Morgen With An ‘E’

Hello. I’m Morgen With An E, a writer of over 7 years (although I do remember writing a story about an ampersand when young and dabbling with limericks in my 20s, although I’ve always had my head in a book; formerly Stephen King but my tastes have softened somewhat… to crime and humour). I’m passionate about the craft, and wanted to share with you my knowledge and experience gleaned to-date, having studied under the tutorledge of Sally Spedding, Judith Allnatt, Sue Moorcroft, Joanna Barnden, Jane Adams, and Myra Schneider, and most recently Helen M Hunt.

I write fiction, mainly short stories and novels with some poetry, and have been published in the UK. I also submit to magazines and competitions  in the UK and overseas and won Ripping Pages competition January 2008 with a poem ‘Fight for life’, was shortlisted in the Verulam Writers’ Circle ‘Get Writing’ Competition 2010 with ‘Feeding the Father‘, a based-on-a-true-story monologue, which was also shortlisted in the Writers’ News Short Story Competition October 2010 (so near and yet so far). I won the Northampton Writers’ Group Members Only Short Story Comp July 2010 and was also shortlisted at Verulam Writers’ Circle ‘Get Writing’ 2011 Competition. ‘Feeding the Father’ (and others) is now available as an eShort here (one of four shorts, two are free) and will feature in an upcoming anthology ‘It’s all about me’.

I’ve written four and a bit novels (three for NaNoWriMo – www.nanowrimo.org: 53,000 in November 2008, (novel no 2 Jan-Oct 2009), 117,540 words in Nov 2009 (in 29 days!), 51,300 words November 2010 and scraped through the 50,000 barrier (with less than an hour to spare) in 2011. The ‘bit’ is a conversion of my Script Frenzy 2010 script which I’ll continue at some stage.

I wrote my first-ever script for NaNo’s sister site Script Frenzy – www.scriptfrenzy.org – which was a challenge to say the least. The target was 100 pages rather than 50,000 words but the layout so different that it was a much slower process. Although I’m glad I did it  (102 pages), it didn’t make me want to be a script writer (although I wrote a 5-minute play for Northampton Literature Group’s July 2010 task which was fun) so am sticking with the novels, short stories and occasional poetry. I have also had one of my monologues displayed alongside one of Jaroslaw Ancuta’s drawings – see www.jaroslaw-ancuta.com.

I’ve also had writing-related articles published in the NAWG April 2011 ‘Link’ magazine (Chorleywood Literature Festival Review), August 2011 (Blog interviews & Bailey’s Writing Tips) and October 2011 (The Benefits of Attending Writing Events) and a twisted fairy tale in April 2012 (link to follow) editions. I’ve been mentioned on Rosanne Dingli’s website as well as a short story (‘The Threadbare Girl’) published on Nathan Weaver’s site. I also did a piece on my NaNoWriMo experiences on Tia Bach’s website – this blog’s ‘My Collaborations‘ page lists everything to-date. ‘The Threadbare Girl’ is available as a free short story and part of my ‘Story A Day’ anthology on Smashwords ($1.49 (<£1 / AS$2)).

In December 2011 I was nominated (by K.S. Brooks), and awarded (by JD Mader), a Versatile Blogger Award. Coming a few hours after the first (a 5*) review for my ‘The 365-Day Writer’s Block Workbook‘ they certainly made my day.

Then late February 2012 Cindy Vaskova bestowed a ‘Liebster Blog Award’ on myself and four other bloggers: Nerine Dorman, Icy Sedgwick, Sonya Clark and Emma Newman. One of my duties is to 1. Link back to Cindy (easy). 2. Nominate five others (not quite so easy but doable). 3. Post the award on my blog (done). 4. Bask in the love from the most supportive people in the blogosphere (easy, I do that already ). 5. Have fun and spread the karma! (peasy). Thank you, Cindy.

In April 2012 I was one of Catherine Noble‘s ‘crafty fella‘s… that’s certainly a first. Thank you, Catherine, and later that month I was added to the Towcester Writers Group website, was awarded a ‘Lucky Seven’ by Kasia James, and listed as a top blogger by Finish Your Book (another WordPress site).

Then late May I was presented (online) with a ‘Beautiful Blogger Award’ by Sean Durity followed by another Versatile Blogger Award from Darlene Jones. and then another ‘Beautiful Blogger Award’ by Dicy McCullough.

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We all have rejections and to-date I have 29 but do have more short stories and poetry ‘out there’ and novels no. 2/3 (the ones that needed the least amount of work, the healthiest word count and the possibly most fun to write) are doing the agent hunt.  I recently met a prestigious agent at the Verulam Writers Circle Get Writing 2011 Conference and had some very encouraging feedback on the two novels I presented to him, which later went before three agents at the July 2011 Winchester Writers’ Conference. As yet, I’ve just been published in the UK and am now looking at submissions overseas and it’s certainly all keeping me out of mischief (if only because I’m too tired!).

I started my writing group in March 2008; a group of 20+ members (attending the Monday night alternate critique and writing workshops) with a mixture of poets, short storyists (I like making up words), scripters and autobiographers. The critique group usually overruns the 2-hour sessions so we are unfortunately at capacity as a ‘bums-in-seats’ group but  I do currently have a couple of spaces on the writing workshop if you live in the Northampton area of England – just drop me an email.

Alternatively my podcast features lots of hints and tips etc. with content on the ‘Weekly tips podcast’ page or you can contact me via email if you have any specific writing-related queries. Registered with the NAWG (National Association of Writing Groups – www.nawg.co.uk), our group was featured (centrefold!) in the December 2009 issue of their ‘Link’ magazine where I had two articles published in April 2011 and another in August 2011. I’ve also been published by Woman’s Weekly and most recently have a short story in the charity anthology ‘Telling Tales‘ for which I’ve been asked to do some book signings in Waterstone’s.

I’m also involved with Radio Litopia, the fun Sunday (Open House fun and word games @ 7pm and Litopia After Dark guest panel @ 8pm) writing-related internet radio show, as follow-along chatroom contributor (where you too can take part), occasional Eve-cover, guest panelist and Skype Caller on 19.01.11 (at c.38mins), 07.02.11 (at c.1h04m), 03.04.11 (at c.32m where Eve Harvey, AgentPete and I played charades) and 10.04.11 (at c.39m where we talked about my visit to the Oxford Literature Festival April 2011 then went on to play charades).

On a personal level I can speak fairly good German, some splatterings of Spanish and French, love cartooning, have really broad shoulders from years of swimming and playing agony aunt, can bark like a seal, flip coins off the back of my right elbow, am just under 6ft tall, and my right calf is bigger than my left from years of step aerobics. Oh and I love Banoffee Pie.

I’ve you’d like to know more about me (could there be more?)… …and if you’d like to read interviews of me you can find them at Teresa Morrow, Who Hub, Gerrie Ferris Finger, Jess C Scott, with myself for my 100th blog interview (released on my birthday), Marilyn Meredith, Anne K Albert, Marja McGraw, Rosanne Dingli, Sarahjane Funnell (celebrating the launch of my eBooks), Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, Winn Smith, Kat ‘K.S.’ Brooks, Sue Roebuck, Elle Amberley, Avril Joy, Wendy & Charles Siefken and Jean Henry Mead. Thank you everyone, it was fun having the tables turned.

I will also be interviewed by Mark Tierno later in the year and Neil Yuzuk for Acclaimed Books (date t.b.a.). If anyone would like to grill me just let me know.

You can follow me on Twitter (see follow link below), friend me at Facebook, click the ‘like’ on my Facebook author page and find me on Tumblr and LinkedIn. I also have some photos (currently of dogs past and present) on Flickr and have recently added my biography to about.me.

Follow @morgenwriteruk