A whirlwind year

I can’t quite believe how much has happened since I left teaching. I count the year from January 2018 when I made the decision to go freelance, but of course, by then I had already started volunteering with Aurora Metro. Here, of course, is also a shameless plug for my website. And don’t forget to like my page on Facebook.

Let’s start towards the beginning of the year (be aware, long post coming). Between January to April, I was completing training and trying to get jobs as a freelance editor/proofreader. Not a lot was happening. I was already working on the book Virginia Woolf in Richmond in connection with the Virginia Woolf Statue campaign, and in May, I wrote an article for Huffington Post UK about the campaign. Also in May, I was asked to work part-time for Aurora Metro Books, which was, and has been, a great opportunity.

I was able to work on different books, and learned typesetting and editing. These are four of the publications I’ve worked on, all of which can be bought from the Aurora Metro website:

It’s been a privilege working on these, and I’m looking forward to many more.

Then, it was time for Virginia Woolf in Richmond to go to print, and I had two talks at Marylebone and Victoria libraries and also the official book launch as part of the Richmond Literature Festival on November 13th.

Holding the hardback in my hands was truly amazing, and then to work on the ebook myself and see it being advertised on sites such as Amazon and Kobo, as well as being in local shops such as The Kew Bookshop, Lloyds of Kew Bookshop, The Open Book Richmond and Waterstones Richmond. I even had an interview with Paula Maggio, of Blogging Woolf, who very graciously wrote the foreword to the book.

I haven’t stopped there. In my ELT freelance writing, I’ve been working with Express Publishing, and today I received the first books to be produced from the collaboration:

I wrote all the practice tests within the books, and it’s definitely something else to see your own writing relating to a previous career of 17 years in the English Language Teaching profession. The books aren’t yet up on the Express website, but when it is, I’ll be sure to update this page. In terms of further work for Express, I’m just completing my second ESB set of practice tests, and I have another contract for a higher level to start in January 2019.

So, that’s the non-fiction out of the way. Now for the fiction. I’ve been selected to have my first short story, The Walking Stick, included in an anthology called Tempest, about tempestuous times, being published by Patrician Press. It will be published in March 2019.

In fact, today, I was sent the first proof of the entire text, so that’s very exciting. I’ve also submitted my second short story, Taxi to Hamburg, for consideration, as well as some of my poetry.

For Virginia Woolf in Richmond and the Virginia Woolf Statue Campaign, I wrote an article for Darling Richmond magazine, and it’s been featured in their Winter Issue:

So, to the future…

More ELT materials to come…Hopefully more short stories…Hopefully an exciting new project leading to a new book for Aurora Metro – possibly connected to the Bloomsbury Group and LGBT issues.

I’m not sure whether I’ve ‘burst onto the publishing scene’, but it certainly feels like it!

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