Fiction Locker, Shandy Lawson’s new website for teens, is a place to get advice on writing as well as enter flash fiction contests.
In a message for Hypable readers, Lawson discusses his new website.
A message from Shandy Lawson
I’m an author, which means I need to create stuff. I need to make things. It also means I spend a lot of time waiting — I wait for revision notes, I wait for news from my agent, I wait for my next book to come out. So, in combining my talent for waiting with my need to make stuff I’ve created FictionLocker.com.
My favorite thing about being a writer is interacting with my readers — who are predominantly teens — and often I’m asked for advice on writing or how to get published. I can’t answer as many of those questions as I’d like, so I thought if I put all of those answers in one place, along with stuff like regular flash fiction contests, writing prompts and featured columns by guest authors, I might be able to create a little community and encourage some great, weird, and genre-defying writing by the next generation of authors.
I’m really not a web design guy, I’m more of an idea guy, and not a very impressive one at that. But I’ve had a lot of fun putting the site together and writing some of the articles that will hopefully become a pretty handy resource library. The library is a bit on the lean side at the moment, but only because it’s young, and I’ll be adding new articles weekly — and by request from FictionLocker users.
One of the monthly features is a column called 500 Words By… and each month we’ll have a different author write five hundred words about whatever they want. Could be a short story, could be advice, could be a recipe. (Okay, probably not a recipe.) I’m proud to have the first installment of 500 Words written by a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and he didn’t even owe me any favors.
So, if you’re among those blessed or cursed enough to be called a teen (it really can seem like either/or sometimes, can’t it?), I invite you to stop by Fictionlocker.com and snoop around. Read a little, write a little, make some friends.
About Shandy Lawson
Shandy Lawson is the author of YA action thriller The Loop, published by Disney-Hyperion and available in hardcover, paperback and E-book editions. He lives in New York City, where he’s just completed his second novel. Visit him online at ShandyLawson.com, and of course, his new home at FictionLocker.com.
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