Our 2024 series of industry workshops is free and open to writers of colour living in the Midlands. To book your free place please email f.shaikh@dahliapublishing.co.uk using the subject heading ‘Middle Way Mentoring workshop series’ along with a short cover letter about your writing journey to date and which classes you’d like to attend.
What Do Editors Do? – Saturday 23 March, 2-4pm
In this class, we’ll be joined by Lizzie Brien and Ruth Jones from Bookouture who will demystify publishing. They’ll take us from pitch to publication in this exclusive class designed for The Middle Way Mentoring project. This session will include a 30-minute Q&A so there’ll be plenty of time for all your burning questions!
Lizzie Brien has an MA in Publishing and has worked at Bookouture for over 2 years, supporting a range of authors including K.L Slater, Shalini Boland and Lisa Regan. Lizzie currently manages all submissions to Bookouture, and has a keen eye for a great manuscript.
Ruth Jones joined Bookouture this year from Little, Brown Books, where she commissioned commercial fiction in a wide range of genres. She’s on the lookout for pacy thrillers, unputdownable rom-coms and emotional women’s fiction, and currently edits authors including Ruth Heald, Cole Baxter and Soraya Lane.
Authors and Editors: in conversation with Shalini Boland – Saturday 20 April, 2-4 pm
In this class, bestselling author Shalini Boland will be in conversation with her editor Natasha Harding. Shalini will talk candidly about her writing journey from writing her first book, self-publishing to hitting the bestseller list. This session will be followed by a Q&A.
Shalini Boland is the USA-Today bestselling author of nineteen psychological thrillers. With over two million copies sold, her titles have been translated into over ten languages for publication around the world.
Shalini lives by the sea in Dorset, England with her family and their increasingly demanding dog, Queen Jess. Before kids, she was signed to Universal Music Publishing as a singer/songwriter,
but now she spends her days writing (in between re-stocking the fridge and dealing with endless baskets of laundry).
She is also the author of two bestselling Sci Fi and Fantasy series as well as a WWII evacuee novel with a time-travel twist.
What Do Literary Agents Do? with The Good Literary Agency – May date tbc
In this class, we will be joined by literary agent and co-founder of The Good Literary Agency Julia Kingsford. She will introduce us to The Good Literary Agency which she co-founded with her author Nikesh Shukla, explain how agents work with new writers and the submission process. Julia will take us from the basics of what a literary agent does, to why they are critical to your success as a writer. This session will be followed by a Q&A.
Julia co-founded TGLA with Nikesh. She is a literary agent and publishing and consumer marketing consultant. She set up the literary agency Kingsford Campbell in 2014, where she still represents clients including Nikesh, and prior to that was co-founder and CEO of World Book Night and Head of Marketing at Foyles bookshops. She has been a British Council Young Publishing Entrepreneur, one of the Evening Standard’s 1000 Most Influential Londoners, one of The Bookseller’s 100 most influential people in publishing and the FutureBook Distruptor of the Year.
At TGLA Julia and Nikesh share responsibility for the management, administration and strategy. Julia does not represent clients at TGLA.
Fine-tuning your prose – Saturday 22 June, 2-4pm
In this class, writer and publisher Farhana Shaikh will share what she’s learnt about what makes great fiction. Using examples from her own work and others, she will demonstrate how you can instantly make a piece of fiction stronger. She will share a treasure trove of editing tips which you’ll put into practice in breakout groups with your own writing. You’ll need to bring a short piece of writing with you to work on during the session.