News and Opportunities for Writers
Here we post about news and opportunities for writers produced by Writing West Midlands and our partners. For a wider range of opportunities for UK writers, please sign up to our monthly newsletter (click here.)
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 This prestigious award provides a unique platform for unpublished authors to launch their literary careers.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.
Opportunities
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