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 Directory: WRITING & PUBLISHING
BOOK PUBLISHERS:
:: Trentham Books - specialist educational & business publisher based in Stoke-on-Trent.
:: - dynamic independent horror-fiction publisher, based in Stoke-on-Trent.
:: North Staffordshire Press, publishers of by Arthur Berry, among others.
:: Acumen Books - publishes specialist books for cricket umpires and coaches around the world. Based in Stoke-on-Trent. (Site also hosts a catalogue for Leisure Products Books of Alsager.)
:: Audley Publications.
 Burslem Books - publisher of the books A History of Burslem and the Fowlea Valley and The Beauty of Trentham.
 Write Angle Press - based in Stoke-On-Trent. Publishers of the annual The Craftworker's Year Book.
NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES:
:: The Sentinel newspaper. The area's main independent newspaper. Daily on weekdays and Saturdays. Jobs, Business and Education are all on Wednesdays, Property on Thursdays, Entertainments on Fridays, and the Saturday edition has the pull-out section on local history.
:: Staffordshire Life magazine. A glossy upmarket magazine for Staffordshire, with a monthly readership of 160,000.
:: Families Staffordshire.
:: Public Service Review magazine - based in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
:: SA for Staffordshire University alumni.
:: West Midlands Golfer magazine - edited from Leek in the Staffordshire Moorlands and published from Stoke-on-Trent.
:: Staffordshire Studies - an academic journal on the history of the county, published from Keele University.
:: Smith Davis Press - a contract publisher based in Burslem and Chester.
HYPERLOCAL NEWS:
:: Good News from Stoke and North Staffs (positive news from the region)
:: Creative Stoke newsletter feed (News for Artists and Creatives in North Staffs)
:: MyTunstall (Tunstall town)
:: A Little Bit of Stone (Stone town)
:: Kidsgrove Local
:: Whitehill Online (Kidsgrove)
FREELANCE WRITERS:
:: Ron Scholes - based in Leek. Author, photographer and travel lecturer. His special interests include the landscape history of the British Isles, and the long-distance footpaths that cross it. He is the author of, among others: Understanding the Countryside; Walking in Eden; Towns and Villages of Britain, Cheshire. He is also available to give illustrated talks.
:: Anna Cahalin - a freelance writer based in Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent, with a particular interest in parenting and pregnancy/birth.
:: Ian Weightman Media Services - based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, specialising in visitor destination and tourism PR.
:: Valerie Greeley - a local author & illustrator.
:: Jan Edwards, a published writer, poet and reviewer, and a member of the British Fantasy Society. Based in Cheadle, near Stoke-on-Trent.
:: Lynn Ashburner - author based at Loggerheads in the Staffordshire Moorlands. She writes organisational histories, memoirs, oral histories, and is also available for editing and ghostwriting.
:: Nick Fletcher - crime novelist, and also the author of books on antiques & collecting.
:: - cult horror novelist, based in Basford, Stoke-on-Trent.
:: Silvano Levy - a Senior Lecturer at Keele University who has published extensively on the history & work of the English Surrealists.
PROOFREADERS, RESEARCHERS:
:: Anigma Information - online content specialist. Hand-coding of Kindle ebooks, and online research, among other services.
:: Henson Editorial - book indexing specialist.
:: Pat Winfield - freelance proof-reader and editor.
:: Janet Sutton - a Chapterhouse trained proofreader based in Staffordshire.
:: feeder - offers freelance copywriting, PR, proof-reading and editing.
COPYWRITING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS:
:: Feeder P.R.
:: Richard Swancott Associates - a PR firm based in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
:: Boomerang P.R. - a creative PR agency based in Talke, Stoke-on-Trent, providing public relations, marketing, design and web development.
:: Real2Can - offers ebook promotional campaigns.
WRITING GROUPS AND ORGANISATIONS:
:: Renegade Writers Group - for writers who "dare to be different". Mostly science fiction, horror and fantasy. They meet every Wednesday (7.30pm-9.30pm) in the Jolly Potters pub, Hartshill.
:: Stoke-on-Writing (SToW) - a writers' group based in the Bentilee Community Centre in the city.
:: Rising Brook Writers.
:: Leek Writers Group.
:: (at The Old Post Office, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent) is home to a poetry writers' group.
:: . Meets the first Monday of the month at the Moshi Coffee Shop, between 7pm-9pm.
:: . They host Open Mic Nights linked to the B.A. Creative Writing degree course.
:: .
:: is a Facebook group... "for past and present students of Creative Writing at Keele, and to promote the wider culture of writing in the University."
:: Keele Writers' Society - a student society at Keele University. They produce Enigma magazine.
:: Da Engliscan Gesipas [The English Companions] - a specialist Anglo-Saxon study group meeting every 6 - 8 weeks at Eccleshall, for talks and informal discussion of all aspects of Anglo-Saxon poetry, literature & society.
:: North Staffordshire Classical Association - regular readings of the Greek & Roman classics (in English translation), plus guest speakers and trips.
:: Staffordshire University (Stoke campus) has a support structure for its writing undergraduates, including a publication and an open mike night, as of March 2011. Contact the Students' Union for more details.
:: Burton Monday Writers - meets at Burton-upon-Trent.
:: The Hurst Arvon centre in nearby Shropshire has a wide range of short residential courses on writing. (Being refurbished during 2013).
:: Poetry Society Stanza Group meets regularly in The Leopard pub in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. They generally meet on the third Tuesday of the month, but details are posted on their blog. It is not necessary to be a member of The Poetry Society to attend, and admission is free.
Keele and Newcastle Writing Group. Regular creative-writing group... "for all genres & forms of writing".
(See also: Lit-Net).
'ZINES:
:: Prototype - independent Stoke-on-Trent magazine with a youth focus.
WEBLOGS:
:: Lotta Plot
:: My left eye sees...things
:: Stoke Sounds
:: QR Codes Stoke project blog
:: The Painted House
:: A. Cooper-Willis
:: Mother Town blog
:: The Bearded Wordsmith
:: Coracle Communications
:: Music Matters to Us
:: White Llama
:: Dummy Mummy
:: Art & Design blog, Newcastle-under-Lyme College.
:: James Montgomery
:: Anna Francis
:: The valley of lost things
:: D'log
:: Catherine Buca
:: atypical
:: Christopher Guest
:: Elsiemag
:: st.art
:: Emma Ridgway
:: Potteries Community Federation
:: To Man & Beast
:: Stoke-on-Writing (SToW)
:: Checkered Shirt
:: Crossing the Floor
:: Roger Taylor
:: Tales from a Changing City
:: Nantwich Mums United
:: Father Peter
:: Wormella
SCRIPTS:
:: Martin Eiliff - freelance multimedia developer and scriptwriter. Based in Newcastle-under-Lyme.
STORYTELLING:
:: Alan Barrett - freelance actor/writer and storyteller, based in Stoke-on-Trent.
SPOKEN WORD TAPES:
:: Keele University's English Department produce a range of exclusive audio-books, spoken by world-class poets such as Charles Tomlinson (the Stoke Poems), William Carlos Williams and Octavio Paz. Also available are tapes of the North Staffordshire dialect Jabez Stories.
TRANSLATION:
:: Braille Transcription service - based in Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent.
:: Catherine Murray is... "a freelance translator specialising in French and Italian translations into English." If you can use her services, more information can be had
BOOKBINDING & CALLIGRAPHY:
:: The Book Factory - specialist book binders based in Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent.
:: Klair Scattergood - can teach workshops in creative bookmaking and bookbinding classes for adults, both online and in the classroom.
:: Rachel Marsden - is a North Staffordshire artist and bookbinder.
:: Pen People - a national calligraphy magazine published from North Staffordshire. The editors also run local workshops and courses.
CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS:
:: Stoke-on-Trent -based dark fantasy author Michael Stone has a personal website, and a lively weblog, My left eye sees...things. His 2008 book is available on Amazon, with a foreword by Garry Kilworth.
:: Peter Branson - a local poet published widely in Britain and the English-speaking world. Available for poetry readings and to lead creative writing groups.
:: Sherrie Lowe - a local author, with a new book of stories about relationships, Song of the Phoenix.
:: W. Terry Fox - based in Kidsgrove. Terry is a poet available for performances and workshops, and has served as Poet Laureate for Cheshire.
INDIVIDUAL WELL-KNOWN WRITERS:
See the Literary Heritage: West Midlands site - but note that there are some omissions. The Stoke-on-Trent entry is missing famous poets Charles Tomlinson (The Stoke Poems) and Pauline Stainer (a Whitbread Award nominee), and Faber & Faber novelist Stephen Foster (, Strides, & ). The dialect storyteller Wilfred Bloor (pen name A. Scott, author of the Jabez Stories) is also missing. The Newcastle entry is missing the poets Jeremy David Colclough, and Nicholas Johnson (Land: Selected Poems, 1983-1998) - Johnson founded and ran the Six Towns Poetry Festivals in Newcastle-under-Lyme from 1992 to 1997.
The landscapes and people of mid Staffordshire also inspired J.R.R. Tolkien - he spent time convalescing in Staffordshire during & after the First World War; and during the 1950s and 60s he spent most of his summer & Christmas holidays at his son's home at Penkhull, Stoke-on-Trent. The Staffordshire Moorlands are the setting for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, masterfully translated by J.R.R. Tolkien.
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