Hi, my name's Anna Reynolds and I'm one-third of the team behind WriteWords, one of the UK's most successful and popular writing sites. We set out to create a real community for all writers, from beginners to experienced, across all genres and media, and we're excited by how diverse and lively the site has become.
My WriteWords colleagues are David Bruce, the Webmaster, and Richard Brown, a non-fiction writer, who is our Directory Editor. One day back in 2003, the three of us sat down in a pub- as you do- and decided we wanted to create the kind of site we'd like to be part of ourselves, something very friendly and accessible, but also with great info, jobs for writers, interviews with The Great and the Good, and lots, lots more.
It's exciting to follow what goes on within the WriteWords community - some members have started out with us at a very early stage in their career, and gone on to get major publishing deals; other times there are really interesting debates and discussions on the site - which, unlike a lot of sites rarely end up in pointless bickering and in-fighting. I also love it when writers help each other- my experience as a stage writer is that we're an isolated bunch, working in our own spaces, not really sharing what we do and often feeling intensive rivalry- but I think WW writers are incredibly supportive and helpful toward each other, and great at sharing and swapping advice, opinions and info.
We're constantly looking at how we can maximise links with publishers, agencies, magazines, theatre companies and others- sometimes that happens organically, for example we recently ran an interview with a new travel publisher, city-lit, who have already begun working with several WriteWords members as a result. Sometimes it works like that- we see an opportunity and seize it, sometimes it comes through an existing WW member who wants to draw their own publisher or agent or editor into the WW mix. Because the web is such a fluid animal, constantly reinventing itself, the possibilities are endless. But the core of WriteWords is, I think, the community- the groups and the forum and the archive, that’s the biggest and most fantastic place for networking, both casually and more formally.
When I'm not running WriteWords, I'm a theatre writer with over 20 plays produced across the UK and internationally, and I've also written for magazines, newspapers and short story anthologies. These days I tend to focus on collaborative theatre, writing with and for actors, designers, directors, circus performers, singers, composers, dancers, you name it. Sometimes this works and is extremely exciting, other times it drives me to the point of madness. I've got three fairly big plays to write which open in June, July and August respectively, so that'll be fun. In fact, I’d better get back to writing them right now…
