The NaNoWriMo Experience – Anne Cleasby

‘You’ve published, your book is out there, but nobody buys it, it’s all about marketing.’ Anne Cleasby has already published the second book from a trilogy of Paranormal Romance – under her pseudonym, Annalisa Carr – and yet she’s very aware of the challenges that every published writer must face. She had been working as a crystallographer for thirty years before she decided to leave this job and move to the northwest of England to do a Creative Writing MA at Lancaster University. Although she admits that her professional career has also contributed to her writing: ‘I think Science can be quite inspiring for someone like me who wants to write Speculative Fiction and Sci-Fi.’

When Anne is not writing or petting her three lovely cats, she likes attending literary events or practice sports. ‘Running in the morning wakes me up and gets me ready to start other things.’ Going through NaNoWriMo encouraged her to get her writing out there. ‘It gives you deadlines and motivation and something to aim towards.’ There, she wrote what would turn into her first published book, and now she is seriously considering the possibility of making a living from her words.

What can you find in this interview?
-Experiences on working and writing at the same time.
-Tips about how to find an agent and publish.
-Speculative Fiction and Science-Fiction.
–NaNoWriMo.
-Literary life in the Northwest

Texts read:
Living and Loving dangerously. (Short story).

Writing resources mentioned:
–NaNoWriMo.

Do you want to know more about Anne Cleasby?
-Check out his book collection Children of Poseidon.

Many thanks to our meticulous editor, Terry Garanhel, and the founder of the programme, Yvonne Battle-Felton. And, of course, to our lovely friend Anne Cleasby with whom we had the privilege to do the Creative Writing MA at Lancaster University. We are eagerly waiting for your Sci-Fi novel to be published!

Don’t forget to check our next interview on Sunday 8th of November in 87.7 Bailrigg FM at 6pm with Yamuna Venugopal!

200 words a day – Gabriella Campbell

‘It took me two or three months to get to the point where I just had to write every day.’ Three years ago, Gabriella Campbell started what can be seen as a little challenge: writing 200 words daily. Now, this Spanish writer with Irish ancestry has her first Fantasy novel published, a collection of Fantasy and Sci-Fi short stories that she self-published in Amazon and one of the most famous literary blogs in Spain. She has been a publisher, a poet, a content writer… being so versatile seems to be the secret of her success, although she confesses that having a degree in Literature ‘also gave me perspective.’

Gabriella is very active on social media: ‘there’s this saying  that to market a product properly you’ve to give marketing 80% of the time and 20% to the creation.’ She is also an ebook enthusiast, and she believes they ‘are the easiest way to polish a book and to share my writing.’ She started writing poetry but her curiosity and love of reading made her consider short stories first and then novels. ‘It was kind of a natural progression to me,’ she admits.

Giving voice to the other – Gary J Flood

‘If you’re a creative person you want an audience, and publishing can be the way to get one’. Gary J Flood expresses with this sentence the ambition – and necessity – of many writers. He’s very aware, though, that the literary genre he writes in – Slipstream – is not for everyone. But he confesses he’d be happy to just have five – devoted – readers.

Gary has a background in Philosophy and Rhetoric and currently makes a living as a journalist and content creator in business and technology. He was an early admirer of the Lancaster University Creative Writing MA, and finally decided to start it in 2013 because ‘your life it’s what you actually did… you’ve to do stuff‘.

He is also an avid and eclectic reader – Albert Camus, Peter Watts, William Golding… One of his literary obsessions is giving a voice to ‘the other’ in literature. That included, for example, writing a short story set in the The Lord of The Rings‘ world from the perspective of an Orc.