IT appears to be getting increasingly harder for people to get published these days.
Books written by celebrities about their lifestyle are usually sure to find a literary agent and then a publisher as they are seen to have instant mass market appeal.
But what about the real storytellers who can come up with novels that fire the imagination and take you through a range of emotions from smiles to tears and everything inbetween.
That is a rare skill yet many would-be authors out there can write well and yet will never be published.
So it was especially good to hear from Netherthong’s Annabel Pitcher at the Examiner Literary Luncheon whose debut novel My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece sparked a bidding war.
She has only ever had one rejection. Publishers chased her as the book is written through the eyes of a 10-year-old boy who lost his sister in a 9/11 terrorist attack.
Another speaker was Joanne Harris from Almondbury who has a clutch of highly successful novels out there.
Both show there is hope for our literary future in a world that sometimes seems to be forever dumbing down.
