Morgen Bailey is the penname of me, Alison Reed, although I have also been published under my own name and the host of Bailey's Writing Tips podcast.
Welcome to my website and especially if you've arrived here via searches for www.alisonreed.com, www.alisonreed.co.uk or www.miltonstreetwriters.co.uk. Please note that I'm not the same Alison Reed of 'www.alison-reed.co.uk' reading and writing site!
Registered with the NAWG (National Association of Writing Groups - www.nawg.co.uk), our group was featured (centrefold!) in the December 2009 issue of their 'Link' magazine!
I started Milton Street Writers in March 2008; a group of 20+ members (attending the Monday night alternate critique and writing workshops) with a mixture of poets, short storyists (I like making up words), scripters and autobiographers. The critique group usually overruns the 2-hour sessions so we are unfortunately at capacity as a 'bums-in-seats' group but I will be putting more info on here (hints and tips etc) or you can contact me (via the 'What I do' page) if you have any specific writing-related queries.
About me: I am a writer of just over 5 years who is passionate about the craft, and wanted to share with you my knowledge and experience gleaned to-date. I have studied under the tutorledge of Sally Spedding, Judith Allnatt, Sue Moorcroft and Myra Schneider.
I write fiction, mainly short stories and poetry, and have been published in Woman's Weekly. I also submit to competitions and won Ripping Pages (see 'Links' page) competition January 2008 with a poem 'Fight for life' and was shortlisted in the Veralum Writers' Circle 'Get Writing' Competition Feb 2010 with 'Feeding the Father', a based-on-a-true-story monologue. In late 2008 I started submitting short stories to other women's magazines and online site Bound Off (see 'Links'), the latter of which were my first two rejections (which was to be expected as they only accept one or two stories a month).
I've written three novels (two for NaNoWriMo - www.nanowrimo.org - in Novembers 2008 and 2009). I finished both with a few hours to spare with 53,000 in 2008 and a staggering 117,540 words - a figure etched on my brain! - in 2009.
I loved doing the NaNoWriMos so much that I wrote a novel in between and have just started a fourth which I hope to finish before starting a fifth in November 2010...
I wrote my first-ever script for NaNo's sister site Script Frenzy - www.scriptfrenzy.org - which was a challenge to say the least. The target was 100 pages rather than 50,000 words but the layout so different that it was a much slower process. Although I'm glad I did it (102 pages) it didn't make me want to be a script writer (although I wrote a 5-minute play for Northampton Literature Group's July task which was fun) so am sticking with the novels, short stories and occasional poetry.
To-date I have 18 rejections, with more short stories and poetry 'out there' and novel no. 3 (the one that needed the least amount of work) has just been submitted to agents... watch this space!
I've also recently offered my services as a volunteer at the Chorleywood Literary Festival (mid-Nov) - see www.cwlitfest.org. They run a yearly short story competition so do take a look.
I have also had one of my monologues displayed alongside one of Jaroslaw Ancuta's drawings - see www.jaroslaw-ancuta.com.
I'm also on Twitter! Check out http://twitter.com/morgenwriteruk (unfortunately morgenbailey was already taken) and http://twitter.com/sentencestarts. Sentence Starts is a regular tweet of sentence beginnings; currently over 900 (from a supply of 3,000+). They're easy when you do a few - have a go. I also have a Blogger profile: http://morgenbailey.blogspot.com.
Lastly, but certainly not leastly, I've just recorded my first ever writing tips podcast which will be available via iTunes store and this website (see 'Weekly tips podcast' page) shortly.
I hope you enjoy looking through this site (and even more so when it has more hints and tips).
Feel free to click on the Contact me page (currently in the 'What I do' section) and fill the form in. Thank you for visiting and do pop by again soon for updated contents.
The content of, and information given on, this website is either personal opinion or details taken from the internet and therefore in the public domain. All fictional content contained within this website is copyrighted to the authors and permission must be sought before its use.
Copyright © Morgen Bailey - updated 6th September 2010
