Welcome to Issue 10 of Write On! Magazine
Click here to read this issue. Published online in December 2016.
Writers obsess over small details, usually words. Sometimes we go too far in this line but occasionally it’s a tiny detail that makes the most enormous difference. Such as this one: Spark Young Writers magazine is by young writers, it is not for them.
It’s for you, it’s for having a good read, it’s for having a taste of the best new writing in the region.
This is an important point because we’re not here and I’m not hired to publish anything and everything that is submitted to us. Usually as a editor I have one job and that is to make the best magazine I can and that is most definitely key here. The sole difference between Spark Young Writers and any other magazine I’ve ever run is that it does aim to do one thing for the writers.
It aims to show them what it’s like doing this for real. We’re not in school, this is not homework, this is professional writing.
So when I select a piece to publish I am asked to tell the writer why. Sometimes that is a very easy thing to do: with the pieces you’ll read in this issue the answer was often that I just enjoyed reading it.
When I reject a piece, though, I am required to explain why. I actually rather enjoy that: usually deadlines mean that you have to reject things quickly and I’m afraid you often don’t even get the time to say no. Here with Writing West Midlands and Spark Young Writers magazine, I will say no and I will tell you why.
That’s a luxury for me and in part because it means I get to think about what does and doesn’t make a good piece for this magazine. I get to examine the decisions I’m so used to making in a hurry and it’s meant that I’ve learned from this magazine. I hope that the writers who have been rejected and the writers who have been accepted feel the same. And I hope you have as great a time reading this new issue as I did getting to edit it.
William Gallagher – Spark Young Writers Magazine Editor
If you’d like to download Issue 10 please click the image below.
To read Issue 10 of Write On! Magazine online, please click here. You can see a full list of contributors to the Magazine by heading to the Contributors page.