BookwormVaught - Dr Anna Vaught

I am rooting for you x

My 2022 memoir, These Envoys of Beauty is being republished - new publisher - in June; few changes and a new introduction and cover. Meanwhile, if you are interested in the topic of literature and trauma, here's my PhD, which offers focus on it. TW childhood trauma ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/11...

Well I would love it if you won. I wasn’t planning to enter this year. I’ve had two short fiction collections published and never been longlisted in a short story comp. I just decided it wasn’t my thing. 🤪

Excellent point. x

Huge congratulations to Rachel McLaughlin — the official recipient of our Ultimate Novel Writing Programme Bursary! 🎉📝

Her application blew our voting panel away, and we’re so excited to champion her work as she develops her novel with us.

Oh gosh no it really won’t. It’s about a widow who comes brutally and spookily to life. Give her zebra because that is, above all, about love. Xxxx

BABYKINS this is awful news. But it will not last. Sometimes I sit and THINK words, you know x

If I were to teach a weekly online class on well-being and writing, would you like that? I have the background, the skill but also the subtlety of lived experience that comes from turbulence, illness and being a carer. I don't want this to be about industry, but about writing and its manifold joys x

Here's the abstract and a few notes/identification of cited articles - ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/11... - I just pulled this from Google scholar

Hey, all you hot and gorgeous academics and researchers. I was asked this earlier, assumed it was there, but it isn't.
My PhD (December, 2024) is not catalogued in the BL repository. Are they still updating things?

My 2022 memoir, These Envoys of Beauty is being republished - new publisher - in June; few changes and a new introduction and cover. Meanwhile, if you are interested in the topic of literature and trauma, here's my PhD, which offers focus on it. TW childhood trauma ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/11...

I've now caught up and want to draw attention to three brilliant Northern indies on the list here - @saraband-books.bsky.social @deadinkbooks.bsky.social and @flyonthewallpress.bsky.social Absolutely cleaning up. This is LOVELY news.
Big Bookworm love and congratulations!

I would encourage those who can (and that's more than you think!) to enter this FREE contest. Sure, the odds are low of winning - but did I mention it's FREE? And potentially life changing for a writer. And entering contests is a great incentive to polish that piece of work.
Deadline 16th March.

Hope it made you laugh a bit. Sometimes I feel like the least socially accomplished person in publishing too. 😂

Very important to laugh. Also although I’m multiple books in, I do feel that my most important role is actually teaching and mentoring, and it turns out to be with secondary age right through to postgrads and on courses for all x

I bet. When I wrote this, I hadn’t clocked quite how many other indies were on the list because I was so focused on my lil favourites there. Blumey!

I've now caught up and want to draw attention to three brilliant Northern indies on the list here - @saraband-books.bsky.social @deadinkbooks.bsky.social and @flyonthewallpress.bsky.social Absolutely cleaning up. This is LOVELY news.
Big Bookworm love and congratulations!

If I may? Echoing this!

I Love You This Much Heart GIF Alt: I Love You This Much Heart GIF

13. Why am I sharing? Because you need to learn to tolerate this stuff. See your books as part of a creative portfolio, pay it forward, be supportive, don't stew in your own juice, don't be precious about the link between art and commerce, know that no 2 careers are the same & that things can CHANGE

a woman in a green tank top is laughing and crying . Alt: a woman in a green tank top is laughing and crying .

12. I have routinely watched people be put in charge of something, or head a thing or judge a thing when I could be described as an expert in that thing and I'm prolifically published and likely not as dim as mince, if I may. Darlings, you CANNOT take offence. Just move on. But also, CONGRATULATE

a bald man with a beard is saying i 'll get my coat . Alt: a bald man with a beard is saying i 'll get my coat .

9. At another literary event I was so excited to meet an author I really admired that I inadvertently squealed and then to make it so much better, I said, 'Fuck me, I'm so sorry.'
10. I have NEVER got ACE funding or a residency
11. I now know I've been nonimated for FRSL by a few folk. Didn't work🤣

a man in a suit and tie is standing next to a blue chair Alt: a man in a suit and tie is standing next to a blue chair

7. A publisher told me they thought I talked about myself too much when I was just there doing my best and trying to help others. That really upset me, but then I put them in a pie in a short story and had them eaten by my scary nan
8. I fell over at a literary event. Then did it again.

6. I've had four agents. They have all been delightful. Didn't work out, redundancy, leaving agenting. Still plenty of interest in me even though I'm eleventy hundred and with all my mild humiliations. I'm hoping agent four is permanent. Also she might read this, so GOOD LORD what a brilliant agent

3. 2 of my publishers didn't want a 2nd book from me. Dgging a tiny bit, that was commonly the case with their writers. A sort of literary promiscuity, but with less sex.
4. 2 of my publishers went bust.
5. I was twice not longlisted for a short fic comp. (I've had 2 collections published)

a man with long hair and a mustache is making a funny face and the words humiliations galore are above him . Alt: a man with long hair and a mustache is making a funny face and the words humiliations galore are above him .

1. I've watched people I taught in KS3, for GCSE and A level go past me and get major publishing deals. Oh come on; that is funny, really. I
2. I've not been invited back to do events that sold out quickly the first time. Them's the breaks. There's a lot of fish in the sea. Get used to it.

a woman is running down a street with a book in her hand while a publisher wants my book . Alt: a woman is running down a street with a book in her hand while a publisher wants my book .

Now obviously I am not the queen of publishing just yet, but for what it's worth, and said very cheerfully, publishing is full of mild humiliation, but rarely fatal. Now look: I need to run you through a few of my mild humiliations and, with that, grow the hide of a rhino and do more jokes, my loves

And also, yes: incentive and meeting a deadline.

Hello Liam. Yes blimey there are so few free contests, aren't there. Also - saying this cheerfully - I think the odds are always stacked you in publishing, but they're higher if you throw yourself in the ring in the first place.

Ps, I do say this in the quoted thread, but if it's already published, it must have been so after 1st January, 2025.

The thing is that 'established' in our industry in no way accords with 1 poem/story. That's emerging. Or nearly? I'm glad I know this now and feel rubbish that I steered people away (though I did say to double check I suppose). Established and prior publication were not as I thought!