Welcome - The International Writers Magazine - October Editorial 2009 writing from across the globe.

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Oct 25th 2009 Damnit, another birthday looms. Time to lock away all the mirrors for good.
Worse our Indian summer int he UK has ended. Now the clocks go back and wionter approaches. Birthday boys thoughts turn to Florida... oh to be a snow bird.

Week Four of the University term begins. The MA is in full swing and you can sample some of the work in the upcoming November issue. In November we have Will Atkins from Macmillan Publishers coming down to keen them on track and talk of the pitfalls to avoid. We also have Myriad Editions coming too. Its great when publishers support MA Creative Writing programmes.

Meanwhile need to buckle down and get my new novel moving along. So have a great week Hack readers. Any submissions now will have to be for December.

One of our former contributors wants to follow an 'altrustic' career. She is finding it hard to find a role. People probably suspect her motives. Right now she is off to the West Bank to volunteer and I wish her luck.
I rather think the West Bank is coming right to my door this week with meetings clearly so badly aspected, but feel I have to fight on the moral highground and protect my students from the menace of theorists. The worst palce to be I guess. Oh well, with luck they'll catch swine-flu and the meeting will be postponed. There's a positive thought eh.

Oct 1st: The Havant Literary Festival was immense fun. Havant is a curious place. It has suffered from the onslaught of abysmal architecture, redundant shopping malls, and a motorway that provides a constant drone of traffic in the background. But it also full of such things as the quaint old market hotel, The Bear Inn and has, what has to be the smallest bookshop in the world, at Nineveh Books on Pallant Street. (Where you can buy my books ‘Curse of the Nibelung’ and ‘Another Place to Die’). I strolled around a mixture of Edwardian and Victorian streets and which told a story of better times and I rather took to the ‘crumbling town on the edge’ feel. It’s a proper setting for a literary festival filled with books on crime and dystopian visions. We also met Myriad Editions, a new publishing outfit in Brighton and they are coming to see us in November. Great news for our writers nearing completion of their novels.Many thanks to Lucy for organising the Festival and to Paul Valentine for getting me involved there.

Stella Duffy, the crime and literary author gave a masterclass to our MA students and it was fun, lively, full of insights in to what it takes to be a professional writer and she, I know, impressed my would be writers. It’s important to know that just writing a book is not enough; you have to be engaging and passionate about selling it too. Shy retiring modesty will kill you in this marketplace.

October arrived and with it earthquakes in the Pacific, the promise of gales and storms, proper autumn weather. On reflection I think I quite enjoy the Fall, the colours and intensity of these first months at University, hearing new ideas and the promise of Christmas. (Always better than the reality at least).

Another issue of Hacks in up and running with more to come. The old Mac laptop is dying sadly (It was born in 2001) and I will have to learn new software to run the magazine on. As I get older it gets harder to learn new software. My ex-laughs at me for being so crap, but I guess, much to my surprise, I am like anyone else getting older. You like what you like and I am upset the computer is dying. The new version of Dreamweaver is just not easy and I can’t transfer the old over. So with luck I’ll find a savvy five year old with web skills to patiently instruct me.

As soon as term begins I am going to be doing some research for my new novel, but I lack a muse. You may snigger, but nothing and no one has replaced R... who moved on ages ago now. If you are the kind of writer who loves isolation and just the act of creation, well that is your good fortune. I need to be inspired by ‘someone’. At least my best writing does I think. Not sure where to put that ad though. Female Muse wanted, must be interesting with a sense of humour, most likely quirkily beautiful with their own talent for writing or drawing. Must like long discussions in coffee bars and be a non-smoker. (Otherwise you are forever just staring at them through the window as they shiver in the rain puffing on a poison stick).
Life is weird huh.

Meanwhile here's my tip. If you haven't seen 'District 9' yet. make sure you do. The best Sci-Fi movie in years and AVOID 'Surrogates' which is most likely the worst in years. Funny how that happens huh.

More to come. Enjoy this issue. Spread the word.
Sam North Editor
October 2nd 2009

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You probably need cheering up, especially as headlines now say that by 150,000 people in the UK have Swine Flu and Two Billion will have it by next year in the world. Ok, only 1800 or so have died from it so far worldwide, but what if it gets worse? I have said before, but say again, download my book Another Place to Die if you want to be ready for when the flu pandemic goes critical and mutates. They have announced that this variant of Swine Flu is resistant to Tamiflu, who is to say this vaccine they are preparing will work on the next variant? Sure, its autumn and once it rains and getrs cold, all bets are off.Plenty of milage in this virus yet. Limited Edition.

If you want to help Hackwriters keep going, buy my new book Mean Tide. A young adult ghost story set in Greenwhich, London. All profits go into the magazine.

Mean Tide by Sam North 'Extraordinary novel about a child's psychic awakening' Lulu Press - ISBN: 978-1-4092-0354-4 Review: 'An engaging, unusual and completely engrossing read' - Beverly Birch author of 'Rift' Sent to live with his spooky Grandma by the river in Greenwich, Oliver (12) discovers a whole world of disturbed people who are probably even crazier than the ones he left behind. When he finds a dog with its throat cut on the beach, everything changes. Age range 12-16 and adult

The Curse of the Nibelung - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery by Sam North ISBN: 13: 978-1-4116-3748-1 ISBN 1-4116-3748-8 302 pages - Lulu Press USA 'Chocolate will never be the same again' - Sunday Express Buy from your favourite on-line retailer Amazon UK Amazon USA Barnes and Noble & Waterstones Book also available from The Nineveh Gallery, 11 The Pallant Havant, PO9 1BE. UK

Diamonds - The Rush of '72 By Sam North ISBN: 13: 978-1-4116-1088-0 ISBN: 1-4116-1088-1 Buy now from Amazon.com 'a terrific piece of storytelling' Historical Novel Society Review Also printed in the UK and available from Amazon.co.uk & Waterstones

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