Well, I've been very negligent of this blog.. that's because of a whole flood of new developments.
Sadly, those new developments have nothing to do with publishing - right now, White Night is on its second round of submissions, out with three big publishers, but no news yet. Would be nice to get some feedback before the summer pause, but right now I'm concentrating on other stuff.
First of all, there IS a piece of good news in the writing division. I've been offered a wonderful job, in fact, a writer's dream job: a Writing Fellowship at Brighton University.
Fellowships are awarded to 30-40 published authors each year, and is funded by Britain's Royal Literary Fund, a charity for writers. Some time back the RLF found it just had too much money and didn't know what to do with it. The money comes from the literary estates of several writers, including famous ones such as Somerset Maugham and A.A.Milne (though the latter was sold to Disney). So, apart from helping writers in financial distress, they decided to create the Fellowship Scheme. Which is just brilliant.
The Fellowship Scheme posts published authors at universities all over Britain. They are given an office by the Uni and a computer, and they have to be present two days a week to help students with their written work - not creative writing, but essays, dissertations and the like. It appears that lost of studenst simply don't know how to write - so that's where we step in.
Isn't that a fantastic idea?
I actually applied for a Fellowship two years ago; I applied for 2006 and 2007. I didn't get the 2006 one, but I got the one starting this September. It's for one or two years.
This means another big move. Another!!! I moved to Germany just a year ago, and now it's back to England. Not only that. I intend moving my family from Eastbourne to Brighton. So right now I'm in the throes of getting our home in Germany ready for sale - it's goodbye for good. If we ever move back to Germany it'll be in rented accomodation.
I'm very excited about the move, because most of all it means I get to be back with my kids. I had to leave the two of them in England a year ago, which just about broke my heart. It was for the sake of my husband, who is ill with Parkinson's. But now I realise that the most important thing is for us all to be together. It's a long and complicated story, but I hope that after a long and cloudy time things will finally brighten up for us all. It's been sooooo hard....
The financial situation will of course ease up now (the RLF Fellowship does pay reather well for only two days), so I can relax a little regarding getting the book sold. And that's a relief!
Anyway, it feels good to have finally updated the blog and I hope to keep it up better in future. I've been rather down in the last few months but I feel things will move upwards from now. I do hope so. Thanks for looking in!
