The Absent Heart: KITCHEN TABLE MENTORING and Notepad Programme for Writers

KITCHEN TABLE MENTORING and Notepad Programme for Writers

KITCHEN TABLE WRITERS

Mentoring

and

manuscript appraisal

From NINA MILTON MA (Creative Writing)

Experienced, qualified, published writer

…Embark on Nina Milton…and you won’t stop reading…

(Naomi Lewis, Sunday Observer)

MY GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT WILL HELP YOU ENHANCE

YOUR WRITING SKILLS AND BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE

I like to encourage students to experiment with a personal voice that will make their writing unique to them, while offering strong technical advice that will support their development.

I have been writing fiction since my reception teacher, Mrs Marsden, put paper and pencil in front of me and asked us all to write a story. Suddenly I grasped that real live people were responsible for all those lovely books.

I am most well known for my crime fiction, the Shaman Mysteries Series (Midnight Ink Books, Llewellyn Worldwide), a crime fiction series featuring a therapeutic shaman called Sabbie Dare. There are four books in the series so far: In the Moor, On the Gallows (Unraveled Vision in the US edition), Beneath the Tor and Through the Floodgate. I also write for children between 9 and 13 years, including Sweet & Sour, (HarperCollins) and Just My Luck, (Thornberry Publishing).

Like a lot of writers, I began by being published in magazines, and have continued to write short stories. My stories regularly appear in British anthologies and include award-winners in The Crossroads Competition, Kent Festival Prize and the Wells Literary Short Story Prize.

In 2004 I gained an MA in Creative Writing with Bath Spa University and since then I’ve tutored with the OCA and enjoyed running creative writing workshops. I also write course materials for the OCA.

Although I was born, educated and raised my two children in the city of Bristol, I now live in west Wales with my husband James, where we grow our own veg and walk our dog, Luci.

I’m always writing. I've always got a short story on the go, and in production now is my latest novel; The Wrong That I Did is my first book for a 14+ age range, set in the world of County Lines.

My mentoring programme is flexible and reasonable. Students are encouraged to send work when it is ready for appraisal.

I’ll look at any prose writing; short stories, nonfiction, novels and novellas, writing for children and young adults.

PRICING STRUCTURE

Mentoring

For ongoing support

Prose from 2,000 to 10,00 words

£15 per 1000 words.

Manuscript Appraisal

For completed novels, children’s novels

and short story collections

Up to 70,000 words. £750

Up to 100,000 words/312 pages: £800.00

10% off for existing clients.

For full details on each service, contact;

kitchentablewriters@live.com

Below are just some of the many positive comments I've received...

...I was delighted with your comments and ticks, as well as feeling very willing to take your fiurther suggestions on board... You seem to be on my wavelength to have appreciated this work so well, or given your experience of writing and tutoring, very capable of getting on different wavelengths...Your comments were not only enjoyable to read but they helped me enjoy the story as well as opening new doors...(Roger, OCA Student)

...I've been working on another story and am completely re-writing the opening to improve it, so I'll include this. Your blogsite is so inspirational! (Kate, overseas Notepad student)

Just wanted to say a massive thank you for the workshop yesterday - 'Discover your Creative Self'. I got a lot out of it and I think you have a real talent for engaging and inspiring students. When I think of the cash I've blown at prestige workshops...you knocked them all into a cocked hat...(Sally, Workshopper)

You became all I could have wished for, knowledgeable, friendly, supportive, perceptive, encouraging and very professional... I have a great respect for you opinion on my work ... (Tasmin, OCA Student)

Your outside, fresh perspective has sent me in the right direction more than once. I feel my writing is more organized and deliberate since I started this course. (Peter, OCA Student)

Thank you for another instructive - and inspiring - workshop and for creating an environment where people could share ideas - and their writing - in a productive and positive way. Still not quite sure what direction the next book will take but am writing snippets as they come to me and waiting to see what develops. I think the main thing I got out of the workshop, and talking to people who are just starting their books, is that its important to just enjoy the writing and not get too hung up on the outcome. Something its easy to forget. Take care and lots of love Lin (workshopper)

Just a note to thank you for your feedback. Insightful as ever. I would’ve smacked my forehead had I not been in the bath – of course you are right about moving things about. It's going to read much better when I've done that. (Nicki, Notepad student)

Contact Nina for the full details, including the contract, at kitchentablewriters@live.com

Ronald Hutton

Nina Milton has created a unique fictional world in her Shaman Mystery Series, featuring Sabbie Dare as a young shaman. With Beneath the Tor she passed the ultimate test of a writer, that of causing me to put off useful jobs which I really should have been doing, in order to see what happens next. She has become a mistress of plot-weaving, and above all, she pulls off the trick of setting the totally fantastic amid the totally everyday and making the two fit together with pace and excitement. Ronald Hutton (Ronald Hutton is professor of history at Bristol University and an authority on the history of pagan beliefs. He’s the author many books including of’The Triumph of the Moon’, ‘Shamans’ and ‘Pagan Britain’)

ANOTHER GREAT REVIEW FOR IN THE MOORS

Another great review online for In the Moors, the first Shaman Mystery by Nina Milton.

Sabbie Dare, the zany, feisty heroine of Nina Milton’s In The Moors, is a city girl of mixed race and lost parentage; as a child she went into the care system and by the time she was twelve was a little fighting machine.

When we meet her, she’s 28 and clear about her path in life; she’s an eco-friendly pagan living in Somerset where she works as a therapeutic shaman. Her clients come to her for last-resort help, and such is Cliff Houghton...

If you'd like to read all the review, just click the link below.

http://www.skylightrain.com/book-review-in-the-moors-by-nina-milton/

Sky Light Rain is a great blogsite for readers and writers alike, with writing tips, reviews and general literary based chat and information. I'm making it one of my must-visit sites.

What do Pagan Readers think of the Shaman Mysteries?

In The Moors is the latest offering from Nina Milton, author and OBOD member, introducing the seemingly-unlikely detective Sabbie Dare. Sabbie, like all the best heroes of the crime thriller genre, is impulsive, courageous, a bit odd, and less than lucky in love. Sabbie is a shamanic counsellor, and when not tending to her chickens or chasing bargains at car boot sales, spend her days helping her clients. It is one such encounter that plunges Sabbie into a dark world of murder and horror past and present.For me, this holds its head up with the best of its genre and so comes highly recommended – and for those of you, like me, who are already hooked, the next Sabbie Dare novel is already in the pipeline. Can’t wait!

Review in Touchstone (magazine of OBOD-Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids)

A real page-turner, In the Moors cost me several hours of sleep because it was so un-put-downable! An engaging heroine, a landscape at once so real and so menacing, and an intriguing mystery had me enthralled into the wee hours! Mara Freeman

(Mara Freeman is a respected teacher of Western esoteric tradition and the author of ‘Kindling the Celtic Spirit’ & ‘Grail Alchemy’’)

I could not put down Unraveled Visions by Nina Milton. I congratulate her on a real page turner. I loved the sinister Fergus Quigg’s story of the Blarney Stone; I’ll look forward now, to reports that American Tourists will attempt to sanitize it with wetwipes before leaning in for a kiss, which could be amusing to the locals! I held on to my belief in Fergus’ innocence until the last; no man who writes in a notebook with pen could possibly be all bad, could he? But as the concluding tensions burst, and the final secrets were revealed, Unraveled Visions kept me up long past my bedtime (as promised by Mara Freeman), especially when Sabbie’s shamanic experiences with snakes became the great finishing twist. Nina Milton makes the unbelievable credible and persuasive. Ana Adnan

(Ana Adnan is a Wiccan High Priestess and a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids)

Creative Writing with the OPEN COLLEGE of the ARTS

I've worked happily with the OCA for several years, tutoring, assessing, workshoping and writing course materials.
They offer the very best courses in Creative Writing and have a dedicated commitment to art at all levels. Each course is self-contained and adds to a writer's understanding of their subject, but can also build into a BA hons in Creative Writing.
I teach the following OCA courses:

WRITING SKILLS

WRITING SHORT FICTION

WRITING FOR CHILDREN

LIFE WRITING

ADVANCED WRITING at Level 3

Go to: http://www.oca-uk.com/
freephone 0800 7312116

KITCHEN TABLE WRITERS Mentoring and Notepad Programme NINA MILTON's friendly mentoring service

KITCHEN TABLE MENTORING and Notepad Programme for Writers