Bashful Blagger
A blagger is bold and gets what they want by brashly saying things that are not always true. A bashful blagger is the same, but shy with it. Sounds weird? Well, yes: but that’s me, both a bold extravert and a shy introvert, only I tend to tell the truth, even in fiction. Here in the Bashful Blagger blog, I post boldly on my life as a sapphic author writing for a universal audience—anything to do with writing and publishing —and rather more shyly on my real life. Happy reading!
The author with her inhouse editor, Chino
Finding a Fiction Editor
So, you’ve finished your masterpiece. You’ve had it reviewed. You’ve revised it, polished some more, and at last you feel ready to release it to . . . no, not the world! What you need next is an editor. Here guest blogger Arlene Prunkl from PenUltimate Editorial...
Always an Ally
Em Buckman is the award-winning author of Bent Is Not Broken (LGBTQIA+ history/memoir). She is currently working on a new novel, Women Of Note (historical fiction). In this guest blog, Em explains why she—a cis-het person—is an outspoken ally of our demonised,...
Five Fresh Ways to Beat Writer’s Block
If you’ve never been hit by writer’s block, either by luck or because you’re stuck in… a river in Egypt, this blog is not for you. For the rest of us, read on! Here some survivors of the block, writers found mainly on Facebook, share their thoughts on how to beat...
A Taste of Janice
Do you have music on while you work? I usually play instrumental stuff cos I find lyrics distracting. Either way, as editor or author, I’m focused on language and the Wernicke’s area in my brain can’t handle both spoken (sung) and written words at the same time....
Psst… Wanna buy a book?
Hey indie author, do you suck at selling your book? Come on, be honest. You’re a writer so, ipso facto, selling is not your favorite pursuit. If you’re like me, you’d rather get on with writing instead of faffing about on social media, desperately trying to make...
The “guildy” pleasures of writing groups
One of my favorite advertising slogans is The Economist’s “Great minds like a think.” I like it not only because it’s clever wordplay, but also because the familiar phrase it plays with applies to a great bunch of likeminded writers. We call ourselves the Writers...
Making SENSE of gobbledygook
Back when I was editor of eSense, a magazine-style newsletter published by SENSE, the society for English-language professionals based in the Netherlands, one of my colleagues posted a question on the SENSE forum. “I need to crowdsource a copywriting term,” she...
CAPital pleaSURE or PUNishment?
One capital pleasure of my real life is the license my day job—English language editor for Dutch academics—gives me to goof off on Google. Or, to put it in terms the taxman will accept: the time I spend online looking up terminology is justified. For sad nerdlings...
Q&A – Lara Zielinsky on editing the pitfalls of sapphic fiction
Lara Zielinsky has been a journalist, technical writer, educator, and fiction editor for more than 30 years. A member of the LGBTQ+ community, Lara is also an award-winning author of five sapphic novels. When I chanced upon her business site, LZ Edits, I knew her...
Booklover Lisa Day and the BookTime Q&A
Lisa Day loves books—owning them, reading them, writing about them and talking about them. She carries at least one, maybe two or three books with her at all times and when she isn't reading, she is writing about them. Based in Toronto, Ontario, Lisa is a former...
