© Stephanie Hofschlaeger

London and Bristol-based company SiftGroups is looking to speak with freelance community managers, bloggers/journalists, social media experts… or one of the many other job titles used to describe these types of community-savvy folks. Over the next six months we’re expecting to have a few new clients, so we’re putting the word out now.

This is your chance to connect to and work with one of the UK’s top providers of social media consultancy services and technologies to enable organisations to develop and sustain meaningful conversations with their audiences. We work with any organisation who wants to have a valuable relationship with their audience. That might be an audience of readers, subscribers, members, employees or customers; either way, all organisations need to engage with their audience effectively, and social media is an essential tool for doing so.

We work primarily with three key sectors: publishers, professional bodies and the third sector. We also do some work with the public sector, and we’re always keen to share our experience with businesses that might consider themselves outside our radar.

If this sounds of interest to you, please contact me, Elena Goodrum, to chat about your experience and interests, and to find out more about what the role will involve. You can email me at elena.goodrum@siftgroups.com or call me on 0117 915 8653. I look forward to hearing from you!

For further information, please visit www.siftgroups.com

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Medavia.co.uk

Media consultants Medavia are seeking experienced journalists to fill vacancies for one salaried member of staff and two full time, office-based freelances in senior feature writers roles. The company is based in Bristol.

Company director Helen O’Brian says: “As a key member of the team, you’ll be working around the UK with families at the centre of the biggest stories of the day.”

Key skills required for this journalism job

This hugely rewarding position requires excellent communication and presentation skills and clear thinking in chaotic situations.

The ideal candidate will be a talented features writer with a good agency or daily/evening provincial paper. You should have a terrier-like tenacity to chase and land big real life stories, and be able to turn in tight news and features copy.

Responsibilities of this journalism job

This high profile role will involve sourcing and interviewing clients and writing their stories for a wide range of women’s magazines and national newspapers, as well as advising clients on media strategy, liaising with the national media, and negotiating terms for coverage. In addition you will arrange press conferences, writing and issuing statements on behalf of clients.

Benefits of this journalism job

In return for your efforts you’ll get to operate at the centre of the biggest story of the day and see your work published in weekly magazines, national newspapers and on national TV. You’ll also have the chance to meet some remarkable people and develop top-level contacts in the industry. You’ll also have the chance to live in a vibrant, bustling city while enjoying plenty of travel and variety.

In adition you’ll receive a good salary of around £20k with lots of scope and no upper limit.

Helen O’Brian says: “This could be a brilliant career move with an established, dynamic company - a leader in its sector.”

The deadline for applications is Monday March 22nd 2010. Please apply by email only. Include a covering note explaining why you are suitable, your CV and send examples of your work to helen@medavia.co.uk

For further information on Medavia, visit www.medavia.co.uk

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© Stock.xchng

This week at EssentialWriters.com we’re examining the changing times for writers and writing, from freelance opportunities with social media consultancy services to writing residencies that only allow applications from certain sectors of society. What have you noticed changing around you? How have you moved with the times? Let us know by sending an email to judy@EssentialWriters.com.

On Monday you can find details of a well paying writing job in the real life journalism sector, ideal for a feature writer eager to boost their career.

On Tuesday find out about freelance opportunities with a top provider of online services based in London and Bristol.

On Wednesday Clare Howdle will post news of a opportunity for writers to showcase their work in Cornwall.

On Thursday return for news of a writing residency aimed specifically at women aged 40+. Are ventures that make distinctions like this ageist or sexist? Let us know what you think by posting a comment at the post or by starting a new thread on the forums.

On Friday Rob Murray will share his tips for making it as a professional cartoonist.

On Saturday find out about a writing course designed to boost your powers of description.

EssentialWriters.com is intended to be a resource, showcase and writing community – we’re hungry for input into how we’re achieving these aims so drop us a line at Judy@EssentialWriters.com. We’re also eager to show off writing talent, so if there’s a feature you’d love to write for us, a book, film, magazine or writing course you’re dying to review or anything else you’d like to tell us about, get in touch. This is your chance to get your words out there!

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Sophie Hannah's website

Sophie Hannah writes psychological thrillers, poetry,short stories and children’s books. Her first crime novel, Little Face, has sold more than 100,000 copies, and has been followed by Hurting Distance, The Point of Rescue and The Other Half Lives.

The homepage of her website, www.sophiehannah.com, gleams with marketing acumen, with the whole screen given over to links to her books, each taking the appearance of a front cover. The books selected give a fully rounded picture of Sophie’s writing prowess, featuring selections from her psychological thriller, poetry and short story back catalogues and reminding us that she has many more than one string to her bow.

Clicking on the front cover of Pessimism for Beginners take you through to a page displaying one of the poems from the collection, and leads swiftly on to the other poetry collections and pamphlets she has written or translated, with a brief synopsis of each.

A sidebar that appears on every page offers gateways to other pages, ranging from Biographical Information (formal in tone but packed with useful titbits) to Forthcoming Events (a dry but informative list of readings and literary festival appearance around the world) to, most enticingly, Work in Progress, which presents the blurb of the psychological thriller Sophie’s currently working on. More than anything else, this suggested to me Sophie’s writing method - revealing an unwavering certainty about an incomplete novel I’ve encountered in few other authors.

Sophie is known above all else for her bestselling crime novels, and the section of the website devoted to this genre feel like the most comprehensive, with synopses, fragments of reviews and links to where each of the books can be bought from.

The website is effective, efficient and though it lacks the personal touch of a blog or any interactive material, it does the job of promoting Sophie Hannah’s work with a no-nonsense approach many of us would aspire to. And given Sophie’s phenomenal worldwide success, it appears to be doing the trick.

To boost your profile as a writer by submitting a review of a book, course, film, magazine or website, please email judy@EssentialWriters.com

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© Geraldine McCaughrean

Geraldine McCaughrean is the author of more than 120 children’s books, including A Little Lower Than The Angels, Gold Dust and Not the End of the World, each of which won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. Here she shares her 10-step guide to writing well for children, beginning with aiming to entertain adults too.

I became a children’s author because I got that lucky break every author needs: I became friends with the Children’s Editor at Oxford University Press. But I tell myself that I would have managed eventually to get published by someone, even if this connection wasn’t made.

1. Aim to have your words read and enjoyed by adults too

I would be very ashamed to write a book for children that could not be read with equal enjoyment by an adult.  The only thing with writing for young people is that you cannot be so self-indulgent. Adult authors are allowed to waffle on and spend whole pages describing people and places. Young readers won’t put up with that.  They want you to get on with the story.

My wonderful editor at Oxford believes - and I do too - that a children’s author has no right to leave a reader drowning in misery and fear. It does not matter where you go during the course of a book - almost any subject can be tackled, so long as it isn’t boring - but you ought to bring the reader safely home to somewhere bearable at the end.

That doesn’t mean a happy ending, necessarily, but it does mean a spark of hope - an upward path out of the darkness. Some authors don’t think so. Melvin Burgess, for instance, would disagree completely. What do you think?

2. Focus on the key ingredients

Pace, character and a pinch of novelty are, in my experience, the key ingredients of a successful children’s novel. I, personally, like the twists and turns in a story to be UNPREDICTABLE, but that doesn’t seem to be the secret of success. Lots of readers like to look ahead as they read and to guess what is going to happen next, and they feel good when it happens the way they expect.

Most important of all, I think, is to create a world real enough for the reader to feel the fabric of the hero’s clothes against their skin and the stones through the soles of his shoes.

Sometimes I can do it. Sometimes I can’t. It usually depends how real the world has become for me. I bet, when you read a book, you can tell when a writer is enjoying herself and when it’s just a job of work.

3. Avoid patronising your readers

I suppose you ought to allow for the fact that children don’t know as many words as adults. But I tend to think: “Oh what the heck - words are nice and children are very good at working out what new words mean from the context in which they are used.  They have been doing it since they were one year old, haven’t they?

So I use big words and long sentences and mix in lots of metaphor and simile and hope that my readers like eating rich things.

The hardest thing these days is avoiding ‘politically incorrectness’. For example I have just been retelling the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, who creep out of their beds and down a tunnel to dance with demons all night long, thus wearing out their silken slippers.

Apparently going out all night, without permission of your parents, and dancing with strange, demonic men is okay.  But when the hero comes along and has to discover the dread secret of why their slippers keep wearing out, the princesses mustn’t be shown giving him a glass of wine to make him sleep. Wine is a no-no.

The hero is also a soldier in the original story - a soldier returning from the war, without a penny in the world.  For some reason he can’t be a soldier now, either. I would be really interested to know if there is anyone out there who thinks they have been ruined for life by reading fairy stories.

4. Enjoy the process of writing

I get to step into the shoes of my hero and gift her (or him) all the qualities I don’t have in real life - courage, resourcefulness, grace, daring… I can go on adventures and paint myself into impossible corners from which I have to escape.

But at the end of the day I’m - amazingly - not actually dead. I get to write my own happy ending.  I get to find out what I think about things - every book tells me something about myself that I did not know before.

5. Be prepared to spend time in schools

On the down side, visits to schools break up a working week. If the writing is going well and I take a day out to do a school visit, I can be sure the rest of the week is wasted, because I have surfaced, like a mole, into the bright daylight, and it takes time to burrow down again.

On the up side, I get to meet the people I write for. Sometimes they just wish I was Darren Shan or Anthony Horowitz, but sometimes they take an idea and run with it; magical beasts spring out of their imaginations, before my very eyes, and they pull down harpies out of the sky, and their exercise books are already half full of stories part begun… and I think, “Ah yes, there’s someone like me; there’s a fellow writer.”

But in reality I don’t thinks it’s important at all to spend time with children just because you write for them. I’m not very good at putting my thoughts into speech. I was tongue-tied as a child and that is why I took up writing. I would much rather you read my books than met me.

6. Accept that you will only ever write the books that are in you

Now, I suppose I could use school visit to ask, “What would you like me to write next?” But the children would just tell me to write like their current favourite author - to be Darren Shan or Anthony Horowitz - and I’m afraid I’m never going to manage that. I can only be myself, and I can only write the books that are in me. You can’t ask a chicken to lay a dinosaur egg (oof) because she won’t manage it.

7. Be aware that children’s books differs from other writing markets

I used to write adult books. It was very glitzy and glamorous. Fame and riches were just over the next hill. Always, over the next hill.

The world of children’s book is honest and straightforward. An author does not have to be pretty or racy or good at after-dinner speeches. She just has to be good at writing.

Only a handful of children’s authors will ever get rich. But out there are readers who mind terrifically about their favourite author; who read as if they are drinking the words up through a straw, who might read a book this week which they will remember when they are grown up with children of their own.

When the world inside a book comes real for a young reader, it comes more real than any adult book will ever do in the adult mind.

8. Expect strange reactions from people when you tell them what you do for a living

Most say - the grown ups I mean -  say: “I”ve always thought I could write a book if  I just had the time.”

Children don’t quite believe me. Surely all authors are dead, aren’t they? Fair do’s. I have to confess that as I child, I always assumed authors were dead.

9. Read, and listen, to other people’s stories

Although I did read a lot as a child, I was not very good at it, not very fast, not very adventurous in what I chose to read. I actually took up writing because it was a quicker and easier way to get deep inside an imaginary place where I wanted to be.

There is no denying it: reading widely is the quickest way of picking up the techniques, the tricks of the trade. But personally I think the very best form is the audio book: the written word being read aloud. You pick up the cadences, the rise and fall, the stop and start, the shape a thought put into words. And you never even know you are doing it. It just soaks in. Also, listening to stories is one of the oldest  pleasures in the world.

10. Accept advice and criticism kindly offered

Don’t make a career of writing unless you would go on doing it, no matter what: even if you are never published; even if no one ever reads one word you have written.

Write because it makes you happy, because it opens up a cat flap in you: it lets OUT what’s inside you, and it lets IN a world of places, a host of characters, a raft of adventures that your soul craves.

Remember Ivan Turgenev and Shakespeare and Agatha Christie and even Darren Shan were aspiring writers once. You’re next. The world just doesn’t know it yet.

Oh, and learn to type properly. That will give you at least one advantage over Shakespeare.

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Poole Lit Fest founder Sue Luminati

The inaugural Poole Literary Festival takes place from October 29th to 31st 2010, offering the chance to meet leading authors, plus attend discussions, storytelling events, literary walks workshops and much more in the historic Dorset seaside town.

As part of the festival, writers are being challenged to enter the New Media Writing Prize, which aims to embrace new ways of sharing writing with an audience. The competition is open to all writers with the only caveat being that the work has been written specifically for delivery and reading or viewing on new media, including computers, mobile phones, via the internet or on DVD/CD ROM. There must also be an element of interactivity for the audience.

Entries could contain animation, film or images, or a combination of these features. The interactive element could incorporate games, the reader choosing which part of a story or which character they wish to follow - it’s up to you and the idea is to be as inventive as possible with your storytelling.

The competition opened for entries on March 1st 2010 and entry forms will be available for download from the Poole Literature Festival website at www.poolelitfest.com.

The festival is a not-for-profit organisation set up by Sue Luminati in April 2009.  Former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo is patron of the festival and among the guest speakers at the three-day event. He has written more than 120 books for children, including War Horse and Private Peaceful.

Other confirmed guests include psychological thriller writer Minette Walters, author and screenplay writer Deborah Moggach, surrealist author David Gaffney and professional storyteller Adrian Beckingham.

Performing arts group B.O.A.T. who present Shakespeare plays in the beautiful outdoor setting of Brownsea Island, will also be performing highlights of The Taming of The Shrew.

Poole boasts a thriving creative scene, a charming and inspiring old town and a quirky quay, with many historic buildings to stoke the fires of your creativity. With events for adults, children and families, Poole Literary Festival looks set to put the town firmly on the literary map.

For full details, please visit www.poolelitfest.com/new-media-prize.php

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© Herman Brinkman

Albedo One, Ireland’s magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, is proud to announce the fifth International Aeon Award short fiction contest.

The grand prize is €1,000 and publication in Albedo One. Second and third place stories win €200 and €100 respectively, alongside publication in Albedo One magazine.

This year we have an added bonus prize for the winning story courtesy of the highly respected Authorlink.com. The winning story will have the option of a free one-year publication in their Storywire section where authors earn royalties from online readers of their work.

Authorlink.com is a news, information and marketing site for editors, agents, writers, and readers with more than 50,000 unique visitors a month and a social network of 6,000+ friends.

The creative writing contest is open to stories of up to 8,000 words in any speculative genre, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, or anything in between or unclassifiable.

The judges have a very broad definition of what constitutes a genre story. The contest is also open to writers of all nationalities. The winning stories will be chosen by highly respected genre author Ian Watson, who will again act as Grand Judge for this year’s creative writing contest. Long-serving grand judge Ian Watson will be joined by Anne McCaffrey, Mike Resnick and Sam Millar.

The contest is open until November 30th 2010, and runs in four rounds, at the end of which the judges will announce on the Albedo One website, www.albedo1.com, a shortlist of those entries they feel worthy of further consideration. The first round ends on March 31st 2010, the second round on June 30th 2010, the third round on September 30th 2010 and the final round on November 30th 2010.

The aim of the short fiction contest is to promote new writers and writing in the speculative fiction genres, and previous writing contests have certainly shown us that speculative fiction at the shorter lengths is alive and well, despite its many detractors and those who would pronounce the decline of SF, horror, fantasy and so on. or the death of the short story.

Previous winners have been announced at the World Science Fiction Convention and European SF Convention, they have been reprinted or received Honourable Mentions in the prestigious Year’s Best Science Fiction and Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror volumes, and have been translated into other European languages and published in their national magazines (e.g. Galaxies SF, in France).

So entering the Award will certainly get some attention for the respective authors and their work, never mind the prize money and publication in Albedo One.

An entry fee of €7 applies to all entries, and can be paid easily and securely via PayPal at the Albedo One website. Entries may be submitted to me, Frank Ludlow, at fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk

Full details may be found at www.albedo1.com/html/aeon_award.html

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© Geraldine McCaughrean

Though written for children, it’s clear from the wit and dark undertones sprinkling these pages that Geraldine McCaughrean wrote The Death Defying Pepper Roux with adults in mind too.

The tale begins with Paul Roux, nicknamed Pepper, reaching his 14th birthday - a momentous event considering he’s been told since birth that he would die before this date. This grave proclamation has been made by Aunt Mireille, a saint-obsessed woman who has controlled Pepper’s meagre life, mainly by reminding him at every turn that it is due to end before he turns 14.

But when his birthday, and, if you believe Aunt Mireille, his deathday, arrives with Pepper Roux intact, and rather than waiting to have his life removed from him by hordes of fiery angels he flees and begins a series of adventures, hiding in other people’s lives.

It’s a wonderfully imaginative journey that requires the reader to leave their grown up scepticism at the door and accept Geraldine’s reminder that: “People see what they expect to see. Don’t they? Or do they see what they choose?”

From ship’s captain to butcher to newspaper reporter to soldier, Pepper swings from role to role with ease, ever fearful that he’s running out of time.

There’s a beautiful simplicity to the tale that makes its richness all the easier to consume. Geraldine’s passion for words is evident on every page, with linguistic gymnastics adding to the pleasure. At moments her sentences are pure poetry (”the air felt quilted with salt and sweat and stale demons”), lifting the prose to a loftiness that would surely tempt Pepper to climb up for a better view.

While I was bemused by her decision to set the novel in France, I merely glossed over the occasional French words and assume the book’s teen readers will do the same. The pace, the colourful characters and the lightness of touch, all of which make it work for children also make it inviting for adults wanting some entertainment at the end of a long day.

But the key mystery at the centre of the novel is as dark as dark can be - why does Aunt Mireille believe Pepper would die before turning 14? What motivation could she possibly have for terrorising a child and his family?

Other moral issues are also toyed with, particularly the idea of guilt, which Pepper battles with daily - guilt over his growing list of lies (”Pepper had been left with the taste of soap in his mouth every time he spoke - or heard - a lie”), and, particularly, guilt over continuing to defy to expectations and evade death. Yet of all the characters he is the purest, despite his endearing flaws, and brings a little happiness to every life he touches.

The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean is published by Oxford University Press (£12.99) and available from Amazon

To submit a review of a book, course, film, magazine or website, please email judy@EssentialWriters.com

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© Jakub Krechowicz

The Inquirer is the UK’s leading site for technology professionals, presenting news and reviews to keep its readers up-to-date on the latest cutting edge technology, from chips and operating systems through to laptops and storage kit.

They are currently seeking a News Editor to take a key role on the website, which attracts more than one million unique visitors and five million page views per month.

The skills required for this journalism job

Journalism experience on a technology publication, technical expertise, ability to help manage a team of freelancers, and a willingness to attend events, meetings and conferences in the UK and abroad are essential for this editorial role.

Inquirer readers are highly technical and work as technology professionals at a developer, system administrator or workgroup manager level, so the ideal candidate will have a high level of technical understanding in order to engage with them. You must also have a strong news sense and excellent writing ability.

The News Editor will also produce original technical news reports for the Inquirer, so established relationships with senior technology industry contacts are a must, as is the confidence to help manage a team of freelance writers. The role would suit an existing news or section editor on a technology publication, or an experienced senior technology writer looking to make the next step in their career.

The responsibilities of this journalism job

Based in Incisive Media’s Soho office, the News Editor will take on responsibility for the news content of the Inquirer on a day-to-day basis, ensuring the right content is being covered by the site for its highly technical audience.

A key part of the role will be managing the news output of the Inquirer’s freelance writers, along with commissioning and editing articles.

Key responsibilities include producing technical news content for the web site, managing the news output of the freelance writing team, following developments in the IT industry, interviewing and building relationships with senior IT influencers.

To find out more about the website, visit www.theinquirer.net

To apply please click here

For more news like this, go to www.gorkana.com

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