News from Room 204
News from Room 204:
Liam Brown (2013-14 Cohort) has won The Contemporary Romantic Novel Award 2024 for Evergreens (Legend Press). The RNA’s Romantic Novel of the Year Awards are presented annually, recognising and celebrating the very best in romantic fiction.
Room 204 writer Rachel Sambrooks has been commissioned and written the Arts Council England funded ‘Hope Park’ play for Drama And Some cic.
Room 204 writer Sumaya Kassim has been selected for the Lucy Cavendish Prize Longlist. The list features 16 outstanding debut novels by talented women writers. This prestigious award provides a unique platform for unpublished authors to launch their literary careers.
Sarah James won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize 2024 with poems Darling Blue. The collection, which combines ekphrastic poems inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites with a book-length fictional personal narrative, is to be published by Indigo Dreams in 2025.
Her poetry film Owerblawing is in the Wirral Poetry Festival Videopoetry Anthology 2024. Click here to view.
Annabel Brightling has written episode one of the new drama series SeaView. The show is out now on Amazon prime Video. You can find out more about the show here.
Maeve Clarke has won the 2024 SI Leeds Literary Prize winning both Judges Award and The Readers’ Choice for her submission Trapped Between Two Worlds.
Click here to view.
Naneh V Hovhannisyan, of the Writing West Midlands’ 2018 Room 204 cohort, has co-edited the autumn issue of Wasafiri Magazine of Contemporary International Writing. The special issue is entitled Armenia(n)s: Elevation and focuses on Armenian writing. From poetry and fiction to newly released book reviews, art, and interviews, it shines a light on modern Armenian identities and experiences.
Michael Amherst has secured a grant from Arts Council England “Developing Your Creative Practice” fund.
The resulting work will be a novel draft taking features of the American Southern Gothic to explore questions of faith and reason in an English rural setting.
The grant will allow for a workshop with Claire Keegan and mentorship from Julia Bell at Birkbeck University.
Click here for more.
Writing Support and Resources
As part of their tenth anniversary celebrations, Speaking Volumes published an anthology, Not Quite Right for Us, which featured forty authors from the UK and around the world, from Poet Laureates to upcoming voices. Many of those authors have shared their advice on writing in short films, which are available as a free resource on the Speaking Volumes website.
Competitions and opportunities
Supported by Writing West Midlands, the TLC Free Reads scheme is a free manuscript assessment for writers on a low income and/or who are under-represented in publishing.
The TLC Free Reads Scheme offers talented, low-income writers the opportunity to apply for free access to their manuscript assessment service, available for extracts or full manuscripts across fiction, creative non-fiction, short stories, poetry, scripts and screenplays.
This service is open to all on a commercial basis, but Free Reads are on submission to TLC’s regional partners, and subject to eligibility criteria. Your work will be hand-matched to one of TLC’s 90+ professional readers, and writers can expect to receive feedback in the form of a written critique, sent within 4-6 weeks of the application being processed. The notes you receive are intended to help you develop your writing further.
Applications open from 18th November 2024 – 13th January 2025 12 noon.
Click here for more information and to apply.
Room 204 is our annual writer development programme which allows writers from across the West Midlands to develop their skills through mentoring, networking, one-to-ones with Writing West Midlands staff, performances and access to the wider Room 204 network of 205 writers.
It has been running since 2012, and we recruit annually. Writers join for an initial year, but their membership never expires and we will continue to support Room 204 writers for as long as they wish us to.
Please read the submission criteria below carefully before you start your application.
Applications for 2025 will be open from 1st January – 31st January 2025.
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