Sheila M. Averbuch is a former journalist, originally from Massachusetts in the USA. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in American history and literature and earned a journalism MA at Stanford. Following this she moved to Ireland where she covered the Northern Ireland “Troubles” for USA Today and also set up Ireland’s first IT news service. These days Sheila is a novelist for younger readers and lives just outside of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Shelia won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2019 and her debut novel ‘Friend Me’ (Scholastic Press) was published in 2020. Sheila co-founded the Scotland network of the Society Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and has been a key figure in helping new and aspiring Scottish authors gain confidence and share knowledge of writing and publishing.

Building on her many years of experience, Sheila has written a wonderfully informative and useful book aimed at helping aspiring writers of all genres and readerships to grab the attention of agents. ‘Pitch Your Book: Write The Letter That Hooks an Agent On Your Novel’ is the definitive guide for new novelists, with up-to-date tips and tools that demystify the ordeal of approaching agents.

In this one-off Meet the Professionals session, Shelia is ready to answer all of our questions and offer invaluable advice about writing query letters, pitching your book, and the too often mysterious process of finding an agent.

You can find out more about Sheila on her website.

Martin Stewart grew up in Glasgow, and he’s found great inspiration in the city – both real life as well as its proud literary heritage.

He is a former lecturer in creative writing and secondary school English teacher. He had already been writing for many years (he wrote his first novel on Post-It notes aged 8) but it was while working as an English teacher he realised he wanted to create stories both for and about young people, using the voices he heard around him every day.

‘Riverkeep’, Martin’s first novel, began as a short story of only 2,000 words. But Penguin Random House loved it so much they wanted a whole book! When it was published in 2016 that original short story became Chapter One. Although ‘Riverkeep’ is a fantasy story, the initial inspiration came from learning about the real life Glasgow rivermen, working on the Clyde all their lives.

Martin has also written for younger children with the wonderfully anarchic and heartwarming ‘Bridget Vanderpuff’ series, and his books have been translated all over the world, as well as being nominated for several national awards. His latest novel, however, brings him firmly back to modern-day Glasgow. ‘Double Proof’ is an adult crime novel, steeped in strong whisky and dark Scottish humour.

We’ll talk to Martin, not just about the usual nuts-and-bolts of being a writer, but also about how place and setting affects his work. How does he successfully create new and imaginary lands for ‘Riverkeep’, as well as reflect a well-known modern city such as Glasgow? How does he build his worlds, before immersing the reader within them?

Sign up for tickets below. Why not join the conversation?

(Photo @Scottish Field)

Alex Nye is an amazingly versatile author as well as a creative writing mentor for Scottish Book Trust and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at the University of Glasgow. She started writing early in life and at the age of 16 won the WH Smith Young Writers’ Award – beating the other 33,000 entrants to the top spot! Although Alex grew up in Norfolk on the east coast of England, she has spent most of her adult life in Scotland. And her first novel for younger readers was the haunted house mystery story, ‘Chill’, which won the Scottish Children’s Book of the Year Award.

As well as writing spooky novels for children Alex has written historical literary fiction. ‘For My Sins’ is set in 1586 and focusses on Mary Queen of Scots as she sits in an English prison cell towards the end of her life, plotting conspiracies and the downfall of Elizabeth I. ‘Arguing With The Dead’ follows another powerful Mary, this time Mary Shelley, who in 1839 is living alone in a tiny cottage on the Thames, and is haunted by the drowned first wife of her husband. While Death herself is keen to tell her own compelling and provocative side of the story during an interview in ‘Even The Birds Grow Silent’, and she shares her personal insights on the people she has met throughout history – including Lady Jane Grey, victims of the Black Death, Leonard Cohen and Virginia Woolf amongst others.

Alex’s most recent novel is yet another ambitious departure for her diverse writing. ‘Gallow Falls’ is a beautifully atmospheric, contemporary crime novel set on a remote Scottish estate. You can read an extract of the novel here.

Join our Q&A session with Alex to discover how to develop a long-term writing career, how to evolve as a writer/novelist and how to successfully cultivate a readership across both genre and age group. Remember, as with all of our Meet the Professionals events, you get to lead the conversation and ask the questions.

 Find out more about Alex here.

We are over-the-moon, excited and delighted to welcome to Sunday Writers’ Club the dazzlingly wonderful novelist Graeme Macrae Burnet.
Graeme is originally from Kilmarnock, Scotland and after studying English Literature and Security Studies at Glasgow and St Andrews universities he spent several years teaching English as a second language in Prague, Bordeaux, Porto and London. In 2013 he won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers’ Award, but shot to fame when his novel ‘His Bloody Project’ was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2015. This genuinely remarkable book was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and won the Scottish Saltire Society Fiction Book of the Year. It’s (so far) been published in over 20 languages.
Graeme’s trilogy of crime novels set in the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis and following the detective Georges Gorski concludes next year (2024) but the first two books have already been longlisted for the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year and the Hearst Big Book Awards Harpers Bazaar Modern Classics.
His most recent novel ‘Case Study’ (2021) was longlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown. It was named as a New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022.
Join us for an hour in his company, with his expertise and insight – it will be nothing short of thrilling.

Find out more about Graeme and his work on his website.

(Image © Getty)

Sally Nicholls is an immensely talented and versatile writer of award-winning novels set in modern times, our recent history and the medieval past. Her best-selling debut ‘Ways To Live Forever’ was published when she was only 25. It tells the story of Sam, an 11 year-old who is dying of leukaemia, and is written in the form of his scrapbook as he comes to terms with his illness. Heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting, it won several prizes including the Waterstones Book Prize in the UK and the German ‘Luchs des Jahres’. It was made into a film in 2012.

Since then, Sally’s writing has continued to be empathetic, exciting and exploratory. Her novel ‘All Fall Down’ is set in 1349 during the time of Europe’s Great Plague, while ‘Things A Bright Girl Can Do’ follows three young women who join the suffragette movement in England in the early 20th century.

We do our best to bring a different aspect of the publishing industry, or of the writing process itself, to Meet the Professionals events and for our hour with Sally we’ll be chatting to her about researching her writing. How did she go about researching the Black Death? How does she balance research and imagination? Has she ever written about real people, and does that raise its own tricky issues? What would she do if true-life historical fact got in the way of a good story?

This event is going to an amazing opportunity to ask your own questions to a wonderfully diverse, brilliantly engaging and highly acclaimed author. Do not miss out!

Find out more about Sally and her work on her website.

(Image © Rottkay)

Lynsey May is possibly not a name you recognise – at least not yet. This is because Lynsey has not had her novel published – at least not yet. But ‘Weak Teeth’, her debut novel, will be published in the summer of ’23 by Polygon (Birlinn).

Lynsey has been writing for years and years. She has quite a resume of published short fiction in various journals from New Writing Scotland to Gutter and Banshee. Yet she is quite open about how she has tried and failed, racked up the rejections, and has been unsuccessful to publish a novel. Until now…

What does Lynsey believe tipped this particular novel over-the-edge? Why has this novel, this draft, this rewrite succeeded when others failed? And what happens now for a brand new, first time novelist? What do the publishers expect? What does the author herself expect? Is it cool breezes and plain sailing from here on out?

You can browse Lynsey’s website for more information about her and her work.

This is guaranteed to be a fascinating conversation. You can join in by booking a ticket via the link below.

Photo © John Need Media

Anthony has written for children, adults and dogs; fiction, non-fiction and memoir. His books have been described as hilarious, heart-warming and profound. He’s lectured in creative writing at London Metropolitan University, Royal Holloway University of London and the famous Faber Academy. In 2020 he won the highest honour in UK Children’s publishing, the CILIP Carnegie Medal, for his wonderful novel Lark.

His memoir The Art of Failing: Notes from the Underdog is a series of askance essays from the course of one year in his life. It is legitimately laugh-out-loud funny, cringingly honest and yet deeply moving too. In How To Teach Philosophy to Your Dog: A Quirky Introduction to the Big Questions in Philosophy, Anthony utilised his PhD in philosophy to examine the teachings of history’s most renowned philosophers, which he presented in a series of ‘conversations’ between himself and his dog, Monty. Guardian critic, John Crace said of it: “Essential reading on both the meaning of dogs and the meaning of life. The final chapter is a touching meditation on death and the existence – or not – of God, that takes in everything from Aristotle to Schopenhauer and leaves you suspecting dogs might already have had many of the answers all along.”

It’s obvious that Anthony is an utterly unique writer who’s highly regarded by both readers and fellow writers. An hour in his company is going to be eye-opening, inspirational and really, really good fun! A perfect way to round off our SWC year before we take our summer break.

For more information about Anthony, please visit his website.

Photo © ACHUKA photo

Following our incredibly successful MtP events with an editor and a translator we thought we’d get back to basics and invite an author to join us in conversation this month. We are incredibly excited to be welcoming Jenn Ashworth to SWC.

Jenn is a short story writer and a novelist from Lancashire, England, who started her career as a librarian. She has worked in the public library sector but also at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library and for two years was a prison librarian based in a male category B (tough!) prison – where she wrote a novel sitting in her car on her lunch breaks.

Two of Jenn’s early novels have never been published – one she wrote when she was 17, the second was lost due to computer theft! But since then she’s published 5 novels, a memoir and over a dozen essays and short stories. In 2012 she was named by the BBC as one of 12 Best New Novelists and this month sees the release of the paperback of her most recent book, ‘Ghosted: A Loved Story’.

Jenn has been active in reader and writer development throughout her career setting up the Lancashire Writing Hub and a literacy consultancy which she ran alongside the poet Sarah Hymas. Jenn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018 and is currently a Professor of Writing at Lancaster University.

We think that with Jenn’s background in writer development, as well as her love of both short stories and novels, she will be a fabulous MtP guest.

For more information about Jenn Ashworth, please visit her website.

Photo © Jenn Ashworth

His translation work (from Spanish, Portuguese and French) includes fiction from Europe, Africa and America. It ranges from children’s picture books, to autobiographies of footballing superstars Arsène Wenger and Pelé, as well as his translations of the Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago.

Daniel has an encyclopaedic knowledge of children’s literature and has written both ‘The Ultimate Book Guides’ series and ‘The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature’. He has written brief biographies of the Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In April 2022 Daniel publishes ‘Catching Fire: A Translation Diary’ which explores his own process as a translator – reading almost in real-time as he translates Diamela Eltit’s ‘Never Did The Fire’.

A single hour is nowhere near long enough to talk to Daniel about all aspects of his incredible career and love of literature, but we guarantee this will be a fascinating event. Many of our Sunday Writers’ Clubbers have to tackle the translation process every week when they write with us – writing in English as their second or even third language. Daniel is someone who understands the problems and pleasures of conveying literature into another language – how difficult is it to find the right rhyme, what happens when you need to make a pun funny, how can you give a double entendre just the right amount of riské?

Join the conversation and ask your own questions about translations, great writing and how to find those perfect words.

Find out more about Daniel and his work here. Or listen to Daniel speak about Daniel Dafoe’s Robinson Crusoe (BBC Radio 3, Hay Festival Essay, 2019)

Photo © Alamy/Economist