Guest post by womag soap writer Glenda Young

Today's guest is womag short story and soap writer Glenda Young.

I began writing fiction in 2015 and since then have had stories published in The People’s Friend, My Weekly and Take a Break’s Fiction Feast. I’m also in the rather wonderful and unique position of writing a weekly soap opera, Riverside, which has been published in The People’s Friend since October 2016. I love writing short fiction and away from the Womag world, enter much darker, quirkier stories into competitions. I’ve had some success in winning or being highly placed in national and regional story competitions too (and I’ve a lot of failures, but let’s gloss over those, ahem). 

On the strength of all of this I plucked up the courage to approach a literary agent and was signed up by Caroline Sheldon of the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency in London. Caroline secured me a three-book deal with Headline in 2017 to write historical novels set in the northeast coalmining village of Ryhope, where I was born and bred. My debut novel Belle of the Back Streets had three publishers fighting over it and in 2019 I was offered a second three-book deal with Headline.

After a life-time spent working in University admin, I’m now working full-time as a writer. This might sound glamourous and yes, it’s true there are trips to London and lovely long lunches with my editor and my agent (I’ve always wanted to say that line ever since I was a little girl writing dotty poems in my pink glittery notepad). But the truth of it is, when you’re a full-time writer it means sitting down at home and Getting On With It, while wearing comfortable trousers and eating too many biscuits at home. I love writing, it’s what I have always wanted to do, ever since I was a child and I couldn’t be happier now. I’m in my mid-50s so novel writing has come fairly late to me in life, but it’s here and I’m making the most of every day.

Before writing fiction, I had written non-fiction books, TV tie-in books about Coronation Street for ITV. This all came about as I’m such a huge fan of the show and have watched it since before I can remember. The Coronation Street books were a passion for me and I was very honoured and proud to be asked to write the official tribute book to the character of Deirdre Barlow after the actress Anne Kirkbride who played Deirdre, passed away in 2015. I’ve also ‘written’ Coronation Street’s official colouring book in that I had to choose 45 iconic images from the show’s 60 years and write descriptions of each one for the book. I continue to run the Coronation Street Blog fan site and edit a team of 16 bloggers.

I continue to bring my love of TV soap and drama to Riverside, the weekly soap opera I write for The People’s Friend. Riverside is a great deal of fun to write and remains the highlight of my writing week. I can take a step back from my historical novels, return to the contemporary world and write funny scenes and poignant stories. I love it!  

Glenda has kindly agreed to answer some of our questions on writing short stories and longer works for the womags. Please leave any you have as comments to this blog, and she'll be back later this month with her replies. In the meantime you make like to visit her Twitter account or visit her website.