Full day of mentoring today, with 5 of my clients. We covered A LOT. From the motivations of a weakened god battling a power-mad magic-wielding emperor to the travails of a bunch of ordinary dinosaur-riding folk facing off against pirates and their Drowned god, it was all about ideas ~ Anna

The popular blogging platform Substack – used by numerous British comic creators to promote their work – has suffered a data breach. The company is warning users to take extra caution with any emails or text messages you receive… https://downthetubes.net/substack-data-breach-hits-comic-creators/

The Fantasy Hive has returned to SPFBO! Our resident SPFBO super-fan Theo has put together a team for SPFBO 11 - eleven?! Where has the time gone?? Meet this year's team and learn about the Hive's process here: tinyurl.com/mrab3mrk #SPFBO

WOOOHOOOOOOO! The biggest congratulations to our editorial and mentoring client, Jess, whose gaslamp fantasy horror novella is not only shortlisted in #SFINCS3, but also now in @aurealisawards.bsky.social, only Australia's biggest spec fic awards! We love you, Jess! Go get 'em! ~ Anna

First editing client of the year up and running. An excellent, gritty, low fantasy story about justice and loss and community. I did the dev edit on this, so I'm excited to see how it's turned out. Results are positive so far ~ Anna

The biggest of congratulations to mentee and editorial client Jessica A McMinn on reaching the finals of #SFINCS3 with her novella, Parasitic Omens! Fingers crossed for the win! ~ Anna 🍾

New blog: my 2026 word of the year, and what I hope it'll help me achieve: anna-stephens.com/2026/01/27/c...

This looks like a great day!

This is your ongoing reminder to get weirder with your writing. Yes, I'm going to keep saying it. Weird is where cool lives and rule of cool makes stories alive.

Who's writing this weekend? I'm at 48k on the WIP and hoping to get some good forward progress over the next couple of days. But I also need to finalise the encounter(s) for next week's DnD session, and, you know, I have players to kill *cough* wound, I meant wound. What are you goals? ~ Anna

Absolutely delighted to announce that I'm joining the team at @thewriteadvice.bsky.social where I'll be offering my mentoring services to budding writers. Click through to the website to read my introductory blog post (and, if you're interested, to have a look at our rates and services).

Things are AFOOT at The Write Advice HQ. @justinleeanderson.com is stepping down - BOOO! - but @thomasdlee.bsky.social is stepping up. Hurrah!

Cat wandered in front of the camera during the #aurora long exposure

Hello #writesky, I have an opening for one monthly and one quarterly mentee in 2026. If you're looking for support as a writer, whatever your level, contact me at [email protected] ~ Anna

I say this often but it bears repeating: if you make your money from creating art then you NEED to find an art or craft where you just do it for fun and don't try to be perfect or make any money from it, and when anyone tells you to monetise it you say 'No', because otherwise your soul will die.

James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.

Just want to put out feelers for a TTRPG writer/dev or two who would be interested in collaborating on a pulpy scifi/fantasy project in 2026 with myself and another artist/writer. Ideally someone who'd fuck with "Frank Frazetta but queer" as an aesthetic. Would love 2 chat if this sounds interesting

The Write Advice elves are officially on holiday until 2026! We hope you get gifted lots of books, fancy pens and notebooks, and a wealth of new story ideas! Have a good one. ~ Anna

18 Dec 2025 @rikiwilchins.bsky.social -- Big breakthrough for sexually-active/high-risk trans ppl: study of longest-acting injectable PrEP (lenacapavir) finds NO interaction with GAMT. Trans adults have long avoided PrEP for fear it impacts their hormone therapy with just 20% using it.

And the stats are in! Phew, it's been a busy one. Looking forward to doing it all again next year. Got manuscripts? Send them my way! Got writing questions? Over here! ~ Anna

And ffs get a sensitivity reader. Don't presume to know a community you aren't part of! Always, ALWAYS hire a sensitivity reader if writing about a culture/background foreign to you. It's not difficult, you'll learn cool facts, & it's just the right thing to do.

1. A landmark study was just published in The Journal of Pediatrics. It found a 68% reduction in suicidality for trans youth getting HRT. It also found only 7 of more than 400 stopped taking HRT... and of those that did, 4 still identified as gender-diverse. Transgender care saves lives.

Five days to go! Come and explore the world of the strange and monstrous with WRITING THE OCCULT's look at CRYPTIDS AND CREATURES! www.eventbrite.com/e/writing-th... #monsters #creatures #cryptids #writing #writers #authors #fiction

A reminder that the median book deal for a debut author in the UK is £7000, paid over 12-18 months. (from 2022 Society of Authors report). Some of your favourite writers are struggling. societyofauthors.org/2022/12/06/a....

Can confirm I now have a USB stick permanently attached to my laptop. Save to hard drive, copy to stick, every damn day. Losing 1.5 novels to a catastrophic hard drive failure radicalised me. ~ Anna

ANNA'S EDITORIAL CAPACITY: I am currently fully-booked for editorial clients for 2026. That said, my FTC employment runs out on 17 January, so if they decide not to renew my contract, I will have extra capacity early next year. I'll update as soon as I know. Thanks.

Lovely one-off mentoring session with a writer, and a new editorial client in the books as a result! ~ Anna

Anna, Justin, and Stephen are all superlative editors who can make your book publishing- and querying-ready because they know how publishing works. Get them to edit your books right. fucking. now.

all right, big news time: ALL THREE OF MY PROJECTS EARNED OUT this is probably the first time in my life I've felt anything like success and accomplishment, and I'm blessedly too tired to have my eyes on what's next I wrote 1.8K about what I learned jowritesfantasy.me/2025/11/04/a...

Editing slots are filling up for 2026 already!!! Now booking for June onwards. If you'll have a manuscript ready for developmental or line editing next summer or later, get in touch at [email protected] to secure your slot. Prices at www.thewriteadvice.co.uk ~ Anna

Almost finished working on the copy edit for @angelacleland.co.uk and, guys, it is SO GOOD. It has such a unique rhythm and style that I'm having to adapt my feedback and not be The Grammar Guy, so it fits. But look out for it, and give her a follow, too! ~ Anna

Here, have some Hiroshi Yoshimura.

So stoked for the beginning of @spotlightindie.bsky.social 's Big Indie Weekend! Look at all these amazing guests!!

Spotlight Indie's Big Weekend kicks off soon! Follow them @spotlightindie.bsky.social to get all the goods! Great people doing great work writing great books and supporting each other ... greatly. ~ Anna

I've been fortunate to receive mentoring from @annasmithwrites.bsky.social who's 1/3 of TWA. She's extremely patient, comes up with brilliant insights, and really wants to make the story better. I'd to leave because of some life issues, but will resume early next year.

Anna has been helping me rework an old manuscript this year and it’s been awesome. She revitalised my enthusiasm for the book with her insightful feedback and suggestions. It’s not just improved the ms - it’s improved my writing overall. Stop swithering! Get yourself in TWA’s diary for 2026.

Winter Haunts returns this November, and what a line-up of authors and speakers taking part once again! If you're a lover of ghost stories and Gothic fiction, then this could be the event for you... www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/winter-hau... #gothic #gothicfiction #ghoststories #ghoststory

Small Publishers Fair returns to London's Conway Hall next month, with 66 UK & international publishers, a special exhibition, and readings & talks. More details soon. Fri 24 & Sat 25 October (11am-7pm) FREE, all welcome Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL smallpublishersfair.co.uk

I've worked on 8 editorial projects this year, both novels and novellas at developmental and copy/line. Finishing up the last two over the next 6 weeks and then taking a break until next year. It's been brilliant to be so busy and work with so many talented authors, but I need a rest. Like Bailey!

Less than a month until #DVpit, a pitch event for marginalized creators looking to find an agent & get traditionally published! Here's a reminder of the rules! For more guidelines & info go to dvpit.carrd.co See you all at DVpit on October 8th, 2025! #writersky #booksky

Today in Anna's Adventures in Editing, I've so far had to look up what behaviours indicate a psychopath v a sociopath, and when breathalysers were invented. Yep, it ain't a SFF book, folks. The below gif should read Challenge ACCepted, by the way 😋

Politely withdrawing from a book prize isn’t cancelling anyone. When the Women’s Prize said it had no problem incl transgender women, the “gender critical” novelist Lissa Evans, for example, said she’d no longer allow her books to be submitted for it. I wonder where the substacks were about that?

If you are planning to come to World Fantasy Convention 2025 and would like to be on programme items, you need to fill out the form before 8th August. worldfantasy2025.co.uk/participation/

Another 5 mentoring sessions done today. Tough work, but one writer is a mere 3 chapters away from finishing their first book and another is embarking on draft 2 with the aim of getting most of it done by the end of the year. Super proud of them both, and all my others, of course. ~ Anna

Boss. I'm tired boss. We been doing these experiments and studies since the 60s and 70s and the outcome has been the same in them all. The pushback against these measures aren't because they don't work. It's because they DO work and they'll include peoples they wish to exclude from society.

Grammar for adventurers: "Can I" is an ability check "May I" is a persuasion roll. Anna.

I'm not saying I'm dedicated, but I just took a selfie of myself looking Very Disappointed and sent it to a mentee as motivation to write more consistently, one of their goals, and extracted a promise that they'd send me their word count each day so that "you never look at me like that again" ~ Anna

Congratulations to editorial client Stephen on publication of his new novel, Inquisitive. I didn't work on this one, but if it's half as good as the one I've just edited, then it's very, very good! You can check it out here ~ Anna

Me: Today I shall edit while listening to One OK Rock. Me, 10 minutes later, caterwauling along: Oh, no, this is not going to work. *Begrudgingly switches to movie soundtracks* *Miraculously is able to edit* Welcome to Anna Fridays.

Anna reads, loves, and reviews Wriggly Little Hands by @authoralexknight.bsky.social thewriteadvice.co.uk/2025/07/05/b...