We have a call for submissions about “feisty women”. Why not about feisty men, asked one of our male authors. Part of the answer is that we can’t publish everything. We’re doing quite a lot already: short story anthologies, single author anthologies, flash collections, YA novels, children’s fiction, including picture books, and my own Schellberg Cycle.
How this came from the Schellberg Cycle
The House on Schellberg Street started off as a young adult novel, set during the 1930s and 1940s. At the same time it was an historical novel and it does stretch the YA label: the girls are in their early teens at the beginning of the story and in their early twenties but the end. Each novel has suggested at least one other. Although most have them have young adults in them and are readable by young adults they are more than young adult novels. What is a common thread? Feisty, courageous women.
If I ever escape form the Schellberg Cycle, I have some other historical novels in mind and they all involve women who do well in a man’s world.
Fiction and non-fiction
We’re interested in novels, memoir and biographies. We prefer memoir and biography to read like fiction so it will use using some fictional devices: narrative balance, engaging dialogue, pace and tension.
Mslexia influence
Yes, I am influenced by this writing magazine. It has always made me feel extremely comfortable. I read a lot of the books that it recommends or at least advertises. There is something here about women being allowed to behave like women instead of having to mimic men. “Behave like women” is a packed phrase and shouldn’t be confused with “women behaving the way men expect them to”.
What does our feisty woman look like?
She gets on with things. She has courage. She surprises you in what she manages to achieve.
Find the submission guidelines here: http://www.chapeltownpublishing.uk/p/submission-feisty-women.html
