incentive to write more chapters by July when the long-list was to be announced. At this point, 15,000 words would be required for the next round of judging. So I sent off the entry and got down to writing another 10,000 words. Just in case I was successful.

Making the Long-list

On 18th July, when I saw Half Of You on the long-list, it felt miraculous that my work had been plucked from such a vast sea of words. There were 856 entries for the Peggy Chapman-Andrews award this year. Which added up to literally millions of words for the judges to consider and compare. I felt so grateful to the Bridport readers for the time they must have put in to this painstaking task.

So now I had to spend the summer preparing for the possibility that my entry would reach the short-list to be announced at the end of August. At this point 30,000 words would be required for the final stage of judging. The competition again gave me an excellent incentive to stay indoors at my laptop pressing on with the story.

I knew that in these latter stages of judging my fairly raw chapters would be subject to the intense scrutiny of professionals from top literary agency AM Heath, The Literary Consultancy and the Chair of judges, novelist and academic, Kerry Young. So, the day of the short-list announcement was, to say the least, tense. As I opened the e-mail from Kate Wilson, the Bridport’s lovely administrator, I was mainly focusing on keeping my heart rate within healthy limits. “Congratulations…” was all I needed to see. I instantly felt that I’d moved up to the next level in my writing journey.

Bridport Prize

Chair of judges, Kerry Young, makes the Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award presentations. Photograph by Graham Shackleton

Although my book didn’t win the overall prize, I was overjoyed to be a winner. The prize-giving lunch in Bridport Arts Centre was a wonderful occasion that gave me gave the chance to meet so many friendly, inspiring people including Peter Chapman-Andrews, Peggy’s son. Peter told me about his mother’s community work in Bridport and her visionary idea to fund a new Arts Centre through a creative writing prize. The prize continues to provide funding for Bridport Arts Centre to this day.

I am still in the throes of a first draft of Half Of You, but reaching the Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award short-list has given me a level of faith in the story that spurs me on. And I have written thousands more words than I would have done without the competition.

The 2017 Bridport Prize launches on 15th November 2016 (to close on 31st May 2017) and is open to residents of the Republic of Ireland for the first time. Any new writer looking for a way to energise their writing in the coming year should start preparing an entry. You never know where it might take you!

Branding Workshop for Content Creation at The Shard, London

July 2, 2016 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Character, Community, Confidence, Corporate, Events, Inspiration, Markets for your work, Networking, Teaching, Writing Exercises Leave a Comment

I had the great pleasure recently to lead a branding workshop for content creation at The Shard, London. What a wonderful venue for a workshop this was, with a glorious panoramic view of London. This short video put together by Tom Hewitson gives a flavour of the event.

The workshop for Tom’s Content Lab was entitled ‘Bringing Brands and Bots to life’.

Content Lab is a monthly get together for writers, designers, product managers and anyone else interested in making products and problems easier to understand.

Workshop Participants at Content Lab

Using creative writing techniques to lend character to brands

The workshop I led used creative writing techniques to lend character to brands. The aim was to enable participants to find new ways of creating characters which might then be used to encourage readers and consumers to better identify with brands. I began the content creation workshop using the same creative writing exercises that I’d use with writers of fiction. We studied paintings to inspire us and worked with props and cue cards with suggested sensory details, such as particular smells or locations. We worked using free writing techniques, and those attending were able to enjoy creating in such an open-ended way. Later, we applied these techniques more specifically to characters that related to products, working in teams.

Tom is particularly interested in ‘bots’ – the user-friendly robots such as Apple’s Siri – and how these bots can encourage consumer loyalty. Each of the teams came up with characters that might help a reader/user identify with a brand. For example, one of the teams came up with a ‘Farmer Bot’ with a very particular voice and character to engage potential customers of an organic fruit and veg. delivery service. The participants seemed to really enjoy this exercise. There was a lot of laughter and it was fabulous to witness how quickly they were able to use the techniques to invent really unique characters that helped us to understand the nature of the relevant product.

We had a hugely enjoyable evening and I was delighted at the feedback after the content creation event. Content Strategist Stephen Wilson-Beales, Head of Editorial at Global Radio, London, also wrote a lovely blog post about the event here: Using Creative Writing Techniques to shape Content Design.

A big thank you to Tom Hewitson for hosting the workshop. I definitely aim to lead more workshops of this nature and would welcome enquiries from organisations looking to encourage a different approach to creativity in their teams.

If you are a content creator, I’d love to hear whether you use fiction-related techniques in your work and how you might develop such ideas.

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About The Writing Coach

Jacqui Lofthouse

The Writing Coach was founded in 2005 by the novelist Jacqui Lofthouse. An international mentoring and development organisation for writers, it is also an online home for writers, somewhere you can find advice, information, motivation and most of all encouragement for your writing work ... read more

The Modigliani Girl

Anna Bright never wanted to write a novel. At least, that’s what she tells herself. But a chance encounter with a famous novelist and a surprise gift of an art book cut a chink in Anna’s resolve. The short, tragic life of Modigliani’s mistress, Jeanne Hébuterne, becomes an obsession and before she knows it, she has enrolled on a creative writing course, is writing about a fictional Jeanne and mixing with the literati.

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