From Mislexia Finalist to Neem Tree Deal

How can authors write about climate change without preaching? What happens when your publisher goes under just before your book launch? How do theatre skills translate to better dialogue, readings, and author events? With author and theater director Laura Baggaley.

In the intro, Indie presses are in existential crisis [The Bookseller]; what to do when things are hard [Wish I'd Known Then]; Book marketing with garlic-infused ink [The Guardian]; Writing Storybundle; Halloween horror promo; Blood Vintage folk horror; My new author photos; Day of the Dead [Books and Travel];

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Laura Baggaley is an award-nominated children's and YA author, theater director, and also teaches acting, writing, and literature at City Lit College in London.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• How to write climate fiction that embeds solutions in world-building rather than lecturing readers
• Dealing with publisher collapse and finding empowerment in regaining control of your books
• Using theatre techniques to write better dialogue and avoid clunky exposition
• Essential performance skills for author readings, interviews, and public speaking
• Practical tips for preparing workshops and managing nerves at literary events
• Building collaborative writing projects and the benefits of author support groups

You can find Laura at LauraBaggaley.co.uk.

Transcript of Interview with Laura Baggaley

Jo: Laura Baggaley is an award-nominated children's and YA author, theater director, and also teaches acting, writing, and literature at City Lit College in London. So welcome to the show, Laura.

Laura: Thank you, Jo. It's lovely to be here.

Jo: Yes, I'm excited to talk to you today. First up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Laura: Well, I was one of those kids who always had their nose in a book, you know, loved reading. Whenever anyone said, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” I would say, “A writer,” like, straight away, no question about it. So that was always the plan.

In my late teens, I changed schools for sixth form. I went to this school that was really strong on performing arts. I started to get into drama and doing lots of acting and school plays. Then at university started directing plays, which was even more fun than acting.

I just found myself pursuing a different path and became a theater director for about 15 years. That was really creatively exciting, but after a while, I started to feel something was missing, I guess.

Of course the writing had been completely sidelined, but I came back to it and I started writing again.

First of all, I started working on a literary novel that I was trying to craft with extremely beautiful language and lovely sentences. When I got to the end of the draft and I read it, I realized it was incredibly boring because like nothing happened in the book. So I put that in a drawer and started again.

I started working on another one and I was sort of crafting my sentences. And anyway, fortunately about halfway through that one, I had this idea, this story came to me about a 15-year-old kid in a dystopian future. It had to be a young protagonist and it had to be a YA book. I just really wanted to tell this story.

So I chucked the boring literary half-written draft in that same drawer and started working on the YA book. So that's where I really started to sort of find my voice as it were.

Jo: Where did it go from there? When was that?

Laura: Oh gosh, before the pandemic, which is kind of how we judge everything time-wise these days, isn't it? I think it was 2019 that I was a finalist in the Mslexia Children's Fiction Competition with that manuscript.

So I'd obviously written it before then, and then through that competition, got an agent and had wrote another book, and got a publishing deal with a small indie publisher called Neem Tree Press.

Jo: I wanted to talk to you about this. So you were a finalist, Mslexia, if people don't know, is very prestigious magazine here in the UK. You've got an agent, you've got a deal. So what happened then?

What happened with the publishing experience?

Laura: Well, I think the term is probably rollercoaster. I was really excited to sign this contract and obviously to have this publishing contract. But what happened was, publication obviously takes a long time. So it was going to be 18 months or so before the book came out.

After about a year of this process, Neem Tree Press merged with a much bigger UK publisher called Unbound. And they were saying how great this was because obviously there were advantages of scale, like wider distribution to bookshops, that kind of thing.

I don't think that Neem Tree Press quite realized how much financial trouble Unbound was in when they merged. Essentially Unbound folded and took Neem Tree press down with them. So the two books that I'd been so excited to get published with Neem Tree have not been published.

However, on the plus side, the rights have reverted to me, and now I can do what I want with them. So they will be coming out, just not with Neem Tree Press.

The good thing was, is that in the meantime I'd got on with writing another YA book and that has been published by Habitat Press. So I carried on writing.

Jo: The thing is we hear this over and over again. Like there's pros and cons with small press versus big houses and one of the benefits of a big house is it's very unlikely to go under. But one of the benefits of small press is you get a lot more attention and you know the people and you feel it's a much more personal process.

There's pros and cons every which way, but over the years I've been in publishing, almost 20 years now, so many small press companies either get bought or things happen. Things happen. Let's just say things happen.

So this happened. How did you deal with this, like mentally and thinking about whether it was all going to happen? Because obviously writers look forward to their publication and you're going through this process.

So how did you deal with all that time?

Laura: As I say, it was really up and down. There were some months early on where I was really down about it because I just didn't hear anything.

So I think that was the most frustrating thing is I'd be sending emails saying, “When are we going to start on the edits?” and just not hear anything. So it felt like I was sort of being ghosted, you know?

The positive thing I think was that because of listening to your podcast and doing lots of research into indie publishing, I'd already decided that even if I had a traditional publishing deal, I was going to pursue my author business in an entrepreneurial way.

So I'd already decided, you know, why can't a traditionally published author have a reader magnet, for example? So I got on with doing things in the meantime. I wasn't just waiting, and I think if I just waited, it would have been really crushing.

As it was when I finally had the sort of confirmation that Neem Tree Press had closed and there was no chance of the books being published, what I felt was relief and a sense of almost kind of empowerment. As like, well, thank goodness the books are mine again. Now I can get on with publishing them.

Jo: That's really interesting. I think that empowerment, it's such a good energy. Being long time indie, I think that empowerment and that sort of, “I can do this” and like you said, “I got on with doing things.”

If you are a doer and you like doing things, then being an indie author is a good thing because you can move at your pace. Let's face it—

Even if you do get a deal with whoever, the person who cares the most about your book is you.

Laura: Exactly. Exactly. I think just that feeling of I'm not going to wait for permission anymore. I've had enough of that.

Habitat Press, who brought out Dirt, my new book, they've been a joy to work with because they're much more flexible and collaborative. So I don't feel like I've given up all my power working with them, so that's really nice.

Jo: But you are going to self-publish those other two?

Laura: TBC. I'm hoping that one of them might come out with Habitat Press and one of them will be self-published. That's the current plan. I'm waiting for Habitat Press to read the greener one because Habitat Press is the green, environmental kind of publisher.

Jo: Yes. Well, let's talk about that because your novel Dirt is eco fiction or climate fiction, and this is turning into a bit of a niche. So tell us what are the hallmarks of that genre.

How can authors write in important areas, but not bash people over the head with a message?

Laura: That is so important, isn't it? Yes. So what climate fiction is, I mean, I'd say it's any story with a focus on environmental or climate issues. So it could be a thriller, it could be a romance, it could be crime fiction. It's a really kind of broad genre.

But from my perspective, when I think about it, the key thing is climate solutions. It's about looking forward to joyful possibilities and about kind of normalizing positive action.

So not writing a book to tell everybody to buy an electric car or something, but just kind of in the world building embedding things like yes, solar panels or heat pumps or whatever as just normal parts of life.

Of course in my books, because I tend to write near future dystopias, it's really easy to imagine a future where say everyone gets all their energy from renewable energy. So the eco element, it's in the background and just taken for granted rather than trying to preach. If that makes sense.

Jo: That's interesting because I know Habitat Press wants a positive spin on it, but I was thinking one of the books I've read, I guess a few years ago now, The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, I don't think of that as a positive book.

Laura: I know, I know that book. I love that book. Yes, I know what you mean. I mean, it has one of the bleakest beginnings, but it stayed with me. I have never forgotten that book. What I would say about that book is it is absolutely packed with ideas for ways of moving towards a better future.

He's got all kinds of economic innovations and ideas about blockchain and how world banks could work together. So I would say although it's in the action and the plot, there are bleak elements. I mean, overall, I would call it really quite hopeful.

I mean, I sort of got into all this through the Green Stories Project. They run free writing competitions, encouraging writers to explore embedding climate solutions into their work. And of course, Habitat Press kind of emerged out of the Green Stories Project. I think you interviewed Denise from Habitat Press some years ago.

Jo: Yes.

Laura: Another thing that they did, which I really thought was really fun, was the Green Stories collaboration with BAFTA on #ClimateCharacters.

Jo: I don't know about that. Tell us about that.

Laura: They were comparing fictional characters with high and low carbon lifestyles. So they took like James Bond versus Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher, he spends his money on like coffee and public transport, whereas James Bond is all like jet skis and smart suits and expensive cars.

I mean, I love both those characters of course, but if you're looking at what you glamorize in your fiction, it's a choice that you can make.

So in one of my books, I have all the rich kids at school wearing CarPos trainers. And CarPos in my sort of future world is short for carbon positivity. So they're carbon positive trainers that have absorbed more carbon in the manufacture than they've emitted, and that's this massive status symbol.

So the cool kids all have CarPos. Then of course, my protagonist, who's not a rich kid, his trainers are just neutral, which means like carbon neutral.

That's not what the plot is about, but I like the idea that in a world where legislation has said that all manufacturing processes have to be carbon neutral, it becomes a status symbol to be sustainable. Like who can be the most eco.

Jo: Yes, I absolutely agree. So I think that's a good sort of pointer is put it in the world building, don't lecture.

You don't have to have characters lecturing other characters about their behavior, which I feel like is one of the bad things with any movement is bashing people over the head with stuff as opposed to trying to put things into stories that it's almost invisible, but yet still impactful, I suppose.

Laura: Yes, I think Denise at Habitat Press talks about smuggling the messages in. You know, that you want the book to be exciting because it's got great characters and a great story, and that the eco stuff is incidental almost. But there's just a little bit of a mind shift going on in the way that you construct the world of the book.

Jo: So I wanted to come onto your theater background. Well, first of all, I should ask—

So did you write any plays or were you more in the directing thing?

Laura: Mainly directing, but I did do some devised productions when I was directing, so I did write some scripts for those. I wrote several scripts actually for children's plays, which were kind of adaptations.

Then it was in 2019, I devised and wrote a play for a London New Writing Festival called This Play Will Solve Climate Change.

Jo: Yes, that's a bit more on the nose as a title.

Laura: It was, yes. It was a full on activist kind of physical theater, experimental production. It was really fun. It was perhaps a kind of a step back towards writing for me.

Jo: Well, because this is interesting, right? So I write a novel, you write a novel, and we can upload it to Amazon. Let's say the very basic thing you can do is upload it to Amazon. People can buy it and you get some money.

With a play, it just isn't like that, is it? I mean—

Is there anything like a sort of self-publishing scene in the theater world?

Laura: I have to say, not that I know of with scripts at all. In fact, with the climate change play that I wrote, well, I actually set up a little theater company around that time, and we called ourselves Reusable Theater. The idea was that our scripts could be reused by anyone, anywhere, because we wanted to to generate more of this kind of work.

I mean, there were theater makers all over the place generating their own productions and putting on work independently. So yes, but I don't think anyone's making any money out of it is the thing.

Jo: No, exactly. I mean there are obviously people who buy scripts to put on at schools and stuff, usually you have to buy the certain text or whatever, but people don't really shop for plays, I guess.

Laura: I don't think so.

Jo: So, yes, it is difficult. So I'm glad you've discovered the business of books.

In terms of if people are interested in adaptation—like you said there, you did some adaptations—

What are some tips for writing stories that could be more easily adapted into theater?

Or even just brought alive with marketing, with images and that kind of thing?

Laura: That's a really interesting question, because I think in some ways, theater is a really expansive, inventive storytelling mode. So you can almost put anything on stage, but what I would say is, I think it's primarily about theater and film being really visual mediums.

This is often the case in marketing as well, isn't it? So it's about finding those really striking images and just thinking about your plot does. Are there key moments that have really clear, vivid images attached to them?

I think I'm often really inspired by images. So there was a play I directed once simply because I loved the opening image on stage and it was a 18th century garden in Lambeth with an apple tree. There were two figures, a man and a woman sitting in the tree with their backs to the audience, both completely naked.

I just thought this was such a kind of striking image. Of course, we didn't have a tree on stage. We had apples suspended from invisible threads. So the actors were sitting on a step ladder in this kind of cloud of apples. It was really beautiful. I guess that's the kind of thing you are thinking about.

With Dirt, that whole book really started with an image for me. There's an expansive desert, a single road running through it. A girl wearing a sun hat as big as a bicycle wheel cycling alone along that road towards us.

That was like the first idea for the story in my head. It was kind of like a western, you know, a stranger rides into town. So that's where my inspiration, I think, often comes from. I think that does translate well into marketing, for instance.

Jo: Yes. I guess another thing is dialogue, because if you are on the stage, then you're going to have to have some people speaking. So you've probably read a heck of a lot of very bad dialogue or heard dialogue that might look okay on the text, but then an actor tries to perform it and it sounds terrible.

So how can we identify bad dialogue? And any tips for writing it better?

Laura: Yes, I've certainly encountered some terrible dialogue. I think for me the clunkiest is when characters say things without motivation just to further the plot.

I get students doing this in my acting classes. Sometimes they'll be improvising and they'll say something like, “Oh, Uncle Bernard, how good to see you after you've spent 10 years in Australia” and I'll be like, “Bernard knows he's been in Australia and he knows it's been a long time.”

So the character, like, there's just no reason for them to say that. It always tells me that the actor is being super conscious of the audience, trying to convey information rather than getting into the character's skin. I think with dialogue it's about really immersing yourself, getting in there in the character's head.

What is the character's attitude to this situation? What's the relationship to the other people? How are they feeling? And then you get that kind of, what would I say if I was this person in this situation? And that's where the dialogue should be coming from.

I think you really hit on it, Jo, when you said, it's reading it aloud. It can read well on the page, but to test it, read it aloud and better get other people to read it aloud for you.

I mean, in theater it's standard practice. You've got a new script, you workshop it, get a load of actors, playwright sits with a red pen and their script and listens and scribbles all over the script while the actors read it out.

Jo: Yes, it's funny, I've actually just yesterday finished the audiobook of Blood Vintage, which is my folk horror novel. I've done it with ElevenLabs using my voice clone, which is very, very good.

So it's very strange because I'm listening to myself and then I direct myself, the AI, and—

I've actually rewritten bits and bobs of dialogue because even my own voice clone can't do it properly.

Laura: Wow. That's brilliant.

Jo: It is. It's really funny. The other thing that I found, and again, like I've literally just sort of discovered this is at the end of chapters, sometimes I've rewritten things in order that they end on a with a certain sound as opposed to how they can end in the text.

You would have come across this too. There can be sounds that written down, don't look like they match, but when you speak them, the sounds resonate with each other and then it just sounds wrong basically.

Laura: Yes. Yes, absolutely. It sound like ending a chapter sounds a bit to me, like doing what we call a button at the end of a scene or at the end of a musical number, you need that kind of finishing moment.

Jo: Yes. Finishing moment. Rather than with text, you can easily cut something and the reader's going to turn the page. But if you are driving and you're listening to an audiobook, there's a few seconds of space.

So you almost need it to end in a certain audio way to make a point. Like you say, button's a really good word. I've never heard it in that context.

Laura: Yes, absolutely. You need to navigate to guide them through the text because they haven't got that kind of expanse of the blank bit of page at the end of the chapter or whatever.

Jo: So then I guess the other thing about theater is performance and I feel like a lot of authors think they have no need to learn performance because they're just going to be in their rooms writing.

If you are successful or if you want to be successful, yes, you are going to have to do stuff. You have to speak on a podcast, you have to speak at a festival, you have to do a reading, you have to talk to media.

So what are your tips on performance?

I guess from seeing a lot of bad performances as well, what can we do? We want to be authentic, like we don't need to be rah rah. How can we do it where we can deliver the best to the people who are listening?

Laura: Yes, it's such a good question. I think for me there's kind of two things. So I find—and this is probably my theater background—but I find it really helps to imagine a character who is a version of me and that's who I'm playing in public.

The character is essentially the same. They're me just a bit more confident, you know, a slightly shinier version. So like, I'm Laura and then there's Laura Baggaley Writer.

If you ask those two people like, “How is your new book going?” Like, me, Laura sitting at my desk might say, “Oh, I'm really struggling. I'm trying to write in this new utopian genre. And I've got ideas for two characters, but the world isn't clear at all and I'm just not sure which plot strand to prioritize” and so on.

But if you ask Laura Baggaley Writer, she might say, “Oh, it's exciting. I'm experimenting with a new literary genre. I'm writing a utopian novel for young adults, and it's about two teenage girls. They're both outsiders in different ways.”

So like both of those statements are completely true. I'm not being inauthentic because it is exciting that I'm writing this book in this genre. But one of them, I hope you'll agree, one of them sounds better than the other. It's a bit like putting on a smart jacket for a book reading. It's just getting into character. Does that make sense?

Jo: Yes, I totally agree. I think the smart jacket is a point as well.

Makeup for women, I mean, you don't have to, but I remember I did professional speaker training back in Australia like 20 years ago, and I remember seeing these women and they wore, they didn't have to be designer clothes, but they wore smart clothes on stage and they looked professional and their hair was done and their makeup was done.

I just learned a lot from that because it gives a professional impression and I feel that's the thing.

If you want to be a successful author, then you are a professional.

So whatever that means, however you want to dress. I think again, whether it's a smart jacket or it's just different clothes, I feel it can really help.

Laura: That is so true. I mean, a lot of actors talk about needing to find the right shoes for a character. They put on their costume and then that's part of the process of getting ready for performance. So I think that's absolutely right.

Jo: This is terrible. I was just thinking then, so I've been to some of these pitch things, right? For film and TV and stuff. The last one I went to, they sent an email out and the email basically said, “please chew gum or use mints.”

Laura: Oh, oh no.

Jo: No, I mean not to me personally, but the email went out and it also said, “use deodorant.” And I was like, if you are emailing a group of people and telling them to use mints and deodorant, then what the hell happened last year?

Laura: That's horrendous. Oh my goodness.

Jo: Yes, I know. I was just thinking about that. I think, again, as authors it's fine to sit here at your desk in your tracky bottoms and your whatever and mess. Like, I basically don't do my hair most of the time.

But if you are going to do a reading or you're going to a conference or you are doing anything where you are Joanna Penn Writer or Laura Baggaley Writer—

When it is that writer side of you, you have to make an effort, right?

Even if it's hard. And it is hard, isn't it?

Laura: Yes, it is hard. I think it does boost your confidence to be wearing the right stuff. There are practical performance tips as well. I would say practice a lot out loud.

Sometimes with my students, I'll see them rehearsing a speech in their head and I'll say, “Come on. No, no, do it out loud because you need your mouth to practice saying the words, there's a muscle memory involved.”

So if you are doing a reading of your own book, you might know the book inside out, but your mouth might not know it. If you read it out loud to the mirror to a friend multiple times, when you are feeling really nervous up on stage, your mouth will do some of the work because it already knows what it has to do.

It sounds really silly, but just practice, practice, practice and remember to slow down because adrenaline makes us all speed up.

Actors often say to me like, “Oh, what do I do about nerves?” When they're just starting out, they might be doing their first ever acting performance. And I say, “Well, it's part of performance. It's absolutely natural. It's a completely normal response to the situation.”

Even though you can't just tell your brain to calm down, you can physically relax your body. So you can lift your shoulders right up to your ears and then drop them down and feel the difference. That is physical relaxation.

So even if your brain and your stomach are churning, you can consciously physically relax your body and do that breathing. My favorite breathing is in for two out for three. Just extend the out breath and doing that, it's so obvious, but it does help.

Jo: Yes, and on that breathing and that practicing things with your mouth, that's so good.

The other thing with our own writing, if you're not reading it aloud or you don't do anything with audio, especially with literary writing, you can get some really long sentences. Where do you breathe? Decide where you are going to breathe.

Laura: Yes, absolutely. In fact, audiobook narrators will. I've done a lot of my own audiobook, so you mark up your script where you're going to breathe. So as an audiobook narrator, you prepare a document with that kind of thing if it's a difficult bit.

Jo: So if someone's got a reading coming up—I know you have got one coming up, you talked about that beforehand. So I guess another question would be, what do you pick?

Some people say, “Oh, well, I just start at the beginning,” but I've been to so many readings where I'm like, “I don't think that's the best section to read.” What bits do you pick?

Any tips for preparing a reading as opposed to an interview?

I think, you know, pick an exciting bit.

Laura: Yes, exactly. I mean, sort of obvious, but if the beginning of your book is really intriguing and gets straight into the action, then go for it. You want to excite people, don't you? You want to inspire them to want to read more.

So you might even want to choose a bit that ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Not right at the end, no spoilers, but choose an exciting bit and a bit that will be fun to read out loud, and then practice and decide how you are going to read it.

Really think about that performance element. How can you draw people in by varying the volume or the tempo of the reading? You know, you might want to just slow down a little bit on a suspenseful moment.

Are you going to do anything when you do dialogue? You know, I don't think anyone should do silly voices, by the way.

Jo: Unless you are an actor, and well, yes you can.

Laura: Yes. But you probably do want to speak slightly differently so that we know it's dialogue, for instance, you know?

Jo: Yes, I think, and also—

Videoing yourself practicing can really help.

Because I think you still have to, as if you were doing an interview. You are always looking out to the audience now and then, or if you are doing a professional speaking engagement, you are meeting eyes of the audience.

I feel with the reading, like the worst readings I've seen is the author literally has got their nose in the book and doesn't even look up. They're just like rushing through it. So you do have to look up, don't you, to bring people in.

Laura: I couldn't agree more. It's so important. I mean, that kind of reading from a script while still connecting with the other character is a really basic part of actor training. Reading and connecting with the audience is so important.

It just comes from practice and knowing the text really, really well. Not quite memorizing it, but having such a clear sense of the shape of it and what happens in the sentences that you can look away from the page a lot.

Jo: Because at the end of the day, it's that—is it Maya Angelou? People will forget what you said, but they won't forget how they feel.

Laura: Yes.

Jo: So, you want people to go away feeling like, “Wow, that author was really great. I'm really interested in that book.” They might not remember what the hell you read, but if you read it in a way that connects with them. I think you just have to bring that energy, don't you, in some form.

Laura: Yes, and the other thing to remember is that people who come to book readings come because they enjoy it. They come because they want to have a good time. So if you are scared to make eye contact with them, you are sort of pushing them away a bit.

If you look around the room as people are arriving, if you look and you make eye contact, they'll probably smile at you because they're excited to hear from your book. They're probably excited to be there. At the very least, they want you to succeed.

So don't be scared of your audience. Think of them as a group of people who just want to share in the pleasure of hearing your work.

Jo: Yes, and I think just to encourage people, obviously both of us, I have different experience to you, but—

I've been speaking for a long time and done a lot of events, and it just gets easier with practice.

Laura: It really, really, really does. I mean, I used to be terrified of directing, of teaching, of leading workshops, of all the things that I have spent most of my life doing, the first time I did it.

Not just the first time, for a while it was nerve wracking, but it's a great feeling when you've done it, and then when you meet someone or they send you a message saying, “Oh, that was great.” You know, it's just wonderful.

Jo: Well, you mentioned workshops there, and I think this is another skill that's different to reading or speaking. A lot of writers teach at retreats and also attend retreats or doing classes.

So what are your tips for the more participatory things, where either the writer who's trying to run the workshop is an introvert, or the people who attend are introverts?

Like, have you come across any particular challenges there?

Laura: Yes, I think for me, for like leading workshops, it's all about preparation and knowing what the purpose of the workshop is. So what do you want people to go away with? You know, what skill or experience are you trying to convey?

If you've done lots of prep, and you've got discussion topics and activities fulfilling that objective, then that's a confidence booster. Just knowing that you've got lots of stuff to fill the time.

Then if you are really struggling with nerves, make sure that you get the participants to do some of the work. Because you can set them a task. They're there to learn to do, and people learn by doing. They learn by experience.

So you can even have a task that they get stuck into straight away so that they're all busy writing while you are doing your careful breathing and getting command of yourself. Then get them to discuss. So try and structure it in a way that's helpful to you.

Jo: Yes, I think preparation is a huge part of helping introverts in particular. I don't know, I think it is correlated with introversion, like needing preparation. I sent you questions for this interview and we probably could have winged it, but I hate winging it. I need to have questions.

Laura: Me too.

Jo: We might not stick with them, but at least we both know that we are prepared and that makes me feel better, even if you don't even look at them. Some people come on and say, “Oh, I didn't even look at your questions.” Oh my goodness. No.

I love getting questions. I love being prepared.

Laura: I love getting questions. I love being prepared. I would never go into a workshop or a rehearsal without a really clear sense of what I'm going to do because that's how the participants are going to get the best experience, I think, out of the workshop.

I think also just thinking about participants, if people who are introverted attend a workshop, they should think about how they can get their needs met because you don't want to go and be too shy and not get value from the workshop.

So, for instance, things like if you hate the thought of reading your work aloud for it to be critiqued, get in touch with the workshop leader or the tutor in advance or speak to them on the day or just slip them a note and just tell them that. They'll get someone else to read it out. You can find ways to mitigate your anxiety and still get the most out of it.

Jo: So we're almost out of time, but I did also want to ask you, you collaborate with a group of authors on a Substack magazine—I guess online magazine—called Bending the Arc. I always find collaborative author things a challenge. You are in theater, so you're used to collaboration. So tell us—

What is the intent in that magazine? What are the benefits and challenges of collaborating on something like an email newsletter thing?

Laura: Well, I sort of have to say where it comes from because Bending the Arc, it emerged out of my exploration of climate fiction that I've been doing. It led me to Manda Scott's Thrutopia Masterclass, which was an online study course. So we were five of us teamed up in 2024 to study this masterclass for six months.

I don't know if people are familiar with the term thrutopia. I think it's still quite new. So it was a term that Rupert Reed came up with. He's an environmental academic and it means telling stories that aren't dystopias.

So not imagining how awful everything's going to be, but not utopias where you've got a kind of magically perfect future, but looking at thrutopia. How do we get through from here to a better place? So it fits in a lot with the Green Stories idea and the climate fiction.

So for this masterclass, we met every week for six months, watched a weekly video, did writing exercises, and discussed it. When we got to the end of it, we didn't want to stop. We didn't want to stop meeting.

We had generated some new, some work in this new genre, and we wanted a place to showcase it. Also, probably as importantly, we wanted to invite other writers to experiment with this kind of work as well. So we thought a Substack magazine would be a good way of doing this.

Jo: Has it performed a function though?

I feel like a lot of the experimental writing we do and group writing and everything is great for a certain amount of time. But then having obviously podcasted for years and done various things, things do not continue unless there is a benefit to the people involved at some point. So, for example, marketing your own books or something.

Laura: Yes. Yes. I mean, I think there's sort of two things. One is, I've made lots of really interesting connections with people that I just wouldn't have met without this.

There's five of us. So putting out a Substack with five people's networks, we were very quickly reaching a lot more people than just I would reach on my own. I have used it to promote my own work in that an extract from Dirt was in the first edition.

Also I think what I get out of it is we are like a writer support group. We critique each other's work, we champion each other, so it gives us a focus for our weekly meetings. We are meeting lots of other writers through it when we open up submissions so that it's coming out in two editions at the moment.

We're doing it twice a year, so we send out a flurry of posts. It's not like we put out a post every week. So it's a slightly different way of using Substack.

Jo: What other marketing are you doing for your book?

Laura: Oh, I would say I'm following all the advice on all the webinars and podcasts and Alliance of Independent Authors. I've got my author newsletter that I'm doing. Obviously Dirt is for children and young adults, so I'm going into schools, I'm doing talks in libraries, a blog tour, all those kinds of things.

Jo: Great.

So where can people find you and your book online?

Laura: So my website is LauraBaggaley.co.uk and that's Baggaley, B-A-double-G-A-L-E-Y. I'm on Instagram, @LauraBaggaleyWriter.

The Thrutopian Magazine, Bending the Arc is on Substack. If anyone is interested in the thrutopian genre or Green Stories or anything else we've talked about, drop me a line. I love talking about all this, and as I said, I love connecting with other writers.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Laura. That was great.

Laura: It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

The post Performance Tips For Authors, And Writing Climate Fiction With Laura Baggaley first appeared on The Creative Penn.