Christine Coleman: Novelist, Poet, Teacher

I decided to change my rather static website to this blog because I’d recently been looking back over the various stages in my writing life and I wanted:

a) to share, with anyone who’s interested in writing matters, a little of what I’ve learned about the craft of writing over 25 years or so, and the highs and lows of these experiences.

b) to give regular updates about my novels and poetry, and any future talks or readings I’ll be doing
As well as being a writer, I’m a qualified teacher and work part time as manager of an Adult Literacy & Numeracy Programme in North Birmingham. I grew up in the Sussex country side and gained a degree in English at Trinity College in Dublin, where I learned to enjoy Guinness and climb mountains.

The highlight of my writing life was the publication of my novel, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society (Transita 2005). My first attempts at serious writing started more than twenty years before that, when my younger child started primary school. I’ve heard it said that the only way to learn to write, is by writing, and though I (partly) agree with that, I also learned a huge amount first from teaching creative writing courses, and later from attending them.

As for the main item in a writer’s survival kit, the hide of a rhinoceros, I acquired that piece by piece in the intervening years of rejection slips from agents and publishers. I still need this thick skin, even though I can now put myself into the category of ‘published author’.
The learning doesn’t stop at the publication date – there’s the whole new territory of marketing to be explored, not to speak of the writing of the next novel, and then the search for another publisher (The owners of Transita are no longer publishing novels)

I’m hoping that this blog will be of interest to others, and also that it’ll help me work out the best way of getting my latest novel* out into the world of readers.
* see ‘My Novels’ for more details about my 2nd published novel, Paper Lanterns - You can also scroll down through recent posts, or look at the ‘Categories’ lists on the right hand margin.

My posts will mainly be connected with writing matters, and they’ll be sorted into categories as I go along – they’ll include:

Fiction - Poetry - Writing Groups -
Writing Courses - Writing Competitions - Other Writing Matters - Hunting for an Agent - Publication -Readings etc

If you have read this far, please continue with your patience! I’ll be constantly adding to and re-arranging this blog, and will try to arrange the Pages and the Categories in a way that ‘ll make them easier to follow.

I haven’t got there yet! My natural way of learning new skills is to jump in with both feet and pick up the techniques on a need to know basis. If I’d waited till I knew it all, I’d never have got started.
Rather than exploring the posts straight away, you might like to take a look at these pages:
My Novels………My Poetry…….Links to other sites