Writers Advice Centre

Events

If you want to be among the first to find out about any upcoming events, please sign up to our mailing list.

London Book Fair Online

London Book Fair Online

The London Book Fair has unveiled the full programme for its Online Book Fair, with seminars, panel debates and author events taking place from 21st June to 1st July. Topics covered diverse include diverse narratives, sustainable publishing, children’s access to...

Comics Club Special

Comics Club Special

The Alligator’s Mouth is hosting a guest author Comics Club special with Phil Corbett on June 24th, celebrating his new book, Kitty Quest! Dog Man meets the Lord of the Rings in this laugh-out-loud graphic novel debut about two aspiring adventurers who face off...

Undiscovered Voices 2022

Undiscovered Voices 2022

Submissions for Undiscovered Voices 2022 opens on 14th June. The competition is open to all unpublished and unagented children’s writers living in the UK & the EU. For more details got to their website.

Independent Bookshop Week

Independent Bookshop Week

With bookshops reopening across the country we are delighted to announce that Independent Bookshop Week 2021 will take place Saturday 19th June – Saturday 26th June. The shortlist for the Indie Book Awards will be announced on Friday 14th May. The winners will be...

Empathy Day 2021

Empathy Day 2021

Empathy Day LIVE! 2021 is taking place on 10 June, with a stunning line-up of children’s authors and illustrators, including Jacqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Michael Morpurgo, Patrice Lawrence, Michael Rosen and David Baddiel. The theme is walking in someone...

Barnes Literary Festival

Barnes Literary Festival

Bestselling children’s authors Julia Donaldson and Sir Michael Morpurgo will open the Barnes Children’s Literature Festival on 26th June, the first festival to return as a physical event since the lockdowns. The event will return as planned with a primary...

Author Event

Author Event

We’ve got a treat for you coming up on 20 April – an event with Jenny Pearson, whose book The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates is in The EmpathyLab’s 2021 book collection. Organised by Authors Aloud and Usborne, it features EmpathyLab’s founder, Miranda...

Readers Awards

Readers Awards

You’re invited to a Books Are My Bag Readers Awards virtual ceremony on Tuesday 11th November at 5.30pm. This ceremony is hosted by Grace Dent and is sponsored by National Book Tokens. Watch @BooksAreMyBag on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. To find out more about...

Richmond Lit Fest 2020

Richmond Lit Fest 2020

Richmond Lit Fest is back and runs from 6th – 27th November. This year the festival features a series of socially distanced events at venues across Richmond and Twickenham as well as online events. The Children, Young People and Families line-up is a fantastic...

Your Invitation to CLiPPA 2020

Your Invitation to CLiPPA 2020

This year CLiPPA are doing things a little differently but with all of the usual poetry and great guests! The poetry show will be presented by this year’s judges; Valerie Bloom, Steve Camden, Tracey Guiry (The Poetry Archive) and CLPE’s Charlotte Hacking....

Bookshop Day

Bookshop Day

We are delighted to announce that this year’s Bookshop Day is on Saturday, 3rd October. Bookshop Day is all about supporting local bookshops so do keep an eye on what your local bookshop is up to. We are expecting lots of exciting events all around the country....

Book Launch

Book Launch

You are invited to a book launch on Saturday, 5th September. The Alligator’s Mouth bookshop in Richmond, Surrey is hosting a launch event for ‘Cally and Jimmy: Twins in Trouble’ by Zoe Antoniades. Zoe will be there from 11am – 3pm to sign...

World Kid Lit Month

World Kid Lit Month

It’s World Kid Lit Month and to celebrate World Kid Lit are broadcasting two Facebook Live events to discuss books in translation. One takes place on Wednesday, 2nd September and the next one is on Wednesday, 30th September. To find out more go to...

Online Festival for New Authors

Online Festival for New Authors

A group of debut authors are to create an online festival to share stories from different stages of the writing process, and how to get published. Diary of a Debut Novelist will run every Wednesday throughout September, beginning on the 2nd at 7.30 p.m., in...

Empathy Day Evening Event

Empathy Day Evening Event

Empathy Day’s flagship evening event takes place at 7.15pm on 9th June. All welcome and feel free to join them. It’s a fascinating cross-disciplinary discussion between the Children’s Laureate Cressida Cowell, author Muhammad Khan, and psychologist Professor Robin...

Independent Bookshop Week

Independent Bookshop Week

Independent Bookshop Week 2020 will take place 20 – 27 June. Naturally this year’s campaign will look rather different to previous years with a social/online focus and encouragement for consumers to place orders with indies for delivery. Independent Bookshop...

Empathy Day 2020

Empathy Day 2020

This year’s Empathy Day is on 9th June. Empathy is a learnable skill and Empathy Day was founded to help us all understand and experience its transformational power. From The Empathy Lab, “We have now announced our plans, designed to have a huge impact in...

Hay Festival for Schools

Hay Festival for Schools

Hay have announced their free Digital Programme for Schools which runs from 18–22 May and replaces their cancelled Hay Festival 2020 Programme for Schools which was due to take place on Thursday 21 and Friday 22 May. Specially curated schools days, blending...

Success Stories

Over the past 20 years we have been instrumental in helping writers find their place with publishers, whether directly or indirectly. The following is just a handful of our success stories…

"Thank you for turning this around so quickly for me. The feedback is invaluable and will allow me to make a number of really worthwhile amends before approaching publishers. As I go through the report in more detail I may have the odd question, so thank you for being open to further assistance."

R Myles (Manuscript Appraisal Service)

"I’d like to thank you for your words of encouragement. My wife said to my children after the phone call, ‘That’ll be it now, you won’t see your dad for months as he’ll be busy writing.’ How true!"

Neil Swinney (Telephone Appraisal Service)

"Sharing our book with Louise Jordan at the Writers’ Advice Centre was one of our most important steps on the road to publication of our book My Mum’s a Bug-Eyed Monster. Without Louise’s advice about story pacing and which publishers to target, our monster mum may still be languishing in the slush swamp!"

Andy Rigden & Jim Landen (Face to Face Meeting)

"I am finding this writing course very enjoyable and feel inspired by the assignments. I find your feedback particularly motivating and believe that signing up to this course has not only developed my writing confidence, but is one of the best things I did for my writing career"

Kim White (Home Study Course)

"Thank you for facilitating such an excellent workshop yesterday. I would strongly recommend it to anyone wishing to write for children. Experienced writers would definitely benefit from it as well. Pure gold!"

A Chisambo (Writing Workshop)