📚 Write On! Book industry fights back, and more from around the...

h/t LoyalResistance

Hiya, writers and frenz.

     Let’s take an amble around the intertoobs, and then on to a just-for-fun challenge.  

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PW email: Fighting Words

With censorship on the rise, the publishing industry and its talent are a beacon of hope, writes PW editorial director Jonathan Segura in this week’s magazine. “It’s time,” he says, for publishers “to show up.” On similar note, Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged accepted PEN America’s annual Business Visionary Award last Thursday with remarks condemning recent efforts to restrict books and stymie free expression while affirming the role of publishers to facilitate the exchange of ideas. And at the Independent Book Publishers Association’s annual Publishing University conference last week, attendees discussed how ongoing political and technological developments are posing new challenges, and opportunities, for the industry... In Boston, libraries are cutting back on staff and services due to the Trump administration’s dismantling of the IMLS... 

A coalition of seven former National Ambassadors for Young People’s Literature—including Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, and Meg Medina—is speaking out to condemn the Trump administration’s dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden [and following the] firing of U.S. Copyright Office director and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter one day after firing her boss, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden — and on the heels of the Copyright Office’s latest AI report release — a coalition of seven former National Ambassadors for Young People’s Literature—including Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, and Meg Medina—is speaking out to condemn the Trump administration’s dismissal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. and the Authors Guild has launched a petition to Congress to reinstate Perlmutter — the Guild has delivered to Congress its petition against the firing of register of copyrights Shira Perlmutter with more than 7,000 signatories, including the National Book Foundation, Independent Publishers Association, and Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators.

… Margaret Atwood, accepting the Freedom to Publish Prize at this year’s British Book Awards, said there’s been no time within her own aware lifespan “when words themselves have felt under such threat.”

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h/t rebel ga

The BookLife Fiction Prize Is Accepting Submissions!

The BookLife Prize Fiction contest accepts submissions in the categories of general fiction, mystery/thriller, romance/erotica, sci-fi/fantasy/horror, and YA/middle grade.

The grand prize in both the Fiction and Nonfiction Contests is $5,000 and an author profile in Publishers Weekly, but all entrants receive a Critic’s Report, a brief critical assessment of their novel written by a Publishers Weekly reviewer….

...The BookLife Prize is an annual writing competition in two Contests (Fiction and Nonfiction) sponsored by BookLife and Publishers Weekly. The Prize seeks to support independent authors and discover great written works in nine categories across the two Sections. The categories in the Fiction Contest are: Romance/Erotica; Mystery/Thriller; Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror; General Fiction; and Middle-Grade & YA Fiction. The categories in the Nonfiction Contest are: Memoir/Autobiography; Self-Help; Inspirational/Spiritual; and Business/Personal Finance. The Prize is judged by PW reviewers, editors, acclaimed authors, and publishing veterans, and awards are given to finalists in each Contest's categories, with a grand cash prize of $5,000 going to the most outstanding finalist in each Contest. To see the results of the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 Prizes, click here.

The BookLife Prize Fiction Contest is currently open through August 31, 2025…………….

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New Fiction Prize Call for Submissions

The Book Fair Foundation calls for submissions through June 9th for their inaugural $15,000 prize “The Curious Medal for Literary Endeavor,” for new fiction that celebrates the triumph of imagination particularly in times of strife and turmoil. All genres considered. Sterling silver medal and cash prize to be awarded March 2026….

Click on the link in the blockquote to see nomination requirements, which include that it has to be by the publisher of the work, there’s a $65 “reading”/entry fee (refundable if too few total submissions come in), etc.

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ht rebel ga

Booklife Red Flags for Indie Authors: some tips to avoid getting scammed. (This page has a “Sign up for our newsletter” in the top right corner. I’m not paying anything for it so apparently it’s free. Someone give it a whirl and let us know.)

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DIY: Art and Illustrations Discover how to approach your book's design with intention—before jumping into Canva or hiring a designer. more »

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Booklife DIY Book Layout: Mistakes and how to get it right.

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h/t Rob in Vermont

website Writer Unboxed — the Craft and Business of Fiction. As far as creds are concerned, I haven’t explored it much meself, but the “About” page includes:

...Writer Unboxed has been named a best site for writers by multiple outlets over the years, and we're grateful for every mention. Writer's Digest has notably named WU a best site for writers every year since 2007….

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h/t stone clearing 

website SCRIBBLER — on May 1, Aashirs nani linked to a page from this website, and if you scrolled down looking at the left margin, you noticed a lot of interesting posts listed there!

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h/t elfling

TheConversation How Japanese anime draws on religious traditions to explore themes of destiny, sacrifice and the struggle between desire and duty

I found this article pretty fascinating for dealing with interior conflicts that are a bit rare in fiction of “TheAdvancedWest”, be it books, television, film, etc.

Perhaps relatedly, Ojibwa recently had post up on Noh: Dance Drama of the Samurai

...The Noh drama reflects the Buddhist beliefs of the samurai class. Typically, the protagonist is the ghost of a character from the distant past, one who has been condemned to suffer because of attachment to the transitory world. The protagonist encounters a travelling priest and, in the course of conversation, confesses sins and seeks salvation. The tormented ghost finds release through the catharsis of narration and re-enactment….

During the 14^th and 15^th centuries, the Noh was performed for an exclusive audience of samurai—Japan’s warrior elites. During this time the medieval authors introduced a repertoire of plays showing a range of human emotions—love, jealousy, hatred, and greed...

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TheConversation Pacific voyagers’ remarkable environmental knowledge allowed for long-distance navigation without Western technology

You may ask, “what’s this got to do with writing?” Nothing much, except to emphasize that TheConversation is a website brimming with fascinating reports great for bits’n’pieces of insight and details that can give us story ideas, or supply expert research we might need for a story we’re working on, or just be so exciting and interesting that it makes a good break in discouraging work to go read there and get all perked up again!

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BookLife Mysti Berry’s Low Down Dirty Vote anthologies set killer crime fiction around the ballot box.

     Fiction that’s actually about something that matters!

Suppressing votes is the crime of the century, after all,” says Mysti Berry, the editor and publisher of the Low Down Dirty Vote anthologies of crime fiction inspired by the theme of voting. With proceeds going to nonprofits that fight for voting rights, Berry has released three volumes so far, the latest this spring. BookLife’s reviewer praised the new volume’s stories as “diverse,” “playful,” “upsetting,” and “inspired and inspiring.” As Berry and her writers take the pulse of a democracy in crisis, we caught up with her to discuss her initial inspiration, the appeal of crime fiction, and the fresh anger and innovation that propels the newest collection….

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Interview Xiaolu Guo: ‘Write less, in order to write stronger’

h/t  David Neiwert  (staff)

The author and film-maker on why she was inspired to reimagine Moby-Dick in her new novel, her love of Coleridge, and returning to the ‘addictive power of fiction’.

iaolu Guo, 52, was born in China and lives in London. Author of more than 20 books in a variety of genres in Chinese and English, she’s also a film director whose awards include the Golden Leopard at the Locarno film festival, previously won by Claire Denis and Jim Jarmusch. This month she publishes two books: the paperback of her 2024 memoir, My Battle of Hastings: Chronicle of a Year By the Sea, and a new novel, Call Me Ishmaelle, a retelling of Moby-Dick

What led you to take on Herman Melville’s 1851 classic?
I was in New York, a foreigner walking around for a year while teaching at Columbia and writing my memoir, Radical [2023], and this was a parallel project, a philosophical experiment. Most people are Asiatic – the world’s population is 60% Asian – and with each novel I write, I ask myself in what ways a non-westerner from a non-biblical background can engage in dialogue with the western literary canon. The word “Christendom” appears repeatedly in Moby-Dick. I wondered: what if people never knew what that is? If it said “Taoism” instead, would you still listen to the story? I’m a guerrilla gardener – I secretly go out planting trees in my neighbourhood – and it made me think: can I somehow just bring ancient east Asian philosophy into this American landscape? Guerrilla sabotage. I wanted the whole world on that ship. I spent so much time figuring out how to get a black captain from the civil war period into dialogue with a Chinese Taoist sailmaker.

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from Women Writers, Women’s Books a.k.a. booksbywomen.org: in “I’m No Longer Writer Heroines”, an author/psychologist talks about how working on her master’s thesis — on themes in certain animated films — gave her the discovery that, despite what many writing professors teach, not all quests can follow the Hero’s Journey/monomyth pattern and get anywhere. Especially in real life — a lot of her clients, female or male, turned out to have gotten hung up on the rocks by trying to work their lives according to that archetype. She describes a different archetype that she tracked down going waaaay back in literature/mythology on into the present, and boils down THAT journey…

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curiosityneverkilledthewriter.com 

    Some of the articles here:  ■ “74 Calls for Submissions in May 2025 — Paying markets” ■ “Two Fast and Effective Proofreading Hacks” ■ New Year’s Resolution:  Recycle your work

...I do have one goal this year. Over the past few years (or is it decades?), I have gotten a number of short pieces published. It was exhilarating to see my work in print. So, like an addict, I kept pursuing the intoxication of publishing new work. Meanwhile, my older stories (some of which are quite good, even if I do say so myself), have been forgotten in my lust for novelty.

There is simply no excuse for abandoning your prior work, especially when it has appeared in journals which are now defunct. (My strategy has always been to submit to print journals first. That allows me to submit to online journals later.)

So, this year, I shall delve into my neglected writings and recycle them. There are plenty of journals that accept reprints, and ,,, If you want to follow in my footsteps, this is my excellent list of <big> 185 Literary Magazines Accepting Reprints</big>in March 2025 You are welcome to make ample use of it….

which linked to Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity/publishedtodeath.blogspot.com’s <big>93 Calls for Submissions in May 2025 - Paying markets.</big>

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and finally one from clear around the corner, just for the interest of it, since most of us don’t write nonfiction, far less med journal articles: Medscape How to Pitch Stories to Medscape

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In the thread, link to websites and articles for writers that you like, and by all means critique anything I’ve linked above.

CHALLENGE

A dialogue of at least two characters — more might be fun, too! — using as many or few of the following words/phrases as you like:

• otherwise
• but didn’t you say
• wait
• who was
• under any other circumstances
• so to speak
• how does that
• a minute ago
• where the heck
• alone
• ordinarily
• why else
• how soon
• options
• that’s not my
• when did they
• look
• I did not
• yourself
• piease
• impossible
• nerts

h/t rebel ga

Write On! will be a regular Thursday night diary (5pm leftkost, 8 pm Eastern) until it isn’t.

Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors (at FB their last post seems to have been April 24, 2025 following a long absence and only patchy presence before then) Absolute Write, Critters.org, and/or Writer Beware.

As a writing workshop/seminar, rather than open-thread community diary; let’s avoid going off-topic in the comments.

Find tonight’s and previous WriteOn Fiction Works-In-Progress diaries and threads AT THIS LINK.