Ever wondered if you use too many commas in your writing? Or why others use lots of em dashes but you prefer semicolons? We all know someone passionate about punctuation. The response to the announcement of the Commonwealth Style Manual in 2020 and the shift of em dashes to en dashes was a case in point. “You can pry em dashes—yes, these ones—out of my cold, dead hands,” wrote one commenter. But now, five years later, the rise of AI and how it has embraced the em dash is a tell that a...

So you think you’ve got a story or novel in shape or your poems in order? Is it time to think about publishing them? How do you know it’s ready? First up, how do you feel about it ? Do you feel proud or maybe a little apprehensive? Listen to your gut/instincts/the voice in your head and what it is saying to you. Anxiety about whether a publisher will like it is normal but being confident of the quality of your work is crucial to persuading someone to publish it. You need to be able to...

Have you got your writing affairs in order?