At last we are able to announce the results of the Win Your Way to Swanwick Competition run by Writing Magazine.

SHORT STORY COMPETITION
First Prize Winner:      Veronica Bright  (Dear Marcus)
Second Prize Winner: Valerie Hoare  (A Regular Life)
Third Prize Winner:     John Drake      (A Heart Full of Love)

Shortlisted:      Sonya Bailey (Rosemary Witchet); Mike Berry (Something to Put My Heart Into); Margaret Burton (The Book Signing); Philip Collins (An Englishwoman in New York); TD Holland (The Miracle of Love); Brenda Joy (All the Signs); Lindsay Littleson (The Baby Genius); Hazel Prior (Friendship Plus); Beverley Thompson (Amazing Grace); Nia Williams (What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?).

WRITING FOR CHILDREN
First Prize Winner:      Pam Keevil (Old Stinky Feet)
Second Prize Winner: Janet Newman (Music Time)
Third Prize Winner:     Hazel Prior (The Voice of Fergus)

Shortlisted:      Heather Allison (The Memory Ring): Carole Hutchens (The Day the Lions Roared); Brian Lux (Fighting for Billy); Ann Palmer (Fiver’s Feat of Understanding); Helen Shay (Rakhi); Trish Rissen (Bertie’s Dream); Nilles Sonnemans (The Tin Boy); Susannah White (Joe’s Marble).

POETRY
First Prize Winner:      Susannah White (I Am Peeling an Onion)
Second Prize Winner: Emma Storr (At the Heart of It)
Third Prize Winner:     Margaret Greenwood (Elizabeth, Little Rock, 1957)

Shortlisted:      Shirley Cook (Heartbeat); Daniel Crowley (Anna); Corinne Lawrence (Stitches); Linda Lewis (At the Heart of It); Ann Palmer (It); Angela Pickering (Entomophagy); Wendy Sutherland (The Middle Ground); Suzanne Tims (No Blame).

Congratulations to all the above and thank you to all those who entered the Competition, good luck for next year!

For our next #AskSwanwick, we’ll be delving into mysterious disappearance of ‘dancing girls’ in the foggy streets of Victorian London and finding out about the tricks of combining crime and history with novelist Kate Griffin, author of the Kitty Peck mysteries. Kate also writes under a second name for the children’s market, Cate Cain, so there will be plenty to talk about and the opportunity to ask how easy it is to write for two different markets. Join us Friday, 10th July 2014, 8pm (British Summer Time).

After studying English at university Kate's first job was as an assistant to an antiques dealer, but she quickly realised that although she liked being surrounded by beautiful objects, she liked being surrounded by people who talked to her much more. Kate never quite shook off her love of old things, however, and historical settings play an important role in her stories. Her first book, Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (winner of the 2012 Faber and Faber / Stylist Magazine crime fiction writing competition) was published in July 2013. The sequel, Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill Fortune, was published on July 3rd this year. She is currently working on two more books in the series. Under the name Cate Cain, she has also published two books for children, The Jade Boy and The Moon Child (both published by Templar).

Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders was shortlisted for the CWA Endeavour Historical Dagger in 2014. The Jade Boy was shortlisted for The Booktrust’s ‘Book of the Year’ award for readers aged 9-13. 

Don’t miss this exciting twitter chat! Just search for the hashtag #AskSwanwick on Friday, 10th July 2015 at 8pm (UK Time). If you're new to twitter, make sure you follow the 'Live' tab on the Twitter search results. To ask a question, tweet using the #AskSwanwick hashtag followed by your question. You can find an easy guide on how to follow and tweet-etiquette here: http://www.swanwickwritersschool.org.uk/twitter-chat.html.

Selected highlights of each session are available on the Swanwick website a few weeks after each chat – but nothing beats following it in person at the time and asking questions!

Best wishes,

The Swanwick Tweet Team (Benjamin, Karin, Andrew and Mike). 

Professionals at the dark arts of editing, Rosie Best and Catherine Coe joined us for #AskSwanwick on Wednesday, 3rd June 2015. Catherine has edited children’s books for 14 years (including working at Orchard Books) and now works freelance offering editorial advice to authors, agents and publishers; and, Rosie has edited for 9 years at the book packagers Working Partners Ltd. They both write children’s fiction as well.

First up was a discussion about Book Packaging, which Catherine had experience from a publishing company’s point of view: “I love working with Book Packagers because they're very focused, and very creative. They have SO many ideas, and they are also brilliant planners which helps an editor immensely - not just schedule-wise but with plot holes, etc.”

We asked Rosie to tell us more about Book Packaging. “I've always thought Book Packaging is a funny name for it as the one bit we have almost nothing to do with is the physical publication. It’s about an editor, or a specialist business (like us at Working Partners), creating stories, then hiring writers and selling the result to publishers. I work in a team of around 15 editors to create storylines together (think of a TV writers’ room, but for books). We tend to work on series fiction.”

Anyone interested in this area can check out the Working Partners website and fill in an application form. You’ll be added to the database and different editors will look at the forms when different projects arise. Then, Rosie says, “We ask several writers to do a few chapters from a storyline (unpaid but we give great feedback) and pick the best.”

Book Packaging isn’t the only overlap between Rosie and Catherine. They’re both involved with the Undiscovered Voices project. As Rosie described it, “It’s AMAZING competition for unpublished children’s writers and illustrators.” Submissions open on July 1st, and are open to all unpublished and unagented children’s writers and illustrators in the United Kingdom and Europe! What happens if you get selected? Catherine explained, “The selected finalists have their extracts compiled into an anthology which is distributed to all children's book agents/editors. We have an incredible success rate from previous anthologies.”

One Undiscovered Voices area that’s usually under-represented by good quality submissions is for the youngest (5-8) age group. “We'd loved to see more of those,” Catherine told us. “Funny is often the key - and something obvious, like a timeless theme that works, such as fairies, witches, dragons, beasts, princesses, and animals.”

After talking Book Packaging and Undiscovered Voices, lots of questions focused on editing. Here’s just some of what was discussed:

Feedback: “I’ve read manuscripts that are stunningly good and a joy to read, none are ever 100% perfect. Everyone makes mistakes” (Rosie)

Editing Your Own Work: “Put it away for at least 3 weeks, then take a step back by looking at each element in turn. Start with the big things first - plot, drivers, characters - and then other things flow from that (pacing, style, dialogue)” (Catherine)

Editing Tricks: “Changing font, size and colour helps make the text seem like a different work” (Rosie) and “I always send my MS to my Kindle and it helps surprisingly well - a different screen!” (Catherine).

The Road to Publication: “Authors should definitely expect structural edits, even after they've self-edited their MS, and their agent has given them editorial feedback. In most publishers, the commissioning editor will also edit it with the author. The editing process can be very long (but fun!)” (Catherine)

Working with an Editor: “Editors are there to make books better, we want to help authors - shouldn't be adversarial even though it's sensitive” (Rosie) and “I like to be honest and direct, so yes, I'd tell an author if an MS needed a complete rewrite. Not doing so helps no one” (Catherine)

Final Writing Tip: “My biggest tip would be to read, read, and read some more. And write, write and write. Every day & persevere - there are so many stories of now successful authors getting rejected lots. Dedication and resilience key!” (Catherine)

Final Writing Tip: “Pretend to be an editor! How would you have changed that book, show, or movie? What one line would efficiently fill that plot hole? Also, enter Undiscovered Voices - as a past winner and now helper on the team, it can be a life changer, do it” (Rosie)

These are just some highlights of the discussion – we hope they inspire you to check out book packaging and think about entering Undiscovered Voices (www.undiscoveredvoices.com). We’d like to thank Catherine Coe (Twitter: @catherinecoe) and Rosie Best (Twitter: @rosiejbest) for taking the time to talk to #AskSwanwick. And thank you to Benjamin Scott for moderating the discussion.

Join us next time on Twitter when we’re talking to author Kate Griffin, Friday 10th July at 8pm (BST).