Buckle in kids, this is a long read!
Before you can publish an awesome anthology (well, two, actually), or begin writing, and editing and cover designing, you need the most essential thing to start the process: the people. Here at the Collective, we have been lucky to find our people – those similarly minded to committing to a project where there are no sure-fire guarantees of success; those willing to share their skills and knowledge freely; those willing to support one another even though they may never meet “in real life”. Whatever you feel about the internet, there is at least the capacity for pockets of absolute positivity to sprout up when/where you least expect it.
So, who are the Writers of Mistletoe? I guess I’ll go first because a) I’m writing this piece, and b) our origin story involves one small push from me. Back in 2020, I had just left my job as Contract Law paralegal. Working from home during the Pandemic was soul destroying. Add to that a decline in mental and physical health while trying to support my disabled son’s needs, and the time was ripe for a big change of the direction in my life. Writing is something I have always wanted to do, and have been over the last eight years – in the notes of my iPhone, or sometimes even actual notebooks (the ADHD gang will get it!). So, when I saw a writing competition with just a day or two left to enter, the stars aligned and sparked my imagination. It was a Christmas romance competition – and even though I love both; the genre is not one I would typically read or write in. Still, I entered, and then waited. While I waited, like most modern women, I scoured social media and the internet for any sign of news from the Big Publisher. None was forthcoming, but eventually, on Twitter, I started seeing the first confirmation tweets celebrating those on the shortlist.
At first, there was a fall into that little well of despair that most writers are well-acquainted with. This well pulls you into its murky depths and says, “your writing isn’t good enough”, no matter that this well is a carefully curated black hole by the Big Publishers and agents and media, for all those that don’t fit into the commercial market, regardless of their talent. I digress. Luckily, that well wasn’t for my fragile emerging self; I was on the shortlist. It just took a few days for my email to come through. At this point, I wasn’t on Twitter, and being a newbie to the writing world, I didn’t really have a community of people to refer back to during the next stages of the competition. So, I did what my gut told me to, and started a Twitter account with the sole intention of hoping to bear out the nerves with the other shortlisters.
Twitter has never been my jam though, and it isn’t very easy to keep on track with groups of people. So, I went old school – I set up a Facebook group for anyone shortlisted to be a part of. A private setting where we could swap our pitches and share any news we heard. When the competition was over, I didn’t want it to end. I couldn’t believe how lucky I had been to find a community of people who were so supportive and all at different stages of their writing journey. There were 12 of us from that group that went ahead with the first project – not that there wasn’t more interest, but it’s a huge endeavour to self-publish with no prior experience, and a timeframe of July to November of the same year.
Our first priority, after establishing interest, was assigning roles each of us could commit to other than our sole task of writing our stories. That first year, Bláithín O’Reilly-Murphy took on the gargantuan task of Project Manager. Blá is already a romance afficionado, having had an illustrious career as a wedding planner, which also established her in the author field. She did not shy away from organising all of us, as well as the writing schedules, release schedules and everything else that the rest of us had the luxury of avoiding because it wasn’t our role. And she excelled in this position, I think because her prior experience made her adept at handling time sensitive events and keeping pace with fast changing events.
This year, Blá focused on sales and technical aspects of pricing strategy. Sarah Shard took the baton of Project Manager, alongside being the cover designer for both of our books. Sarah has a natural talent for design and likes to produce mock-ups before we’ve even started, to help the inspiration flow. Our third book is in its inception phase now and she’s already way ahead! Project Managing the second book has been a vastly different experience – still requiring tight scheduling and planning despite the longer timeframe afforded to us this year. Sarah’s passion for cosy romances is evident in all her writing and she has a true love of Christmas, which goes hand in hand with the same. It is beyond me – an organisational black hole of a person – how she manages to wear so many hats at once while also managing her own clients and designing notebooks in her spare time.
Another heavyweight title holder in our group is Amy Gaffney, aka “Cici Maxwell”. Amy is a seasoned writer. She has honed her craft through courses and competitions and being an active participant in the writing community. Aside from this, she is also our typesetter and an editor. This is a behemoth of a job because when you think you’re done – you’re not. There are twenty million versions of everyone’s last draft, and then the final proof, and then the final, final proof. And no matter how many eyes you have on a document or editing software, even the best books can still have errors.
As an editor for both anthologies, I know what an arduous task this must be, but only recently, when I tried to format an old book for a single print, did I realise just how much work Amy does to ensure we have a book in all available purchase options and in the correct format for each. Editing/proofing, cover design and formatting are the most expensive parts of self-publishing if you want to produce a professional book. The fact we have such brilliant members of the group who can competently do these things makes a huge difference to the overall project.
Aside from myself and Amy, Jenny Bromham, Michelle Harris, acted as editors across both anthologies, and in the second anthology, newbies Helen Hawkins and Hayley-Jenifer Brennan also volunteered.
Jenny is an experienced editor and a teacher, and as well as writing romance, also writes Middle Grade and YA. Jenny’s wealth of experience has been a tremendous benefit to the group in terms of developmental and line edits. Although hailing from the U.K. Jenny is based in Madrid (lucky!) though you wouldn’t guess that she’s so far away as she has always made a great effort to be in regular contact, offering her support to the group.
Like Jenny, Michelle is a teacher and editor, but also wears a marketing hat. Michelle recently went back to teaching in primary school alongside her twin – Marianne (also in the group!), and is our resident potty mouth and provider of hilarity. If you like sweary characters, Michelle has an awesome sense of humour, which she injects into her romance stories. She also has experience with marketing campaigns from her professional life and creates a number of things on the side of all this, such as personalised poems and cake toppers. Michelle runs our Instagram and Pinterest, as well as helping Joe with the marketing schedule.
I’m also in the Marketing team, though I’ve limited myself this year to TikTok (a soul-crushing endeavour as anyone who tries to monetise their creativity will tell you). Someone with a far more present role in the Marketing department is Joe Burkett, a fantastic personality with his own theatre company to boot. Joe writes predominantly for the LGBTQ+ audience and has big aspirations for his writing, including script writing. Joe has corralled us all into keeping a marketing schedule, though it is tough navigating this aspect of the project. A lot of marketing nowadays is hit-and-miss, trial and error. You never know if you’re doing something right or wrong and building up connections in the publishing arena is something that the Big Publishers certainly have the monopoly on. Still, we refuse to be beaten and see this all as vital experience for future endeavours.
Part of our PR strategy this year has been the launching of our website. New member Helen Hawkins has been instrumental in the development of our website, but aside from that she is also a writer, a teacher, recently qualified editor AND recently signed by the brilliant Kate Nash Literary Agency. For all those writers who dealt with rejection of a manuscript, Helen is testament to never giving up on something when you know it deserves to be seen and her hard work and talent have paid off with her recent news.
Marianne Calver has also helped massively in a very underrated position this year, accounting for all things administrative as well as running our Twitter account. Marianne is a teacher by day and her organisational skills are next level. Her writing has so far reflected the beautiful dynamics of familial relationships many of us go through in an intimate and considerate way.
Second year member Donna Gowland is another practiced writer, member of RNA NWS and who has been on the shortlist and final list in many romance competitions as well as having writing published in a variety of sources. Donna also stepped into a marketing role this year across our different platforms, helping with our PR strategy.
Another new member of this year’s project was Hayley-Jenifer “Jay” Brennan. Hayley is currently situated in South Korea, of all places, and her experiences there have informed her writing – as evident in her story for this year’s anthology. Hayley is not just a writer and an editor, but also an avid cosplayer and delights audiences with her talents.
Karl King is also a new member this year, though he had connections with the Collective before our first anthology was out as he co-wrote an entry to the original competition with Joe Burkett. Karl is a Locations Manager on the movie scene and worked on the newly released film “Joyride”. Like Joe, Karl also has aspirations to further his writing in terms of script production.
Though each anthology has featured a lovely dozen of writers, our group changed from the first iteration to its current format. Lucy Alexander, author of our first tale last year, “Lumikinos”, also edited our first anthology and lent some legal expertise from her role working in Copyright Law. Lucy and I developed the contract for the first project, which covered all the things you never think of when first devising a book. Namely, things like division of royalties, what to do if someone wants to leave the project, any breaches, etcetera. Though this can be awkward to discuss with people you do not know (or even those you do!), it is vital that everybody feels their position is protected and respected in the group. Though Lucy took a step back from this year’s project, she is still in the Collective.
Jake Graham Godfrey was another writer from our first project who, like Lucy, took a step back this year. Jake is in the British comedy scene and wrote “Killing Christmas Eve”.
Martha May Little, author of “Not Today, Santa” chose to exit the Collective after the first year due to external circumstances. She is sorely missed, and wished well by all of us in terms of the next part of her journey.
Who knows where the next year will take us all individually and as a group, but I know personally that I will cherish everything I have experienced so far with all the Writers of Mistletoe.
