BFLA Open Week: What is the most challenging part of your role?
blakefriedmann.co.uk – Thursday November 13, 2025
While we love to celebrate the publishing industry – amazing authors, essential books, and a whole world full of readers – sometimes it can feel like an uphill battle. In today’s BFLA Open Week Question of the Day, we asked the team:
What is the most challenging part of your role?
Please take a look at everyone’s answers below, and come back tomorrow for the final instalment of this year’s Open Week!
Isobel Dixon, Head of Books
Agenting requires a great deal of intelligent nerve, in fighting for your authors, in tricky negotiations, and the mettle required to deliver bad news – rejected submissions, editor departures, frustrating reviews (or lack of them). The trade’s rate of change is swifter than ever before – editor moves, corporate mergers, retailer shifts – and we are the steady point for our clients, supporting and strategising in response to perpetual publishing flux. Physical stamina is required too as we don’t control publishing schedules – several client titles can be published on one day and we have to be prepared and there for each unique scenario.
Inside the editorial process of Chapman’s art and literary magazines
thepanthernewspaper.org – Monday November 10, 2025
From poets to music producers, painters to playwrights, filmmakers to photographers, Chapman is home to a thriving creative community. And each semester, art and literary magazines like Calliope, Ouroboros and The Underground offer Chapman creatives of all mediums a home for their work.
But how do the editors of these magazines decide which pieces to accept into each issue? Let’s delve behind-the-scenes into the selection and editing process for Chapman’s art and literary publications.
Calliope, the oldest literary magazine at Chapman, published its first issue as its current iteration in fall of 2014. The publication accepts a wide range of written and visual work, including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, scripts, photography, digital art, paintings and drawings. Currently, Calliope’s editor-in-chief is senior screenwriting major Joshua Olatunji.
Ouroboros, which published its first issue in fall of 2020, specializes in work that falls within the speculative genre. The magazine accepts written and visual works of various mediums including poetry, fiction, scripts, sculptures, animations, photography, digital and traditional art. The magazine’s current editor-in-chief is junior creative writing major Selah Sanchez.
The Stephen King writing tip that changed everything for Aussie thrill-master Christian White
rnz.co.nz – Sunday November 9, 2025
Best-selling novelist Christian White was resigned to being a "starving artist" forever. Then he read Stephen King's non-fiction book On Writing.
Over 15 years, in the spare hours when he wasn't selling sandwiches from a golf cart, picking apples or editing adult films, Christian White penned four books that never saw the light of day.
He and his wife, Summer De Roche, were resigned to being "starving artists forever" when White read American horror master Stephen King's "incredible" book On Writing.
In it, King delivers "incredible nuggets of wisdom", White says, and one in particular - that you should write with the door closed and rewrite with the door open - paved the way for his best-selling debut novel, The Nowhere Child.
In 2018, when The Nowhere Child became the fastest-selling Australian debut novel in history, White says all of a sudden, his entire life "did this complete 180".
"I'd wasted 10, 15 years of writing and not showing anyone else my work. That big change pretty much straightaway led to me getting a publishing deal and everything else so, I really owe that book a lot."
"Suddenly, I could afford to just sit at my desk all day. That was my one thing I had to do. I could write for a living. It's the best job in the cave-like office all day, away from the sunlight, just telling stories. It's amazing."
Once "the dust settled", though, White realised that even with the extra hours, his writing output was still the same as it had been while he was juggling casual jobs.
Splinter Journal Navigates the Muck and Mire of Literature
tobemagazine.com.au – Monday November 3, 2025
Splinter Journal is an Adelaide-based publication that features the literary work of Australian and international writers. Published bi-annually, it showcases a variety of written forms, such as fiction, essays, and poetry. We spoke to the editor, Farrin Foster, about her involvement with Splinter and the vision behind the journal.
DANIEL DRAZETIC Can you tell us a little bit about the ethos behind Splinter and how the platform is being used by writers across Australia and overseas?
FARRIN FOSTER Splinter was devised as a way to knit together the writing scenes in South Australia and those across the rest of the country and the world. There has been a great online literary journal in Tarntanya called The Saltbush Review, but it’s been a long time since we’ve had a print journal made here.
I think, counter-intuitively, that print has the capacity to make deeper connections (although maybe not wider ones) than online (not that I’m anti-internet; I doomscroll and read online as much as the next elder millennial). But readers connect with writers in a different way in print, and for the kind of writing we are publishing in Splinter – which is absurd, emotional, funny, and often also kind of devastating – that connection is important. I think Splinter is a vehicle for new writing by SA writers to be seen alongside the best writing from around the world. We are about connecting and representing writers in our home state, but we’re not parochial – we publish writers from everywhere.
The making of Death Kit and the importance of print: In conversation with editor Joe Coward
theboar.org – Sunday November 2, 2025
“Print is essential – it’s what people want.”
On October 28, I was lucky enough to speak with editor Joe Coward to discuss the founding – and thriving – of London’s new small press literary magazine, Death Kit. At only four pounds a copy, Death Kit situates itself proudly as one of the most accessible lit mags in town. We covered what it takes to bring a literary magazine to life, the importance of print in an online age, and the future of the magazine-come-community that is Death Kit. Here’s the rundown:
Even the naming of the mag signals that Death Kit is publishing work that “turns away from trends”
Where did the name come from? The striking name comes from the Susan Sontag novel. Coward mentions Vanity Fair as another magazine that takes its title from literature, but even the naming of the mag signals that Death Kit is publishing work that “turns away from trends.” Unbothered by pop-culture, you can be sure to find writing that’s unapologetically strange.
How did it begin? The project that was born out of “boredom” is now six months old and is celebrating the release of its second issue this October. With accessibility at the forefront, Coward emphasised the importance of being willing to invest what you can, in order for the magazine to find itself in as many hands as possible. The team is small, with as little as two regular editors and two feature-writers: “all quite unofficial,” but successful nonetheless.
Finding Your Writing Flow After NaNoWriMo
sfwa.org – Thursday October 30, 2025
When November approaches, writers everywhere feel it—that itch in our fingers, the spark of imagination, the pull to tell stories. For years, we channeled that energy during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), an annual challenge to draft 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. Founded in 1999 and formalized as a nonprofit in 2006, NaNoWriMo inspired millions, building a global movement around storytelling.
But by 2025, financial troubles, governance failures, and controversies—including mishandled child endangerment complaints and the decision to allow AI-generated works—eroded trust. The organization ultimately shut down, leaving behind a void in the writing community.
Like many, I missed the structure and momentum NaNoWriMo once offered. Over the summer, I found myself yearning for it to rise from the dead as I stared at a neglected draft of 10,000 words I’d written a year earlier. Without NaNoWriMo to lean on, I wondered: Was there another challenge or tool that could help me get my writing groove back?
Why trauma writers lie to us – The market wants uncomplicated stories
unherd.com – Tuesday October 14, 2025
As a longtime teacher of memoir writing who closely observes trends in the genre, I’ve recently been thinking of an episode involving a student I worked with in the late 2010s. “F.” had studied with me over several years. At one point, she took a long absence, confiding in me that she’d unearthed some childhood trauma and was taking the time to address it. Eventually, she sent me an essay she’d written during her leave. In it, F. described herself as a child in the care of indifferent adults who had been coerced into sexual acts with persons known to her. The essay contained disturbing details, cutting dialogue, and careful scene work. Overall, it was gripping, horrific — a good story, in narrative terms.
But I didn’t believe it at all. At most, I’d give it a 2% chance of being true.
I didn’t believe this student’s story was true because I’d read it before. A year or two earlier, a student in a workshop — a class in which F. was also enrolled — had written a nearly identical account of her own childhood assault. Her story was profoundly disturbing, a difficult story to get out of my mind. I wasn’t surprised it had affected F. in that way, too. But this was bizarre: F. had coopted her classmate’s story, one she knew I’d read, and claimed it as her own.
Get Creative: On writing a TV show - where do ideas come from?
rte.ie – Monday October 13, 2025
Ever dreamed of writing a TV show but didn't know where to start? Now's the perfect time to pick up your pen (or keyboard) and dive in - no experience needed, just your imagination.
In a new series, screenwriter Ray Lawlor - creator of RTÉ's popular black comedy series Obituary - offers some tips for the budding TV writer...
Like it or not, the job of a screenwriter is to relentlessly come up with one great idea after another. Ideas that inspire people to invest millions, and crews to work terrible hours. So: where do those ideas come from? And how do you take something summed up in a pithy single line and transform it into six hours of television?
Over the following series of articles, I'll use my own series Obituary (returning for a second season on RTÉ One on October 14th) to guide you through the process of creating a TV show, from initial spark to complete series.
When I first set out to write a TV show, I studied the best series around and asked what they had in common. The Sopranos, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad quickly stood out. I realised these shows were built around the jobs of their main characters: Tony Soprano was a mob boss, Don Draper an ad man, and Walter White made meth.
Publishing wants debut authors to produce bestsellers. What happens if they don't?
cbc.ca – Wednesday October 8, 2025
When a debut author doesn't produce a bestselling book, it may signal the end of a career. This is due to the publishing industry's increasing obsession with books' sales data, even though the numbers are often inaccurate.
What happens when the publishing industry focuses more on milking authors for cash rather than nurturing their craft? Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud discusses this conundrum with ECW Press editor Jen Sookfong Lee and writer Tajja Isen, who wrote an article for The Walrus about publishing's data obsession.
Elamin: Tajja, on the one hand, it makes sense that if your first book is not a success, they have a harder time selling the next one. It makes sense that publishers are a little bit cautious to go, "Should we take a risk on this writer again?" But you point out that this hasn't always been the case, Toni Morrison being a good example of this. Do you want to talk about the story of her first novel?
Tajja: So her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was very modestly published. The publisher didn't have massive expectations for it. It sold maybe 1,500 [or] 2,000 copies. And a few years later, it actually went out of print. And at the time, Morrison was working in publishing, very strapped for cash. And she happened to be working in the same building as Robert Gottlieb, who later became her editor, and he happened to have read the first novel and thought, "Hey, there's something to this writer. She's got some chops." He kept her in-house and published her second novel, published her third. And it was her third novel, with Song of Solomon, where she really broke out. So it was because her editor was able to nurture her across books that she had this incredible career that reshaped literature.
The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem
thewalrus.ca – Wednesday October 1, 2025
Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it
In 1970, a New York publishing company put out a debut novel by an editor and former teacher from Ohio. The press, then known as Holt, Rinehart and Winston, had taken a chance on the book, which had been rejected by numerous other houses. The initial print run was somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 units—modest expectations that looked justified when, in the first year, sales barely cleared 2,000. This despite getting positive reviews in the New York Times and The New Yorker and being assigned to freshman classes at the City College of New York. The attention wasn’t enough. Four years later, the novel was out of print.
The author stayed in the game, albeit precariously. While working on her second book, she was a single parent commuting to Manhattan for a job in publishing. At the time, she was “so strapped for money that the condition moved from debilitating stress to hilarity.” Despite her first book’s lacklustre sales, she found a publisher for her second. The debut had attracted the admiration of a high-profile editor, one who happened to work in the same building she did. He acquired her next title, and the next, keeping her in house as she steadily built acclaim and an audience.
Eventually, the writer scored an opportunity still regarded as a grail of book marketing: her debut was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club. Sales reportedly soared to 800,000 copies. Today, publishers hope that their titles will nab the book club stamp—and the ensuing bump in sales—straight out of the gate. But, in this case, the Oprah endorsement came only at the turn of the millennium, thirty years after the novel was first released. By then, the author had published some half dozen other books and cleared the stable of major literary accolades. She had won the National Book Award, the Pulitzer, the Nobel. The author was Toni Morrison. The novel was The Bluest Eye.
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