writing events

Writing Events and How to Make the Most of Them

August 14, 2026 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Images from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to the school for kind permission to use the poster photo for my launch there.

I’ve just come back from a wonderful few days at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. I hope to report more on that next week, including details on how my book launch there for Seeing The Other Side went. But it was the thought of the launch which led to the idea for this post.

Writing events didn’t come into my creative life at all to begin with. The thought of going to any terrified me but as it became clearer to me, writing wasn’t going to just be a hobby, I knew I needed to network, to learn more about the industry and so on. So that meant writing events would need to be something I got used to.

Tags: am writing, Association of Christian Writers, Cafelit, Continuing Professional Development, networking, Society of Authors, The Writers' Summer School - Swanwick, workshops, Writer Beware, writing advice, writing classes, writing event tips, writing events

Marketing and Writing

July 10, 2026 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for the image of me taking part in a previous Open Prose Mic Night at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes. AI images avoided.

Marketing and writing are strange bedfellows for most writers. Most writers (including me) much prefer to be writing than carrying out any marketing, yet we need to accept the latter is part of our overall writing life. How else will people know about our writing?

I now know my Seeing The Other Side is coming out on 16th July 2026 so over the next few months I’ll be engaged with marketing. I am hoping to have a blog tour for my third collection plus I will be launching the book at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in August. I also hope to arrange other in person signings and to have events on Zoom.

Tags: am writing, balancing writing and marketing, Book Brush, book launches, enjoyable marketing, marketing, preparing marketing material in advance, Seeing The Other Side by Allison Symes, writing, writing events

Writing Events

February 20, 2026 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Many thanks to Lynn Clement and Gill James for two photos included here. Other images (especially of The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick) were taken by me, Allison Symes.

Hopefully later this year, I will be off once more to The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick and I expect to take in a couple of other writing events. It took me ages as a new writer to pluck up the courage to go to my first writing event where, ironically, I ended up meeting the lady who would become my publisher. Neither of us could have known at the time.

Why go to writing events at all? What benefits are there for writers? Does it pay to work out what it is you would like to achieve by going to a specific writing event? I hope the following helps.

[Read more…] about Writing Events

Tags: ACW in person event, am writing, Bridge House Publishing Celebration event, Continuing Professional Development, creative writing, networking, The Writers' Summer School - Swanwick, writing courses, writing day events, writing events, writing residential events, writing workshops

Allison Symes – Author Update November 2024 – Book Fairs, Autumn Gatherings, Flash NANO and More

November 15, 2024 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

Image Credits:-

Many thanks to Janet Williams for taking pictures of yours truly at The Hilt Book Fair. Other photos were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were all screenshots. Other images created in Book Brush using either my photos or Pixabay ones.

It’s been a busy time of late. As well as going to the Association of Christian Writers (ACW) Autumn Gathering event in Rugby, literally the following week I was at The Hilt, taking part in the Book Fair.

I was pleased to see this back and while it was quieter than last year, it was great to meet writers from last year, meet new authors, and have a good chat with those I’ve known for a while, including our own Richard Hardie who was promoting his new book, Remember Remember, the third in his Temporal Detective Agency series for YA readers. (I’ve not been a YA for some considerable time but still love books like these and see no reason why my age should preclude me from reading them!).

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Tags: Allison Symes, Association of Christian Writers, author update, Autumn Gathering, Book Fair at The Hilt. Flash NANO, Bridge House Publishing Celebration event, competition placing, editing, story judging, the writing life, writing events

Making the Most of a Writing Event

July 19, 2024 By Allison Symes Leave a Comment

Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots and photos from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes. A huge thank you to Julia Patterson for taking the image of me leading my editing workshop at the 2023 Swanwick.

I’m shortly off on my travels again to a major highlight of my writing year, The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick in lovely Derbyshire. I meet up with friends I only see online for the rest of the year (though that is wonderful).

Indeed, one writer I plan to be catching up at Swanwick is Val Penny, author of the DI Hunter Wilson series, whom I’ll be interviewing here again next week. I hope to write more about Swanwick for a later post here but I am running a two part course called Editing as a Writer, Editing as a Competition Judge, which I’m looking forward to presenting.

I thought it might be useful to share some tips as to how to make the most of any writing event you might go to, whether it is a week long residential one like Swanwick, or a single day event. (I am hoping to get to another of those soon too run by the Association of Christian Writers).

Tags: am writing, Continuing Professional Development, courses, creative writing, networking, The Writers' Summer School - Swanwick, workshops, writing career development, writing events

How Has Your Summer Been?

August 28, 2020 By Allison Symes 2 Comments

I know, I know! With a title like that, this could be a very short post indeed!

It has been an odd year, has it not? Even the weather has reflected it. I noticed my first ripe blackberries out at the end of July, a good month early. And I’m seeing the leaves on the trees changing colour and some shedding of leaves occurring now, in August, significantly earlier than normal, and almost certainly due to the lack of rainfall over the last few weeks.

A beautiful summer image here. I suspect most of us will hope Summer 2021 will be happier than this year’s. Pixabay image.

Tags: Allison Symes, book news, lockdown, social distancing, summer 2020, writing, writing events

writing events

Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. AI images avoided. Images from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes. Many thanks to the school for kind permission to use the poster photo for my launch there.

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Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for the image of me taking part in a previous Open Prose Mic Night at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. Screenshots were taken by me, Allison Symes. AI images avoided.

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Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Many thanks to Lynn Clement and Gill James for two photos included here. Other images (especially of The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick) were taken by me, Allison Symes.

Share this:

Image Credits:-

Many thanks to Janet Williams for taking pictures of yours truly at The Hilt Book Fair. Other photos were taken by me, Allison Symes, as were all screenshots. Other images created in Book Brush using either my photos or Pixabay ones.

Share this:

Image Credits:-

Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Screenshots and photos from The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick were taken by me, Allison Symes. A huge thank you to Julia Patterson for taking the image of me leading my editing workshop at the 2023 Swanwick.

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