Another day, another signing. As part of our Fiction 2008 project, Tonto Books will publish Everything You Ever Wanted by Rosalind Wyllie. Ros was previously published in three Tonto short story anthologies, and this is her first novel. As a taster for the book, Ros says: ‘Twenty years ago, when I was 17 I worked for a few months as a waitress and announcer for the acts in a Mayfair hostess club and that I have used that setting as the backdrop for the novel – part coming of age, part thriller.’ The book will be published in August.

During the editing process, Ros will work with novelist Caroline Smailes. Caroline is the author of In Search of Adam, and also an editor and mentor. ‘I am thrilled and it is an honour to be involved in a project that will promote and develop the voice of emerging writers from the North East,’ says Caroline.

The Tonto Books Fiction 2008 Project is supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England. As part of the project we are also running a New Novelist competition. See our previous post here.

Paul

Tonto Books is pleased to announce that our first signing of 2008 is TV presenter and director Ashley Hames, and we will publish an eye-opening book about his wide-ranging and fascinating career later in the year. Ashley got an unusual break as the infamous News Bunny on L!VE TV, but he is probably best known as the presenter of Bravo TV’s highest-rated show Sin Cities. Other credits include Bad Trip, Man’s Work, and most recently the BBC2 show Guilt Trip.

The book begins with Ashley’s time at L!VE TV (during which he ran for Parliament and legally changed his name to News Bunny!) and then concentrates on his travels around the world with Sin Cities, experiencing all manner of sex, drugs and debauchery along the way. It’s a fast-paced and hilarious tale, and we’ll post more details about it here very soon.

Paul

Thursday 10 was the memorial service in Newcastle for novelist and tutor Chrissie Glazebrook, who died in December 2007.
The service was packed with friends, family, writers and colleagues and there were ten speakers who reflected on their friendship with Chrissie. Carol Clewlow and Penny Smith (tutors from Northumbria University) read out some of our words as graduates of the course, and extracts of Chrissie’s work were read and displayed. It was nice to hear so many stories about Chrissie and the immense humour by which she lived. Although tears were shed, there were many of laughter as we heard about what Chrissie was like to work with and her outlook on life.

For anyone who doesn’t know of Chrissie’s work, you can find out more about her here:

Guardian Obituary by Sean O’Brien

The Madolescents

Stu

Are you writer based in the North East of England? Could YOU be a Tonto Books’ North East New Novelist 2008? Pens at the ready – we have TWO publishing contracts up for grabs! As part of Tonto Books’ new fiction project, we are today launching our North East New Novelists contest. Two lucky writers will win publishing contracts and see their novels published by Tonto Books in January 2009. The contest will be judged by bestselling novelists Kitty Fitzgerald (Pigtopia) and Wendy Robertson (Family Ties). Uniquely, the two winning novelists will be mentored by Kitty and Wendy as their novel is developed for publication.

The Tonto Books Fiction 2008 Project is supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England. Due to the nature of this project’s funding, the contest is only open to writers in the North East of England. Writers outside of this region are advised to watch our website and newsletter for news of future national and international projects for which they might be eligible. The closing date for submissions is Monday 31 March 2008. Please see full submission details on our website.

Paul

Alert visitors to this website will already have spotted this – Tonto Books is the new name for Tonto Press.

Our website – now www.tontobooks.com – has also had a New Year spruce-up. Have a gander and let us know what you think.

Paul

Following on from yesterday’s post about getting back into writing, I watched Get Carter again last night and felt even more inspired to put pen to paper.
I always find writing anything competition-based gets me completely bogged down with too many questions… What are the judges looking for? Will Judge X like this because it’s similar to their work? Are they looking for a commercial idea? Will something with limited readership appeal still have a chance if the writing is good? The list is endless. The answers? I’d imagine it is a bit of everything. I don’t think it is worth entering any writing competition if you are catering to the tastes of the judges, but all judgements are based (to an extent) on personal taste, whether we admit it or not. A commercial idea is obviously something that will make the competition look good if it has mass appeal and goes on to become the next Harry Potter – but critical acclaim is always what we seek as writers too.
On the subject of ideas, what about high concept? Here’s another blog with an interesting post on high concept worth reading.
And now you’re bogged down too.
My apologies.

There are books on how to come up with ideas, books on how to write books, books on how to write short stories and probably even books on how to write books on how to write books.

What do you do then? It’s simple – writers write. Get writing! Revisit that novel with a fresh and optimistic 2008 eye. Don’t get bogged down by thinking all the what ifs, just write your story, get it out, don’t procrastinate. You never know when these competitions are going to be announced, so don’t get caught out by having a high concept one-liner and 300 blank pages.

Stu

Here’s one to start the New Year. I watched a TV documentary over the holidays about JK Rowling, looking at a year in her life up to the publication of the latest Harry Potter book. There are Youtube links to various docos here.

I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books and probably never will. I think I’m one of the only people I know who hasn’t read one. However, I was quite gripped by the documentary. JK Rowling was just like the rest of us… a struggling writer. She had the archetypical writer’s poverty-stricken lifestyle, but never gave up hope. It took her back to the flat where she struggled as a writer. She was asked how many millions she now has in the bank; she said ‘loads’. We found out how many millions of books she’s sold and we gasped.
A few things struck me about the doco. As writers, we all know what it’s like to sit there day in, day out, looking for that big break that rarely happens… and here is living proof that it can happen. It’s so easy to criticise and hate people who become successful at something, but JKR didn’t rub my face in it as a viewer. She wasn’t the devil, she’s not someone we should hate. She was normal, humble and admitted that a lot of her big break was down to luck. Its people like her who have made writing more accessible and dispelled the myths that us writers are all mad eccentrics (well, some of us are).
I thought it was great to see someone making a good living as a writer and I actually thought that one day I might just make the effort to read a Harry Potter book. Might.

So – my New Year Revolution is to go back to writing in my spare time. Importantly, I want to enjoy writing. I’ve got a deadline for a non-fiction book approaching and I intend to get something to the New Writing North Writers’ Award this year. Don’t forget to keep checking our friend’s blog out – she gives a good insight into the world of a working writer.

Happy writing!

Stu

The Christmas tree and decorations are down, there’s no turkey left, the chocolates nearly gone and it may be your first day back at work.

We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year, but it’s time to put your Christmas booky wooks down and get back to ‘normality’.

Yep, as the link suggests, Russell Brand’s book was Christmas number one seller in the UK, closely followed by Nigella Lawson, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson. Doesn’t look like anyone reads fiction anymore.

Never fear – we’ll put a stop to all that. It’s the first day of a new year in Tonto world and we’ve got some exciting new announcements to make in the next few days, so stay tuned for more details.

Stu