Monthly Archives: July 2011

Harrogate Theakston’s Crime Literature Festival 2011 : Part 1

30 Saturday Jul 2011

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It’s been nearly a week since the Harrogate Crime Literature festival and I am still basking in the afterglow of the atomic event of last week : the creativity, wonderfully talented participants, the stunning beauty of Harrogate, the fun and inspiration, all packaged into the singularity that was the  Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. The sun may have set but the warmth is still there and I have to say, it was the most inspiring and wonderful arts/social event of its kind I’ve ever been too.

A lot has been written about the event in other blogs and I will certainly add my tuppence worth but one aspect that perhaps hasn’t been blogged all that much was the Creative Thursday event that was the optional-extra-bolt-on to the festival-proper. In short, it comprised two sets of workshops, a seminar on the do’s and don’t of manuscript submission and writing synopses and a heart stopping finale with the Dragon’s Pen where a number of unpublished writers had a chance to pitch their novel to a panel of veritable names from the British literary establishment in under two minutes flat.

I myself have written a crime/noir novel Black Champagne  for which I am trying to find an agent. I had spend the previous evening with my  wonderful friend Mary Hutchinson @maryhutchinson in a frantic almost pre-final exam panic of index card flurry and practicing our respective pitches to the stopwatch of my over-used iPhone. Mary had her’s done under the time whereas mine, well I had cut my pitch from 7 minutes to just under 4! Long way to go.

My midnight, I was at 3 minutes. I still had a minute to shave off. It was harder than writing the novel itself ! I had brought my 3 year old Acer notebook with me and I had forgotten that its battery becomes very hot during recharging but since I was flying from Belfast, I had to be conscious of space and luggage. (by the way, I had my jeans-belt tested for chemicals at Belfast International by a stern looking young fellow but that’s another story)

After 1am, I had my pitch nailed, or as close as I ever was to nail. I really didn’t prepare it well enough and I did make the mistake of leaving it to the last minute. I thought it would be easy to prepare a 2 minute pitch.

Wrong.

Advice to those to have this before them – prepare a pitch with military precision and allow ample time to do so. This is something you just cannot knock out over a capuccino or a glass of red.

Bed, sleep and breakfast and then the morning session. The festival took place at the Old Swan Hotel, in Harrogate, England. A very fine, gentile and very fitting  venue for not only a crime literature festival, but the biggest of its kind in Europe. The hotel was where Agatha Christie hid during her notorious, headline grabbing 10 day disappearence in 1926. The hotel wask known then as the Swan Hydropathic hotel.

The day started with registrations, name badges and milling around before the morning 2-hour intensive session hosted by Dreda Say Mitchell, a wonderful literary and arts figure from London and a regular contributer to the arts media as well as being a formidable crime writer too. The session was really a number of exercises in challenging ourselves to write creatively on the hop and in response to random and immediate stimuli such as a picture of a shoe or a combination of a random name, profession and location. We didnt have time to think and it proved that with a figurative gun held to our heads ( well, it was a crime festival after all), that we all were more than pleasantly pleased as punch over what we had written in such short spaces of time. Dreda was magnificent at facilitating, her teaching background was telling and she put us at our ease totally.

After lunch, there was a second workshop with Stuart MacBride & Allan Guthrie, both lumineries and fantastic crime writers from Scotland. Allan is also a part time literary agent with Jenny Brown Associates. The workshop entailed being given pieces of flawed writing and having to identify the flaws and discussing the why’s and wherefore’s etc. An examination/discussion in what makes a good scene in literature and then individual and group exercises.  The concepts of Closed Third person narrative point-of-view and filtering came as news to quite a few of us, including myself I must admit. This session was very useful to learn useful technical aspects of writing and for making our writing lean, clean and mean.

Then Dragon’s Pen

Names were chosen from a hat. Well, a figurative hat but from a recepticle of scrunched-up names. The panel was chaired by the warm, comedic and brilliant talented and successful crime writer Mark Billingham and the panel  comprised none other than Jane Gregory of Gregory and Company, Luigi Bonomi of Luigi Bonomi Associates, and two highly-esteemed publishers, Wayne Brookes of Macmillan and Selina Walker of Transworld Publishers.

I sat there, palms sweating, clutching my index cards like exam notes, hoping my name would be chosen. I have to tell you now, my name wasn’t chosen but I didn’t know this until the 90 minutes for the session was up. One by one, the lucky chosen few were called to ‘come on down’ as it were and get on their hind legs, in front a microphone and said panel, and seconds away… the 2 minutes started.

Some were successful at winning the panelists’ interest (there was no prize as such except to have at least one panelist ask to see an example chapter/synopsis of one’s novel). Other’s not so successful.

From what I remember from the dizzy heights of the anxious wait, crime agents/publishers insist on one’s novel having a dead body or several. This must be conveyed unequivocally from the get-go. Key turning points, characters and broad thematic brushstrokes must be clearly conveyed.

I was very disappointed not to have been chosen but I learnt a hell of a lot from what I witnessed in terms of what made a good pitch and what didn’t. This particular aspect will the subject of one of my blog entries in the very near future.

As for the rest of the evening and the festival, tune in for Part 2!……(coming to a good blog, near you! )

PS : I want to mention these wonderful people I met in Harrogate:

David Jackson – Crime Writer http://davidjacksonbooks.com/  Twitter @authordave

Mel Sherratt – Crime Writer http://highheelsandbookdeals.blogspot.com/ Twitter @writermels

Pam Reader  – book club host and warm witty lady to boot http://pamreader.blogspot.com/ Twitter @pamreader

Rebecca Bradley – Crime Writer http://lifeinclarity.blogspot.com/ Twitter  @rebbeccajbradley

Keith  B Walters – Great bloke, great blogger, and official blogger for the Harrogate Crime Festival http://booksandwriters.wordpress.com/ Twitter @keithbwalters

PS : I owe you lunch chum ! Next time it’s on me!

Mary Huchinson – my dear friend,  and wonderful Crime Writer http://thetangledwriter.blogspot.com  Twitter @maryhutchinson

Chris Longmuir – a published crime writer of novels such as Dead Wood, Nightwatcher, A Salt Splashed Candle and Dundee Book Prize winner http://www.chrislongmuir.com Twitter @chrislongmuir

 

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Two Shades of Darkness – A book by Martin J Frankson (aka Patrick Martin)

19 Tuesday Jul 2011

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 This is a duet of two stories firmly set in the dark terrains of noir/mystery.

Unread Stories is set in Chicago’s Wickerpark where a man has a bleak and fateful encounter in a bookstore that has devastating consequences.

GarbageMen is a tale of dissonance, psychopathy and unresolved childhood issues that simmer and burst forth for an unfortunate roommate – but which one?

I have published this collection under the pen name of Martin J Frankson and is for sale on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Two-Shades-of-Darkness-ebook/dp/B005D5BZOC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311087663&sr=8-1

Trout Fishing in America : by Richard Brautigan

18 Monday Jul 2011

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First published in 1967, Trout Fishing in America is a series of related vignettes that are based on Brautigan’s childhood, his life in San Francisco and a camping trip to Idaho with his wife and child. It’s  zen like, trippy, ethereal, left-field, mindbending, surreal, insightful, gonzo and hilarious all in a fine equilibrium. I found the book by accident during a booksale at the Queen’s Bookstore in Belfast (Note, the Queen has stopped buying books from this store in 1998 when some chewing gum got stuck in her crown when she put in on the counter while looking through her handbag trying to find her credit card)

Trout fishing is referenced thoughout the book both literally and allegorically. In this regard, its probably a distant cousin, albeit a wacky farout cousin of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance with regards to the subject being a fulcrum for larger or surreal issues to be leveraged.

The musican/singer Jarvis Cocker recites passages from Brautigan’s work when on stage and one of the moon’s craters is named after Shorty, a characters from Trout Fishing in America.

Nothing I can write here about this book can do it justice so this extract below is a worthy microcosm for this enigmatic and influential novel. The following is an epitaph ascribed to a character named Alonso  Hagen:

‘I’ve had it

I’ve gone fishing now for seven years

and I haven’t caught a single trout

I’ve lost every trout I ever hooked

They either jump off

or twist off

or squirm off

or break my leade

of flop off

or fuck off

I’ve never even gotten my hands on a trout

For all its frustration

I believe it was an interesting experiment

in total loss

but next year somebody else

will have to go trout fishing

Somebody else will have to go

out there’

 

 

The Sands of Carsaig : A Novel by Samantha J Wright

17 Sunday Jul 2011

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You might be wondering why I, a crime and noir merchant, is doing reading a historical romance. Well, firstly, no matter what one’s chosen genre is, it is healthy and wise and good for the creative soul to read widely and venture out of the comfort zone. I came across Samantha on Twitter and I discovered her wonderful blog that fuses both literature and cuisine http://samanthajwright.com/ 

We got in touch and communicated and I was deeply impressed with the synopsis, and especially the work and research that went into this. The location, Hebridean Scotland and the topic matter, is something that has personal resonations with the author so  I immediately felt that this novel could be one that had a lot of soul, empathy and integrity.

And I wasn’t wrong. Historical romance maybe but its the story of the essence of the human spirit. Set in 19th Scotland, Lorna, our heroine, over comes her oppressive parents and makes it alone to live in Oban. So what you might say but in those times, the idea of a young woman of 16 leaving home and escaping was not widely heard off. It happened but mostly with devastating consequences. No living-away-from-home grants in those days or Friends-style-apartment-living neither. You would have been very much on your own, prey to the vicissitudes of life and of course, men with less than honourable intentions.

Lorna finds love but through terrible twists of fate, ends up being exiled to Australia.  The imagery in the writing tranported me there, I could almost feel the wind and seasalt in my hair and tongue. The physicality of the terrain was a wonderfully evocative metaphor for the harshness and emotional void Lorna’s childhood and adolescence floundered in.

The themes of redemptive love but having it dashed is theme we all know but this is a treatise in fatalism at the same time. Perhaps I’m trying to map my noir bias onto this book but many themes are present in any novel worth its salt. I’m not a fan of labels but we live in a metatag world these days. It’s a shame because the term Historical Romance would put off many people and its an eyeopener for me to both read and thoroughly enjoy this book.

It’s not without humour and Samantha has a wry way of words. Many of her observations and descriptiosn are fired like arrows at unique tangents and this makes for both an entertaining and highly engaging piece of work.

In conclusion, this is a fantastic book and Samantha J Wright is an example of another literary diamond hidden under the bushel. I recommend this book completely

You can buy this book online by following the link : http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Sands-of-Carsaig-ebook/dp/B004WF4DT8/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Twitter @samanthajwright

Website http://samanthajwright.com/ 

 

Kindle : How to Read Your Own Documents on Kindle

13 Wednesday Jul 2011

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By hook and by crook, I finally got this to work. If you follow the steps below, you should be able to make this work for you too. Its basically on the principle of emailing a PDF to your Kindle email account that was provided to you when you registered your Kindle’s settings on page 2 under Device Email.

I will use the reference myemail@kindle.com

You will find your Kindle Email address on page 2 of your Kindle’s Device Settings

1/ Convert your document into a PDF

2/ Log onto Amazon and then choose Your Account on the top right

3/Scroll down until you see Digital Content on the left hand side

4/ Click on Manage Your Kindle

5/ Click on Personal Document Settings

6/ Now you have to tell Kindle which email addresses are approved senders. You cannot send email to your Kindle from any old email address. Well, you can but Kindle likes to know if it’s legitimate. Click on Add a New Approved Email Address and just type in the name of your email address you are mostly likely to email from. You can add as many as you like but you must click Add A New Approved Email Address each time

7/ From one of your approved email accounts, send an email with your PDF attachment, with the word CONVERT in the Subject line and send it to mymail@free.kindle.com

That’s right. It looks different from the email mentioned in your Kindle device settings. The snag is that if you email to the settings email, you could be charged $2.50. By sending it to the free.kindle.com email address, you can do this for free. Why Amazon does this, who knows

8/ Now assuming your Kindle is on wifi or 3g, just wait a few seconds and hey presto, your document now appears on the Home screen and is ready for reading

Nothing’s simple, is it? Let me know how this goes for you. It worked for me but I had formatting issues i.e. page breaks were ignored but it’s only my document.

 

Harrogate Crime Literature Festival : Radio 4 Broadcast from August 2nd 2010

06 Wednesday Jul 2011

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A massive thank you to my dear friend and fellow crime writer, Mary Hutchinson off  http://thetangledwriter.blogspot.com fame  for providing me with this wonderful link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t6s8y

The Harrogate Crime Writing/Literature festival 2010 was given the privilage of a Frontrow special which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on August 2nd 2010.

For everyone who is attending this year’s festival at the end of July, this will serve as a useful and interesting taster, especially the 7 minute segment on last years Dragon’s Pen event where a number of unpublished crime writers had the opportunity to pitch their novel to a panel of literary agents, within 2 minutes flat.

So, sit back, put up your feet and drop your weapons and enjoy this little nugget of broadcasting.

To my readership outside the UK, this link mightn’t work for you as it can only be listened to within UK borders.

Interview with literary agent Simon Lipskar

01 Friday Jul 2011

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I found this informative and useful interview on http://www.crimefictionblog.com. Many thanks to them. I reproduce it here for the benefit of a wider audience as the advice given still very much holds true today as it did in 2008.

Simon Lipskar, a literary agent at Writers House, is one of the top agents in the business. He represents a wide range of writers, including major authors in literary and commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction and young adult fiction. He graciously agreed to answer some questions.

Q. What’s the best way for an unpublished writer to get an agent?

This is going to sound agonizingly reductive, but the answer is to worry less about finding an agent and more about writing the best possible book.  If the book is great, old-fashioned queries (though hopefully with less paper waste via email submission) are the best way to garner interest.  But don’t bother looking until you’re confident your book is as good as it can be.  I guess part of the question you’re asking is if going to conferences and meeting agents on the prowl will help; my basic feeling is usually not.  What you’re selling is on the page: if it’s there, it’s there, if it’s not, it’s not.

Q.  What do you look for in a prospective client?

More reductiveness: a great writer.  A determined writer.  A writer who’s willing to work as hard on her craft as her career (and vice versa).  Recognizing that writing is a solo act but publishing is a team effort is helpful, but I’ll represent a raging egomaniac who is a brilliant writer — the work always comes first, period.

Q. What are publishers buying right now?

The further adventures of reductiveness: books they can sell.  What that is precisely changes from time to time, of course.  In terms of thrillers, which are your primary area of interest, editors are looking for thrillers that aren’t like all the others.  Sure, there’s still money to be made writing Da Vinci Code knockoffs, but that’s growing staler by the moment.  Originality and freshness seem to be the watchwords on everyone’s lips.  I should also add that there’s a pretty sour vibe in publishing these days about the marketplace, even more so than usual; nobody is feeling all that great about the health of the bookselling market, and that makes for nervousness all around.

Q. Does it make any sense for writers to try to write to the market or is that a futile enterprise?

Almost invariably futile.  I know one or two cases in which writers wrote books specifically to catch a particular wave in which this gambit worked, but usually this just serves to waste vast amounts of precious time.  Writers should write the books they love.  That way, no matter what the market says, their time wasn’t wasted.

Q. What’s the one thing that you think all writers should know about the publishing business but don’t?

That most of us (publishing folks) really love books.  That most of us really care about publishing books well, that we take it personally. This is not a business for folks who are just looking for a job to pass the time — it’s well beyond 9-5 for most of us, and it usually doesn’t compensate the average editor or agent nearly well enough given the amount of time, dedication and passion he or she gives.  So often I get the sense that writers think we really couldn’t give a damn about books and publishing them well — and that’s just a profound misreading of this business and the people who work in it.

My First Literary Rejection

01 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by in All Things Writing

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Well, it’s a landmark that almost all writers experience; the rejection letter. Firstly, it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. I shan’t mention the agency in fear of prejusticing future dealings but they did reply very positively:

“you are undoubtedly a very talented writer and there’s much to enjoy in the chapters. Although I really enjoyed your work, my reaction wasn’t strong enough to represent it”

The agent continues…

“The main concern to me was I got a bit thrown by the structure and jumps in narratives. In the commercial market, it’s really important that the characters don’t overshadow the story”

In short, there were only 3 chapters to judge my entire novel on. Within those 3 chapters, I had two POVs. I feel perhaps that this gave the impression that my novel was too experimental and jerky.

I know it’s not like that but I didn’t give this impresssion. This is how the industry works and there’s no point in complaining about. As a writer, I have to fully understand the industry insofar as knowing exactly who I am sending my manuscript too.

I did my research in that I sent my submission to an agent with many great crime writers on their roster but I should have known that perhaps the mood and tone of my work didn’t fit with the mood and tone of the writing that agency represented.

We all know not to send our crime and noir masterpieces to Mills and Boon but it’s not quite enough to just send your work to any old agent of crime fiction.

Read widely in your genre. Get to know whose writing style closely resembles yours. In doing so, you’ll be able to target your submissions that little bit more smartly.

The agent who rejected me did so because she knows what works in her camp. At the end of they day, she can’t spend time or money on writing which will may not fit into her agency’s brand which in turn may not sit well with the other stable mates.

As I said, work with with the industry and work it to your advantage. There is an agency and publisher out there for you but you have to kiss many frogs!

Good luck and happy hunting