::mslexia magazine issues::


	BARBARA TRAPIDO • MICHELE ROBERTS • SELIMA HILL • VAL MCDERMID • SUSIE ORBACH

	EDITORIAL THANK YOU for subscribing to Mslexia. We hope the magazine turns out to be everything you wanted - but possibly not quite what you expected. Take our cover, for instance: red lipstick and a DD-cup, typing something salacious in the wee small hours. ‘Decidedly un-PC’ is how the Daily Telegraph described it (not disapprovingly). Then there’s our name. One of the three PR companies we approached to help us launch the magazine hated it so much they refused to quote for the contract. ‘It is not liked’, they objected, adding that the people they’d tried it out on found the title ‘confusing - even offensive’. So we decided to test it ourselves. First we spoke to Joanna Rule, Chief Executive of the British Dyslexia Association, who chuckled and wished us all the best. Then we tried it on our Focus Group of woman writers, who were neither confused nor offended - just irritated we hadn’t brought along a copy for them to look at. We never intended Mslexia to be an easy - or predictable - read. Features like the Slush Pile (advising you what not to send to a particular publisher) and the Word Surgeon (hacking mercilessly at a case of cliché) should maker sure of that. But we hope there'll be pleasure as well as pain - the book Val McDermid stayed up all night reading, for instance, or a fevered riffle through Michele Roberts' selection of erotic writing submissions. If we get the balance wrong (too much pleasure, too little pain), we're confident you'll let us know: because Mslexia is the only magazine where every subscriber is a poetntial contributor - and vice versa. We'll be commissioning prominent authors to write many of the features, but most parts of the magazine are open to submissions from any woman. So, if you don't like something, suggest an alternative. Mslexia is your magazine. You're paying for its staff, its paper, its writers and artists. Your flutters on the Lottery underwrote its launch funding. Your ideas and submissions can help it change and develop. We hope the benefits will turn out to be mutual. Debbie Taylor Editor			Contents: Issue 1 Spring 1999 Special features AGENDA: MSLEXIA Three cures for mslexia Why are there so few celebrated woman writers? Latest psychological research and results of Mslexia’s special surveys. Plus: Susie Orbach exploring why women are so sensitive to criticism. THE MSLEXIA INTERVIEW Novelist Barbara Trapido talks to Debbie Taylor › Read from the interview › Read the Author's Method › Browse interviews OTHER FEATURES Good writers make bad mothers You have to neglect your children if you want to succeed as a writer, argues Julia Darling Feng Shui for your desk The painless route to literary success Confessions of a Person with a Writing Disorder PWD Zoë Fairbairns explains how she recovered MIND AND BODY: caffeine Caffeine and creativity - Heather Welford marshals the evidence New Writing EROTIC WRITING Poetry and prose selected by poet and novelist Michèle Roberts › Read new writing 1 › Browse new writing REGULARS • Letters • Essentially Esther DIary of an adjectivally-challenged author • News • Getting Started… in poetry • Nuts & bolts dialogue, readability, envelopes • The Blank Page: GETTING WRITING – DESPITE YOURSELF with Margaret Wilkinson › Try this workshop › Browse workshops • Guide to guides: Whodunit manuals • Poetic forms: Linda France's regular tutorial on the main poetic forms: The Sonnet with specially-commissioned examples by Selima Hill • The Slush Pile at Virago Press • Word Surgeon: Excision and reconstruction with Dr Ingrid K • Icon Gallery: 10 things you need to know about Dame Barbara Cartland BOOKS Reviews: Short stories, First novels, First collections, His stories, Black clones, Ice Station Future Best ever books by women Maggie Gee chooses Selected Poems by E J Scofell Bedside Table Val McDermid DIRECTORY Competitions, submissions requests, grants, courses, events, contacts, venues › Add me to the Mslexia listings

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