Hastings Writers' Group is an organisation for published and aspiring writers based in Hastings, East Sussex. It was established in 1947, and is one of the longest-running writers' groups in the United Kingdom. Catherine Cookson was a founder member and was patron for many years. A more recent patron was David Gemmell, a best-selling author of heroic fantasy.
Hastings is a town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, 24 mi (39 km) east of the county town of Lewes and 53 mi (85 km) south east of London. It has an estimated population of 90,254.
East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent to the north and east, Surrey to the north west and West Sussex to the west, and to the south by the English Channel.
The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but more commonly known as Britain, is a sovereign country lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
The group runs a national short story competition, the Legend Writing Award, and also produces an annual anthology, Strandline. Strandline won two national awards: Volume 3 won the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust anthology award and Volume 4 won the National Association of Writers' Groups' Denise Robertson Trophy for the best group anthology.
Meetings are held fortnightly on Monday evenings and the programme includes manuscript evenings with constructive criticism, guest speakers, workshops, and competitions with judges from the field of professional writing.
Canadian literature is literature originating from Canada. Canadian writers have produced a variety of genres. Influences on Canadian writers are broad, both geographically and historically.
David Andrew Gemmell was a British author of heroic fantasy, best known for his debut novel, Legend. A former journalist and newspaper editor, Gemmell had his first work of fiction published in 1984. He went on to write over thirty novels. Gemmell's works display violence, yet also explore themes of honour, loyalty and redemption. There is always a strong heroic theme but nearly always the heroes are flawed in some way. With over one million copies sold, his work continues to sell worldwide.
Timothy John Winton is an Australian writer of novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997 he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust, and has won the Miles Franklin Award four times.
Loren D. Estleman is an American writer of detective and Western fiction. He is known for a series of crime novels featuring the investigator Amos Walker.
Karen Joy Fowler is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and alienation.
Lee Battersby is an Australian author of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction. His story "Carrying The God" made him the first Western Australian winner in the Writers of the Future Competition in 2002, and was awarded the 2003 Ditmar Award for Best New Talent. His short story "Tales of Nireym" was a finalist in the Fantasy section of the 2005 Aurealis Awards, and "Pater Familias" won Best Horror Short Story in the 2006 awards. Another story, "Father Muerte & The Flesh", the third in his popular Father Muerte series, was awarded the inaugural Australian Shadows Award for outstanding literary achievement by the Australian Horror Writers Association in 2006. He won the award again in 2008 for "The Claws of Native Ghosts", a story which appeared in Graveside Tales' anthology "The Beast Within".
Gary A. Braunbeck is an American science fiction, fantasy, mystery and horror author.
Robert Maxwell Hood is an Australian writer and editor recognised as one of Australia's leading horror writers, although his work frequently crosses genre boundaries into science fiction, fantasy and crime.
Epoch is a triannual American literary magazine founded in 1947 and published by Cornell University. It has published well-known authors and award-winning work including stories reprinted in The Best American Short Stories series and poems later included in The Best American Poetry series. It publishes fiction, poetry, essays, graphic art, and sometimes cartoons and screenplays, but no literary criticism or book reviews.
Patrick James Rothfuss is an American writer of epic fantasy. He is best known for his series The Kingkiller Chronicle, which won him several awards, including the 2007 Quill Award for his debut novel, The Name of the Wind. Its sequel, The Wise Man's Fear, topped The New York Times Best Seller list.
Joe Abercrombie is a British fantasy writer and film editor. He is the author of The First Law trilogy, as well as other fantasy books in the same setting and a trilogy of young adult novels. His novel Half a King won the 2015 Locus Award for best Young Adult book.
Boey Kim Cheng is a Singapore-born Australian poet.
George Ronald Lewin CBE, later known as Ronald Lewin, was a British officer, publishing editor, radio producer and military historian.
Jack Elliott Myers, was an American poet and educator. He was Texas Poet Laureate in 2003, and served on the faculty of Southern Methodist University in Dallas for more than 30 years. He was director of creative writing at SMU from 2001 through 2009. Myers co-founded The Writer's Garret, a nonprofit literary center in Dallas, with his wife, Thea Temple. He published numerous books of and about poetry, and served as a mentor for aspiring writers at SMU and as part of the writers' community and mentoring project of The Writer's Garret.
Richard Dinnick is a British screenwriter, novelist, comic book writer and audio playwright.
PEN Center USA was a branch of PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. It was one of two PEN International Centers in the United States, the other being the PEN America in New York City. On March 1, 2018, PEN Center USA unified under the PEN America umbrella as the PEN America Los Angeles office. PEN Center USA was founded in 1943 and incorporated as a nonprofit association in 1981. Much of PEN Center USA's programming continues out of the PEN America Los Angeles office, including the Emerging Voices Fellowship, PEN In The Community writing residencies and guest speaker program, and PEN Presents conversation series.
Helen Lowe is a New Zealand novelist. Her first novel, Thornspell, was published in 2008. She has since published the first two books in The Wall of Night quartet, The Heir of Night and The Gathering of the Lost. Lowe is a three-time winner of the Sir Julius Vogel Award, and won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer in 2012.
Yu Bin Is a Chinese painter and writer. He now works as a professor in Guangzhou University, teaching Drama and Film Literature, Drama and Film Appreciation and Criticism, and Screenplay Writing.
Michael Knost is the pen name of Michael Collins, a suspense author, anthology editor, magazine feature writer, and writing teacher/lecturer who lives in Charleston, West Virginia.