08 New Beginnings

Featured author: Holly GramazioThis month I recorded under a duvet (best for sound quality) in Birmingham. I was up there to speak about ESG Expectations at FAB, the Festival of Accounting and Bookkeeping, on as part of my work at Grain Sustainability. Carbon accounting goes hand-in-hand with financial accounting. I’ve also been refining a keynote speech on sustainability which incorporates storytelling.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersMarch’s theme, thanks to Backstory London, is “New Beginnings.”The Husbands by Holly GramazioThe Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson WalkerRemainder by Tom McCarthy—sent to me through the Big Green Bookshop Book Club subscriptionThe Promised Land by Mary AntinShare The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersThe free, online Writer’s Workout conference, March 17-23How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The MothLists on Bluesky, like the small presses I’m submitting to, and Tania Hershman’s hybrid writing starter packThe inaugural Alternative Book Fair in London was held on March 5-8. Check out all the independent presses listed!👣 Updates on my moseyingCanvasRebel’s mission is to create a space for artists, creatives and entrepreneurs to be able to learn from their peers through the magic and power of storytelling. My own life, writing, and sustainability work resonate with that mission, and I’m excited to be featured there. “Meet Madelyn Postman”Learning from Becca Syme’s Better-Faster Academy about CliftonStrengthsMore learning from Becca, on her QuitCast for Writers podcast, about #JOMO: the Joy Of Missing OutShort story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 10 pending🚫 3 rejected🟰 13 totalQueries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊🤷‍♀️ 7 closed after no response to query letter🚫 2 rejections after reading query letter😭 2 rejections after reading full manuscript🟰 11 totalStory submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 6 accepted⏱️ 1 pending🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 57 rejected🟰 71 total🎙️ Author interview with Holly GramazioHolly is a writer, game designer, and curator from Adelaide, living in Walthamstow in London. Her debut novel The Husbands is a comedy about a woman whose attic starts creating an infinite supply of husbands. It just came out in paperback.She founded, and for five years directed, the experimental games festival Now Play This, and wrote the script for the award-winning video game Dicey Dungeons. She’s interested in rules, play, cities, gardens, games that get people acting creatively, stories that buy into a ridiculous premise and then really commit to it, and art that gets people interacting with their surroundings in new ways.Listen to Holly on The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts (here’s a link to all platforms). Her reading recommendations are Living with Birds by Len Howard, The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay, and Memento Mori by Eunice Hong.Holly can be found at hollygramazio.net, on Bluesky and Instagram, and you can sign up to her newsletter.📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean a the world to me. And if you know other writers and readers, please share it! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com