“I really can’t rate Pitman’s too highly.
Also, if you need it they will offer tailor
made CV help and their trainers have great
confidence-boosting skills. It’s individual
– there’s no oppressive classroom atmosphere
but it is quiet and professional. If you are
not eligible for free training their courses
are very affordable.“says
Diana.
If you are retired or have been made
redundant or are mainly housebound, seeing
fewer people and find your spirits are
flagging a bit, Diana always recommends
“adding” to your life to get that writing
metabolism going and to give you new ideas
to write about.
Any achievable part time course will fill in
that gap and energise you. If it’s a course
that also enhances your writing with
practical skills like a bit of computer
know-how, you’re on to a winner!
|
Travel writing clinic! |
 |
David Kernek, editor of two
glossy travel magazines, Holiday
Villas and Holiday Cottages, joins
Diana in offering a free service to
travel writers whether beginners or
veterans. Just email Diana at
diana@canalstreet.org.uk with
your queries. |
BBC journalist Felicity Cowie runs a
brilliant website for writers from her home.
www.storytellerscafe.com is worth taking
a look at! And if you're thinking of setting
up your own little writers club by email,
here are Felicity's tips.
1) Freewebs.com offers a package for under
£50 a year which will give you a dot com
address which is easy for people to
remember. It also helps you design, manage
your site and send out e-blurbs to people
who sign up for them on your site.
2) Give people things to do on your site
apart from submitting their work. This could
be using a guestbook tool so that they can
chatter to other members. On my site I've
used a forum tool so that people can write a
story together. That's yielded some really
good work so far.
3) Think about creating password-protected
pages for people who want to share work but
don't want it splashed all over the web. I
was asked to do this by the members of a
non-online writing group.
4) I created my site so that I could have a
way of keeping in touch with existing
friends who write but through the site I've
met new people and got the chance to read
and publish their work which is exciting.
5) Update your homepage when a new writer
joins or there's some interesting activity
on your site and publish a newsletter from
the site. I try not to bombard people with
these mailings but all of this gives the
writers who've come to the site and the site
itself a boost and shows that it's current
and eager to publish new work.
www.storytellerscafe.com
Click Here
to order online for Amazon Or you can send a cheque now for
£9.99 ( p&p free ) for each book or £13
for both:
Canal St Publishing Ltd
1 Coburg Villas
Camden Road
Bath, Somerset
BA1 5JF
United Kingdom
Please make cheque out to: Canal St
Publishing Ltd.
