Tag Archives: writing services

News December 2016

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Eastlit December 2016 Cover Picture: Lone Coconut Tree by Dave Hopkins. Cover design by Graham Lawrence. Copyright photographer, Eastlit and Graham Lawrence.As we head towards 2017 we have a number of interesting projects covering creative writing going on at Eastlit including one that could give a far larger audience to some writers.

But first, I would just like to say thank you to all of those who have contributed to or read Eastlit throughout 2016. Plus a special thank you to everyone who has worked on the editorial board this year and to those who have donated to help cover our costs.

And in January our ever popular annual list of what were the best read pieces in 2016 and all time will be out!

And having said that, lets move to the news.

Writing Mentoring

Eastlit now offers a full writing mentoring service to Asian focused writers. The service offered is as short or long as wanted and all rates are local Asian rates. So cost is low. We currently have several running and a couple complete, and are currently open to taking on a few more writiers. If you are interested contact Graham for information.

Writing Retreats

Eastlit is currently involved in discussions to set up writing retreats within Asia. These will be for local or distant writers focusing on Asian themes. The plan is that they will follow a typical writing retreat format but also include some of our unique Eastlit ideas. We will also be aiming at running at affordable prices.

This is at early days yet, but we are quite excited and hope to be able to offer something in 2017. Fingers crossed!

A Partnership with an ESL Site

Those of you who know me better know that I work within teaching English to speakers of other language. Within that field in the past I was quite active within the Ed-Tech side and maintain strong contacts with some leaders in the field.

One off-shoot of this is an offer to partner Eastlit with a top ESL websites in the world to supply some audio-story material for learners of English. We will be looking for short short-stories and flash fiction that Eastlit has previously published or will publish. Those selected will be read by actors and then used on the ESL website complete with downloadable material.

This is currently at planning stage but there should be no obstacles. The stories selected will also be guaranteed a far larger audience.

Bangkok Buckaroo by Steve Rosse

A few years back, Steve was a regular columnist on Eastlit with his How not to Write series. Now Steve has released his latest book: Bangkok Buckaroo. 

Steve is an old hand from South East Asia now living in the US, but here he is back writing about Bangkok.

You can also read a review of Bangkok Buckaroo in the Bangkok newspaper The Nation.

Good luck to Steve on the book from all of us at Eastlit.

Supporting Eastlit

And finally a reminder that if you support what Eastlit is doing you can provide support by liking and sharing this post, linking or generally passing the word on.

Or you can make a donation via PayPal (note: the PayPal e-mail is Eastlit1 at gmail dot com). For credit card donation after clicking the link below, scroll down to the credit card pictures and click continue.




 

Cheers

Graham

Eastlit Literature News 2016

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Literature News 2016 by Eastlit: Eastlit March 2016.There is quite a lot in this Eastlit Literature News 2016 post! In the coming year, I have a number of plans to move Eastlit forward. These involve offering our contributors wider audiences and our readers a greater variety. Part of this will be to share our Asian writers work in other regions of the world that Eastlit does not currently have a high profile in. We will be looking for partners to help both us and them to offer new audiences.

A new services page will also be added. The aim of this will be to offer support and background services to writers and poets who need a little help. We want to help you get your work published. We want to help you feel confident that your work is great. These services will be offered by a small group of native speaker/writers based in developing countries. That means the prices will be a lot more affordable for many.

We also have a serialization coming up in the second half of the year and a small special issue celebrating the poetry of the African diaspora in Hong Kong.

All the details of this literature news 2016 are below.

Partnerships with Other Journals

Eastlit is looking for partnerships with other similar journals covering the following regions:

  • Africa
  • Middle-East
  • Latin America
  • Central Asia
  • Eastern Europe

The plan is to work as partners to announce each issue of each others journals. But more than this, the idea is that every year we will each run one or two special issues highlighting the work of selected poets and writers from each of our diasporas. This will hopefully help build far bigger audiences for each of our local writers.

I am looking to partner with online journals of a similar nature to Eastlit. That means:

  • Not affiliated to any organization, company or institution.
  • Established for at least a year with at least 4 issues published.
  • With some form of editorial board.
  • But mostly with a desire to see the literatrue of your locality get the readership it deserves.

Journal owners etc please contact Graham if interested or use the Eastlit contact page.

Services

I will soon be adding a special page for these. However, they are all ready to run now. So if you want to get in early drop me a line. The services that will be offered are:

  • Writing Mentor Service
  • Editing
  • Proofreading
  • Publishing and Printing Service covering India and the sub-Continent:
    • If you are interested in publication, marketing and distribution service in this locale, let me know.
  • Creative Writing classes.
  • Developing Creativity classes.

All of the above are at special rates more suited to Asia than the West. For example, many are about 30% of what you would pay in a western country, but still done by a native speaker/writer.

Eastlit Literature News 2016: Eastlit Extras

As mentioned above, in the next couple of months a special slim poetry of the African diaspora in Hong Kong will be published byEastlit. We are also interested in publishing other special issues to highlight particular groups. Years ago we had the chance to publish literature from a Burmese refugee camp until demands for corruption money descended. It would be nice to get back to this kind of opportunity.

In the second half of the year, we will serialize a collection of shorts plus artwork by one of Eastlit’s old regular contributors.

Other Literature News 2016

Remember if you want e-mail notifications of when the next issue Eastlit is out, you can sign up for our Eastlit Newsletter. We only use this to inform people of an issue coming out, or a news post like this coming out. You will not be inundated with rubbish. There are also our usual social media links.

Eastlit readership is currently up 18% on last year. It is also at all time record levels. I am predicting growth of 30% for the year based on acceleration of readership and that last year we only published 10 issues. We will see, but it will definitely be a good year for our contributors in getting their work read!

I got this piece of news from Kristine Ong Muslim whose piece Dark Clocks was published by Eastlit in January 2015:

My short story collection Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016) has just been released.

My book A Room Full of Machines (ELJ Publications, 2015) contained the poem “Dark Clocks,” which appeared in the January 2015 issue of Eastlit.

Lifeboat (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2015) is another poetry collection.

Ok well that is all the development and literature news 2016. I hope 2016 is going well for everyone and you continue to enjoy Eastlit.

Cheers

Graham