Minding the store



Image by David Shankbone, courtesty Wikipedia Commons, used under
Creative Commons licence.



Hello. My name is Scott Bury and I’ll be your editor for the next two months.

As you read in the last post, Siggy is taking a sabbatical over the summer, going to Europe (lucky!) to visit family and finish her next book. And while she could have handled WGT from Europe (or the International Space Station or anywhere else with an Internet connection), she knew she needed a break from her routine.

So, I volunteered to step into the breach.

All for the art’s sake. 

How I’ll spend the summer

As the interim editor, naturally I plan to continue the pattern Siggy established in 2011: publishing the words of writers about the topics they want to write about. As it says on the “Become part of the Get-Together” page, we encourage you to contribute posts on any topic under the sun.

Over the past year and a half, a lot of writers (myself included) have written about the act and the art of writing, itself. A few have contributed poetry or excerpts from novels. Some have written about social issues, others about personal tragedies and triumphs, and still others have contributed recipes. (Is anyone else hungry?)

I want to continue this variety.

But first, who am I?

Some of you may have read my words on this or other blogs already. My own blog is Written Words, which focuses on writing and publishing, but also covers politics, society and communications technology.

I have contributed three or four posts to WGT over the past year and a half, too: some writing tips and the occasional diatribe about the failings of the commercial publishing industry. I am the author of two books now available from various e-tailers: The Bones of the Earth (a historical fantasy) and One Shade of Red (an erotic romantic comedy spoof).

And I’m a journalist and editor, too. You can find links to all this stuff on my blog, if you like.

Let's talk about you.

Enough about me. Now, let’s focus on how you fit into this picture.

WGT has always published the broadest possible range of perspectives, ideas and subjects. Publishing is not the same as it was, and WGT is a chance for writers to shake up the publishing world and the blogosphere!

At the same time, writing about the topics you’re most interested in for WGT will expose your work to a new, growing and exciting audience.

What we want

While the topic can be almost anything (nothing defamatory, libellous or obscene, but scandalous is okay — we’ll let you know if you’ve somehow gone beyond our boundaries), we do have some criteria.

• Your writing must be of professional quality, showing good structure, organization, grammar, spelling, punctuation and diction.
• Contributions should be no more than 800 words.
• Your submission must include
• a brief biographical note about you ("The Frankestein Monster was assembled by a madman in Transylvania, and currently lives somewhere in the Arctic Ocean with sled dogs and a frozen corpse. He is the author of seven books of rambling drivel, including The DaVinci Code.")
• links to your own blog, website, author page or somewhere we can see your other work
• links to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and/or other social media sites
•  a picture of you in .jpg format
• an illustration for the piece, itself, also in .jpg.

Email your contributions as attachments to me, scott.bury@iauthorsi.org.

I’m looking forward to reading your work.

This is going to be a fun summer!

Scott Bury