My dear wordsmiths,

Another week of juggling. Another weeks of high and low emotions in the world of journalism. Another week of berating yourself for not doing enough writing on the side. I guess that is reality for most of us.

The reality is this Substack has taken a back step while the company I work for shakes its way back into place following a buyout and subsequent restructure. Life has also been life-ing as it tends to and I admit, my life goal of becoming a published author (a novelist as you will) is on shaky ground. Writing the actual novels is far from enough. But the Write Reject Repeating continues!

Swanning about at the House of Lords

The good news is the fog is lifting to coincide with summer so I’m back. I even left the desk last week to travel down to ‘That London’ and take up an invite to the House of Lords for a fabulous event on a terrace next to the Thames. Thankyou to Baroness Jo Valentine and the ladies at the EVAs award for the invite - the afternoon tea was delicious and I made some great contacts. It also coincided with the start of the warm weather. I left freezing rain in Lancashire in the morning to find warm sun down south for the first time this year. You can read about the event HERE. (via Lancashire Post).

Podcast awe

I also spent recent a slow Sunday listening to multiple news podcasts from big national brands to judge the Society of Editor’s inaugural Podcast Awards. My career has taken me away from podcast recently (sadly), and I’ve paused my weekend radio presenting as my bandwidth had reached zero and I wasn’t able to give it the attention it deserved, so it was lovely to feel a little back. I was judging a category of big hitters (I won’t say which category) but us regional podcasters can only dream of the resources and talent that make these happen. I was in awe and as always, incredibly indecisive. The shortlist has been announced - read all about it (via Society of Editors).

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Writing

I have completed the latest draft of my novel but I’m not done yet.. it never ends does it! The novel is a dual timeline story of love and loss centred around Chatsworth House in Derbyshire - which is definitely a main character. Send me motivational quotes and memes - I need them.

Lambs

For those who follow this Substack entirely for the countryside content, the lambs are now thriving after early tragedy die to weather conditions (they are were largely born in a freezing torrential storm). This little one, who lost his sister at birth and whose mother has no milk, is being bottle fed. With plenty of optimism, he tends to come running if you walk outside with a phone in your hand.

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BOOK FESTIVALS

It’s peak book festival season, here’s is what is on my radar x 3:

JOURNALISM

‘The future of journalism is local’ with £1.2m fund

One of the title’s under my day job stewardship as Editor in chief for Iconic Media North West, the Wigan Observer, had a mention in Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy's speech at the Society of Editors 2026 'The Future of News' conference, held at the Leonardo Royal Hotel, City of London.

It’s a long speech which tackles everything from the importance of local journalism to tackling the ‘manosphere’ so I won’t share it all - but it was used to announce we well received £12m funding for the local news industry in a bid to safeguard world-class local news coverage for millions. The devil as we all know is in the as-yet unavailable detail so watch this space.

Help shape future of journalism

WAN-IFRA, in partnership with FT Strategies, invites you to take part in the Future Newsrooms Study by sharing your perspective in a global survey focused on how newsrooms are adapting to structural change. At a time when editorial teams are integrating AI, responding to audience fragmentation and managing significant cost pressures, your input has never been more critical.

“What characterises the world’s most successful news organisations is a relentless commitment to evolving their newsrooms to meet ever-growing audience expectations. In today’s AI-driven era, where editorial tools, audience needs, and the competitive landscape are changing at unprecedented speed.”

Until next week! N x

My dear wordsmiths,

Welcome back OGs and hello to my new subscribers. You really are a lovely lot and very welcome to Write Reject Repeat. I’m Nicola and if you’re new - it’s lovely to meet you. I’m a journalist and writer based in the north of England with a penchant for prevarication and semi-tame pheasant in the garden. May the words be sliding smoothly on to your pages, the inspiration flowing and the publishing gods be amongst you.

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Just to be real, this past month I have been fighting and failing to find the headspace amid my day job in journalism leadership to find the space to write, or think about writing or querying at all. Doom scrolling past writers with huge book deals and no day jobs is the extent of of my professional research plus lying awake at night berating myself on lack of progress. My mental health is being held together largely by coffee and the antics of viral abandoned baby monkey Punch. If you know you know - and if you don’t, you are a social media-free Queen or King.

Due to a restructure of the company I work for (Iconic Media - formerly National World), I have now been appointed as Editor in chief for North West England. This is a role which will, amongst other responsibilities, see me resume my former post as Editor of the Lancashire Post (LEP), the finest daily newspaper and website in history (not biased at all). Let’s be honest, I’ll always be known as that girl from the LEP - whatever I do so it makes full circle sense.

As a result of this ongoing change, these ramblings have taken several weeks (and should have been out last week and also last night). I’ve written a paragraph here and a paragraph there so hopefully it makes some sort of sense. It won’t be my finest work but it’s out and sometimes you have to remind yourself that showing up is a start.

An ode to Barbara

Sadly, I couldn’t take up my invite for the plaque unveiling of the late Barbara Taylor Bradford’s blue plaque in Leeds yesterday (Thursday Feb 26) as I’m now back in the North West of England (where I belong) after a stint looking after the Yorkshire Evening Post team.

Instead my colleague Laura (now Editor of YEP again..) and reporter Charles Gray were there. Even actress Brenda Blethyn was there as she will lead the cast of of the brand-new adaptation of Barbara’s epic Woman of Substance novel which will be broadcast by Channel 4 from March 11. Jessica Reynolds and Emmett J. Scanlan also star.

BTB, as she has been fondly referred to, is an absolute legend to writers or journalists. She started her career in the typing pool at YEP and later became women’s editor, blazing a trail for female writers and journalists everywhere. A Woman of Substance became her debut novel in 1979. It was an international phenomenon and has sold over 32 million copies to date. The rest is bookish history.

There’s a lovely writeup of the event by Charles at the Yorkshire Evening Post HERE. BTB may have been an advocate for powerful women - but he’s promised to read Women of Substance as well after attending.

Writers, get in touch..

In other news I’m planning to reintroduce the writer Q&A element of WRR on occasion. So if you are an author, a journalist, a literary agent or anyone involves in these industries, share your personal situation or your knowledge. Don’t be shy!

And which of you lovely writerly types has your own You Tube channel? I want to showcase the very best..

Writing and journalism news, events, and opportunities

JOURNALISM

Publisher Podcast Awards 2026

The Publisher Podcast Awards for their seventh year, celebrating the brilliant audio work created by publishing companies. Entries are now open and will close on May 6. The awards themselves will take place at Huckster, near Paddington, London in the evening following The Publisher Summit and The Publisher Newsletter Awards on July 8. More information HERE

Wincott Awards for financial journalism

There is just one week left to enter this year’s Wincott Awards for financial and business journalism. Awards are for work completed in 2025 and the deadline is March 2, 2026.

Categories, with cash prizes up to £5,000, include Journalist of the Year, Video journalism of the Year, Audio journalism of the Year, Data journalism of the Year – Personal finance journalist of the Year, Young Journalist of the Year and Journalist of the Year, UK Nations and Regions. Entries via Google form HERE

BOOKS & WRITING

World Book day in Liverpool

National reading charity World Book Day is partnering with shared reading charity The Reader for a fun-filled day in Liverpool’s Calderstones Park on Thursday 5 March, bringing the joy of reading to 1,000 children as part of the National Year of Reading.

Yoto Daily podcast host Jake Harris will lead the celebrations, joined by World Book Day ambassador MC Grammar and a line-up of authors and illustrators including Katie Blackburn, Paddy Donnelly, Hannah Gold, Jamie Smart, Matt Oldfield, Serena Patel, Sheena Dempsey and Sibéal Pounder.

What’s Your Story Chorley

Chorley’s festival of words, stories and creativity is back for a full month of events throughout March 2026. The programme includes literature, comedy, workshops, performances, trails and hands-on creative experiences. Activities will take place across Chorley town centre, Astley Park, Chorley Theatre, Chorley Library, Reel Cinema, Ebb and Flo book shop, Market Walk and other partner venues.

Highlights of this year’s festival range from outdoor children’s book cover exhibition in Astley Park to a Comic Con weekend with exhibitors, arcades and cosplay in the Town Hall and discounted movies at Reel Cinema for ticket holders. There will be a talk and book signing with Jodie Ounsley, BBC’s Gladiator Fury.. and much more.

Heathcliff gets an Audible outing

Reworkings of classic novels and their characters are all the rage currently. Audible, a leading provider of spoken word entertainment, have announced their new audio production, ‘Heathcliff’, produced with Brock Media. The Audible Original returns to Brontë’s novel, taking a close look at Heathcliff’s origins in a feverish re-imagining of literature’s most infamous romantic villain. With Cathy’s rejection burning hot in his ears, Heathcliff flees the moors and arrives in London, seeking distraction and oblivion.

The Audible Original stars Daryl McCormack (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) in the title role; with Arinzé Kene (The Pass), Charlie Rowe (Slow Horses), Gracie Oddie-James (The Lady from the Sea), Sagar Radia (Industry), Raffey Cassidy (The Brutalist) and Tanya Moodie (Silo) rounding out the cast.

Leeds Lit Fest launches GoFundMe

Returning for its eighth year, the award-winning festival of words and thought will take place across a variety of Leeds’ creative spaces and aims to bring belonging and community to the city’s literary scene with writers, poets and performers from both near and far.

Fiona Gell, Director of Leeds Lit Fest CIC, said: “We need help to do this. We are a volunteer run organisation and get little external funding We have set up a GoFundMe page for Leeds Lit Fest and will be continuing with our fundraising events in the lead up to the Festival. Leeds Lit Fest 2026 will take place from Saturday 6 to Sunday 14 June. Further information for the Lit Fest can be found at www.leedslitfest.co.uk. The GoFundMe page is https://gofund.me/a4f86f12a

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Author puts his ‘Mind’ to fundraising

A car park has become the unlikely stage for an inspiring fundraising story. Author Edward Evans has raised an incredible £20,000 for Leeds Mind, transforming his passion for writing into a powerful force for mental health support.

Edward’s creative initiative offers car park visitors in Haworth, Yorkshire, free parking with the purchase of his novel, The Foundry Man’s Apprentice. For every book sold, £1 is donated to Leeds Mind, helping fund vital mental health services across Leeds and West Yorkshire.

Edward Evans said, “Mental health touches everyone in some way and I wanted my writing to do more than tell a story - I wanted it to make a difference. Supporting Leeds Mind means helping people access the support they need, and that’s something I’m proud to be part of.”

If you read this far I’m sending appreciation. Always great to hear from you - and don’t forget to like and subscribe Nx

My dear wordsmiths,

Breaking news - I’ve kept to my word and actually entered two writing competitions as promised - thanks for being my accountability buddies. Was I 100% happy with my entries? Of course not, this is me we are talking about. But sometimes ‘one’ has to get over oneself and just do it. It’s currently an extremely tough time right now as stress levels are high for various reasons I won’t bore you with. So any small wins amidst the mind demons do go a small way to remind us why we exist.

For further super inspiring Ted Talks such as this don’t forget to subscribe (not really - I mean subscribe but not for that ;-) If you are new here - hello and welcome! I’m Nicola - journalism leader by day and querying author by night and you may even catch me behind a radio desk or a podcast mic - or having an existential crisis. Lovely to meet you.

Thankyou to my small and appreciated pot of paying subscribers who reacted to my narrative non -fiction extract last week. All feedback was taken on board. I’ve shared a second extract today - send me your edits!

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Life in the fields of Lancashire continues apace, with cold, vain (they spend a lot of time staring at themselves in our garden mirror), pheasants and stoic sheep as well as dramas involving the septic tank that I will not share, just in case you are eating your dinner. In case you are wondering, this country life (I mean, I’m only 15 mins from a motorway junction), also involves no mains gas. Instead we have an oil tank. And incredibly we have no proper phone signal - it is internet assisted only.

This means if the power goes out (happens regularly), we have no internet, which also means no phone signal and no communication with the outside world. This is all reminding me of when I moved in during lockdown and had to do a radio show from home (only one person in the studio at once) but we had no internet so I did a full four hour BBC radio show in a freezing supermarket car park. Fun times.

National year of reading 2026

I’ve never felt so enabled in my life. Next time I decide to curl up with a book and ignore the world I feel entirely justified. Send me your recommendations.

In 2026, the National Year of Reading is reconnecting reading with the things that already inspire us – from playlists and football matches to films, food and family time. It’s reading that fits how we live, not the other way around.

Books on my reading list this month include:

• Other people’s houses by Clare Mackintosh: I love a thriller, I love a twist and I love a perusal of Right Move - so this is going straight in my basket.

• The running club by Ali Lowe: I’m planning to read this as I need reassurance that anyone who joins a running club must be a serial killer. (If my friend Emilie is reading this, I’m sorry, but.. )

• If you know me, you know I’m very much not a self-help book aficionado but my above mentioned friend (runner and possible serial killer) recommended me this after I had one sip of wine and burst into tears. I then realised it’s on the best seller list. Change your paradigm, change your life by Bob Proctor (I’ve been told to get the Audible version).

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Bookish news and events

May 12 to June 14: Chester Lit Fest

Hamnet author Maggie O’Farrell, Sir Lenny Henry and TV historian Kate Williams are among the headliners announced for this year’s Chester Literature Festival. Wildlife cameraman and presenter Hamza Yassim, social historian Kate Goodman and Indian history expert William Dalrymple will also appear at the 2026 celebration of storytelling and the written word which takes place at Storyhouse from 12 May to 14 June. On Saturday May 16 journalist and Newsround/Countryfile legend John Craven shares The Stories Behind the Headlines with Chester audiences.

Sir Lenny Henry goes to Storyhouse on Sunday May 17 with a new live show which is part stand-up, part storytelling and part conversation (with himself). And much-loved natural history storyteller and Strictly Come Dancing champion Hamza Yassim ( I saw him speak last year at Southport Flower Show - he’s great fun) visits on Tuesday May 19 to talk about My Life Behind the Lens.

Chester Literature Festival is Storyhouse’s annual celebration of books, poetry and storytelling and remains one of the longest-running annual literature events in the country. There’s much more on agenda, look it up HERE.

Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival

Harrogate International Festivals has this week announced the full line up of Special Guests for the 2026 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, which takes place from 23-26 July.

Ann Cleeves and Brenda Blethyn, Anthony Horowitz, Holly Jackson, Chris Brookmyre, Chris Whitaker, Jane Harper and LJ Ross join previously announced headliners Nadine Matheson, Gillian McAllister, Steve Cavanagh, Alice Feeney and David Baldacci. Now in its twenty-third year, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival is taking place the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, a packed programme of fascinating panels, talks and inspiring creative workshops showcases the very best of the world’s most popular genre.

Headline events include:

• An unmissable event for Vera fans as writer Ann Cleeves and actor Brenda Blethyn, who played DCI Vera Stanhope for fourteen years, take an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the much-loved TV series, and Cleeves unveils her latest Vera Stanhope novel.

• Hugely successful author and TV writer Anthony Horowitz returns to the Festival hot on the heels of smash-hit BBC TV dramas Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders to showcase his latest novel.

• Making her Festival debut Holly Jackson, mega bestselling author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, introduces her new unputdownable thriller, Not Quite Dead Yet.

• ‘Queen of the psychological thriller’ and 2026 Festival Chair Lisa Jewell in conversation with Lee Child, iconic creator of the Jack Reacher novels.

Full details about the festival HERE

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage pens poem inspired by real people’s cancer experiences

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage penned a new poem for World Cancer Day (4 February 2026), inspired by the experiences of people affected by cancer in Yorkshire and the vital contributions of researchers and charity supporters seeking to find and fund cures.

Commissioned by Yorkshire Cancer Research, the poem, entitled “The Campaign”, pays tribute to a century of progress in cancer prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, while highlighting the work still needed to create a future free from cancer – in Yorkshire and beyond.

Because we famously speak as we find
we said the word cancer out loud, called it a dragon,
went looking for trouble and picked a fight.
When it reared up in the liver we went into action,
outflanked it, stoned it with tablets and pills.
When it hid in the kidneys or blood we rootled it out,
chased it into the open then shooed it over the hill.

Extract from ‘The Campaign’ by poet Simon Armitage

The Yorkshire-born poet Simon Armitage was initially inspired by a defining moment in the charity’s history: its first public fundraising appeal 100 years ago. In January 1926, at the Queen’s Hotel in Leeds, the charity’s first Honorary Secretary, Sir Harold Mackintosh, issued a rallying call across Yorkshire to “deliver the attack upon cancer, the great enemy of mankind, and become the new Saint George in the work of slaying the dragon.” These words sparked an extraordinary wave of generosity, raising £140,000 (equivalent to more than £7 million today) for cancer research in Yorkshire and laying the foundation for a century of saving lives in the region and beyond.

The poem was shared for the first time at the University of Leeds this week, where Simon is Professor of Poetry and where Yorkshire Cancer Research has funded pioneering cancer breakthroughs for a century. More here via Cancer Research.

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National Storytelling Week returns from Monday 2 February to Sunday 8 February

Communities across the UK are being encouraged to celebrate the stories that shape us, how they are told, how they sound, and how they are passed from one generation to the next. Led by the National Literacy Trust, the annual initiative champions storytelling as a vital tool for literacy, creativity and connection, particularly for children and young people.

In the seaside town of Blackpool, Blackpool Grand Theatre is spotlighting its growing body of story-led work with children and unveiling a brand-new recorded story created especially for the celebration, titled ‘Echoes of a Living Stage’. You can download here.

Get your pen out, here’s the second short extract from my narrative historical non-fiction draft (this is only experimental)

Thread Count (continues)

As an only child, she was returning to John, the distant cotton factory-manager father she barely knew, and to the bungalow in Cawnpore – Hazelwood - they called home. Mummy, or Vera as she called her sometimes obtusely, was, after her protracted stay in England gradually transforming back into the Memsahib once more as they inched their way back as slowly as a tortoise from Glasgow via Liverpool toward the country of still, fierce heat, of afternoon tea and even later afternoon naps.

In England for months and away from her position as John’s wife and the club, Vera’s light had been dimmed somehow, and her daughter could see the spark beginning to re-ignite as they steamed slowly away from Glasgow’s docklands and its gathering youthful storm of naval recruits who looked at Norma in a way she wasn’t used to, a way she quite liked but yet frightened her. It made Vera gaze at her, speculatively.

Norma only remembered the country of her birth faintly, largely from repeating her gradually more embellished tales to her fascinated friends over the years during illicit midnight feasts and supper-time firesides. But mainly she recalled the spiders, the warmth, the servants who loitered in the shadows and the face of her childhood Aya, her world.

The ship was called the SS Castalia and the best the Anchor Line India service to Bombay could offer at the time. War was greedy for ships as the hostilities ignited and the Castalia was solid enough with its huge steam chimney, cavernous freight hold and substantial cabin class accommodation for ninety to 100.

But Norma had hoped for more after a final term of study and exams and pressure, so had had held lofty ambitions of swanky suites and brand new luxurious quarters with gold taps and buckets of ice and plates of food, glorious, food. She had held court and in her bravado at leaving, boasted of such in her dormitory at Penrhos College for girls, her home from home that had at the declaration of (blasted) war moved lock stock and barrel to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, the grandest home anyone could wish for.

She and 300 fellow students had learned, had argued, had slept amongst the grand masters in rooms intended for visiting royalty, not snoring schoolgirls whose breath bred mould behind the works of art. They had learned that grandeur and vast gardens and beauty had not always translated to warmth or comfort as they dried their hair in front of dwindling fires and learned piano crammed amongst stored furniture, and in freezing corridors.

Until next week! N

My dear wordsmiths,

Wow, you guys. I’ll have to take a break more often as it’s clearly the secret to adding subscribers and making new friends. Hello to all you newcomers - writers, journalists, travel types and lovers of the grind - I see you and appreciate you. Let’s meander into 2026 together as nobody needs to put any more pressure on themselves than that, something I’ve learned the hard way. Please subscribe, we need each other.

If you are new, I’ll introduce myself. I’m Nicola, by day a journalist/editor and by night a writer of novels. I also work as presenter and podcaster and live in the glorious Lancashire countryside, which is definitely the main character in my life right now. Expect pheasant updates.

My delightful paid subscribers, I have decided to share some of my work with you (and you alone) under the paywall, let me know what you think. This particular extract is not a manuscript currently, more an exploration of what is possible.

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I took a break from here at the end of last year as it was all a bit much. I also put my radio show on hold and even took a break from the gym. I did manage to take a few breaks because I felt like I was toppling over. I’m sure you know the feeling if you managing all the things on top of the day job or family or the the myriad things that boot us off course..

I was hoping this would get me into the editing process from my latest novel but nothing got done over Christmas when I was partially working anyway- but I’ve given myself a new year deadline so I’m (sort of) reinvigorated. I tried not to stress over the festive period and moved into 2026 dressed vaguely as Claudia Winkleman in Traitors mode (wig and all, see heavily edited image) and now the new year is here. Let’s move on - my eyes are still recovering from the black eyeliner (how does she do it?)

Writing competitions

..are definitely the future for querying writers like myself. I’ve decided to enter everything this year because - why not! The key is to enter then forget you ever entered, so if you do get shortlisted it’s a bonus and if not, you don’t notice. 2026 is the year we do not to self flagellate in the misery of rejection because everyone gets rejected, it’s a fact of life. Here are four open for entries:

• Deadline May 26, 2026: The Bath Novel Award 2026 is a £5,000 international prize for adult and YA novels of every genre. Open to unagented writers, who are unpublished, self-published or independently published without advance and of every age, gender, nationality and residency. Entry fee £33 per novel, with sponsored places available for writers on a low income.

• Deadline May 31, 2026: Bridport Prize (Poetry, short story, flash fiction categories) 42 lines of poetry for a possible £5,000 poetry prize, £5,000 for short story (Gail Honeyman won this before her breakthrough) and £1,000 for flash fiction - 20 words max. Entry £12-£15 depending on category.

• Deadline March 16, 2026: Submissions opened yesterday for the 21st BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University 2026 (NSSA) The winning author receives £15,000, and four further shortlisted authors £600 each.

  Many of Britain’s most renowned writers have won or been shortlisted for the NSSA including Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, William Trevor, Jon McGregor, Deborah Levy, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, Tessa Hadley, Mark Haddon, Sarah Hall, Helen Oyeyemi, Lucy Caldwell and Rose Tremain.

• Deadline March 23, 2026: The BBC Young Writers’ Award for young people aged 14-18 is also open for submissions ( teachers resources also available). The judges are Lily Fontaine, lead singer of Mercury Music Prize 2024 winning band ‘English Teacher’, award-winning children’s author David Almond and Carnegie Medal for Writing 2025 winner Margaret McDonald, with Chair, Radio 1 presenter Lauren Layfield.

  Book news

• New crime fiction festival: Some of the biggest names in crime writing could be heading to Lancashire later this year, as part of the inaugural Preston Crime Fiction Festival, says the Lancashire Post. The event is the brainchild of Preston’s acclaimed thriller writer, Christie J. Newport.

• The book censorship police have been busy in one US state with three more books banned in Utah, say KSL 102.7FM. The worrying thing is this is not even unexpected any more. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire are banned alongside Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes.

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  Journalism news

• The new cohort for the JI Leaders course has been announced. I took part a few back (I was kindly sponsored by Google - those were the days). Loads of top journalism leaders are on this year’s roster so good luck chaps! Read all about it here

• The Society of Editors has announced the launch of the News Podcast Awards 2026, the first UK awards dedicated exclusively to recognising excellence in news podcast journalism. Opening for entries next month, with winners announced at an awards lunch in central London in June 2026. Read all about it and how to enter here.

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  Extract from my latest work - thoughts?

  I think any of you writers out there know how vulnerable sharing your work in progress can be. This is not the novel I am currently re-drafting but a short extract from a narrative non-fiction work I have been working on, very much based on my grandmother’s story as a young girl who after attending boarding school in England throughout her childhood and wartime, then faced return to her Indian birthplace at a critical and controversial time in history. Her parents, with roots in northern England, were based in Cawnpore working in the cotton industry aka ‘The British Raj’.

  
  But I may fictionalise this into a novel…and the Norma’s diary section is word for word. Here goes…
  

  Prelude

  The thread dangles. It twists, it turns, it tangles, it splits. From the mother, to the child, to the grandchild to the cousin once removed, it is animate and glowing, it is an invisible legacy. Love. Prejudice. Power. Politics. Colour. Inequality. It’s the never-ending terraced rows of back to back houses against the bleak October skylines in Lancashire, the humidity of the dusty streets in India, the backbreaking field work, and the sweating factories. It winds through the once-noisy red-brick Manchester mills that are now gastro-pubs or hotels with 100-thread count sheets or no longer there. It is the generations of privilege, the nebulous of need, the cruelties of haves and have-nots and the realities of exploitation. It shaped the map, it is deep in pride, and deeper in shame, it is lost and found and wanting, it so cheap yet expensive and forgotten. It is India, it is England, it is north.

  It is cotton.

  And it makes me itch.
  

  Chapter 1. Norma

  Norma’s diary: Tuesday January 9^th, 1940, port of Glasgow

  Arose 7.30. Went down to quay 8.30. Saw inspection etc. on board, collected luggage. Saw Ark Royal, Queen Elizabeth and two battle(ships). Sailed. Bed 9.30. Read.

  The girl, or maybe she’s a young woman now, stands on the deck of the ship slightly bored already, as this was to be a very long and testing voyage. Her mother, dressed in her embarkation finery and entranced by the presence of so many slightly-known families after such a long stretch in the social wilderness of England and Wales, was conversing intently with Sir and Lady whatever their name was. Their small and bundled up daughter held a seagull feather in the air, seemingly entranced by the patterns made by the gusting winds in its white and grey fluff.

  Norma, for that was the young woman’s name, already knew the child to be too young and dull to be her companion, as they had travelled together by train and car from the school which had been her home until the end of winter term just weeks before. She was sad to have left, though furious was a better word, as it was her happy place and contained her friends who would stay until they were 17 or 18. She too would have remained had it not been for the blasted war she thought, forcing her home with mother across the endless seas and oceans, past the dolphins, the jellyfish and the strange shores. It was exciting yet infuriating all at once. A rude and inconsiderate end to her largely happy schooldays, an emotional goodbye to the girls she has known since she was six and to the teachers she both loved and hated depending on the day. It was a farewell to her childhood and all because some politicians couldn’t get along, because men wanted to kill each other. Now she was 16, and full of ideas for the future, full of dreams and longings, fear and anger she couldn’t pin down. But it had been now or never, a choice between boarding a last ship home before the things got worse, or facing a long war entirely alone without her family, without her mother.

• I’ll share part 2 next week if the appetite is there - please let me know. Thanks to my ride or dies..Back soon Nx

  
  

  
  

My dear wordsmiths,

Welcome to my 101st post - which means I have prevaricated from actual writing 101 times! I want to thankyou for your loyalty at a time I have not been able to post as frequently due to work, travel and life. I have frozen any paid memberships for the time being as a gesture toward that but I’m not going anywhere. Well I am, which is part of the problem.. more on that later.

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If we’ve not met - hi! - I’m Nicola. By day I’m a journalism leader in the regional news sector by night a querying author and by weekend a radio presenter. Here I talk about journalism, about writing, about querying, my travels and life in the Lancashire countryside.

I’ve been thinking about the late Barbara Taylor Bradford and the other other women of romantic fiction recently. Perhaps because of the death of another titan - Jilly Cooper- but maybe more because of my temporary role stepping in at the Yorkshire Evening Post as editor during a period of change in the company.

Fun fact: Barbara used to work at the Leeds-based Yorkshire Evening Post before she embarked on a career as an author that would see her sell millions of books. Jilly Cooper also started on newspapers as a columnist. I might as well admit now that I became a journalist because of Barbara Taylor Bradford. It was her strong female characters pushing a head in a male dominated world that informed me I could break down some doors, though I would have given anything for her characters’ style and confidence.

I learned everything from them as a naive, sheltered, child with my head in a book. It was fiction that informed me about how the world works, about what is possible, and yes - due to the nature of the books - about sex, love and rock roll. These were my late mother’s books, not mine, and you can’t put an age restriction on a bookshelf (though she tried).

Anyway, it was reading which ensured a shy, socially awkward ( I still am essentially both despite my bursts of media confidence), child had a huge vocabulary and knowledge of things she probably had no business knowing about. I didn’t need the Spice Girls or the internet to give me firepower - I Had a Woman of Substance from aged eight. Anyone else learn life lessons from fiction?

By the time you read this I’ll be on my travels again, something I’m always extremely grateful for but I have to admit I still have not mastered packing light - quite the opposite - and I’m owning it. I’m USA bound..

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It’s never too late - Dreadnought by Vincent Kelly

My former journalism tutor has published his first book aged 92. I was delighted to see Vincent Kelly’s name pop up. He was was my course tutor on my (post grad) journalism course a lifetime ago and I’m delighted to see his latest achievement as a writer focused on his greatest passion - football.

I got on very well with Vincent, who was the first of very many journalists throughout the years to be baffled at my lack of football (soccer) knowledge. Luckily, I’m not a sports reporter and never claimed to have a clue. Of course I now know more than I ever though about football through being editor of various titles and having an Everton season-ticket holding husband doesn’t help. (Polite reminder not everyone is brought up in football household.. I was a competitive swimmer.

Vincent’s book is called Dreadnought and it tells the story of terrace legend Andrew Alexander, whose tragic demise mirrors the decline of the game he loved.

It’s not about the game anymore. The beautiful game. The beauty of it has been torn out in the pursuit of riches. The game now is money.
This debut novel from journalist Vincent Kelly charts the selling of the soul of football. How a combination of greed, media manipulation, and grubby backdoor deals have tainted what used to be known as the people’s game.
Told through the tragedy of a legendary terrace hero, Dreadnought is a page-turning thriller that reveals a murky world where what happens in the 90 minutes of the match is incidental to the high-stakes business of football. Dreadnought by Vincent Kelly is available now on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats.

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Where has the poetry gone? Rhyme and Reason by Mark Forsythe

Bestselling author Mark Forsyth wants to know where all the poetry in everyday life has gone. In his new book, which was published this week, Rhyme & Reason: A Short History of Poetry and People (for People Who Don’t Usually Read Poetry), Forsyth writes that many people think poetry isn’t for them. They see it as difficult, unapproachable, and the preserve of academics, intellectuals, and bohemians. But it wasn’t always this way.

Rhyme & Reason takes you from a medieval accountant (called Chaucer) trying to entertain his lord, past a doomed love affair in the Tower of London, through adoring sonnets and notebooks filled with dirty poems, and into the heart of Byromania and the Victorian hearth, to help you understand why poetry has had such an enduring hold on the British psyche.

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Charles Wheeler award

The BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg has received the Charles Wheeler Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcast Journalism at University of Westminster

Organised by the British Journalism Review (BJR) and the University of Westminster, with support from the Journalists’ Charity, the annual Charles Wheeler Award was presented this year to BBC News Russia editor Steve Rosenberg at the University’s historic Regent Street Cinema. Steve Rosenberg has been reporting from Russia since 2000 and named as its Russia Editor in 2022.

Regional Press Awards

You have just over a week to enter the Regional Press Awards for the second entry deadline (Friday October 31) - there are 22 categories. You can find out more HERE

My favourite story of the week: ‘A disabled sheep called Bunny was ring bearer at our wedding at an animal sanctuary in Wakefield’ Via Yorkshire Evening Post

BBC to broadcast live from Leeds Trinity University as part of Journalism and Media Week 2025

A dedicated ‘BBC Day’, including a live broadcast of Radio 4’s PM show from Leeds Trinity University’s Main Campus in Horsforth, are among the standout features of a packed Journalism and Media Week programme in 2025.

Well known BBC journalists such as Evan Davis and Reeta Chakrabarti will be joined by the likes of BAFTA winning screenwriter and producer Russell T Davies, the first female editor-in-chief of The Guardian Katharine Viner, and former BBC North America editor and host of the hugely successful The News Agents podcast, Jon Sopel, for the 17th year of the event.

Organised by Leeds Trinity’s Centre for Journalism, it takes place Monday 10 to Thursday 13 November. The event provides students with a valuable opportunity to learn from a range of experienced media professionals working in TV, radio and podcasting, print, film, and beyond.

Thanks for reading, please get in touch if you have anything you would like me to talk about or have something for me to highlight. Have a great week! Nxx

My dear wordsmiths,

I’m back after my my 14 hour return flight from South Korea (it was a mere 12 on the way there) and still jet lagged days later but it was worth it. Who has watched K-Pop dragon hunters? Before my trip I had not. But K-everything is having a cultural moment and now I learn this animated, musical, film is number one on UK Netflix.

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I was super impressed with Seoul and the Koreans in general (and yes I saw some K-pop and acquired a load of ‘glass skin’ Korean skincare). I would highly recommend a visit to this friendly country, where crime is low and friendliness abounds - it’s fascinating.

Guns and postcards

I also visited the North Korean border, known as the DMZ or demilitarised zone, where I met a defector who abandoned everything for a chance to live in a freer world. Growing up, she was taught she was the happiest child on earth and lucky to live in North Korea away from the miseries of the western world. Learning was restricted, movement was restricted, thought was restricted and you will be jailed for wearing jeans or sharing a birthday with Kim Jong Un. In 2025. George Orwell eat your heart out.

I talk about this in my as yet unpublished feature but the clash of what feels like a tourist destination and heavily protected no mans land (you will be shot if you point a camera in the wrong direction) is jarring. Want to buy a postcard of a jolly looking Ung and Trump or a hand grenade keyring? Fine. But step out of line and you are dead.

As I’m helping out at Yorkshire Evening post as editor currently, I obviously found a Leeds story in South Korea. I was astonished when a young Korean man told me the phrase ‘Leeds era’ is not just popular but has made it’s way into every day Korean - and it all stems back to Leeds United. READ HERE

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Also my latest travel piece from the ‘real’ Love Island in the Maldives is now online: READ HERE

Happy Birthday to Harper Collins North

It’s not without irony that I accepted an invite to the Harper Collins North birthday party last night - but have as yet failed to persuade them to take me on as a client. It’s a strange thing generally as I am the recipient of constant bombarding of press releases and book launches from all sorts of publishers and authors while frequently wishing I was at the other side as well. I’m not bitter at all about this as I genuinely enjoy the involvement with the industry and sometimes I get unique access. I just need to work on my published author manifestation.

The good news is I did not pitch my novel to every agent I met.. or is that bad news? Even with fizz inside me my confidence wavers wildly and I probably missed my opportunity when i found myself face to face with names I recognise. The self sabotage is real.

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I can remember five years ago when Harper Collins North announced it was making its way up to Manchester as it felt like a gift. Although the British publishing industry remains very London-focused to this day, the proliferation of northern outposts including publishers, indie imprints and northern focused agents, remains strong - long may it last.

Anyway, I met some lovely authors and agents and sampled some prosecco (great for jet lag I’m told). A very Happy Birthday to HCN and I will continue fighting the good fight on behalf of your amazing authors. Thankyou for your hospitality at the party which was held at Manchester’s National Football Museum. It was fascinating to hear from Harper Collins CEO Charlie Redmayne who, amongst his many achievements, is Eddie Redmayne’s brother.. (he must hate people mentioning it but hey - I’m a journalist)!

Red Dwarf writer pens his first children’s book

Emmy award winning Red Dwarf writer Doug Naylor is bringing his debut children’s novel to be in conversation with Frank Cottrell Boyce in Liverpool on Thursday 9th October.

Sin Bin Island mixes the classic adventure ingredients of a foreboding orphanage, compelling characters and intriguing mystery, with magic, a spot of surrealism and a whole heap of funny. It is perfect for fans of Frank Cottrell-Boyce, David Baddiel and M.G. Leonard and has been gathering high profile praise since publication just this month, not least from Red Dwarf actor Craig Charles who has described it as 'Brilliant, totally brilliant. Exciting. Heart-stopping. Hilarious. And touching too. It's the book I always wanted to read as a kid but could never find.’

Doug will be in conversation with Frank as they discuss the enduring appeal of writing funny stories for TV and now for children, the origins of Sin Bin Island and what Doug’s learnt along the way; with quite possibly some Red Dwarf anecdotes thrown in for good measure! More info HERE

Ilkley Literature Festival

Journalists, authors and politicians are being welcomed to the festival, which runs from 3 to 19 October, for its 2025 strand: Talking Politics.

Guests include Steve Richards, one of the UK’s leading political columnists and former Chief Whip and Conservative MP Simon Hart Other appearances will include The Times political columnist Patrick Maguire and Sunday Times Whitehall Editor Gabriel Pogrund, The economist and trusted BBC Verify correspondent Ben Chu and correspondent and leading expert on China, Michael Sheridan will also appear plus former senior politician and professional economist Vince Cable.

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Leading authors appearing this year at the festival include Jung Chang, Mary Portas, Alan Davies, Jay Rayner, Hugh Bonneville, Nick Clegg, Ruby Tandoh, Simon Armitage, Michael Palin, Lady Hale, Rachel Joyce, and Irvine Welsh. You can BOOK HERE or call the Box Office: 01943 816714.

Online event - Preserving the local newspaper archives project

Journalists - You may be interested in an online event coming up about archiving alternative local newspapers Archiving the People's Papers: Learning from Leeds, Liverpool & Birmingham. The free online panel takes place on Tuesday 30 Sept at 3pm. For further details and to book HERE

Booker Prize shortlist is announced

I’m a bit late to the party on this but the shortlist is out and it’s mainly established authors with no debuts. As Roddy Doyle, Chair of the Booker Prize 2025 judges, says: ‘The six [shortlisted books] have two big things in common. Their authors are in total command of their own store of English, their own rhythm, their own expertise; they have each crafted a novel that no one else could have written.”

The shortlist:

• Flashlight by Susan Choi

• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny  by Kiran Desai

• Audition by Katie Kitamura 

• The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits

• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

• Flesh by David Szalay

Doyle and fellow judges Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Power and Kiley Reid, selected this year’s shortlist from 153 works of long-form fiction, written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025. The winning book will be announced on Monday, 10 November at a ceremony in London, and the winning author will receive £50,000. Read more via the Booker Prizes website HERE

Thanks for reading this far - have a lovely week! N

My dear wordsmiths,

It’s a tough media landscape right now (if you know, you know) but on the bright side I’m on leave next week and heading to Seoul. I probably won’t sleep a wink in the 12 hours plus journey so it’s a fabulous opportunity to read.

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There’s something about being on a plane, where there are no demands on your time apart from making meal choices and which movie to watch, which is extremely freeing. I find it very hard to write on planes unfortunately - when cramped in economy - but reading I can do so I’m compiling a list. Please send me your novel recommendations to download on my Kindle.

So far I have:

• The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith (Cormoran Strike, Book 8)

• The Teacher by Freida McFadden (Author) *Free at the moment on Kindle Unlimited

• I have also kindly been sent (thanks Harper Collins) Milly Johnson’s latest Let the Bells Ring Out which is due out on October 23.

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Library closures in Brighton

A psychologist has hit back at the pace of library closures across the UK with nearly 200 shut in the past five years – and three more Brighton libraries set to be shut. Britain is losing libraries at a rate of about 40 each year – a loss of “safe and inclusive spaces”, according to the expert.

The latest in the raft of closures is Brighton and Hove City Council's (BHCC) proposal to close Hollingbury, Rottingdean and Westdene libraries. Rottingdean Library was the sixth most visited library out of 13 in Brighton and Hove with around 28,000 visitors per year. Closing the library, based in a 17th Century building, would save BHCC £25,000 per year.

Dr Marianne Trent, Clinical Psychologist at Good Thinking Psychological Services, said: "Libraries are far more than places to borrow books – they are vital community hubs. Many run rhyme time sessions for young children, reducing isolation for parents and supporting early development. For older people, a chat with a librarian may be their only social contact that day.

“Libraries remove cost as a barrier, making reading and learning accessible to all. When libraries close, we don’t just lose books – we lose safe, inclusive spaces that support wellbeing across the lifespan." Thanks to Newschain for supplying this story.

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I am currently quite Yorkshire focused while helping out with The Yorkshire Evening Post so there’s a distinct geographical flavour to the following section this week despite my Lancashire loyalties. Many of them are not just open to Yorkshire folk though!

News, events and opportunities:

Farsley Literature Festival:

Authors Adele Parks, Jack Reacher's Andrew Child, Terry Deary and Sir Tony Robinson will headline Farsley literature festival Hosted by Truman Books and Old Woollen, events take place across October and November. Others authors making an appearance range from Diana Henry, Leigh Radford, Antony Johnston and many more.

Kat Harrison, Events and Marketing Manager at Truman Books said: “Every Autumn, the Farsley Lit Fest invites a book loving audience to take part in conversations, be entertained, explore ideas, meet renowned and debut authors and to just come together for a celebration through a shared love of books. We have some amazing authors with some really powerful stories, and we can't wait for you to meet them.”

You can book tickets via the website

The Mayor’s Script Diversity Programme:

There’s a new opportunity for writers in West Yorkshire. Mayor Tracy Brabin and Screen Yorkshire have joined forces once again to launch The Mayor’s Script Diversity Programme – a free, three-month, part-time initiative that will support talented writers from underrepresented groups as they pivot into screenwriting. Through mentorship, specialist masterclasses and direct engagement with commissioners and industry experts, participants will gain the tools, insight and networks they need to break into the screen industry and thrive.

The programme, delivered by Screen Yorkshire and funded by the Mayor of West Yorkshire as part of her £4.2m You Can Make It Here programme, follows the success of Beyond Brontës: The Mayor’s Screen Diversity Programme, which has already supported over 300 participants into film and TV careers. Applications are now open for writers with a track record in any genre who live or work in West Yorkshire. The programme begins in October 2025. More details and how to apply HERE

Leeds Playhouse - calling local storytellers

As the Playhouse embarks on a bold new chapter under Artistic Director Tom Wright, it has launched two exciting opportunities for local artists: an open script submission window for playwrights with a meaningful connection to West Yorkshire, and a chance for early career directors to observe rehearsals of its festive production, A Christmas Carol.

To submit your script, you must have a meaningful connection to West Yorkshire. This includes living or working in the region, being born and raised in West Yorkshire, studying at a local university, of having lived or worked in West Yorkshire for a significant period.

Also, calling all early career theatre directors or movement directors! If you are aged over 18 and are based in West Yorkshire, you could get the opportunity to observe a day in a professional rehearsal room. Leeds Playhouse is producing a new production of A Christmas Carol. The Playhouse will welcome 15 artists to observe for a day each of rehearsals. This is a free opportunity for early career theatre directors and/or movement directors who have had limited experience of a professional rehearsal room. The days are available between 13 October and 7 November 2025.

Women in Journalism AI training course

This 10-part programme is designed to equip you with the AI skills, ethical awareness, and practical tools needed to thrive in the fast-evolving media landscape. Each session blends expert-led instruction with real-world examples and hands-on demonstrations. WiJ members: £10 per session OR £80 for ten sessions Non-members: £20 per session OR £175 for ten sessions. More info HERE

Thanks for reading, I’ll be away next week but back after that. Have a great week and don’t forget to subscribe! Nx

My dear wordsmiths,

Hello! Thanks so much to all my new subscribers, it means a lot and I see every one of you! If not already please..

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Don’t cry for me - Evita at the Palladium blew my tiny little mind. Yes, I know this Substack is all about writing and journalism. But my inner theatre kid (who never had the talent or confidence to be a theatre kid) took herself off to that London with a like-minded friend to thoroughly indulge my love for musicals (also cocktails, but that’s another story). The main reason I went was Evita as I really wanted to see what the fuss was about. So I paid a fortune for tickets to see the Rachel Zegler-led cast perform.

Friends, it was of this world. As someone who has been attending press nights for decades for musicals (for review purposes), I have never seen a show get enormous - and often standing - applause for every set piece and a final standing ovation so long the cast looked ready to drop, never mind the audience. And this was a Thursday night at the Palladium in the West End, not a press night where the majority of audience are stagey types or related to or friends with the cast. It was just outstanding.

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It wasn’t just the the cast themselves - who are all on stage all the time - but the re-jigged storyline and direction was out of this world with or without the jaw-dropping moment Rachel as ‘Evita’ sings in the infamous balcony scene. I was worried that us paying audience would miss out on this moment. For the uninitiated, she sings ‘Don’t Cry for me, Argentina’ outside the theatre on the balcony to the crowd, a stroke of creative marketing genius and also staging. The performance is live and streamed to the audience inside the Palladium, while also being visible to crowds gathered on Argyll Street.

In reality the balcony scene is part of whole set piece which sees her using various parts of the theatre as a backdrop, from the corridor to the auditorium, even taking her wig off on camera, backstage. My compliments to the writers and producers.Sadly this production of Evita is just two days from its finale on September 6 so you’ll have to take my word for it unless you are lucky enough to have tickets.

We also saw The Devil wears Prada which was fantastic but hard to hold up in comparison to Evita, and Starlight Express which is 10/10 in its own way. On reflection, choosing a show the same day as a Coldplay concert at Wembley was not the greatest plan - we were wading through a sea of fans to the tube. London itself was glowing in late summer heat, though it was actually hotter up north when we got back!

Hello September

With that, summer is over and all excuses are out the window for all us writers. It’s not just the schools which are back, we need to get our noses to the grindstone again, new pencil cases or not. There’s no rest for the Wicked - OK I need to get musicals off my mind. How is your novel doing? Consider me you accountability buddy. Get on with it (I’m telling myself).

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The secret to Irvine Welsh’s success

Irvine Welsh recently appeared on one of our episodes for The Glasgow Podcast - hosted by Glasgow World’s Paul Trainer (have a listen). I have nothing but admiration for Welsh - who is not just very famous but totally confident in his ability and worth - something you rarely get in a writer. But he is also insanely hard working, attending, what feels like, every single writing festival he can manage. He also seems to say yes to every interview (I’m sure he doesn’t really) and makes himself heard and seen wherever possible.

Yes, he has a book to sell (Men in Love, the Trainspotting sequel), but book or not he is always everywhere and shares himself with incredible generosity. Heck, he even signed a book for me once, at the Bloody Scotland crime festival. There’s lessons to be learned here as we may not all achieve such greatness but his work ethic - and general openness - is something to note. Success must be perpetuated.

Aye Write Festival, Glasgow

Tickets are now on sale for Aye Write, Glasgow’s long-established book festival. The event will run from 6-16 November 2025, when it will mark its 20th anniversary with a packed programme featuring 130 events showcasing established authors and the next generation of writers. The event, which takes place ahead of Book Week Scotland (17-23 November 2025), spans various genres and includes discussions and debates with 180 authors from Glasgow, Scotland and around the world.

Obviously, Irvine Welsh will be there.

Read all about it via my erstwhile colleagues at Glasgow World (they are getting a good plug this week).

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Ilkley Literary Festival

Don’t worry Irvine Welsh is here too.

It blows my mind that books are a vital weapon in war so I may have to attend Ilkley Literary Festival to find out more. Ten million books were smuggled across the Iron Curtain in an attempt to win the Cold War with literature. It’s just one of the myriad issues to be discussed at Ilkley Literature Festival which will explore the theme Soft Power with a series of author talks on power players, philosophers, peacemakers, and psychological warfare. The north’s longest-running literary festival returns in its 52nd year with some of the country’s leading minds in politics, history, and academia discussing big ideas across 17 days in venues across the spa town.

In literature, Dr Jill Liddington presents Writing Women Up North. Looking beyond the Brontës, Liddington promises a revealing talk on fascinating northern women writers from icons such as Anne Lister, who wrote five-million-word diaries, to Selina Cooper, one of the 29,000 Lancashire women cotton workers who signed and took their suffrage petition down to Westminster.

Read more here via Yorkshire Evening Post (you may recognise the byline).

End of an era for the The Newspaper Awards

It’s the end of the road for The Newspaper Awards - but probably not for the reason you think.

“This is not a decision borne out of decline—quite the opposite. The Awards have thrived for three decades, and that success has only been possible because of the support of our valued stakeholders. As some of our team now reach retirement (and in some cases, beyond it!), we feel the time is right to step back gracefully and conclude the Awards on a high note.

“Your participation has been central to the Awards’ success. It has been a pleasure working with you, and we are deeply grateful for the trust, enthusiasm, and support you have shown us throughout this journey. While we will miss the excitement of each year’s event, we look back with immense pride at what we’ve achieved together. We hope you share that pride, knowing the role you played in celebrating and championing the newspaper industry for so many years.”

Helen Hargreaves, The Newspaper Awards

Many thanks to everyone as always, your support (and reading to the end) means the world. Have a great week, Nx

My dear wordsmiths,

Hello to my new subscribers, you are all legends in your own lunchtime! Feel free to share the love ;-)

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If you are wondering where I’ve been, the answer is across the border in Yorkshire, The editor of the Yorkshire Evening Post has departed (for a fabulous new job!) so in the interim I’ve had a visa stamped in my proverbial passport and getting a bit more digitally hands on with the title which I oversee anyway. The reporters of Yorkshire have kindly not invoked any Wars of the Roses-related laws (see history), and let this Red Rose Lancashire lass into their White Rose meetings, albeit temporarily. Anyway it’s an interesting change for me - back to the choppy waters of news desk life after years away as a more senior editor. It’s a learning curve for me, geographically speaking if not job wise - I’ve been a title/titles editor for most of my career. Just not in Yorkshire. Obviously I’m still doing my actually job too.

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Artificially Intelligent or is it?

While I’m more than aware that approximately three million other Substacks are talking about AI ( and with more knowledge than me), I’ve recently realised just how often I’m asked these days what it means for journalism specifically - and how divisive a subject it is. Artificial Intelligence has been with us for ages but it’s just now that it has been developing to the point of impacting normal people’s lives and awareness. It’s both a threat and an opportunity - it’s exciting but also frightening.

It’s largely generative AI (creating content such as text, images, audio and video) that is visibly impacting the day to day the most right now, fuelling text generators and chatbots and scraping published works - from journalism to novels - without much in the way of permission in many cases. It’s an opportunity and a threat but mainly a super power, not least in curating the experience of individuals with any brand, and a time saver.

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But it’s also a cheat sheet and way of bypassing learned knowledge (with the related debate about the impact of the human brain) while being often algorithm-driven and often inaccurate - plus a perceived and real threat to the livelihoods of many. To refuse is to be called a Luddite and for you to be left behind while to embrace is not always as easy as sounds. You may not use right now but ignoring is not an option.

In journalism the most common usages are:

1. Data scraping, crunching and analysis: Journalists need to learn AI tools available and there are more every day. In a nutshell, it helps with the boring stuff.

2. Personalisation of experience for readers: For example, websites curated just for you, individualised newsletters & more.

3. Automation: Saving time, taking notes, transcribing audio, proofreading, draft headlines, text to speech ( AI generated audio), fact checking, newsletters.. the list goes on.

4. Research: Try Pinpoint for example. This is really useful AI tool for journalists - there's even a training course in how to use it. Essentially, it help journalists and academics explore and analyse large collections of documents. But there are many more AI tools where that comes from.

The biggest issues are:

1. Accuracy and bias: Human oversight remains essential as erosion of trust is an industry defining issue. Algorithms are already moulding consciousness and thinking, to suit.

2. Deep fakes passing as truth plus political and illegal misuse. See above.

3. Job security: It probably won’t take your job but the industry and roles available are changing rapidly. Also, see opportunity.

4. Theft of intellectual property: Those Google summaries are taken from somewhere.. for example. Copyrights are breached too quickly to chase. Stolen journalistic content etc.

Exciting though, isn’t it?

News, events and opportunities

Journalism/PR

NEWS: Halting public notices will ‘disenfranchise’ local communities, say NMA

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she wants to scrap ‘outdated’ rules requiring businesses to advertise in the local printed press - making it easier for new cafes and bars to open on UK High Streets . The News Media Association has warned proposals would amount to a “betrayal of local communities and the public’s right to know”.

News Media Association chief executive Owen Meredith said: “Changing this would, at a stroke, disenfranchise local communities and deprive local journalism of a vital revenue stream. Local pubs, like local papers, are at the heart of their communities and the Government should rightly support them. This proposal does nothing to help either. It is not a cut to bureaucratic red tape, as framed, but a damaging assault on democratic engagement.”

EVENT: News rewired 2025

The next Newsrewired digital journalism conference will take place on Wednesday 26 November 2025 in London, UK. Will include a Keynote speech by media strategist Lucy Küng and a Spotlight talk: Newsletter and social media automation. Also, How leading publishers make new paywalls work in a reluctant market, a masterclass on Leading through AI, with Anita Zielina, How to foster young talent to bolster the sustainability and resilience of the media industry and a workshop on how to actually make change happen in your organisation. Tickets here

JOB: Want to work in the Maldives?

A contact of mine shared this job opportunity in the glorious Maldives. I mean..what an experience that would be! Here via LINKED IN

Books

EVENT Edinburgh International Book Festival - ongoing

It started Saturday but plenty left on the agenda. More than 600 events with the most exciting writers and thinkers on the planet to ignite imaginations, foster human connection, and challenge the status quo. You can get details here and here’s a take from the Scotsman.

NEWS The Booker Prize longlist

The Booker Prize longlist has been revealed and nine nationalities are represented: - Links to Booker Prizes here on Substack

• Love Forms by Claire Adam

• The South by Tash Aw

• Universality  by Natasha Brown

• One Boat by Jonathan Buckley 

• Flashlight by Susan Choi

• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny  by Kiran Desai

• Audition by Katie Kitamura 

• The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits

• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

• Endling by Maria Reva 

• Flesh by David Szalay

• Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga 

RUBY DARLING by Leanne Slade - new audio book release today

Narrated by Eleanor Tomlinson, Ruby Darling is the latest from Audible Original. When a run of bad luck culminates in Ruby Darling catching her adored fiancé cyber cheating, her million social media followers, her sponsorship deals, and her pristine reputation as a luxury travel influencer are in tatters. Now single, jobless, and soon-to-be homeless, Ruby is convinced that she’s cursed, until she discovers she’s in her Saturn Return – a cosmic shake-up that throws life into chaos until you find your true life’s purpose. Thankfully, there’s an app for everything these days, including one that promises to help her survive said planet returning to the exact spot it was in when she was born…

Leanne Slade is the internationally bestselling author of romantic novels The Rebound, Told You So, and The Glitch.

Thanks all, feels a bit serious this week - back on the books and writing lore in the next! Nx

My dear wordsmiths,

Greetings from the depths of Lancashire, England, from where Write Reject Repeat is authored. I shout this out because I’ve realised how many of you hail from pastures across the world - so hello to my new friends. Hello Canada where I seem to have a particularly large group of new besties, but also The Netherlands, The USA, Italy and that one subscriber in Australia - I see you. Actually, I think I know who you are.. I have to say that it’s comforting to know that those in the query trenches and tackling careers in journalism are not alone - they have a community.

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This week I went back to my roots with a spot of theatre reviewing (for those who don’t realise I’m basically a frustrated theatre kid with no obvious performance skills). It’s a while since I attended a musical and I’ve reviewed hundreds in my time but I can feel some more coming on. I very much enjoyed Chicago press night at The Opera House Theatre in Blackpool Winter Gardens and my jazz hands have been reignited Here’s my review via Blackpool Gazette.

I also published my latest travel review if you are interested; here’s my article from Helengeli, Maldives. I will never not appreciate the opportunities in travel writing I have been given - I’m lucky but also never underestimate the power of networking and contacts. It’s not all luck and it involves a lot of saying yes to projects that may not be your cup of tea - but lead to those which are. I’m also more than aware that each trip could be be my last opportunity, so make the most of it!

Novel planning

Whilst I am still very much pushing queries to my current novel, I am sketching out the next. I plan this to to be very different , probably with more in common with my very first - in a drawer - masterpiece. I plan to use some closer to home experiences in this one and and it will probably to be more blatantly commercial. As the queen of escapism myself, I see the need, and I’m dying to use some of my journalism experience to inform the story. How is everyone else getting on? I’d love to hear about your novel progress - any tips on planning for a pantster-style writer? Or is that an oxymoron..

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News, events & opportunities

JOURNALISM: Mentoring opportunity

The Journalists’ Charity is partnering with Journo Resources to provide a new drop-in mentoring scheme, designed to support working journalists looking to get ahead in the industry. The Moving Forwards Mentoring Scheme will allow UK-based journalists to book one-to-one calls with experienced mentors who can offer support on job applications, next steps, building confidence, and more. The 45-minute-long sessions will be run by experts from the Journo Resources community, each with more than a decade of journalism experience.

James Brindle, CEO of the Journalists’ Charity, said: “At a time when journalism has never been more important, we’re delighted to be partnering with Journo Resources to help more journalists focus on their career development. In such a challenging and volatile world, the charity is determined to play its part to help journalists and support journalism. This exciting new initiative complements our existing support offer, which helps journalists at all ages and stages with advice, training, and financial assistance.”

The scheme aims to fill a gap in the market for those looking to develop their careers, as well as ease the pressure on existing mentoring schemes, which often attract hundreds of applicants. You can find out more HERE

JOURNALISM: Media Freedom awards deadline looming

Entries for the Media Freedom Awards close on 11 August 2025. The Media Freedom Awards recognise UK individuals, teams and media organisations who have demonstrated determination, resilience and resolve in fulfilling their vital role in championing the public's right to know. Categories range from Investigation of the year, to Campaign of the year to Young Journalist of the year & more. You can view the categories HERE.

BOOKS: The Raynor Winn controversy latest

Best-selling Raynor Winn's new book has been delayed because questions about her bestselling work The Salt Path have caused her and her husband "considerable distress", her publisher has said. Penguin Michael Joseph said the decision to postpone the publication of her fourth book, On Winter Hill, had been made with Winn. Story via BBC HERE

BOOKS: Irvine Welsh’s Men in Love - reviewed

“Some of his graphic descriptions of oftentimes squalid sex may leave you needing a shower. But the simple ease and joy with which he re-inhabits these vivid characters makes this his paciest, funniest, most page-turning book in years.” Malcolm Jack for The Scotsman

You might be interested in this, by my colleagues at The Scotsman. You can read HERE

BOOKS: Edinburgh International Books Festivals starts in August

Edinburgh International Book Festival, the world-leading festival of words, literature, and ideas. The 2025 programme has close to 700 events featuring 641 writers from 35 countries, across six continents. It takes place from 9-24 Augus, and returning to Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) for the second year. The key theme of the festival this year is ‘Repair’. Everything you need to know via the festival website HERE

JOURNALISM: Call for media access in court

The Law Commission has called for media access during sex offence evidence sessions Media representatives should be able to remain in court when complainants in sexual offences cases give evidence, a new report has concluded. The recommendation, contained within the Law Commission’s final report into reform of Evidence in Sexual Offence Prosecutions, comes after the Society of Editors criticised provisional proposals in 2023 to restrict access to court rooms while complainants in sexual offence cases give evidence as well as plans for the automatic exclusion of all but one member of the media. You can read more via Society of Editors HERE

JOURNALISM: More clarity around reporting restrictions

Another change for court reporting and one that will make UK journalist’s jobs a little more straightforward. When reporting restrictions are applied for - it is often difficult to source this information and the Criminal Procedure Rules will soon explicitly require proper notification of journalists when discretionary reporting restrictions (as opposed to automatic restrictions for youth cases and certain offences) are proposed, addressing a long-standing concern about transparency in criminal courts. Read all about it HERE

Thanks for reading, until next week! Nicola x

My dear wordsmiths,

To my new subscribers - hello and thanks! You can expect a bloggish, oversharing, writing and journalism diary with added news and opportunities written from the heart of the northern English countryside. I’m Nicola, a senior editor working across a regional news organisation by day - and querying writer by night. Plus, I do a little radio presenting at the weekends..

Just in case..

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I’ve triggered many people talking about the unfortunate size of my work (journalism) email inbox, including my own brother and, this week, a whole posse of PRs during a panel ‘Meet the media’ event alongside City AM’s Jon Robinson for PRCA North West at BBC’s Quay House (Media City, Salford). During this chat I pulled out a number of my head - 26,000 - the approx number of unread emails in my inbox.

I’m ashamed to say that number (read and unread) is inaccurate as reality is far, far, worse (see below pic, taken today). I’m guilty of that journalistic trait, honed by years of legal awareness and building of contacts, of keeping everything because I might need it some day. It’s the modern journalistic equivalent of having a box room stashed floor to ceiling with shorthand notepads. In case you are wondering, I do have some of those as well.

Having been with same company for ahem, many, years - my inbox is now groaning and luckily has large capacity, though admittedly I do search and remove large files sporadically. I use my inbox as a searchable database daily so it’s extremely useful - but worrying thing is I DO delete nonsense emails every day which details the volume of incoming pitches. But yes, I am Type B, you’ll be shocked to know ;-)

Anyway, a very enjoyable time was spent getting out from behind my desk and meeting real people this week including the whistle-stop day meeting colleagues in central Manchester to talk content and admiring the view from National World’s Manchester base at City Tower (floor 24). The chaotic Piccadilly Gardens in the central city is looking a whole lot better - particularly with the sunshine. Then I hopped on a tram to Salford for the evening ‘Meet the Media’ event. The quays were looking stunning and I said hi to Pudsey and the Coronation Street set before heading into BBC’s Quay House for the event. Thanks to the PRCA for the invite to speak - there’s loads of chatter about it on LinkedIn, if you are interested.

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My summer reading list

(some of it, in no particular order)

FICTION

Men in Love by Irvine Welsh (the new Trainspotting novel out July 24)

This is due out in hardback on Thursday July 24 and is sure to be swooped upon - I’ve heard good things by those who have already landed a copy. Blurb: Choose life. Choose love? The Trainspotting crew fall for rave and romance in the blazing new novel from the No.1 bestseller. It is the late 1980s, the closing years of Thatcher’s Britain. For the Trainspotting crew, a new era is about to begin – a time for hope, for love, for raving. Leaving heroin behind and separated after a drug deal gone wrong, Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie each want to feel alive. They fill their days with sex and romance and trying to get ahead; they follow the call of the dance floor, with its promise of joy and redemption.

This time next week by Milly Johnson (out now on Kindle, July 11 in hardback and paperback - tomorrow)

Milly says (and I’m still giggling at this): “This story was borne out of a few things that were circulating in my brain at the time. Firstly: watching a sprightly celeb on the TV (not Davina) telling us how we should be feeling through the menopause and how the products she endorses really helped her (no shit Sherlock) and so they’d help all ordinary women, and I thought ‘She couldn’t spot an ordinary woman if one slapped her in the face’ and I would have been close to that if I’d been within breathing space. “Read more on Milly’s website

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (been out for ages)

Sometimes you have a book on your reading list that has somehow escaped you and this by Sally Rooney, the author of the standout Normal People, is on mine.

Promo by Faber: ‘Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties – successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women – his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.’ Read more via Faber and Faber here.

NON-FICTION

Misguided: Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do About It by Matthew Facciani, a Post Doctoral Researcher at the University of Notre Dame.

A subject close to our hearts in journalism

Matthew says: ‘I started writing Misguided about five years ago during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My goal was to help us all better understand why smart, well-meaning people — including ourselves — can believe and share false information, and what we can do about it. In an age where misinformation seems to be everywhere, I wanted to provide a grounded, research-based, and empathetic guide for navigating our chaotic information environment. Over the years, I’ve incorporated a wealth of cutting-edge research from misinformation scholars, along with insights from my own work in the field.”

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News, events and opportunities

BOOKS: The Northern Literary Festival (July 19)

A whole day packed with bookish events, working closely with publishers, agents, and authors. There will be panels, workshops, and activities throughout the day and stalls to browse at the University of Central Lancashire’s Harrington building on Saturday July 19. The aim of the festival is to nurture a vibrant literary community in the North West with a goal of inspiring the next generation of storytellers. It includes: Young adults (NYALitFest - The Northern Young Adult Literary Festival), Kids (KIDSLitFest - Kids Literary Festival events) and Adults (LitFest - Literary Festival) There will be different panels, workshops and activities throughout the day and stalls to engage with. Register for general admission to access the venue and then register for panels. General admission is £3.

BOOKS: Author Elly Griffiths to accept outstanding contribution award

Bestselling novelist Elly Griffiths will be awarded the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award in recognition of her ‘remarkable’ crime fiction writing career and ‘unwavering commitment to the genre’. Elly Griffiths is the author of the Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries; the Brighton Mysteries, the Detective Harbinder Kaur series and an exhilarating new series featuring time-travelling detective Ali Dawson. Her intricately plotted novels told with wry humour and featuring engaging characters have sold over 5 million copies worldwide, winning her fans across the globe.

Griffiths, who has been shortlisted an impressive seven times for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year, was highly commended in 2023 for The Locked Room and served as Festival Programming Chair in 2017. She is shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year 2025 for The Last Word (Quercus Books.)  The award will be presented at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, the world’s most prestigious celebration of crime fiction and thriller writing, on Thursday 17^th July.

The Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival takes place 17-20 July in Harrogate with headliners including Lee and Andrew Child, Steph McGovern, Attica Locke, Kate Atkinson, Paula Hawkins, Kate Mosse, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham and Irvine Welsh. This year’s guest curator is Slow Horses author Mick Herron. See Harrogate International Festivals for more details.

JOURNALISM: The Media Freedom awards (Society of Editors)

Editors, news leaders and journalists have just four weeks left to enter the Media Freedom Awards 2025 and help champion excellence in campaigning journalism and the public's right to know. Now in their fourth year, the awards are open to all platforms across the breadth of the UK's diverse news industry and this year’s event will once again see some of the biggest names in the industry come together for a high-profile ceremony at the iconic Globe Theatre in London on Wednesday 12 November 2025. You can enter HERE:

Have a fantastic weekend! N

My dear wordsmiths,

I hope you are all well and enjoying summer - if you are a writer-ish Substacker and up for a mutual recommendation drop me a line!

To my new subscribers - hello and thanks! You can expect a bloggish, oversharing, writing and journalism diary with added news and opportunities written from the heart of the northern English countryside. I’m Nicola, a senior editor working across a regional news organisation by day - and querying writer by night. Plus, I do a little radio presenting at the weekends..

Just in case..

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So, this week I received my highly anticipated rejection from the Bath Novel awards. I’d hoped for at least an award for the novel submitted at the last possible second of the submission window but no, it’s back to the drawing board. If I’m in honest I have hardly sent my novel out into the world at all - a handful of agents if that - and I don’t usually enter competitions at all. Being rejected from a field of 2,901 (stats: Bath Novel Awards) exactly seemed inevitable.

Part of the problem with my manuscript is I don’t really know how to label it genre-wise. The world of publishing seems terribly siloed into these genres and faced with a drop down list and forced to choose, I am left baffled beyond comprehension. So I’ve told myself my next novel must be set in a genre - as if I don’t know which table it should sit on at Waterstones, should I even bother?

What I need is a confidence boost and some advice. If you know where I should sit a dual timeline novel (present day/WW2), with some historical fiction, book club issues modern day themes (child loss/family/guilt) with an ultimately UpLit story and a hint of romance - answers on a postcard! The stories and the strong characters led me in - and one of those characters is Chatsworth House in Derbyshire here and then - hence a very strong sense of place. It’s a story I needed to tell - rather than written for genre - but it’s left me in a pickle. All advice welcomed!

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A tribute to Malcolm

There’s a lot going on in local journalism and an awful lot of noise, change and competing egos and opinions. It’s useful to remember sometimes why we do the job and what is at the heart of it - community. So this week when I heard of the death of a real community stalwart in the Lancashire market town of Chorley (England) - Malcolm Allen , it reminded me too. Many years ago and the week before I started my then role as editor of the Chorley and Leyland Guardian (my first newspaper editorship so I was nervous!), I walked around Chorley and met quite a few shopkeepers and local people. When I popped into Malcolm’s Musicland, he gave me a shop tour, teased me my about my music taste and pointed me toward the friendliest shopkeepers. He was always at the end of the phone from then on and an endless source of advice and musical knowledge. A real loss to Chorley and at the heart of the community. RIP Malcolm and thankyou. You can read more about him here, via lep.co.uk

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News, events and opportunities

JOURNALISM/PODCAST: New Parched Pea Pod episode out now

Talking of local journalism - here is is personified in local podcast form. Sipping a brew and speaking to those who served in the Armed Forces is where we spend the latest episode of the Parched Pea Podcast in Preston, Lancashire. John 'Gilly' Gillmore takes the microphone along to the Sandbags café where he meets Jack Kendall - the man who holds the standard for all the military events in the city. We also hear from Colonel David Waters, born and bred in the city, who is one of the driving forces behind establishing the community café. Gilly also chats with Reverend David Craven about the use of the church in hosting the café and the wider work they do in supporting the city’s homeless community too,

The Parched Pea Podcast is a collaboration between Blog Preston, Lancashire Post and Central Radio with Gilly exploring the people and places which make the city tick and is available on Spotify, Apple and all other major podcast apps via Podfollow.

BOOKS: Crime writer Attica Locke in Manchester

American crime writer Attica Locke is coming to Manchester on July 16 for a rare UK event. In Guide Me Home, the latest of her gripping, politically charged crime novels, Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is in trouble: he might be about to stand trial in front of a Grand Jury; his difficult and destructive mother is back in his life, and a young Black woman from an all-white sorority appears to be missing, although her sorority sisters and her family deny she has disappeared. With his job, relationship and possibly his life on the line, Darren is forced to grapple with the realities of living in Trump’s America. The event takes place at Manchester Central Library from 7-8.15pm and is presented by Manchester Literature Festival. Tickets are £10/£8. You can book HERE Also, Read the Manchester Literature Festival festival autumn/winter brochure HERE

JOURNALISM: Press Gazette tracks cuts in journalism.

Worth a read, if a depressing one. The Press Gazette has pledged to track all 2025 journalism cuts. In 2024, according to it’s analysis, there were around 4,000 journalism industry job losses in the UK and US. Now it is detailing them one by one which paints a bleak picture, if perhaps not a full picture, as it does not include the creativity and innovation and culture changes which are creating new jobs amid a changing industry. Read Press Gazette here.

RADIO: Community radio awards:

Now open for entries, The Community Radio Awards have been setup to celebrate community radio and all the hard work and time that the volunteers involved in community radio put into their stations, shows and communities. The awards are a judge led process, with judges drawn from the community radio sector, academics, other radio / associated areas and the 3rd sector. The awards are run not for profit completely independent of any organisation or association. Its being run by a team of volunteers with experience of radio in all forms and sectors from Student, Community to the BBC and Commercial. More information here.

BOOKS: Edinburgh International Book Festival

Next month (August) the behemoth that is Edinburgh International Book Festival begins. Now organisers have revealed the event will feature a documentary inside the life of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh. The festival runs from August 14 to 20, and will close with the world premiere of Paul Sng’s immersive documentary Reality Is Not Enough centred around Welsh. The documentary is said to be a thrilling and revealing exploration of author Welsh, following his huge success with several film adaptations and six million books sold worldwide, and his awareness of mortality. Welsh, who stars in the film, will be seen taking a wild journey that is said to explore the boundaries of consciousness. The autobiographical film combines intimate observational footage, rare archive film clips and readings from his novels narrated by screen stars Liam Neeson, Maxine Peake, Ruth Negga and Stephen Graham, and musician Nick Cave. You can read more on the book festival here.

BOOKS: Dorothy Koomson sets her latest book in Brighton.

Fabulous author Dorothy was kind enough to come on my Booky podcast so I’m repaying the favour. Her latest in based in Brighton - where she lives! Here via BBC

Say hello

I’m on Linked In HERE

I present a show on Central Radio North West on Sundays 7-9PM UK time

I’m on Tik Tok here( where I don’t take myself too seriously ;-)

Get in touch if you want me to promote your book or event on here - I’m here for the writing and journalism community..

Many thanks as always if you have read this far. I massively appreciate you all and I’m happy to share and recommend. Happy writing Nx

My dear wordsmiths,

To my new subscribers - hello and thanks! You can expect a bloggish, oversharing, writing and journalism diary with added news and opportunities written from the heart of the northern English countryside. I’m Nicola, a senior editor working across a regional news organisation by day - and querying writer by night. Plus, I do a little radio presenting at the weekends..

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Hello - a little personal note from me this week but please make sure to check out the news, opportunities, reads and events below - particularly the important Lessons from Southport.

I said a ‘goodbye’ this week. Not to a person or a much-loved pet but to a house - and not even my house. But as they tend to, this house represented an era, an era of hope and of one man’s dream - my father’s. Luckily Dad is much less sentimental than me, so his farewell to his Spanish dream home in the mountains was matter of fact as, mentally, he’s moved on to the next chapter. This is impressive for a man who recently turned 80 but also illustrating the differences between us. His mathematical, spreadsheet-based mind passed me by. I’ve been given the words he still writes - and his nose.

My dad - Len - had promised to sell his home in the mountains of Andalusia (southern Spain) at 80 and was good to his word as practicality is his byword. But it was there, amid the peach toned Moorish arches of his mountain-side property, he reached for the stars - literally.

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As an astronomer and a single man following the loss of my mum too young (F* you cancer), he chased his dreams of full time astronomy which, as any real astronomer knows, is less looking dreamily upwards and more maths, science and tech. He never did achieve his dream of finding his own supernovae and it now seems unlikely he will in light-polluted England. But this past week we were summoned (me, my brother, my sister) to help him pack and up and leave after a completion date dropped. He hired a huge lorry for the volumes of largely telescope related kit after disassembling his observatory which had been constructed in the house’s idyllic courtyard next to the unused outdoor stone bar. He doesn’t drink.

Astronomy is not a whim to dad - he is essentially a retired professional - but he began the unlikely passion as a child living on the Hartlepool council estate he was brought up - after a family move from Glasgow. He just wanted to get up in the sky as high as possible - he was also in the RAF as an officer for years. And I have been told many times about the role he was offered as Head of astronomy at Melbourne University - it was only my mum’s pregnancy with me that halted that particular dream. He was even friends with the late Patrick Moore and visited his home. Later, he poured his expertise into a number of books.

Dad’s home in Spain was the culmination of a long held ambition and he chose carefully. He rented various properties for years and eventually picked a dark-skied, rural, beauty amid almond and olive groves with a pool to attract his grandchildren and a view glorious enough to attract his adult children. It was not expensive thanks to the unsealed road (not for the faint hearted) and countryside position with its side order of regular water stoppages and power cuts.

Ironically, it was this farewell trip that meant the most as I cannot remember (possibly with the exception of scattering my mum’s ashes) us four spending any time alone together in our adult lives. It wasn’t flowers and roses - we are different people with different lives and priorities and we clashed at times - but it was also important. We had definitely had enough of each other after a few days but I also felt we talked for the first time in years.k

The chats brought up emotions long forgotten but also new ones and I have learned that it is experiences like these that should be stored up in an emotional directory - a reminder of the real/less everyday feelings that also inform human experience. Important for any writer and often a one word note can remind and be used for a character in a novel. It’s also, strangely, therapeutic.

So farewell Spain, thanks for the memories and the stars (my sister Jenny says thanks for the mosquito bites).

Say hello

I’m on Linked In HERE

I present a show on Central Radio North West on Sundays 7-9PM UK time

I’m on Tik Tok here( where I don’t take myself too seriously ;-)

Get in touch if you want me to promote your book or event on here - I’m here for the writing and journalism community..

News, events, opportunities, must reads..

Journalism:

NEWS: Lessons from Southport (but also actions)

Following discussions here, I am part of small working group to pilot a regional version of the Media and Online Behaviour Response Assembly (MOBRA) across Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and Lancashire. With the anniversary of the Southport tragedy approaching on 27 July, there is an urgent opportunity to demonstrate that lessons have not only been learned but are being acted upon. A North West proof of concept—supported by contributors such as Maria Breslin (Liverpool Echo), myself (National World) and Andrew Brown (Standup for Southport) is in the works, building capacity to respond constructively to future moments of crisis, while strengthening trust and resilience in our communities. The report so far has been authored by David Lush and you can read more here via journalism.co.uk. If you are part of this regional community as media or otherwise and would like to get involved at this key stage, please contact me.

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AWARDS: The Society of Editors’ Media Freedom Awards:

Now open for entries into 23 categories celebrating excellence in public interest and campaigning journalism across the UK news media industry. With categories including Investigation of the Year, Podcast and Commentator of the Year, the awards are open to journalists and news organisations working across all platforms including national and regional print media, broadcast, digital and magazine journalism. New categories include The Ecotricity Impact Award for Environmental Journalism with excellence in environmental storytelling recognised across national and regional platforms. Entries close on 11 August, 2025. Enter here.

Books and writing:

READ: It’s about time romance fiction got the accolade it deserves, say I. This is a good read. 'Not just smut': Why it's happily ever after for romance books, This by BBC is worth a read

OPPORTUNITY: The East Anglia book awards are now open for entry. To qualify works must be set largely in East Anglia or be written by an author currently living in the region, which for the Awards’ purposes is defined as the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Books must have been published for the first time between 6 August 2024 and 5 August 2025 and must have been commercially available in physical bookshops. More details here

NEWS: The 2026 judging panel for the International Booker Prize has been announced as submissions open to UK and Irish publishers.This year’s judges are looking for the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026. Critically-acclaimed author Natasha Brow will chair the judging panel, which also includes:

• Writer, broadcaster and mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy

• International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Sophie Hughes

• Writer, editor and bookshop owner Troy Onyango

• Award-winning novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy

Until next week - please like and subscribe! Nicola x

My dear wordsmiths,

Apologies, I’ve been gallivanting overseas (I know it’s sickening) once more so I’ve missed an update or two, so I'll pack in as much as possible in here. Did I miss anything? And just a big thankyou as twice as many people as usual read my last newsletter - maybe I should mention football more often? (not a good idea from this soccer muggle - I can hear all my colleagues laughing..).

First my usual plea to subscribe and share and like, etc..

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What I actually missed, and ensured I was fully glued to my WhatsApp for the duration of my holiday, was the somewhat feisty takeover of the company I work for as a senior editor - National World. If you are new here (welcome!) NW owns more than a hundred fabulous local news brands from from Scotsman to the Portsmouth News to the Yorkshire Evening Post - and of course the Lancashire Post/Blackpool Gazette where I was formerly the editor.

I flew back to a new owner - Malcolm Denmark - (who was one of the main original investors in National World) and a de-listed company - we’ve lost the PLC . Here’s a link to Press Gazette on the situation.

Hopefully it’s a change for the better with some added security for employees in a company which does not have to justify itself to the city every five minutes. The signs all look positive and the new company has a family ethos so hopefully this is a refreshing new era for an ambitious but battle-scarred business working within the already difficult media arena. It will obviously take a while for the new owners to get the measure of the business and there will inevitably be change - but it is an interesting new chapter. Watch this space.

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Meanwhile, it’s business as usual and this week I popped in with editor Claire Lewis & team at the Sheffield Star where the sun shone and I spent a lot of time at the railway station waiting for cancelled trains to not arrive. (see photo). My radio show at Central Radio went ahead on Sunday as usual and I played even more cheesy singalong tunes and 90s throwback anthems than usual. (that’s a lie, I always play that many).

Manuscript latest..

In other news I’m back in book mode and have already entered my novel into an awards at the last possible second. You can take the journalist out of the newsroom but they will always test a deadline to the nth degree. My preferred method is enter and forget about it - if you get shortlisted hoorah but otherwise you are not stuck in rejection mode. I do the same with the lottery.

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News, events and opportunities:

Journalism: Press 30 Under 30 Awards: This prestigious list celebrates the rising stars that are shaping the future of freelance, national and regional journalism. You can be recognised alongside the finest talent at the Winners’ Reception on Thursday October 9 in London. If you submit by Thursday 12 June you get a £100 discount.

Books: Win £500 of books with Penguin: Penguin is offering the chance to win £500 worth of books your own choosing. One winner is drawn every six months and to enter you must fill in the form on the websites, which is linked.

Books: Shortlists for Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2025 and the McDermid Debut Awards are announced

This year, rising star debut novelist Marie Tierney competes with three former winners Chris Brookmyre, M.W. Craven and Chris Whitaker on the Shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2025, the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime fiction award, with Elly Griffiths and Abir Mukherjee also nominated.

Also announced, the shortlist for the McDermid Debut Award showcases six new voices exploring themes such as race, class, the abuse of power and lived experience of disability, across psychological thrillers, contemporary country house mysteries, detective fiction and spy thrillers. Broadcaster Louise Minchin has been shortlisted alongside Chris Bridges, Bonnie Burke-Patel, Nilesha Chauvet, David Goodman and Sean Watkin.

The winners of both Awards will be announced at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on Friday 17 July.

Books: The Bath Children’s Novel Award.

This is is a £5,000 international prize for children’s novels, YA, chapter books and picture book texts. The prize is open to ALL unagented writers, who are unpublished, self-published or independently published without advance.

Recipients include: Struan Murray for the manuscript of Orphans of the Tide (published by Puffin in 2020), Matthew Fox for the manuscript of The Sky Over Rebecca (Hachette, 2022) and Lucy Van Smit for The Hurting (Chicken House, 2018). 2025’s winning manuscript will be judged by Clare Wallace, Managing Director and Literary Agent at Darley Anderson Children’s, from a shortlist chosen by Junior Judges aged 7-17 years.

The Bath Children’s Novel Award 2025 entry fee is £29.99 per novel, with sponsored places available for writers on a low income. Deadlines November 30 - you have time!

Journalism: Amnesty International UK media awards winners announced:

Amnesty International UK has announced the winners of its prestigious Amnesty Media Awards 2025 in a ceremony at the BFI Southbank London yesterday (June 4), hosted by actor, writer and director Jolyon Rubinstein.

The 12 categories commended the most outstanding human rights journalism of the last year, with winners including Channel 4 and BBC Eye Investigations. Financial Times won both the Written Feature and Written News awards, while ITV News took home the Broadcast News trophy. The Guardian won the Written Investigations category for reporting on the violent truth behind Italy’s ‘migrant reduction’, whilst BBC Radio 4 won the Radio & Podcasts award for a programme spotlighting the diary of a woman from Afghanistan.

Most categories were judged by a panel of prestigious journalists and media workers, including Ayshah Tull, Lindsey Hilsum, and Alex Crawford, but a new award for 2025 – The People’s Choice Award – saw tens of thousands of people across the UK voting for the journalist who they felt has made the biggest contribution to human rights reporting over the past year. This award was handed to Owen Jones, for his tireless efforts highlighting injustices, especially around the ongoing devastating crisis in Gaza.

That’s it for this week, thanks for reading and please subscribe - I see each and every one of you. Have a great week, Nicola x

My dear wordsmiths,

What perfect days for reading out in the sunshine - a shame we have other commitments really! The shire is particularly stunning right now with lambs gambolling, roses coming to life, birds tweeting and temperatures almost at t-shirt level (It’s always five degrees colder here than anywhere else). But the bucolic scenes make it (almost) possible to forget the state of the world - and it’s particularly worrying right now.

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However, in much more soothing news, I recorded a really lovely video (I know, not writing ) this week with my mother in law and her identical twin - Pauline and Pam. Both 86, they were recalling their first trip to a football match at Goodison Park ahead of Everton’s last match at the stadium on Sunday - 70 years ago. It’s true that I know as little as it is possible about the beautiful game (I spent my childhood in swimming training) but I do know a good story when I see it and these two bring a tear to the eye. The video is pretty short - just three minutes if you fancy a gander. You’ll like it even more if you are an Everton fan as they recall the ‘toffee lady’, the half crown season tickets and cushions for hire on the hard seats - plus their favourite blond player.

Also worth remembering how rare it was for girls to attend the match. It was edited out but they talk about how the rest of the crowd was men and boys.

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Former journalists pen a new crime novel

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A husband-and-wife duo, who both trained as journalists at the BBC and first met as regional reporters for ITV, have written a debut crime fiction novel together, Mind Over Murder. Jake Lynch, who grew up in Barnsley, was a news anchor and reporter on the launch of Network North, a regional evening news programme by Yorkshire Tyne Tees in 1993.

His wife, Annabel McGoldrick, is from Newcastle and worked for the BBC in Lincoln and Leeds. Jake and Annabel bring their own fascinating real-life experiences to the novel. Annabel later transitioned from journalism to psychotherapy and is now an accredited EMDR consultant, training clinicians worldwide. Jake, a seasoned journalist, has worked as a political correspondent for Sky News, as Sydney correspondent for The Independent, and a news anchor for BBC World TV News. Jake went on to become a pioneering figure in the field of peace journalism and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. He was awarded the prestigious Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2017.

Mind Over Murder, the first novel in the Janna Rose Mysteries series by Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick, introduces a compelling new investigator to the crime fiction canon. Published by Next Chapter, Mind Over Murder is not just another whodunit—it’s the first crime novel to feature a psychotherapist protagonist specialising in Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), a ground breaking trauma therapy that gained widespread attention after Prince Harry credited it with helping him process the loss of his mother, Princess Diana.

Tributes to late journalist Andrew Norfolk (link via Yorkshire Post)

My colleague, and Yorkshire Post editor, James Mitchinson has revealed the email that ‘meant to world’ to him - following the death of former staff journalist who went to an illustrious career at the Times. Andrew Norfolk, who exposed the Rotherham grooming gang scandal, has died at 60 it was confirmed today. James revealed it is ten years ago, almost to the day, he was looped into an email sent to one of his reporters at the time, Chris Burn, who had been working tirelessly on exposing the crimes of paedophile gangs operating across South Yorkshire. (full piece linked in headline).

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Curtis Brown announce Discoveries Prize author shortlist

Publishers Curtis Brown’s 2025 shortlist of six unpublished novels-in-progress has been chosen from over 2,600 entries, on the strength of the opening 10,000 words and a synopsis. The titles were selected by Chair of Judges Kate Mosse CBE, international bestselling novelist and Founder Director of the Women’s Prize, and her judging panel: acclaimed authors Dreda Say Mitchell MBE, Chloe Timms and Claire Kohda, Curtis Brown literary agent Jess Molloy and Curtis Brown Creative’s Founder and Managing Director Anna Davis. The shortlisted authors come from a broad mix of backgrounds and include a sustainability professional, a teacher, a recent MA graduate, a former waitress, a copy writer and an opera singer.

They are:

Muti'ah Badruddeen, A Bowl of River Water
Sophie Black, The Pass
Shaiyra Devi, The Persistence of Gravity
Jac Felipez, A Long Ways from Home
Rosie Rowell, Down by the Stryth
Lauren Van Schaik, Seven Sweet Nothings

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Aurora Prize for writing (12 weeks until deadline)

The Aurora Prize is a national writing competition, with its heart ion the West Midland, seeking outstanding new writing in short fiction and poetry. Judges include some of the region’s leading literary lights, with names such as Joanna Cannon, Casey Bailey, Mahsuda Snaith, Alison Moore, Jon McGregor, Malika Booker, Helen Mort, Debris Stevenson, Shreya Sen-Handley and Georgina Wilding. In 2025 judges also include T.S. Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor, reading poetry, and multi-award-winning author Irenosen Okojie, judging prose.

As well as receiving a cash prize, first place winners feedback from a leading agent, free Society of Authors' membership, an SoA advisory session and tickets to a masterclass from the judge of their choice.There are also second-place, third-place and regional prizes, which include up to £150 cash and a free ticket to The Writers' Conference 2027. ( how to enter linked in headline)

Amnesty International speaks out after publishers are arrested: The organisation has reacted to the Russian security forces' detention of at least 10 book publishing professionals in Moscow on “extremism”-related charges over alleged “LGBTI propaganda” in books published by affiliated printing houses,

“In their ruthless campaign against LGBTI people, Russian authorities have now come after book publishers, accusing them of ‘extremism’ for merely doing their job: bringing books to readers. This shameless heavy-handed use of state apparatus against literature is as absurd as it is terrifying. One thing is clear: no amount of bans, arrests or prosecutions will erase the existence of LGBTI people in Russia, or anywhere else. History has shown that attempts to supress identity and censor knowledge are ultimately futile. Love and knowledge will always endure over hatred and repression. The detained publishing professionals must be immediately released, the criminal charges against them dropped and the ongoing persecution of LGBTI people, organisations and initiatives in Russia must be brought to an end.” Natalia Zviagina, Amnesty International’s Russia Director

On 14 May, Russian security forces detained at least 10 individuals in Moscow as part of a criminal investigation into alleged “involvement in the activities of an extremist organization,” “participation in the activities” of such an organization, and “organizing its work using official position” (Article 282.2(1.1), (2), (3) of the Criminal Code) for publishing LGBTI-themed books. At least 10 individuals were taken in for questioning.

Among the books named in the case is The Summer in a Pioneer Tie (translated in English as Pioneer Summer), a bestselling novel by Elena Malisova and Katerina Silvanova depicting a same-sex romance between two Soviet teenagers. The authors were arbitrarily designated “foreign agents” by the Ministry of Justice in February 2024. Other titles include Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and Becky Albertalli’s Leah on the Offbeat and Love, Creekwood – all published by Popcorn Books between 2019 and 2022.

Thanks for reading! Please don’t forget to like, subscribe and share and I always love to hear from you. N

My dear wordsmiths,

Today is May 8 - VE Day - and on this date in 1945 my late grandfather Squadron Leader Peter ‘Dinga’ Bell, then an RAF pilot based in India and Burma, wrote this in his diary.

He wrote in his diary every day, as did my grandmother. It was my grandmother’s diary - his wife Norma’s - that inspired the novel I am currently editing and it feels apt to focus on his experiences today instead. Earlier that same day, he had awoken at 5am by aircraft flying overhead at his undisclosed location - he never gives this away for obvious reasons. At 0730 hours he ate breakfast. At 1055 hours he took off for base camp. The rest is history - literally -as he marks Churchill’s announcement that evening, with the later admission he didn’t stay up to listen to the King. This diary is pretty hard to read if anyone can translate exactly.

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Grandpa was later awarded the RAF’s Distinguished Flying Cross and - very unusually - the Distinguished Flying Cross (US), for his services transporting a senior US general across a war zone. He was never comfortable sharing details of his war exploits and what we know about his medals comes from the citations. He met my granny in India where she lived with her parents in Cawnpore, who were in the cotton industry. They married there and later moved back to the UK - and Manchester - where he became a dentist in the city centre and they had their first child - my late mum. He was so much more comfortable behind a camera than sharing his words and he documented the history of the family leaving a treasure trove of photographs.

If this tells us anything, it’s that the power of stories stretch across the generations. Thankyou for that gift Granpa.

Read more about this and watch video via Manchester World

HERE

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Countryside diaries

In gentle news from the wilds of Lancashire, we now have seven little bouncy lambs in the shire making the most of their short little lives with sunset zoomies and generally ganging up their mothers. It’s quite the bucolic scene as the three sets of twins and an only child race around, playfight and squeeze through gaps in the fence - usually getting stuck - when their mums take five minutes to themselves. Their dads are still confined to the back field where they have zero responsibilities apart from chewing grass and scratching their backsides on the fence and taking part in the occasional alpha male head-butting session. No comment.

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News, events and opportunities:

Publishing: New publisher to advocate for male writers

UK novelist Jude Cook has launched a new press, Conduit Books, which plans to focus, at least initially, on publishing male authors. Conduit is currently seeking its launch title, “preferably a debut novel by a male UK novelist under 35” and aims to publish three books a year from 2026. Diminishing attention is now paid to male authors, Cook says, creating a need for “an independent publisher that champions literary fiction by men”. An interesting take on this here via The Conversation.

Children’s Books: The return of the Gruffalo

The National Literacy Trust has been chosen as lead charity partner in the UK - for a new Gruffalo story. Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler are collaborating on the first new Gruffalo picture book in over 20 years, to be published by Macmillan Children’s Books. The brand-new, as-yet-untitled book, will be published in September 2026.

As part of the international launch of this extraordinary new story, which will see the return of much-loved characters in a fresh and exciting adventure that has all the hallmarks of a Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler classic, Macmillan Children’s Books invited global publishing partners to work with charitable organisations to promote childhood reading - and picked the NLT. Julia Donaldson has revealed that she was spurred on to create her brand-new, as-yet-untitled Gruffalo story by the Trust’s Early Words Matter campaign.

Women in Journalism: Chat with Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Sunday Times

May 28: Join WIJ for an exclusive insight into the experiences of its Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Christina Lamb OBE. Christina, Chief Foreign Correspondent for the Sunday Times, will be interviewed at a special WIJ event by Channel 4 News International Editor, Lindsey Hilsum, at the Imperial War Museum. The event includes access to the exhibition and a complimentary glass of champagne. Doors open for exhibition viewing from 6:30pm. There will be also be time to view the exhibition after the talk. From £12.

Meta and Google take over: via the Press Gazette

You’ve probably heard UK based media organisations talking about how ad spends have gone elsewhere. Reality is even tougher to take. Google and Meta accounted for at least half the record £42.6bn spent on UK advertising last year, according to Press Gazette estimates. By contrast, advertising with national and regional news brands grew at a far slower rate than the overall market in 2024 and magazine industry advertising fell in both print and online, according to figures published by the Advertising Association/WARC. Read full article here

Writing Challenge: Enter the May 2025 #Write CBC prompt challenge

Hosted on BlueSky, #WriteCBC is a writing challenge to win a Curtis Brown writing course. This month’s special guest is author Abigail Johnson, who was a student on the three-month online Writing Your Novel course in 2020. Her debut novel The Secret Collector is out now from Pan Macmillan. Details for challenge in the link.

Win a novel: Competitions: The Booker Prize

You may not be ready to win the Booker Prize but you can win a prize from Booker. They have various competitions ongoing including a chance to win The Overstory by Richard Powers and a limited-edition Booker Prize tote bag.

As always, thanks for reading. This post is free to read today - please give a like and a subscribe - and tell me what you think! I would appreciate any paid subscriptions to support and extend my work - many thanks to those already doing so - I see you.

Have a great week, Nicola x

My dear wordsmiths,

Thanks for subscribing and if you haven’t please do. There’s a couple of newbies since last time - hello!

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I didn’t update last week because I’ve been off causing travel chaos around the world again. My reputation or getting stuck in situations now precedes me as after tornadoes in Chicago and floods in Dubai, I’ve now added total power blackout across several countries to the growing list of which those is just three examples.

Of course I was in Spain when the power went out on Monday at just after 12.30pm and obviously it struck when I was waiting for a train down in an almost empty underground station in central Valencia in scenes reminiscent of the start of practically every zombie apocalypse movie ever made. Power went out, the lights flickered, and the generators kicked in while we waited hopefully for our train - which was presumably stuck in a tunnel somewhere. Thousands of passengers were taken off trains and led across the tracks that day - fortunately not us. Anyone feel a novel coming on?

Eventually, my husband and I ( and the random person loitering across the tracks at the other platform) began to get puzzled at the electronic signs urging us to examine the front of the non-existent trains for our destination. Some time later, we were evacuated by some burly Spanish police officers with large weapons who jabbered at us as we looked blankly back, then led us back to the surface again, briefly pausing to tell me off (using hand gestures and shouting) for filming. (I am , after all, a journalist).

Back in the sunshine, slightly relieved humans on the surface hadn’t been turned to dust by aliens or eaten by the aforementioned zombies, we began to realise the trains weren’t the only thing broken as traffic sped gaily through streets unburdened by traffic or pedestrian lights so largely good natured mayhem had been unleashed. It’s already hard to cross the road in Valencia due to multi lanes plus speeding cyclists and scooting teenagers - without any form of management it was madness. Eventually, the police appeared, turning to good old hand gestures and whistles at the city centre accident blackspots.

Cautiously optimistic, we instead walked to our destination, the Valencia Oceanagrafic - a huge aquarium with the longest underwater tunnel in Europe. But it became clear this was not just any power cut - and I felt grateful I wasn’t in the tunnel with the sharks when the lights went out. Instead it was still being evacuated and news about the scale of the power outage across Spain, Portugal and France had started to seep through.

Luckily, if you can call it that, it was a religious day in Spain - a bank holiday - which meant many shops were shut anyway. But many bars and restaurants, seemingly unfazed by the turned off fridges containing raw meat, lukewarm beer and inability to use card machines or the internet - attempted to keep business as usual and tapas underway under the loud circling of an increasing number of helicopters and passing fire engines.

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It was then I started to realise how our digital, electricity-based, society could flounder, in just hours. It was a moment of existentialism only reinforced by the enforced purchase of candles using a few random Euro so we could light up the apartment that night. Packing by candlelight had not been on my bucket list - particularly after the forced additional exercise of six flights of sweaty stairs without a lift. Luckily no-one outside the apartments ever closed the door properly - or we would have been locked outside that as well.

Due to travel back the next day, with dwindling phone charge ( we were worried about our digital boarding cards), little food in our apartment and no means to pay anyway, it didn’t beg the question that perhaps were a little too reliant on technology - which is in turn reliant on humans - who are inherently unreliable. Maybe dystopian fiction has a point. Luckily to all the above, the power came back on in the middle of the night, even if the state of emergency was not lifted until 24 hours later in Valencia.

My return was delayed until the early hours of today - thankfully I got back safely and wasn’t ‘forced’ to stay another week, unlike that time a volcano went off and I was stranded in Andalusia for five days. Travel disaster - moi? Welcome to the writing prompt…

Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the year - longlist

The longlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2025 has now been announced (see above). This year, global bestsellers and exciting new talent compete for the UK and Ireland’s most prestigious crime fiction award which showcases innovative, original and entertaining stories.

Three former winners - Chris Whitaker, Chris Brookmyre and 2023 champion M.W. Craven - feature on the longlist, with fan favourite Elly Griffiths nominated for a tenth time. And six authors receive their first longlisting, including rising star Marie Tierney nominated for Deadly Animals, which won the inaugural McDermid Debut Award in 2024. The longlist features writers from across the UK, including Newcastle, Birmingham, Sussex, Bath and Oxfordshire, with 3 Scottish authors, Chris Brookmyre, Alan Parks and Abir Mukherjee, and 2 from Ireland, Jane Casey and Stuart Neville.

Readers are now encouraged to vote for their favourite novels to reach the shortlist via the Awards website https://www.harrogatetheakstoncrimeaward.com/.

Edinburgh University Creative Writing Conference (Friday May 9)

Edinburgh University Creative Writing Conference is now open for registration. Anyone from inside or outside the university can enter. It welcomes a range of industry professionals and creatives to share their insights and wisdom with emerging writers. The conference will highlight publishing opportunities, as well as further awareness of the industry, through two panel discussions, one-to-one meetings, networking, and author readings. Refreshments and snacks will be provided with short intervals post each event.

Tickets for each section of the event are available to be reserved separately, with the From Arthur's Seat launch and readings taking place at the InSpace Gallery after the conference.

Discoveries Prize longlist is out now

The 2025 Discoveries longlist of 16 unpublished novels-in-progress has been chosen from over 2,600 entries. The novel-writing development prize and programme is for women writers in the UK and Ireland, who have not been traditionally published in long form. The reading panel and judges were very impressed by the high standard of the work submitted and would like to thank all the brilliant writers who shared their novels-in-progress. The Discoveries 2025 shortlist of six writers will be announced on Thursday 15 May. The winner announcement will follow on Thursday 29 May.

The longlist is:

• Muti'ah Badruddeen, A Bowl of River Water

• Sophie Black, The Pass

• Ciara Corrigan, Merrow

• Shaiyra Devi, The Persistence of Gravity

• Jac Felipez, A Long Ways from Home

• Anwen Kya Hayward, The Last Mistress of Underthorpe House

• Maria Jackson, Lonely Jacksons

• Reema Kausar Majid, Land of Shadow and Hope

• Harriet Matthews, In the Shadow of the Flame

• Beena Nadeem, Is This What You Call Love?

• Nosa Novia, Illoi

• Anna Kitty O'Connor, Romantic Debut

• Rosie Rowell, Down by the Stryth

• Suman Sandhu, The Luxury of Choice

• Gabriele Sidlauskaite, Gutsnag

• Lauren Van Schaik, Seven Sweet Nothings

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Thanks for reading, please share! I’m always keen to get recommendations of decent writing/books/journalist vloggy Substacks - plus book recommendations and news /& opportunities for writers of all types. Love from the shire - N x

My dear wordsmiths,

Welcome new and old subscribers - thanks for signing up and don’t be shy. I love to hear from you. If we’ve not met - I’m Nicola - day job journalism leader, weekend job radio presenter, always querying author and part-time watcher of local pheasants in the Lancashire countryside. It’s short and sweet this week as I have to dash off.

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I’m starting with a journalism aside (not reported elsewhere yet). In a blow for the north in an already London-centric media landscape, I’ve learned via my network of moles that the Manchester News Associates course is to be discontinued after this year, coinciding with the end of the office lease in the city. The London and remote courses will continue and News Associates and it’s associated news agency will remain up and running.

I consider this a real shame as the excellent New Associates courses bring a particularly industry-relevant and diverse pot of journalism talent into the industry - and the placement of a course in the north of England has been incredibly useful for many of us recruiting north of Watford.

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Of course you can still train as a journalist up north in many places - universities including University of Central Lancashire (where I did my own post grad decades ago) and Salford University amongst others all provide excellent journalist training options and these days there are many on the job/ apprentice options too - away from traditional routes. Nonetheless, at a time of extreme London-centric media, any northern anchorage is a loss and I know many northern journalists who started their career at News Associates in Manchester.

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EVENT Cambridge Literary Festival is on next week:

With events from Wednesday April 23 until Sunday April 27, The Cambridge Books Festival event schedule is selling out fast. You can attend events with writers from across the literary spectrum from Tessa Blackstone to Abi Dare and Kit de Waal. Anthony Horowitz, Jacqueline Wilson and Richard Ayoade amongst those already sold out.

NEWS A book was bound in human skin - erm, yuk (read via BBC)

A book bound in the skin of one of the UK's most notorious murderers is to go on display after being found in a museum's office. The work is understood to be made using the skin of William Corder, the man convicted of killing Maria Marten in the Red Barn Murder in 1827, and will go on display alongside a similar item at Moyse's Hall Museum in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Read via BBC (linked in headline)

NEWS Residents of town in US work together to move 9,100 books in human chain (read via Guardian)

Residents of all ages in a small Michigan community formed a human chain and helped a local bookshop move each of its 9,100 books – one by one – to a new storefront about a block away. The “book brigade” of about 300 people stood in two lines running along a sidewalk in downtown Chelsea on Sunday, passing each title from Serendipity Books’ former location directly to the correct shelves in the new building, down the block and around the corner on Main Street.

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NEWS Community bookcases removed from London underground station (read via The Independent)

Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, has said that it “seems incongruous” to remove community bookcases from London Underground stations due to the fire risk when newsagents selling paper products remain. Blackhorse Road station in Walthamstow was one of several London stations with a little library for commuters to swap second-hand books.

NEWS Hustings held ahead of elections (Read via Lancashire Post)

In a very successful local media collaboration, almost 100 people gathered to see senior politicians put on the spot ahead of next month’s Lancashire County Council elections. Leading figures from the five political parties currently represented on the authority were invited to take part in a hustings debate, during which they were quizzed by the public and local media on the big issues facing the county. Staged by the (BBC funded) Local Democracy Reporting Service, Lancashire Post, Blackpool Gazette, Lancashire Lead and Blog Preston, the ‘Lancashire Decides’ event was held at the MacDonald Tickled Trout Hotel, on the outskirts of Preston, on Wednesday evening. Watch the video HERE

That’s it for this week as I have places to be. Please share the Write Reject Repeat love! N

My dear wordsmiths,

How are you this week? Just my weekly reminder to subscribe, share and like (if you don’t ask etc..) I very much appreciate your support.

BOOKY podcast has been shortlisted in Publisher Podcast Awards 2025

Admittedly, I had manifested award listings for my amazing novels, rather than talking about books, but guess what?! My very own BOOKY podcast, created with the support of my National World colleague - the amazing pod producer Kelly Crichton - has been shortlisted for not just one but three awards!!. ICYMI, BOOKY is a podcast where I talk to novelists about books and writing. It doesn’t claim the most original concept in the world but what makes it different is it is snob-free and deliberately friendly and accessible for all authors and genres.

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What is even more amazing is the company the podcast is keeping. Booky is shortlisted in the Publisher Podcast awards for Best culture and lifestyle podcast, Best entertainment podcast and Best special interest and lifestyle podcast. Fellow shortlistees range from BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine to Financial Times, The Times and Sunday Times, Max/Warner Bros, and the New Statesman. I can absolutely assure you BOOKY was produced on a budget-free wing and a prayer compared to most of these so just being on the same shortlists is incredible.

I have to send send thanks to the authors who took part in series one for their support. They include Milly Johnson, Joanna Nadin, Will Carver, Brian Groom, Kate Fforde, Dorothy Koomson, Danielle Owen-Jones, and Sarah Pinborough. Author friends out there - I’m coming for you for series two! And if anybody out there knows a company or individual interested in sponsoring series two (which is promoted across our National World titles across England/Scotland and N Ireland) so we can afford biscuits - even better!

Podcasts from National World (where I work) have been shortlisted 15 times. They include both established and newly launched products including Lancashire Post/Blog Preston collaboration Parched Pea Podcast (details of new series lower down this newsletter!), BOOKY, The Athletics Weekly Podcast, The Scotsman's food podcast Scran and political podcast The Steamie. Nostalgia-themed Wearside Echoes from Sunderland Echo's Chris Cordner was also shortlisted and TV podcast, Screen Babble, also scooped a nomination. The podcasts face competition from across the publisher spectrum including The Telegraph, Bloomberg, Reuters, The Times, Financial Times, The Conversation, The New Statesman, Reach and more.

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Brands become verbs

Now much as I would like BOOKY to become a verb, I think it has a while to go. But this week something interesting landed in my inbox - so I’m sharing. One of the most exciting things about language is that it is ever-evolving, with the Cambridge Dictionary adding thousands of new words every year. With so many new additions, it’s hard to keep up with where various words have come from. Not everyone is a fan of this, safe to say. Credit for this research goes to 1337 games

Emre Aksu, editor-in-chief of 1337 Games, has revealed some common verbs and nouns used in everyday language that actually originated as trademarked brand names and explained the cultural phenomenon of verbification and genericide. Hoover is one of the earliest examples of a brand name becoming a verb. The Hoover Company dominated the vacuum cleaner market in the early 20th century, leading to its name becoming synonymous with the act of vacuum cleaning.

Examples:

• Hoover

• Google

• Photoshop

• Uber

• Sellotape

• Trampoline (yes, it’s a brand)

• Frisbee

• Crock-Pot

• Air Fryer (no, really)

Another common example is Google: - ‘I’ll Google it.’ More recent examples include Photoshop and Uber. Adobe's image editing software has led to 'photoshopping' becoming shorthand for any digital image manipulation, while people often refer to ‘Ubering’ somewhere, even if they’re getting a taxi or another Uber competitor.

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While some brands embrace becoming a generic term, others actively campaign against it. "Xerox spent decades and millions of dollars urging people to say they're 'photocopying' not 'xeroxing' documents," Aksu said. "They feared becoming so generic they'd lose trademark protection, which happened to Aspirin, Escalator, and Thermos." Similarly, the Velcro company launched a campaign in 2017 to discourage people from using ‘Velcro’ for generic hook-and-loop fasteners. Aksu noted that Rollerblade, Jacuzzi, Band-Aid, and Chapstick similarly discourage verbal use.

So, is becoming a generic term really that bad? Unfortunately, that answer isn’t clear and depends on the brand itself. On one hand, becoming a generic term means that your brand or product does its job better than anyone else's, thus becoming synonymous with the act itself. On the other hand, you risk losing trademark status and fading into the background of other competitors that are all using your name to market their products, as was the case with Bubble Wrap. This is known as genericide.

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News, events and opportunities:

Books, writing & journalism

Parched Pea Podcast is back for series 2.

The collaborative Parched Pea Pod is back for series two - and episode one is now live featuring an interview with the woman who escaped the Nazis - Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines. She’s absolutely brilliant - you may remember as one of the children rescued by late hero Nicholas Winton ( and yes she has a cameo in the film!).

Lancashire Post (National World), Blog Preston and Central Radio are working together on this production - named after the city of Preston delicacy The Parched Pea.

Parched Pea Podcast

Booker Prize Shortlist is announced: Every book on the International Booker Prize shortlist comes from an independent publisher this year for the first time - and nine out of the 12 are women. Six authors have been shortlisted for the first time, including three with their debut English-language publications. And the focus is on ‘Concise but powerful storytelling’, with just two shortlisted books over 200 pages. The shortlist of six books – five novels and one collection of short stories – was chosen by the 2025 judging panel, chaired by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter

The shortlist is: (full details linked in title above)

• A Leopard-Skin Hat; Written by Anne Serre & translated (from French) by Mark Hutchinson

• Heart Lamp; Written by Banu Mushtaq and translated by Deepa Bhasthi (from Kannada).

• Perfection: Written by Vincenzo Latronico & translated by Sophie Hughes (from Italian).

• Under the Eye of the Big Bird; Written by Hiromi Kawakami & translated by Asa Yoneda (From Japanese).

• Small Boat; Written by Vincent Delecroix & translated by Helen Stevenson (from French).

• On the Calculation of Volume I; Written by Solvej Balle & translated by Barbara J. Haveland (from Danish.)

Vampire Diaries novelist dies at 66

Author LJ Smith (Lisa Jane Smith) published the original four-book series, about a love triangle involving two vampire brothers and an orphaned young woman, in 1991 and 92, before releasing another Vampire Diaries trilogy in 2009-11. However, she was dropped from her own book series and replaced by new authors by publishers, but Smith continued releasing new instalments unofficially as fan fiction. Smith had originally been hired to write the novel series by a book packager - who sold them to a publisher - under a deal where they, not she, owned the rights. Extract via BBC - read in full here

This is useful for journalists, via Journalism.co.uk

There are loads of tools to help transcribe audio to text via AI - please be aware they are not as legally sound for journalists as shorthand but useful as a backup for meetings, interviews and to transcribe podcast. See link.

Publisher Podcast Awards (as mentioned!)

Shortlisted:

BEST B2B PODCAST

ASHRAE Journal Podcast, ASHRAE Journal

Engineering Matters, Reby Media

Hot Air, ASHRAE Journal

Startup Europe, Sifted EU Ltd

The Campaign Podcast, Haymarket Media Group

The Lawyer Podcast, The Lawyer

BEST CULTURE & LIFESTYLE PODCAST

Booky, National World

Culture from the New Statesman, The New Statesman

Feel better about Money, The Times and The Sunday Times

Money Clinic with Claer Barrett, Financial Times

BEST DEEP DIVE PODCAST

Constructive Voices, Constructive Voices

Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Developing Mental Wealth (The Positive News Podcast), Positive News

Econ World, Reuters

Know Your Place from The Conversation Documentaries, The Conversation

Talk Eastern Europe, New Eastern Europe

The Catch, Foreign Policy

The Conversation Weekly, The Conversation

Why It Matters, Council on Foreign Relations

BEST ENTERTAINMENT PODCAST

Booky, National World

Culture Bites, The National News

Screen Babble, National World

Talking Pictures, Max / Warner Bros. Discovery

BEST HEALTH, WELLBEING & FOOD PODCAST

Developing Mental Wealth (The Positive News Podcast), Positive News

In Conversation, Medical News Today (Healthline Media UK)

Scran, The Scotsman

The Good Food podcast, Immediate Media

Untold: The Retreat, Financial Times

BEST HOBBIES & SPECIAL INTEREST PODCAST

BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine Podcast, Immediate Media

Behind The Money, Financial Times

Booky, National World

The Athletics Weekly Podcast, Athletics Weekly (NationalWorld)

The Plodcast, Our Media

BEST INVESTIGATIVE PODCAST

Bed of Lies, The Telegraph

Cocaine Inc., The Times, The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia

Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Jan Marsalek: The Tech Boss Who Was Russia’s Secret Spy, The Telegraph

Scam Factories from The Conversation Weekly, The Conversation

Who Killed Jennifer Judd?, ID / Warner Bros. Discovery

World of Secrets, Season 1 – The Abercrombie Guys, BBC Long Form Audio for BBC Sounds

BEST LIMITED SERIES

After Hotel Rwanda, Foreign Policy

Bed of Lies: Conflict, The Telegraph

Cocaine Inc., The Times, The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia

Everything Environment, Wild Frequencies

Jan Marsalek: The Tech Boss Who Was Russia’s Secret Spy, The Telegraph

Know Your Place from The Conversation Documentaries, The Conversation

The Athletics Weekly Podcast: Olympics 2024, Athletics Weekly (NationalWorld)

The Northern Agenda: Our Kids In The North, Reach

The Positive News Podcast: Developing Mental Wealth, Positive News

World of Secrets, Season 1 – The Abercrombie Guys, BBC Long Form Audio for BBC Sounds

BEST LOCAL & COMMUNITY PODCAST

• Parched Pea Podcast, National World/Blog Preston CIC

• The Northern Agenda, Reach

• The Steamie, The Scotsman

• WAM CAST, We Are Makers

• Wearside Echoes, National World / Sunderland Echo

BEST NEWS PODCAST

• Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, Bloomberg

• Here’s Why, Bloomberg

• Reuters World News, Reuters

• Sweden in Focus, The Local Europe

• The Daily T, The Telegraph

• The News Agenda Explained, Reach

• The Rachman Review, Financial Times

• The Story, The Times & The Sunday Times

• Trending Middle East, The National News

• Ukraine The Latest, The Telegraph

BEST PARTNER PODCAST

• The Next Five Podcast, Financial Times

• Engineering Matters, Reby Media

• Into the Mix – Season 3, Vox Creative

• The Parched Pea Podcast, National World / Blog Preston

• The Negotiators, Foreign Policy and Doha Debates

• Scran, The Scotsman

BEST POLITICAL PODCAST

• Beyond The Headlines, The National News

• Bloomberg UK Politics, Bloomberg

• Foreign Policy Live, Foreign Policy

• Know Your Place from The Conversation Documentaries, The Conversation

• Political Fix, Financial Times

• Politics from the New Statesman, The New Statesman

• PoliticsHome – The Rundown, Total Politics

• The Lede, New Lines

• The President’s Inbox, Council on Foreign Relations

• The Steamie, The Scotsman

BEST SCIENCE & MEDICAL PODCAST

• Curiosity Weekly, Discovery / Warner Bros. Discovery

• In Conversation, Medical News Today (Healthline Media UK)

• Instant Genius, Our Media

• Living Planet, Deutsche Welle

• Mongabay Explores, Mongabay

• Science in Parallel, Krell Institute

• The Nature Podcast, Nature

• Wild Frequencies, Mongabay India, Everything Environment

BEST SPORT PODCAST

• Claret and Blue, Reach

• Everything is Black and White, Reach

• Rugby Lives, Rugby Journal, Sporting Eric

• The Athletics Weekly Podcast, Athletics Weekly (NationalWorld)

BEST TECHNOLOGY PODCAST

• ASHRAE Journal Podcast, ASHRAE Journal

• Beyond The Valley, CNBC International

• Constructive Voices, Constructive Voices

• Engineering Matters, Reby Media

• Science in Parallel, Krell Institute

• Tech Tonic, Financial Times

• The Times Tech Podcast, The Times and The Sunday Times

BEST COMMERCIAL STRATEGY

• Reby Media, Engineering Matters

• The New Statesman, The New Statesman podcast

BEST PODCAST LAUNCH

• Euro Thrash, Reach

• Millennial Masters, QWERTY Media Ltd

• Rugby Lives, Rugby Journal, Sporting Eric

• The Athletics Weekly Podcast, Athletics Weekly (NationalWorld)

• The Daily T, The Telegraph

• The Positive News Podcast, Positive News

• Your History, The Times and The Sunday Times

BEST VIDEO PODCAST STRATEGY

• DC Studios Showcase: The Official Podcast, Max / Warner Bros. Discovery

• The Index, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

• The New Statesman podcast, The New Statesman

• The Royals with Roya and Kate, The Times and The Sunday Times

• Underworlds with Mark Shaw, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

• WAM CAST, We Are Makers

PUBLISHER PODCAST HERO OF THE YEAR 2025

• Andrew Musgrove, Reach

• Bethany Burgoyne, The Sassy Show

• Daniel J McLaughlin, Reach Plc

• Joshua Sommer, Reuters

• Louisa Wells, The Telegraph

• Maxine Betteridge-Moes, New Internationalist

Thanks for reading, I’m off to listen to a podcast now.. Until next week Nx

P.S Mr Pheasant still going strong..

My dear wordsmiths,

As always you have my top tier appreciation for hitting subscribe and if you have committed to a paid subs, may your upcoming spring and summer be strewn in daisies and happy memories.

Subscribe now

Meanwhile, can anyone lend me £2.5m? I’ve learned poet William Wordsworth’s former home is up for sale and I can’t bear the thought of anyone without a bookish bent buying it. To be fair, one of my dreams is also to live in the Lake District, so owning a piece of England’s literary and architectural heritage is just the cherry on top. It helps that it’s a seven bedroom idyll with views of Windermere. Just imagine what a writing retreat this would make! It’s currently open to the public - the sale could change all this.

Once home to poet William Wordsworth from 1813 until his death in 1850, the house retains a wealth of original features, including single-glazed windows, wooden beams, and an elegant drawing room. This 7-bedroom home includes four reception rooms, 3 bathrooms, and a separate annexe with 2 additional bedrooms, perfect for guests or holiday let accommodation. See words and pictures here (via Lancashire Post.)

Also here the family explain their sadness at having to sell (via Cumbria Crack). Anyone else think they should do a crowdfunder?

& my dad does it again..

I mean this is not writing related but if you can’t be inspired by a (partial) solar eclipse, I worry. Of course my astronomer dad caught it on camera from southern Spain - he even put hundreds of images together to create a 30 second video of the eclipse unfolding HERE and you can, of course, see one pic at the top of this newsletter.

News, events and jobs/opportunities

-BOOKS-

NEWS: Authors protest over Meta Lib Gen database (link to Society of authors)

Authors today (Thursday) gathered outside Facebook-owner Meta HQ to protest against its use of the LibGen database to train its AI models. The campaign reflects the journalism industry’s similar concerns about AI scraping of content. News publishers have launched the Make It Fair campaign, which saw newspapers put covers on the outside of their front page – criticising the Government’s consultation – organised by the News Media Association (NMA), and backed by the Society of Editors (SOE). (Read about Make it Fair in my previous post here.)

Novelists Kate Mosse and Tracy Chevalier were amongst those outside the company’s King’s Cross office in London - a letter to Meta from the Society of Authors (SoA) was due to be hand-delivered at 1.45pm today.

EVENT: Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival 2025

Taking place at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate (17-20 July), this year’s programme has been curated by bestselling ‘Slow Horses’ author Mick Herron and offers readers a unique opportunity to meet the superstar writers of today, discover the bestsellers of tomorrow and hear from innovators pushing the boundaries of the genre.

The programme features a stellar line up of crime writing icons, TV talent and reader favourites as headliners Lee and Andrew Child, Steph McGovern, Attica Locke, Kate Atkinson, Paula Hawkins, Kate Mosse, Val McDermid, Mark Billingham, Irvine Welsh are joined by acclaimed writers Reverend Richard Coles, Belinda Bauer, AA Dhand, Abigail Dean, Nick Harkaway, Janice Hallett, Abir Mukherjee and Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall.

With a packed programme of creative workshops, thrilling panels and talks exploring dark domestic noir, murder in far galaxies, twisty missing persons investigations, high-stake legal thrillers, gritty crime scene investigation and much more, there’s plenty to enthral and entertain every crime fiction fan at this year’s Festival.

-JOURNALISM-

EVENT: Public forum to help preserve newspaper archives

Momentum is now growing around this project, which I have been involved in backing, and it’s being formally launched it with a public forum on May 1. All are welcome to attend. It’s being headed up by Dr Rachel Matthews, of Coventry University, bringing together experts, archivists and community groups to create a network to preserve the historical archives of local newspapers.

As many local newspapers transition to digital formats and close their physical offices, the historical materials they have accumulated over the years—such as photographs and article cuttings that record community life—are in danger of being lost. Without a formal system to save them, or a recognition of their importance, most material is simply thrown away.

Drawing on her 15 years working in the local newspaper industry, Dr Rachel Matthews from the university’s Research Centre for Arts, Memory and Communities, is working with Gary Collins, an experienced archive specialist, to develop a new approach to acquiring, cataloguing and making these valuable archives more accessible. Local newspaper archives are often the only repository for the stories that tell the history of a place. This project is a vital step in safeguarding that history. In addition, they are key artefacts relating to journalism history and tell the story of the local newspaper itself.

Register for the Preserving the Local Newspaper Archive event HERE

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NEWS 2025 Newspaper awards

Lots of my colleagues and friends are celebrating after their titles scooped awards on Wednesday night including The Yorkshire Post, which won Regional Daily Newspaper of the year. In awarding this prestigious title, the judges said: "The Yorkshire Post is a regional leader with strong editorial and an undeniable local impact."

YP Editorial Director, James Mitchinson said: "The smiles on the faces of Steph and Marisa convey better than I ever could the pride we all feel when telling people we are journalists working for The Yorkshire Post. I want to say thank you to everyone working on all teams contributing to this success. The creativity and sheer bloody effort, rarely easy in this industry these days, put into the collaborative approach by editorial and commercial in particular, is often looked upon with envy by others but it is that which makes us who and what we are and that comes down to you."

Congrats also to our (National World’s) collaboration partners First News, awarded Niche Market Newspaper of the Year, recognising their dedication to engaging and informing young people about the world they are growing up in.

NEWS: It’s not every day you get an invite to 10 Downing Street..( not me this time)

The Prime Minister praised the regional media at a reception held at 10 Downing Street. Monday’s event was attended by - amongst others - my colleague Vanessa Sims and saw regional and local newspaper titles and broadcasters invited to the reception which was attended by the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy MP. Read Vanessa’s take on it here.

JOBS: 2x Journo Jobs

Local Democracy Reporter - Blackpool Council (job linked here via LinkedIn)

Do you want to shine a light on the workings of an exciting coastal town, hold power to account and have a ringside seat at the heart of local decision-making? Then this could be the job for you. We’re looking for a reporter to join the BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporting Service, covering Blackpool Council, a tourist destination full of regeneration projects. It’s a great job for a senior reporter, or possibly an experienced trainee looking to take their next steps.

Metro News Editor - National World

An opportunity has arisen for a talented leader to join the ranks of the newly created and fast growing Metro Unit at National World. The dynamic new digital Metro team includes iconic titles the Lancashire Post. Blackpool Gazette, Sunderland Echo, Shields Gazette, Liverpool World, Manchester World, Bristol World and Newcastle World.

You should be creative, cool under pressure, have great news judgement and be a great collaborator who enjoys nurturing talent and enabling them to develop their skills. This will involve making decisions at speed and managing content to support and grow an engaged audience as part of our team of leading city brands.

If you’ve read this leave me a comment - I love hearing back from you all. Thanks as ever until next week. Nx