The T Party

The T Party speaker is proud to announce a special guest event to be held on 13 September 2008, featuring writer and journalist Jane Wenham-Jones.

Jane has published several books, including novels, non-fiction and the accessible writing manual Wanna Be a Writer?. She is Writing magazine's ‘agony aunt’, with a popular monthly column that addresses various problems faced by writers.

The talk will take an interactive format, answering any questions people might have on general pitfalls and problems faced by writers.

The T Party was well represented at Orbital 2008, this year's Eastercon, with many members attending over the four days of the con and long-standing members Gary Couzens and Martin Owton serving on lively panels discussing The UK Short Fiction Market and Coping With Rejection respectively.

Perhaps the highlight, however, was the well-received workshop session hosted by The T Party on the last day of the convention. Participants were pleased with the in-depth critiques and feedback they received: "the workshop alone was worth this price of the con," said one, while another wrote that it "was my reason for going to the con: I was very glad I went and it was a sight more useful than it was dispiriting." 

A number of the attendees have since asked to join the ranks of The T Party ... and plans are already in motion for another open workshop at LX2009 in Bradford. Book now!

The T-Party will be running a half-day writers' workshop at this year's Eastercon on Monday 24th March 2008. We'll be providing experienced critiquers to operate in pairs with small groups of submitting writers -- including two agented writers, a BFS Award winning editor and, subject to other commitments, double World Fantasy Award winner Bruce Holland Rogers.

Up to 16 writers will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis and matched (as far as possible) with experienced writers in their genre. Writers should be aware that the material will be shared with other attending writers, and that it will be critiqued in scrupulous detail with an eye to improvement.

Material submitted for critiquing can be the opening of a novel, or a complete short story, and should fall within the broad genres of science fiction, fantasy or horror. Stories should be formatted as rich text files of up to 5,000 words and emailed to co-ordinator Martin Owton using the subject line "Eastercon workshop".

Two stories by T Party writers are out In print this month. Will Mitchell's story "Junk Wars" appears in issue 13 of the Canadian science fiction magazine Neo-Opsis, while "The Sea Inside", by Dave Gullen and Martin Owton, is in issue 32 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

"I bet we could write a million words this year," someone said. "No way!" said someone else. And so was born The T Party's Million Word Challenge. Over the course of this year, we're going to keep track of the number of words members report having written and the number of words we critique. You can see how well we're doing here ...

The T Party's novelists have been forging ahead of late. Martin Owton was pleased to announce that he is now being represented by Ian Drury of Sheil Land Associates, who will be finding a publisher for his fantasy novel. And T Party members Dave Gullen, Gaie Sebold and Janet Sked all reported completing drafts of their books-in-progress. Well done to all!

The T-Party is pleased to announce that author Stan Nicholls, best known for his Orcs: First Blood trilogy, will be our guest at a special event on 3 November 2007 at The Bountiful Cow (see the Calendar for details). Stan's website is at http://www.stannicholls.com/.

Unfortunately, Keith Brooke has had to cancel his talk with The T Party on August 11, due to ill health. The next meeting will be the workshop on August 25.

The T Party has taken advantage of the Assynt Foundation's special rates for writers' retreats. We are booked into Glencanisp Lodge, which is near Sutherland, in the North-West Highlands of Scotland, for the week beginning 7 June 2008. Deposits of £55 to Dave Gullen, please!

The T-Party is pleased to announce that Keith Brooke, author of Parallax View and Genetopia, will be our guest at a special event on 11 August 2007 at The Bountiful Cow (see the Calendar for details). Keith's website is at http://www.keithbrooke.co.uk/.