THE WRITE FANTASTIC

Sarah Ash

Juliet E McKenna

Deborah J Miller

Jessica Rydill

Chaz Brenchley

Mark Chadbourn

Stan Nicholls

What’s the Big Idea?

The project has its roots in a convention. Not an SF&F event, but at the annual St Hilda’s Crime and Mystery Conference, in August 2004. Juliet McKenna was talking to Margaret Murphy about the Murder Squad. This is a group of crime writers who have banded together to speak to libraries, literary festival, reading groups and just about anyone else who’s interested, to promote crime fiction as a genre, raising the profile of their own work as an incidental bonus.

Over the last five years, the Murder Squad have been increasingly successful, as libraries, literary festivals etc have proved far more amenable to a joint approach focusing on wider genre and creative writing themes than to individual writers pitching what can be misinterpreted as a desperate plea to flog their books. Indeed, the Murder Squad’s success has led to other crime and mystery writers banding together in similar groups, such as the Unusual Suspects. This was all very interesting but what really got Juliet’s attention was Margaret mentioning Chaz Brenchley was a Squaddie.

So at the 2004 FantasyCon, Chaz and Juliet mused in the bar on the possibility of doing something similar with other fantasy authors. Stan Nicholls, Ariel (of the UK SF Book News Network website) and Anne Gay were asked for their opinions. As authors and/or ex-booksellers, everyone around the table was well aware of the dramatic changes the last ten years have seen in the book trade.

Nowadays the same titles are promoted with the same discounts everywhere. Bestsellers thrive, while writers seen as ‘mid-list’, and those in genre fiction, suffer. Browsing used to be the route by which such authors picked up new readers. But now people popping into a bookshop ‘for something to read’ get no further than the 3 for 2 deals. So authors face a choice between grousing into their beer or looking for alternate ways to contact potential readers and bring them in past the discount tables and the bestseller charts.

Agreeing that action is always better than inaction, it was obvious more people were needed. It was decided, with some regret, that such a group needed a clear focus on fantasy rather than including say, horror or hard SF writers. Also, since we’d be working closely together, we needed to all get on well on a personal level. Fortunately, the SF&F convention circuit has given us all opportunities to meet and sit on panels with a range of other authors. Accordingly Sarah Ash, Jessica Rydill and Mark Chadbourn were contacted and all were enthusiastic about the idea.

But one of the first things we agreed is we’re not setting ourselves up as some exclusive cabal. Depending on where and when we organise gigs, we’re happy to include other local writers, and also to work as part of larger initiatives, such as the annual Heffer’s SF&F event in Cambridge. There is plenty of scope for events to interest those fantasy readers who don’t feel inclined to go to conventions. Those are the people we’re aiming to reach.

Mark Chadbourn made a particularly good point in those early discussions, based on his experiences in the music industry. That market’s increasingly polarised, dominated by long-established acts and heavily promoted new bands created by marketing men rather than musicians. How is new talent supposed to get that big break? But the hopeful don’t bin their guitars and give up. They get out on the road and build a reputation by setting up their own gigs.

We launched The Write Fantastic with a very successful London evening event in association with the British Fantasy Society in May 2005. A couple of weeks later, we went to Birmingham, to speak to the Birmingham SF Group and also to appear at the Tolkien Weekend at Sarehole Mill. Stan Nicholls made those contacts and also arranged book-signings at Waterstones and the late-lamented Andromeda.

In July Chaz Brenchley organised a couple of days in Newcastle, where we talked to the Literary & Philosophical Society as part of their Tall Ships Week, on whether or not sea stories and fantasy are mutually incompatible. On that same trip, we spoke to Bedlington Library and did an evening event with Ottakar’s in Sunderland. Juliet ran a creative writing course for the Faringdon Arts Festival and since she was free to come up to Birmingham early on the first day of FantasyCon 2005, Stan organised a two-handed gig for them both at Hall Green Library.

This is how we work; everyone uses their own contacts to benefit the group as a whole, and we aim to maximise the effect of every visit with as many related activities as we can. We supply the libraries and bookshops we visit with leaflets, posters and bookmarks, and publicise the events in genre circles. Again, all these tasks are shared among the group, to spread the load.

How are we funding this? Chaz Brenchley’s expertise was invaluable here, making an application to the Arts Council England. We drew up a plan for our first six months, set out a budget and made our case. Success in getting start-up funding enabled us to cover initial travel and accommodation expenses, to print a full-colour brochure and to mailshot a targeted list of literary festivals and libraries. We’ve also produced a booklet with short samples of all our work for distribution at gigs. Now we make our on-going programme self-financing, thanks to libraries’ reader development funds and now that organisations such as The Society of Authors are making literary festivals increasingly aware of the need to pay authors’ expenses.

How are we doing? So far, it’s been great fun and we’ve been very well received. Deborah J Miller has now joined us and our on-going programme is an exciting blend of return engagements and visits to new places.