How can authors write about climate change without preaching? What happens when your publisher goes under just before your book launch? How do theatre skills translate to better dialogue, readings, and author events? With author and theater director Laura Baggaley.

In the intro, Indie presses are in existential crisis [The Bookseller]; what to do when things are hard [Wish I'd Known Then]; Book marketing with garlic-infused ink [The Guardian]; Writing Storybundle; Halloween horror promo; Blood Vintage folk horror; My new author photos; Day of the Dead [Books and Travel];

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

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Laura Baggaley is an award-nominated children's and YA author, theater director, and also teaches acting, writing, and literature at City Lit College in London.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• How to write climate fiction that embeds solutions in world-building rather than lecturing readers





• Dealing with publisher collapse and finding empowerment in regaining control of your books





• Using theatre techniques to write better dialogue and avoid clunky exposition





• Essential performance skills for author readings, interviews, and public speaking





• Practical tips for preparing workshops and managing nerves at literary events





• Building collaborative writing projects and the benefits of author support groups

You can find Laura at LauraBaggaley.co.uk.

Transcript of Interview with Laura Baggaley

Jo: Laura Baggaley is an award-nominated children's and YA author, theater director, and also teaches acting, writing, and literature at City Lit College in London. So welcome to the show, Laura.

Laura: Thank you, Jo. It's lovely to be here.

Jo: Yes, I'm excited to talk to you today. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Laura: Well, I was one of those kids who always had their nose in a book, you know, loved reading. Whenever anyone said, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” I would say, “A writer,” like, straight away, no question about it. So that was always the plan.

In my late teens, I changed schools for sixth form. I went to this school that was really strong on performing arts. I started to get into drama and doing lots of acting and school plays. Then at university started directing plays, which was even more fun than acting.

I just found myself pursuing a different path and became a theater director for about 15 years. That was really creatively exciting, but after a while, I started to feel something was missing, I guess.

Of course the writing had been completely sidelined, but I came back to it and I started writing again.

First of all, I started working on a literary novel that I was trying to craft with extremely beautiful language and lovely sentences. When I got to the end of the draft and I read it, I realized it was incredibly boring because like nothing happened in the book. So I put that in a drawer and started again.

I started working on another one and I was sort of crafting my sentences. And anyway, fortunately about halfway through that one, I had this idea, this story came to me about a 15-year-old kid in a dystopian future. It had to be a young protagonist and it had to be a YA book. I just really wanted to tell this story.

So I chucked the boring literary half-written draft in that same drawer and started working on the YA book. So that's where I really started to sort of find my voice as it were.

Jo: Where did it go from there? When was that?

Laura: Oh gosh, before the pandemic, which is kind of how we judge everything time-wise these days, isn't it? I think it was 2019 that I was a finalist in the Mslexia Children's Fiction Competition with that manuscript.

So I'd obviously written it before then, and then through that competition, got an agent and had wrote another book, and got a publishing deal with a small indie publisher called Neem Tree Press.

Jo: I wanted to talk to you about this. So you were a finalist, Mslexia, if people don't know, is very prestigious magazine here in the UK. You've got an agent, you've got a deal. So what happened then?

What happened with the publishing experience?

Laura: Well, I think the term is probably rollercoaster. I was really excited to sign this contract and obviously to have this publishing contract. But what happened was, publication obviously takes a long time. So it was going to be 18 months or so before the book came out.

After about a year of this process, Neem Tree Press merged with a much bigger UK publisher called Unbound. And they were saying how great this was because obviously there were advantages of scale, like wider distribution to bookshops, that kind of thing.

I don't think that Neem Tree Press quite realized how much financial trouble Unbound was in when they merged. Essentially Unbound folded and took Neem Tree press down with them. So the two books that I'd been so excited to get published with Neem Tree have not been published.

However, on the plus side, the rights have reverted to me, and now I can do what I want with them. So they will be coming out, just not with Neem Tree Press.

The good thing was, is that in the meantime I'd got on with writing another YA book and that has been published by Habitat Press. So I carried on writing.

Jo: The thing is we hear this over and over again. Like there's pros and cons with small press versus big houses and one of the benefits of a big house is it's very unlikely to go under. But one of the benefits of small press is you get a lot more attention and you know the people and you feel it's a much more personal process.

There's pros and cons every which way, but over the years I've been in publishing, almost 20 years now, so many small press companies either get bought or things happen. Things happen. Let's just say things happen.

So this happened. How did you deal with this, like mentally and thinking about whether it was all going to happen? Because obviously writers look forward to their publication and you're going through this process.

So how did you deal with all that time?

Laura: As I say, it was really up and down. There were some months early on where I was really down about it because I just didn't hear anything.

So I think that was the most frustrating thing is I'd be sending emails saying, “When are we going to start on the edits?” and just not hear anything. So it felt like I was sort of being ghosted, you know?

The positive thing I think was that because of listening to your podcast and doing lots of research into indie publishing, I'd already decided that even if I had a traditional publishing deal, I was going to pursue my aut