A busy and rewarding month

I’ve dipped my toes in the water of book fairs and I was pleasantly surprised. Bridge House was invited by the
Northern School of Writing to a book fair in the
Clifford Whitworth library. I sold half the books I took along but more importantly gained a lot of contacts: people who want to join our author mailing list, our reader mailing list and or who want to review for us.
So book fairs and other fairs are on the agenda now.
I was the official photographer for the Lancashire Authors’ Association at
‘What’s Your Story Chorley’. All sorts of groups perform across the town. This includes a free event at the Chorley theatre and brings together local writing groups to share their work. I thought our ‘performers’ did rather well.
Last weekend I visited the
Elizabeth Gaskell House It is so easy to imagine the life that Elizabeth Gaskell and her family led in this house. It really feels like a home. They even have an antique Broadwood grand, the same age as ours. The one here is a baby grand and ours is a boudoir grand, so ours is bigger. They have tried to replicate the furniture that was there at the time that the Gaskells lived in the house. Apparently they actually owned a boudoir grand and not a baby grand. As you wander form room to room you will find that the guides are very well informed about the house and the family. Naturally I had to try the tea room and I had to buy a book!
Elizabeth Gaskell was encouraged by her husband to write after their infant son died. Her husband William was quite a modern man; Elizabeth often went to stay with friends and left him in charge of the family. She needed to get away from domesticity in order to write.
Writing news
I’m continuing with my work on the seventh Schellberg book. As ever, despite being carefully planned, it is taking on a mind of its own. Sauerkraut,
Death in Venice and women in trousers have appeared.
I have four reviews on
Talking About My Generation:
Escaped Alone and What if Only -two challenging short plays by Caryl Churchill.
Shirley Valentine at the Octagon theatre Bolton, with a fantastic performance from Mina Anwar.
Attention All Shipping a talk /performance about the shipping forecast – how could I resist?
The Thrill of Love examines the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in England. There is a lot about this case in the media at the moment.
On 15 March I attend the AGM of the Lancashire Authors’ Association and was thrilled that my short story ‘Too Many Cooks’ came second in the short story competition and my piece of flash fiction ‘Moonshine’ was commended. I’m perhaps even more delighted that one of my U3A creative writers Eva Rybicki’s ‘Beginnings and Endings’ was commended.
On My Blog I have some offers on some of my books: an eclectic mix including
Natascha’s Story, January Stones and Clara’s Story.
There’s also an offer of my other flash fiction collection,
140 x 140, and two collections by other writers
I have an interview with
Mehreen Ahmed about her latest collection White Moon.
You can hear a reading of my story
‘Gone’ in Lancashire Writers of Today 2024.
I also outline how to write
an effective review for Amazon, Good Reads and Storygraph without taking up too much of your precious time:
The Young Person’s Library
I’ve added three book this month, all of them YA and all of them with strong fantasy / supernatural elements.
Embers’ The Wings of War, has multiple supernatural beings – demons, Watchers and Shapeshifters.
Ransomed hearts and
Hearts’ Home are books two and three of Jeanette Greaves’ ‘Ransomed Hearts’ series about a werewolf community . All fantastic reads.
Recommended read
This month I choose
Ransomed Hearts mentioned above. Yes, it’s about werewolves but in this book we also see some young adults growing up.
The challenge of survival continues for the pack.
Cousins Mark and John are brought up by their mothers after their fathers have abandoned the family in order to protect it. They are now used to their werewolf status. With some other friends they form a rock band that after a while enjoys huge success which also brings some tensions and danger. Relationships are complex and lead to tricky situations. Then Mark and Diana meet and their world almost explodes.
Jeanette Greaves supplies us with pace, tension and well-drawn characters in the second book in her Ransomed Hearts series:
Ransomed Hearts. Find your copy here.
Giveaway
This month I’m giving away a copy of
So Now You're Published. What next? I have recently revised this. It is a manual for nrwly published writers about what they can do to help market and publicise their book.
The last thing most writers want to do is spend a lot of time on marketing. Yet books don't sell themselves by magic, no matter how good they are. Publishers do what they can but time and money is limited, and inevitably they have to move on to the next project. If you can adapt a few useful routines, especially ones you find palatable and fun, you'll hardly notice you're doing it. There are heaps of useful suggestions here and handy check lists to keep you on track.
Grab your copy
here. You’ll find an e-book file and a PDF plus a lot of other free materials here.
Please leave a review on Amazon, if you’re allowed to, on Good Reads and anywhere else you can.
The Schellberg Project
The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust. They may also be interesting for other readers of historical fiction.
More and more ideas creep in as I write Schellberg 7. As well as Jews, homosexual and lesbians were persecuted during the Holocaust. This will feature in the nol as wellas Germn resistance. I explore this a little here.
https://www.thehouseonschellbergstreet.com/2025/03/gay-men-lesbians-and-death-in-venice.html
Some notes about my newsletters and
blogs
They do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they
all do.
Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit,
Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General
news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.
The Bridgetown Café Bookshop where
you can buy my books and books published by Bridge House Publishing, CafeLit,
Chapeltown Books and The Red Telephone.
Visit us here.
Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School
Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.
Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and
workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.
Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign
up here.
A Publisher’s Perspective Here I and some other editors blog as
a publisher. Access this here.
The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative
cafés. See them here.
CaféLit Stories Find these here
Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View
this here.
Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that
have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve
highlighted in this newsletter.
Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.
The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project.
Read it here.
Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing. Some creative writing exercises. Access this here. I also invite other writers to provide prompts
and work for critique.
Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new
books. Find them here.
The Young Person’s Library The children’s
book catalogue. Access it here.
Fair Submissions Find
it here.
Opportunities for writers are added several times a day. Roughly once a
month I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.
Happy reading and
writing.