It’s October, which means spooky season is coming soon. Of course, I had my Mabon decorations up at the autumn equinox, but this month it’s socially acceptable to start wearing all of my Halloween themed clothes and jewellery without scaring the ‘normals’; not that such a thing would deter me anyway.
Autumn reads: time for a new seasonal display
With Storm Amy here in Northern Ireland today, schools have shut across the country, which means more reading time (I’m currently reading Junji Ito, and working my way through the Goosebumps series with my little literary one), writing time (chipping away at ghost novel WIP#7) and editing time this weekend (I’m working on the manuscript for the next Bindweed anthology, White Witch’s Hat, due for release in November).
Yesterday was National Poetry Day. Ordinarily I would have posted a video excerpt from one of my poetry collections to celebrate, but I’ve been tired from being flat out at work and feeling a bit under the weather with a cold/flu/covid/something else draining on top of it.
Anyway, a stormy weekend provides the perfect excuse to stay indoors lounging about with a book. The only thing is, I’ll have to resist the temptation to just stick on Netflix instead. Oh well. If it happens, I won’t beat myself up.
It has been a busy first month back for the new academic year in secondary education. Like last year, I’m teaching creative writing, a part of my job that I really love. It’s always exciting to see what the new sixth year students will bring to the sessions. I love the chance to tailor the lessons depending on their individual needs, especially to help with troubleshooting when they’re stuck on a project.
At the start of any group, after discussing the term plan and objectives, I always give out a questionnaire to my students to gauge interest in various aspects of the course. This year, one of my students wrote a note in the comments section, complete with smiley face, to say thanks for providing the opportunity for such an exciting and interesting enrichment group. I’d say I’m the one with the exciting opportunity: a chance to read work by the next generation of authors. A shared love of creativity and passion for writing is what drives me, and I can’t wait to see what this fresh new cohort of writers will bring to the table. For any fellow creative writing teachers out there, wouldn’t you agree?
Title: The Wabi-Sabi DollAuthor: Leilanie StewartPages: 339Genre: Dark Psychological StoryRating: 4/5 Book Blurb: After fourteen months of living in her home from home, Tottori, a town by the coast on the Sea of Japan, Londoner Kimberly Thatcher should have been settled in her job. She should have been happy with her new boyfriend Naoki. She should have been moving on with […]
It’s a weekend celebration for me this weekend as my recently released 6th novel, The Wabi-sabi Doll, is currently in the Top 10 Hot New Releases chart on Amazon US for Kindle eBooks in the category of psychological fiction. Hurray!
Additionally, it’s sitting at #38 for hardcover sales in psychological fiction through Ingramspark. Woohoo!
Why book marketing is always a mystery…
As much as I think I understand what readers want, I don’t. I’m an author, not a marketing expert, but as my own publicist, I try to gauge what my audience wants. As you might know, I wrote The Wabi-sabi Doll primarily because of reader demand; in other words, a handful of reviews mentioned that they wanted a follow up to Kimberly’s story in Japan. Most of these reviews were on Amazon UK. As a result, I was expecting to make it into the top 100 charts in the UK – but I’m not. My UK sales over the past week have not been enough to compete with all the new psychological literary fiction books released over this side of the pond. Oh well! I’m thankful to my UK readers who have bought copies regardless.
…and an unexpected surprise
I didn’t expect sales in the US to be so strong. This was an unexpected and happy surprise. It’s interesting that my psychological literary fiction books sell better in the US and my ghost books sell better in the UK. Does that mean we’re a spooky bunch over here? I’m in good company then I guess!
The Wabi-sabi Doll is officially published today! This is book 2 in the Buddha’s Bone series, but can be read as a standalone novel. It’s available from the following major online retailers:
The series follows Kimberly Thatcher, a Londoner who travels to Japan to teach English, escaping her abusive ex-fiance, and suffers a worse fate at the hands of a fellow English teaching colleague. The sequel picks up with her in a new romance, but dealing with the PTSD from her traumatic first year. If you like dark psychological literary fiction, give this book a go.
Whew, another busy week, and it’s only hump day! My day work in secondary education has been full-throttle, meaning that even on my lunch breaks, when I normally would schedule writing time, I haven’t managed to do anything literary at all. I’m sure things will settle down soon; there are always unexpected hiccups in school life at the start of term that get ironed out as the pupils get into the swing of term. For now though, this has meant I’ve had to squeeze in writing time and editing Bindweed Anthologies after school while my son is at after-school club.
Busy, to say the least!
A backlog of Bindweed submissions
This week I have been prioritising Bindweed over my own writing, for the simple reason that our (my hubby Joseph Robert and I co-manage Bindweed) publication remains very popular indeed and we have a backlog of submissions that we need to read through. Submissions close on 1st October to give me time to typeset the paperback and format the eBook. For any readers out there who weren’t aware that we run a literary anthology, Bindweed has been in publication since 2016, starting life as a quarterly print magazine until 2018. It then switched to an online ezine for three years from 2019, before becoming a biannual anthology since 2022. Our latest Yuletide ghost story collection is the second biannual anthology of 2025, and marks our first themed anthology. Exciting stuff.
Why should writers submit to Bindweed?
Did you know that back issues of Bindweed are catalogued at the National Library of Ireland? That means, any writers we publish can proudly say that their work is stocked in a very prestigious library. We’re also listed on Duotrope, which is why, I’m guessing, we receive so many submissions. The exposure from Duotrope has led to us publishing thousands of writers and poets over the past nine years, from all over the world.
Hoping to pay our Bindweed contributors
Okay, breather. I’m going to stop with the hard sell now. My last promotional point is just to say that, although we have been running Bindweed as a not-for-profit, labour-of-love, book-baby project, simply because we’re idealistic folks who want to support fellow authors, we hope that we will soon be in a position to pay our writers a token amount of royalties in the near future, if sales of back issues will continue to increase. So, if you’re a fiction writer looking for a home for your spooky seasonal story, feel free to send it our way before the submission reading period ends on 1st October.
The Buddha’s Bone series giveaway is now closed. Many thanks to those readers who pre-ordered The Wabi-sabi Doll eBook in exchange for a free paperback copy of The Buddha’s Bone. To those of you who entered the giveaway, hope you enjoy your freebie signed copy of book 1 in the series. I’m closing the giveaway a bit early because…I ran out of copies of The Buddha’s Bone, lol. There’s only 10 days until release day, so I won’t have time to order more before then.
In the meantime, the countdown to publication is on, woohoo! Here are the links to pre-order a copy:
This week I have been back to work after eight weeks off for summer break. For any new readers, I’m not a full-time author. Whilst it is nice to get a supplementary pay check every month from my writing royalties (hurray) it’s not enough to pay the bills. I rely on my day work in secondary education to keep a roof over my head.
Anyone who has a full-time day job knows how much of the week you spend at your work. If you have a family, the rest of your time is spending quality time with them.
Working in a school is great for family time. Thirteen weeks of holidays across the year maximises quality of life. During the eight week summer break, in between going on family holidays (Liverpool and Dublin), going to festivals (Belfast Pride, Feile na Habhann river festival, the Wickerman festival and Belfast Mela), day trips, playdates for my son and catch ups with my friends, there wasn’t a lot of time for other things. For the first time ever, I think, I didn’t write very much this summer.
Now, when I say that, it’s not a cause for worry. I’ve been prolific enough this year already. Love you to Death came out on 1st February and The Wabi-sabi Doll is due for release soon on 15th September. I’m also reading submissions for Bindweed Anthologies, as we (I run Bindweed with my hubby, Joseph Robert) will be releasing a Yuletide ghost story anthology in November, and I’m working on a contributory story for that too. I’ve had a busy year so far, so taking time off over the summer break wasn’t a bad thing.
Well meaning people always jump in with unsolicited advice when I say that I haven’t been writing. They mention how hard it must be to write while doing childcare. My son is no barrier to my writing – in fact he enhances it, as we often make up stories together or bounce ideas off each other. As for the time factor involved in childcare, that’s no issue either. He would love nothing more than for me to tell him to play Minecraft or watch YouTube for hours while I write – which I don’t do, btw. Over the summer I chose to spend time away on day trips with him than being at home writing. My point is, the only person responsible for me not writing is… me!
Yes, this summer I chose adventures with my family and my closest friends instead of writing. Now that I’m back into my day work routine, I’ll be back to scheduling writing time on my lunch breaks or after school ends. Eighteen days off writing barely made a dent in my novel WIP progress this summer. The story is already in my head anyway, it just needs to come out.
On Sunday we had a lovely end to the family summer fun at the Belfast Mela. I meant to post this yesterday, but I forgot. Too much sea, sand and sun makes an idle brain.
As you (might!) know, Japan is close to my heart. I taught English over there for four years and I met my lovely hubby and fellow English teacher there too. My psychological literary fiction books that are set in Japan are: The Buddha’s Bone and The Wabi-sabi Doll.
This week it’s back to the day job at the grammar school where I work. I’ll be gearing up to teach creative writing to another fresh batch of sixth form students and get into the swing of my library work too. Busy, busy. Somewhere along the line, I’m hoping that getting back into a routine will help me structure my writing schedule. It really could do with it; I’ve slacked off for coming up to a fortnight now. Tut tut! Detention is a suitable sanction, I think!
It has been ages since I’ve done a post about myself and my books. I decided to make an author introduction video, not because I’ve had any new followers lately (a few) but because I’ve been reaching new readers through my videos, so I thought I’d let everyone know a bit about myself as an author and publisher and about my books.
My books and me
Of my currently published titles, I have 6 novels, 3 short story collections and 3 poetry books out in the literary world. My next novel, The Wabi-sabi Doll, is due for release on 15th September and I’m currently writing a ghost horror novel, though I’ve been lazy lately and haven’t worked on it for a week – woops!
Aside from writing my own books, I’m the editor in chief of Bindweed Anthologies, which is currently open for Yuletide ghost horror short story submissions – please send along your fiction until October 1st for an exciting Christmas horror collection to be published in November 2025.
That’s all for now. I should hopefully be back to posting more regularly since the summer holidays are almost over, so I’ll be back to a more structured schedule soon. For now, have a great weekend folks!
Leilanie Stewart 