The Writer

James Joyce Doormat This quote from Leopold Bloom in Ulysses seems fitting for the doorway of any house. £20 (approximately $24.19), theliterarygiftcompany.com The Methuen Drama Anthology of Irish Plays Five great Irish plays are collected in this book, with works ranging from Brendan Behan’s classic The Hostage to an early work from Martin McDonagh that hinted at his coming brilliance. $22.95, barnesandnoble.com The Picture of Dorian Gray Novel Poster The entirety of Oscar Wilde’s novel is reprinted on this poster around the classic image of Mr. Gray. £12.99 (approximately $15.71), theliterarygiftcompany.com Sally Rooney Normal People Tote Bag You could easily imagine one of the characters from this young Irish author’s novels using this bag, right? $22, etsy.com W.B. Yeats Writer’s Block These 2-inch wood cubes make a bout of writer’s block feel a bit more tangible. $10.99, etsy.com Chronicles of Narnia Jigsaw Puzzle A library collection…

IT’S NOT OFTEN THAT A TWEET will have staying power after it disappears from your feed, but this 2021 viral tweet by YA author Jenny Elder Moke still resonates with me: “I know this is very against popular discussion, but the idea of pre-orders being so important to a book’s success is just exhausting. People just…don’t shop that way. Books are a tactile thing, and they’re often a browsing experience. People want to peruse at a bookstore.” As the president of Books Forward, a literary publicity firm, I find the question of “how do people buy books?” is always on my mind because the answers fuel our book marketing efforts. And here was an intriguing offshoot of that essential book-buying question: “Do pre-order campaigns ‘work?’” Pre-order campaigns are promotions designed to sell…

Sand Hills literary magazine Categories: Art, poetry, prose Description: Editors seek U.S. entries from emerging and established writers and artists for the 47th issue. Deadline: March 20 http://sandhillslitmag.com/submit/ Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose Categories: Poetry, craft essays, fiction, hybrid, nonfiction, and creative nonfiction Description: With three issues per year, Allium welcomes voices from BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and neurodiverse communities in addition to diverse-aware authors. Guidelines include a maximum poetry length of five pages and 15 pages for all other works. Deadline: March 15 allium.colum.edu/submit Transform The World anthology Categories: Sci-fi, near-future hopepunk Description: In its third anthology of the Writers Save the World series, stories should be set in the next 100 years, take a hopeful tone and focus on new ways of living. One story per entrant, and pricing varies based on word count and prior publication. Deadline: March 1 duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/transform-the-world-anthology-6OZk7 The Scop Categories:…

CHELSEA BANNING’S JOURNEY through writing and self-publishing Of Crowns and Legends, her first book, is not unfamiliar: ups and downs, stops and starts, and learning the business from the ground up. It was in promoting her novel that Banning happened on a road far less traveled. The 33-year-old Ohio-based writer demonstrated how using social media can (with a stroke of luck, she says) pay off. The long march to publication “I started writing Of Crowns and Legends in high school, then put it down in college and picked it back up in 2018,” she told The Writer. “I finished the final draft in early 2022 and published it [in] late August. I did a lot of research on the self-publishing process. How to do it, where to do it, what platforms and distributors…

Getting to know literature by Anglophone African writers I have been at this column for over a year now, and still, every month I learn something new from the people I interview for it, not just about the subject matter itself, the literature we happen to be discussing each month, but also about that way in which we look at literature and the myriad ways there are to interpret it. With his first email to me, David Nandi Odhiambo, who teaches English at the University of Hawai’i – West O’ahu, and whose four award-winning novels are unlike any I’ve previously read, points me in a direction new to me: He writes of “minoritarian” and “majoritarian” literature. I do some Googling. “Minoritarian literature,” various sources tell me, is often used in conjunction with…

I reach Chiedozié Dike through my friend Joj, who has worked, as long as I’ve known them, to provide a space for writers who don’t always get the attention they deserve. Within a hot minute, I know I’m in the presence of someone whose own mission is to spread the possibilities of writing out to as many people as possible. Dike, who is from Nigeria and now lives in London, is a writer and lawyer. He has also written for television and radio. His short stories have been published in three anthologies and in online publications, including The Write Launch and Afreada. He is working on several novels. The Writer: You’re a copywriter and a lawyer. How does all of that fold into the writing you’re doing now, which is more literary…