Editing Humanity: Writing A Better Future

The stories we tell are failing us. It’s time to up our game.
If Women Wrote About Their Bodies The Way Men Write About Women’s Bodies

Lads. Lads. LADS. You know what we’re talking about. And yeah, #NotAllMen yada yada yada, but #YesSomeMen. Some published men. Some men who seem to think we spend our entire day charting the movement of our tits and gaze at ourselves in the mirror at every given opportunity. For most of us possessing boobs, our […]
A Pocket Guide to Resistance Writing from a Place of Privilege

In a time when headlines of injustice are more constant than ever, there is simply no shortage of social issues to resist through your writing. Whether you’re sharing your own story, advocating for new policy, or reacting to whatever fucked up thing is on the news, writing for change is no small act of protest, […]
Where Are The Working Class Writers?

I read my first Roald Dahl book, The BFG, to my daughter at the age of twenty-seven. Although I was a keen reader from the age of three, we didn’t have many books in my household. Learning wasn’t encouraged outside of school and I didn’t take part in extracurricular activities. Time after school consisted of […]
A writer’s place is in the resistance

I came here to drink my milk and overthrow the capitalist patriarchal hegemony. And I’ve nearly finished my milk.
On Anger and How to Write Through It

There is no path to change that doesn’t come through some form of anger. Despite its taboo perception as a ‘negative’ emotion, anger is a fire that, when wielded correctly, will spark change. At the heart of anger is longstanding hurt, and, often, oppression. From Martin Luther King to #meToo to Parkland, the oppressed find […]
**A Writers’ HQ Manifesto On Bad Language**

At Writers’ HQ, we often get angry messages telling us that we can’t possibly be ‘real’ writers, or that we must not be very clever, because we swear, use slang and text speak, use bad grammar, and love puns. We’ve thought very long about this issue and have come to this conclusion:
New Beginnings: Creative Women and the Curse of Silence

Recently, I’ve been waking up with this feeling in my gut. “I’m done,” I say to myself. “I’m done. I’m finished. I’m over it.” I get up and write because it’s my job and I have to but it’s dry. It’s bloodless. It hurts, and it never quite says the things I mean. I haven’t […]
Why You Must Keep Writing Even When The World Is Crumbling Around You

Writing and telling stories is more important than ever. We can’t allow the distractions of politics to let us forget ourselves.
7 tips for writing fiction about mental health

You wanna write about mental health but also not be a dick while doing it? Step right in, have we got the guide for you…