Authors Electric

Image Credit:  Images taken by me, Allison Symes, from the 2025 Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. By the time this post goes out, I will have just returned from my big writing treat of the year - The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.    I get to spend a few days immersed in the writing world. I also love catching up with friends I only see online for the rest of the year. I learn so much from the workshops and courses and the after dinner speakers.  The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire - home to The Writers' Summer School for over 70 years. I also find this break away reaffirms my belief in myself as a writer by helping me fight Imposter Syndrome. Real writers go to conferences, don’t they, whether said events are online or in person, day events, or longer. Also last month, I was involved with a friend’s online book launch. That went well, I’m glad to say, but what is lovely here is with this and Swanwick, there was plenty of writer engagement. For the online launch, that...

Image Credit:  Images from the ACW Autumn Gathering Day were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to Janet Williams, my lovely editor at Chandler’s Ford Today, for taking the shot of me signing books at the book fair. I’m glad to say October was busy. I went to an Association of Christian Writers (ACW) in person event in Rugby, where it was lovely to catch up with friends. A week later I was taking part in a book fair which was in a hall a short walk from my home. Good to be back in business on the book stand at the ACW Autumn Gathering The writing day had Paul Kerensa (co-writer on Miranda, Not Going Out , broadcaster and podcaster on the history of radio) as the guest speaker (he was hilarious) plus there was a choice of workshops after lunch. There is a buzz when getting together with other writers which I find inspiring. I had a lovely time  coming home enthused. (That’s always a sign of a good writing event I find).  Paul Kerensa gave a wonderful and funny two pa...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I love writing prompts. I use a wide variety ranging from the various random generators to story cubes to picking a proverb or phrase from books and then writing a tale around this saying. They are excellent as themes. I also use books of prompts and have contributed to some too. As I write a lot of flash fiction and short stories, I always need ways of coming up with ideas. I focus on getting the characters outlined because for me characters make or break a story. But I’ve found the prompts have been brilliant in giving me my themes (and these often trigger the ideas for the characters to service said themes well). I enter competitions regularly too. Some have open themes but the majority I go in for have a set theme. I’ve found writing to prompts is useful practice for writing to competition themes set by someone else.  I also like mixing up the prompts I use as this (a) keeps me on my creative toes and (b) me...

Image Credits:-  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Photo of The Hayes, Swanwick and screenshot were taken by me, Allison Symes. I’ve just returned from a major highlight of my writing year, having spent six days at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in lovely Derbyshire, immersed in the wonderful world of writing. I’ve learned so much from the courses, caught up with many friends whom I only see online for the rest of the year, and I was glad to be running a two part course.    My course was on Editing as an Author, Editing as a Competition Judge . I wear both hats and will be judging again soon. Seeing how something is done and why is invaluable, which was my approach for this course.  The great joy of writing events is being with like-minded people who understand your drive to write, who know what it is to have to handle rejections as well as acceptances, and to not have to explain why you write. You just do. So do they.    I’ve been g...

Image Credit:  One photo taken by me, Allison Symes. Other images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. It has been a funny month. Had a fabulous Scottish holiday. Then came home after a swimming session to find I’d been burgled. Thankfully my dog was okay. They locked her in a room. We’re okay but it has brought home the joys of creative writing. I planned to write about this topic anyway but it is with more feeling I do so now!     Why? Because it was therapeutic to get back to writing after dealing with other matters. It was a relief to be creating characters for stories and working out ideas for blogs, including this one. It was good to resume my normal writing life. There is something about the creative arts which is good for us. I guess it is because they give us an outlet. I have yet to decide whether some nasty burglar gets their comeuppance in a future flash fiction story. If I do this, I shall enjoy every moment of writing it! I suspect you’ve seen the cof...

Ali Bacon at the St Andrews Photography Festival  We Authors Electric are a far-flung bunch, but this month, through a happy coincidence, Wendy Jones and I found ourselves in roughly the same place at the same time.  On Friday September 9 th I was reading a programme of short stories in St Andrews in Fife as part of the town’s first Festival of Photography . Wendy, who lives just over the Tay Bridge in Dundee – said she could make it to St Andrews – and by the way, she had a book launch in Waterstones in Dundee the following day.  Some mutual writerly support was on the cards! I won’t elaborate on my own event right now (more coming soon on my own blog ) except to say that I had an appreciative audience (including Wendy!) most of whom were fellow photography fans and some of whom were movers and shakers of the early photography world. As well as getting some great comments from the audience it was a fantastic networking opportunity for me.  ...