Radio Silence: Book Review

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman tells the story of Frances Janvier, a 17-year-old A-Level student aiming to get into Cambridge University. Everything she does is in aid of this goal, but her constant studying prevents her from having hobbies, bonding with her school friends, and being her true self. This begins to change when she makes friends with Aled Last, another top-of-the-class student with high aspirations, and discovers that he is the anonymous Creator of her favourite podcast. Frances' friendship with Aled helps Frances gain confidence and have a life outside of academia, but they run into problems when Aled leaves for university.

My Least Favourite Writer Stereotype

I've come across a fair few writer stereotypes. The one where no writer can survive without a ridiculous amount of caffeine. The one where we're all awkward, introverted, anti-social shut-ins. The one where we're just generally a bit weird.

And while I disagree to some extent with all of those stereotypes (except maybe the weird one, assuming that "weird" here means "an individual, because no two humans are the same, so for everyone to subscribe to the same social norms would be ridiculous"), the one that I think I disagree with most is the one that says we're all tortured souls who convert pain into creativity.

Electric Reads Young Writers' Anthology 2015

Back in August, I came across a post on Facebook advertising a short story competition run by a company called Electric Reads. They were looking for British writers under the age of 25 to write a 3,000-word or less piece in any genre to be published in an anthology to showcase new talent. So I wrote a short fantasy story, which isn't something I often do (world-building gets a little difficult when you only have a limited amount of words to tell the story in). I was pretty pleased with the result, however, so I sent it to a friend for editing purposes. They basically told me they'd eat their hat if my piece wasn't chosen.

So I made the changes they suggested (and a few of my own) and submitted it. I was hopeful, but I wasn't really expected much.

Then, in early November, I got this email.

On the 11th of December, after several weeks of edits and preparations, the anthology was released worldwide! My story is one of only 25 to be selected and I am incredibly proud of this achievement. I haven't yet read the other stories (my copy only arrived yesterday!) but judging by the dedicated hard work the team at Electric Reads has put into this anthology, I know they'll have chosen some absolutely fantastic stories.

The Electric Reads Young Writers' Anthology 2015 is available from Amazon in eBook, hardback and paperback here, from Barnes & Noble in eBook here, and from Waterstones in hardback here. As young, uestablished writers, this is a huge opportunity for us to get our names out there so it would be amazing if you could support us by reading our stories and - even better - posting a review on any of the aforementioned sellers' sites, or on our Goodreads page. :)