Dawn's helping hand

It just shows how much can be achieved in a short time.

One year on from East Sussex member, Dawn Copeman’s first sale, she has had 30 articles accepted for publication, been made a columnist and contributing editor at www.timetravel-britain.com and managing editor at www.writing-world.com where she writes the Questions and Quandaries column.

Now she has set up a website for other new and aspiring writers: www.newbie-writers.com.

‘When I decided to become a writer just over a year ago, thankfully I quickly found Writers’ News and Writing Magazine and they helped me considerably,’ she says. ‘But I also spent many hours searching online for answers to my writing questions. I wanted to set up a site so that all new and aspiring writers will have a friendly place with articles and content geared to them as beginners.’

Dawn has also written The Newbie Writer's Resource Guide as a free e-book to give away to subscribers to the website and persuaded many ‘top freelance writers’ to contribute articles to the e-book. The site was launched in November and already has over 300 subscribers and a very active forum. ‘Many of our members are complete beginners,’ she adds, ‘but some have already been published.

‘The aim of this site is that we all help each other to become better writers. Besides, writing is such a huge field that whenever we decide to try a new genre, we all become newbies again.’