Tim Smyth, current Youth Ambassador at Headstrong, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health, writes about the similarities between writing and therapy, the importance of taking time out, and the mental health lessons we can learn from drafting and editing.

Everyone knows that self-publishing is a game-changer. But could the work improve - and in turn, become more respected - by going through the editorial process? Editor and writer, John Kenny, thinks so...

Self-publishing: Putting the shoe on the other foot

Tim Smyth, Youth Ambassador at Headstrong, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health, recently decided to take some time out of his PhD in English Literature. Here he reflects on the connection between writing and mental health - and how the lessons that can be learned from writing may also be applied to good mental health.

The South Circular, a quarterly e-journal of short stories by emerging authors, was launched just last month. Here, editor and publisher Aoife Walsh tells us why she established the journal, why short stories are important, and why DIY might just be the future of publishing...

Why I set up The South Circular

Mary Kenny, author, broadcaster, playwright and journalist, reflects on the time she spent in the 1960s as secretary to Irish author, Edna O'Brien...

I can’t remember how I got the job of doing secretarial work for Edna O’Brien in the middle 1960s: I certainly didn’t deserve it, as I was a hopelessly disorganised secretary. But Edna was kind, and she must have hired me out of kindness.

As an employer she was easy and indulgent. She fed me cake and Burgundy, which I thought wonderful.

Parentheses, Brackets, Hyphens and Dashes.

One of the foremost scholars and writers of his or any other generation, Erasmus - or to give him his full name, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus - was born in the dynamic Dutch port of Rotterdam in 1466. Despite the fact that he only lived there for four years, he bore the Latin adjectival form of his birthplace forever after; some things in life are difficult to live down, I suppose.

On Dialogue…

I judged twelve stories for beginner writers in a competition some years back, and was amazed to find that, in exactly half, there was no dialogue at all. Now, by muzzling your characters and making them act their parts in silence, you are giving yourself an unnecessary handicap. Emotions bring characters to life and speech expresses emotion. Your key character looks, moves, feels - you must allow him to speak.

Most writers, as they age, become morning-time writers. As a callow youth, in my misspent 20s, I would write very late at night, and then on into the small hours, perhaps accompanied by a glass of something red and full-bodied, and I would be drunk on the fumes of my own exquisite genius. But the work that resulted would very seldom stand up to the sober light of day.

My first novel, The Other Boy, was published by Hachette in May. It will come out in the UK and France next year. Typing those sentences, I'm smiling. I just can't help it. Being published is something I'd always wanted - I haven't learned the art of being casual about it and I don't think I want to.

"So would you ever think about writing, you know, a real book?" Writers for young audiences hear this a lot - slightly less so since the success of Harry Potter, Twilight et al, though even these tend to be 'excused' away in the best tradition of dismissing anything readable. ("They're fun! I mean, they're not Great Literature or anything…") I've had nine books for pre-teens and teenagers published but apparently these are on another plane of existence altogether - they're imaginary books, perhaps. Real books are for adults.