Delighted to say that I will be at York Unleashed on 13th August this year. Hope you can join us!

It’s easy to be excited about 2017. Just 20 days into the month, Alfie Slider vs the Shape Shifter is published! I’ve got a book launch, school visits, author events, comicon and more planned to promote the heck out my first book next year. It’s going to be amazing!

Can you lend me a Tweet, Facebook or Instagram post to help spread the word?
Click here to join the launch day Thunderclap!

I’ve been blown away by the pre-order sales I’ve made myself, I have copies of the book in hand and delivered them in my local area on Christmas Eve. Children (and a few adults) unwrapped copies of Alfie Slider vs the Shape Shifter for Christmas. Wow!

Order your paperback copy here!

I’m going to start the next round of edits on Alfie Slider vs the Frozen Prince, too. Feedback from beta readers has been very encouraging, and I’m looking forward to polishing it to a publication-ready shine.

Mirrorball is going great, too. Dan is working on the big finish, and I think the timing should work out well; Alfie 2 edits will be done when Mirrorball first draft is done which will leave me free to write something new – but what? Alfie 3, or one of the ideas that have been stewing for a while looking to be written? Sasha Stone, Eboracum, Words of Power…

But looking back on 2016 is more of a mixed bag. For me, personally, it was an amazing year. I’ve had work included in six anthologies, had successes in almost 20 competitions and, of course, got Shape Shifter published. It felt like a much tougher year for the world, though; Wars, Refugees, Terrorism, Extremism, Division…there have been times when I’ve felt helpless, that the world is being taken in a nightmarish direction. And of course it was the year of celebrity deaths, where every week seemed to see the end of another icon including recently the death of the wonderful Carrie Fisher. It will come as no surprise that this geek girl was hugely influence by Princess Leia, and by Carrie herself, from the first time I saw Star Wars at age 5, up until the present day.

I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to 2016, and I am very excited to meet 2017. In 2015, I proved that I had the talent to write. In 2016, I laid the groundwork to make writing a career. 2017 will be the year that I live my dream; a published author, spending time with children encouraging them to read, write and change the world.

Happy New Year.

Back in September, I was the astonished recipient of the Aine Marie Chadwick Trophy at the National Association of Writers’ Group Awards for my take on a ghost story, The Pause.

That story, along with the other winners writing was put into an anthology, and I received my copy this week. I’ve been called many things, in my time, but being described as an award winning writer was pretty special.

You can order The Write Path here.

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It isn’t the only new title that I need to come to terms with this week, though. I was expecting my first delivery of Alfie Slider vs the Shape Shifter in January, but had the delightful sensation of unpacking a box of my own books before Christmas instead! Holding the book in my hands, I realised that I could now call myself an author.

Click here to order your copy!

Special Delivery

Sarah Dixon. Author, and award winning writer.

I wonder what other titles 2017 will bring?

20th January 2017 – Alfie Slider vs the Shapeshifter from Silverwood Books.
RRP £8.99 + delivery

Pre-order your copy now – special price and no P&P!

UK Addresses – £6.99 including delivery

International Addresses – £8.99 including delivery

Share the buzz and join our Thunderclap!

For more information, including how to review Alfie Slider, click here.

If you’ve been paying attention over the last few months, you’ll have noticed me talking about a book I’m co-authoring with Danny Crow which had the working title of Wonderling. In this story, a Wonderling is a special kind of person who has the ability to see and experience things which others can’t; or at least they were.

I mentioned the title to a friend the other day, and they said there was already a book called that. I was pretty sure there wasn’t, because I’d Googled the name when we first started work on the book and nothing had come up but I checked again. Sure enough, I soon found that a writer called Mira Bartok had just sold the film rights for her novel, The Wonderling, to Fox Studios. Incredibly, the novel isn’t even finished yet! Bartok’s agent sold not only the publication rights but the film rights on the basis of the first few pages (and her reputation as a nonfiction writer).

I’d love to say that I was a big enough person to say, ‘Well, how lovely for her! And I don’t mind that we have to change the name of our novel, 50,000 words in, because she’s sold hers on the strength of a few pages!’ but I’m not. I sulked. I grumbled at the injustice. I pouted.

Then I started coming up with new names for those who can see what others can’t. Once we’ve decided on a new title, I’ll let you know; in the meantime we’re calling it Northings, a significant location in the story.

Resilience is a great quality to have as a writer. No matter how good you are, you will get rejections. There are people who will love your work, and people who will hate it. It’s a tough industry, with so many hopeful authors out there trying to achieve the same things as you. Then there will be set-backs like this, coincidences that upset your personal apple cart a bit. It’s OK to get knocked down, now and then, just as long as you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.

It’s here! Beyond Realities Volume II, which includes my story ‘Beyond Fiction’ is now available to pre-order from Luna Press Publishing. Doesn’t it look great?

It’d make a great Christmas gift for lovers of Sci Fi and Fantasy 🙂

I woke up this morning, checked my email and found the results from the second challenge in round 1 of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge were up. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous about this one; I placed fifth in my group for the first one with ‘The Bunker‘, and so was in a good position to get through if I did well on the second story. I had been happy with it, but had posted it to the forums and had feedback that it was confusing, particularly the timeline.

Fortunately the judges didn’t agree! I finished third in my group, which put me an amazing second overall and through to challenge 3.

The initial field of 2,200 has been narrowed down to 300 – it’s going to be incredibly tough competition going forward. There’s always the chance that I will get a genre that I’m not familiar with or good at (comedy, romance, political satire; these things are sending chills down my spine as I think about the weekend!) or that I get a migraine, or some other illness and I’m just off my game.

I am incredibly lucky that my family are really supportive of my writing, my husband will take the kids out so I can write my entry, he’ll also be my first reader. I have friends who are always willing to read stories in draft stage and give me their honest opinions.

So, while I am nervous going forward, I will give it my best shot.

Feedback from the markers on ‘The Ashrey’ is due later today.

It’s always nice to find out your story was long or short listed for a competition (even nicer to win!) but especially when its a competition that you’d forgotten you’d entered. I got an email from Flash500 announcing the longlist in their quarterly competition, and had a ‘Hmmm!’ moment when I saw one of my titles in the list. When I send a story somewhere, I make a note in its information, in Scrivener, so a quick double check confirmed that yes, I had submitted this story to Flash500. The longlist was as far as that one got, but as I know it’s a popular competition with hundreds of entries, to make it that far is still an achievement worth celebrating.

I also got the October issue of Ephemera magazine through my door. It’s just as beautiful as the last one, and once again one of my Hour of Writes entries is in there. This time it is Life Plus 2M, a winning entry of mine, alongside the two featured entries from that week.

This week has been a quiet one for work, as its been half term and my kids have been off school, but I haven’t been slacking! I multi-tasked, taking the family to the North Pennines to do some research for Wonderling. We had a wonderful visit, and I’ve come back with plenty of inspiration for the rest of this book and beyond.

Wonderling is coming along really well. Danny or I write a section, then send it to the other who takes up the story and moves it on. We’ve written over 40,000 words so far – it’s for older children than Alfie, but I’m enjoying the different challenges that brings with it. I’m looking forward to sharing more about it with you very soon!

I don’t know about you, but I entertain a lot of self-doubt. Am I making the right choice to stick with the difficult, discouraging and often lonely world of writing when I could be earning a steady wage using some of my other skills?

And then there are times when life seems to pat me on the back and say, ‘Really, Sarah? You shouldn’t have doubts. This is why…’ the last 24 hours have been that sort of time.

Firstly, I got an email from Silverwood Books with the first draft of the cover art for Alfie Slider vs the Shape Shifter. I got my first look at it on the bus on the way into York and was happy dancing in my seat. I love it, but I’m letting that rational side take control and giving myself the whole weekend to look at it and think about it before making a decision.

Then I got an email to say I’d made it to the shortlist of a writing competition; I can’t give more details yet as judging isn’t complete but getting anywhere in popular contests is always a boost.

After that I had a lovely discussion with the owners of a local indie bookshop, discussing whether I could do some Alfie Slider stuff with them next year. I’m going to see them after half term, so watch this space for more.

Finally, an email arrived from Luna Press to give me details on pre-ordering copies of Beyond Realities II, which includes one of my stories, and mentioning a celebratory meal with other contributors.

All of that is separate from the fact that I just love writing. I enjoy sitting in solitude and letting ideas pour out of my  mind and through my fingers to the computer. I love wandering around, doing the housework and chewing over plot ideas. I love meeting co-authors and hashing out the framework of realities we’ve created. I love sitting around a table with fellow authors and sharing the highs and lows. I love writing blogs about all of that and more.

So right now, I’m getting all the signs from ‘the universe’ that the thing I love most in the world, is the thing that I should be doing. I’m good at it. People value it, and want to help me succeed at it.

And that, is a very nice feeling indeed.

As regular readers will know, I’m a big fan of Hour of Writes. I enjoy the weekly competition, but more than that, I love the way that Alison Ireland reaches out and tries to partner literature with other things like the Littoral Arts Trust and Life Plus 2 meters.

Hour of Writes gave me my first competition win, and my first published work in their 2015 Winners Anthology, the weekly challenge and feedback has been a big part of my growth as a writer. Along with all of this, Hour of Writes has a sense of ‘cool’ about it, I love the aesthetic of the website which carries through into their publications.

Now Hour of Writes has launched a monthly magazine. Alongside articles on a range of topics, are the winning and featured entries for recent prompts. I took a break from Hour of Writes over the summer, but came back just in time to have two of my pieces, that had been ‘featured entries’ included in the first issue of the magazine.

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What a thrill! The magazine encapsulates all I love about Hour of Writes, and it’s given me a real lift to see my words so beautifully presented, alongside some really fabulous writing.

I’m a big believer in reading your work in different formats; how you read it seems to change it. I read my work in scrivener, in word, on my kindle and printed out and each way seems to highlight something different about it.

But reading it in print, in a real life, actual, publication?

Nothing beats that.

You can take part in Hour of Writes and subscribe to Ephemera Magazine by visiting the Hour of Writes website.