The Macmillan New Writers blog has been quiet the past months but the same can't be said about the writers. On March 20, Frances Garrood, Eliza Graham, Simon Packham, Tim Stretton, Deborah Swift, Len Tyler, and I tore ourselves away from our writing desks and met for lunch at Brown's Covent Garden in London.
What's up? What's new? Tim is working on a steampunk novel, Len continues to wreck havoc in the world of crime, Eliza and Deborah are bringing the past alive with compelling characters, Frances is involved in the world of e-book publishing, Simon's novels inspire young adults to turn off social media and actually read, and I was in London celebrating the release of my second novel.
And the latest trends in the publishing world? We talked about those, too. To blog or not to blog? What about GoodReads? Twitter? And self-publishing? We all had opinions but one thing was clear. Much has changed since we published our first novels with Macmillan New Writing.
One thing remains the same: the friendships forged by those of us lucky enough to be part of MNW, an upstart imprint with an editor willing to look at work by unknown writers not represented by agents. Our publication experiences were and still are different from most authors', and that's what unites us today. I wouldn't change that for anything.
