In Partnership with

Indie Writers’ Festival

2015

Welcome to our first Indie Writers’ Fest and to Leeds Trinity University, we hope you have an inspiring and informative day with us. Please join in online too #indiewriters15.

Welcome 9:00 am Registration

Refreshments, networking, indie bookshop

10:00 am Welcome by Professor Ray Lloyd – Pro Vice-Chancellor, Leeds Trinity University

Keynote: Three Writers’ Tales – with Dee Blick, Tricia Walker & Ann Victoria Roberts

11:20 am Writing Challenge!Followed by Refreshments & Writing Break

11:50 am Workshops

Either Main RoomDee Blick - 20 Top Tips on Writing AND Marketing a Bestselling Non-Fiction Book

Or Breakout 1Tricia Walker - From Book to Film

1:00 pm Lunch

2:00 pm Workshops

Either Main Room: Dan Ingram-Brown - Stories from the Forests of Leeds

Or Breakout 1: Martyn Bedford - Stepping into CharacterOr Breakout 2: Ned Hoste - You CAN Judge a Book by its Cover

3:10 pm Plenary Panel and Prizes

4:00 pm Close and After Hours Activities (see Encounters Board on the day)

Workshops Morning

Main Room Dee Blick 20 Top Tips on Writing AND Marketing a Bestselling Non-Fiction Book

With the power of self-publishing at our fingertips virtually anyone can publish a book nowadays on a shoestring. Having a bestseller on your hands is not easy but it is attainable for sure. It comes down to a heady mix of investing your time and energy in crafting a fantastic book before you start on that all important marketing. In this friendly and informal break out session Dee will share her 20 top tips with you. Discover how to plan and structure a great non-fiction book – one that showcases your expertise or passion and helps you become a genuine person of influence with your readers and others. And learn some cheeky insider tips on how to market your book without spending a penny!

Breakout 1 Tricia WalkerFrom Book to Film

“The exciting world of agents, execs and movie development” - Tricia will give a reading, and a more in-depth look at how her self-published book became a film - a look behind the scenes and between the lines of one author’s journey from her keyboard to filming on location in Thailand.

Tweet us on #indiewriters15

@IndiWritersFest@BigBookend@LeedsTrinity

Afternoon

Main Room Dan Ingram-BrownStories from the Forests of Leeds

Join Daniel for a workshop that will draw on ideas from a year long project, imagining Leeds as a forest in a fairy tale. Help discover the characters that dwell in this parallel city. Be part of creating this alternate map, inventing some of its stories. The project will result in the publication of a book of short stories, packed with tales from the Forests of Leeds. Some of what we create in this workshop may well find its way into the book . . .

Breakout 1 Martyn BedfordStepping into Character

People are at the heart of a good story but how do we make them come alive on the page? In this characterisation workshop – aimed at prose-fiction writers – we will discuss this vital tool of the storyteller’s craft and use short-burst and more extended writing exercises to help us step into character.

Breakout 2 Ned HosteYou CAN Judge a Book by its Cover

Aim: To understand how mainstream publishers approach book covers - so your indie book can compete.

Part one: A talk about book cover designs using cover designs from my portfolio to illustrate the ideas.

Part two: Working with a given cover outline - start thinking how the cover may look. This exercise will help you make the visual decisions you need to make when briefing your own cover.

Part three: Discussions around part two and general Q&As around design for publishing.

Dee BlickDee is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (only 3% of marketers worldwide attain this status) She is also a genuine Number 1 bestselling author and the author of 4 bestsellers (three self published, one with Wiley) including: The 15 Essential Marketing Masterclasses For Your Small Business. Rated ‘an excellent read’ by The Sun, CityAM, Elite Business Magazine, winner of the Bookbag nonfiction book award and one of Talk Business Magazines ‘Best books of 2013’.

Dee’s latest book The Ultimate Guide to Writing and Marketing a Bestselling Book on a Shoestring Budget has won the Bookbag top 10 non-fiction books of 2014 and The Guardian top 10 essential reads for entrepreneurs 2014.

A northern lass (Dee was born in Horsforth no less and went to Horsforth School) Dee describes herself as a born writer who became a marketer.

@DeeBlick

Biographies

Tricia Walker

Tricia started as an indie writer and made a big splash with her first book Benedict’s Brother. It was the second biggest launch in York Borders that year, second only to JK Rowling. That same year she made it onto Publishing News’s Top Ten Books of the Year – the only indie book to feature, and is currently shooting it as a feature film in Thailand. Tricia has always had a really clear vision of her book and has a great story to share about the machinations of agents, film finances, conversion of book to scripts and her self-publishing journey.

@tricia_walker

Ann Victoria Roberts

Ann is a best-selling author with experience of both “sides” of the industry – as a mainstream author publishing with Chatto and Windus, and making things happen for herself. She will talk about this and her experience of how a book is produced and how she has taken that knowledge through to her own indie publishing. Ann was published in the UK and then taken up by the US, Australia and some countries in Europe with her first novel of a series set in Yorkshire, Louisa Elliott. Her latest book, The Masters Tale, is a Titanic ghost story.

@Ann_V_Roberts

Dan Ingram-Brown

Dan is a Yorkshire-based author and theatre producer involved in a wide range of work, ranging from writing for children to community theatre and contemporary performance. Author of The Firebird Chronicles, Rise of the Shadow Stealers, he has over 15 years’ experience of writing and directing plays and novels, and is chair of The Leeds Big Bookend. He will be running an imaginative workshop for us reflecting his current creative writing project – Stories from the Forests of Leeds.

@DanIngramBrown

Martyn Bedford Martyn is the author of five novels for adults and two for teenagers and young adults, including Flip (Walker Books, 2011), which was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award. Between them, his books have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written numerous short stories, several of which have been included in anthologies by the Manchester-based independent publisher Comma Press. He is currently working on a solo collection for Comma. He is a senior lecturer in creative writing at Leeds Trinity University. You can attend his popular workshop - Stepping into Character – as part of the festival.

News Flash

Martyn’s latest book Never Ending has been shortlisted for the teen section of the James Reckitt Hull Children’s Book Awards 2015, following in the footsteps of Flip in 2012.

Ned Hoste

Ned is a York-based designer with extensive experience in design for book publishing including cover design, book design, print buying, project management, publicity, advertising and point-of-sale. He has designed in excess of 100 complete books and 2,500 book covers.

@NedtheDesigner

Oz Hardwick and Amina Alyal Breaking out of the English Department at Leeds Trinity University are writing-partnership Oz Hardwick and Amina Alyal who will be setting us this year’s on-the-spot writing challenge. Their first co-authored book is Close as Second Skins and will be published by Indigo Dreams Publishing in the Spring of 2015.

Oz is a York-based writer, photographer and musician, who has been published extensively worldwide, and has read everywhere from Glastonbury Festival to New York, via countless back rooms of pubs. His latest poetry collection (his fifth) is The Ringmaster's Apprentice (Valley Press, 2014).

Amina has published widely in journals and anthologies and her first collection, The Ordinariness of Parrots, will be out with Stairwell Books in 2015. She specialises in Creative Writing and Renaissance Literature at Leeds Trinity University.

Tweet us on #indiewriters15

@IndiWritersFest@BigBookend@LeedsTrinity

“Bookends and Bagatelles” We invite you to write #falsehistories of whatever you find here. On cards or on Instagram.

Our pop-up indie bookshop is supporting all our authors – view previews of their work on ipads or purchase books or handmade zines on the day. Write the back-story behind the objects on display, and share them on Instagram #IndieWriters15

Book Launch - Leeds Trinity University’s own Kenneth Relf will be launching his fantasy novel at the event.

Noticeboards – use

the noticeboards

about the place to make contact,

make connections,

and form collaborations

Whatever you make of it . . .

Birth of a new Writers Group for Leeds

After Hours – want to meet up

again?

Bookends and Bagatelles

Interested instudyingCreative Writing?The MA in Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University aims to develop your writing skills in either prose or poetry.

You will be taught by published writers who will develop your prose or poetic skills, learning writing strategies which will help you to find your own distinctive voice in your chosen medium.

This MA in Creative Writing puts the emphasis on ‘creative’, giving you plenty of writing time and building a creative element into every module.

Available as a one-year full-time or two-year part-time programme. September start.

Contact informationFor an informal discussion about this course please contact Professor Paul Hardwick

T: 0113 283 7294E: p.hardwick@leedstrinity.ac.uk

www.leedstrinity.ac.uk