ITW introduces our new web-site and the monthly magazine section THE BIG THRILL
Thrillers are compelling because they function on a level you understand instinctively. They can be just as rich and textured and challenging as any other literary form, but at heart they're real, and they cut to the quick.
In short, they communicate. So it made sense to a few of us around here to try to put together a web-site that tried to do the same thing. Here, from this point on, is how things work...
Death of a newsletter
We know some of you adored getting that long, and very well put together newsletter we used to mail you. But the truth is a lot of you didn't find time to open it because there was probably so much other stuff demanding your attention too. And then you hit delete, and it was out of your inbox, gone for good. Do you know what you missed? Probably not...
So the newsletter, as it was, has been put to rest. The competitions, the goodies and giveaways will remain in return for your interest in being signed up to the ITW news machine. But instead of a long chunk of text to read, we will send you a short, pithy summary each month guiding you to something, we hope, much more interesting altogether...
The Big Thrill
A monthly magazine. On the web. Here. Now. You're reading it. A bunch of articles designed to inform, entertain and from time to time annoy the hell out of you, because anger is a part of this writing business too, an important part sometimes.
Big Thrill will let our authors talk about their work, their influences, what bugs them, what inspires. It will be aimed, very deliberately, at the reading audience out there, not fellow writers. If you want to know how to find an agent or seek greater comprehension of Aristotle's rules on the three-act structure you're looking in the wrong place.
The Blog
It seems to take a lifetime to see a book go from manuscript to print. We're impatient too. So impatient that a month is sometimes too long to wait. So for those instant things - a rant, an event, some quick news, a tip to pass on - we now have a blog where the ITW membership can communicate instantly to the world at large.
If you're a reader, we hope all this will give you greater insight into the kind of books that make up the most popular genre in fiction of the moment. How do you find your way around? Simple, just hit the menus at the top of the screen, or the browsing tools in the right sidebar. Going to Latest Features does what it says. Or you can choose to browse articles according to their subject area - from discussions on location and general thriller chat, to new book listings and opinion pieces. These will change over time as new ideas come on line: remember Da Vinci here. This is all loose and fluid, and we rejoice in that fact. In a month's time you'll see some other new goodies too, and we'll keep on adding as time goes by.
If you're a writer outside ITW we hope you'll find one more reason to join. And for those in the fold, we trust you'll see this can turn out to be quite something, a living library and archive about the thriller genre that will grow every month, and be archived for generations to come. Unlike a newsletter, you see, articles don't disappear. They simply go further down the queue. If you want to find something on a particular author, just use the search engine - and it will track down pieces no matter how old, or what they're filed under.
And don't forget we're not just about the written word either. As the pre-eminent R.L. Stine demonstrates in this issue, the web is about audio too, and video as well. The choice really is yours. We're endeavouring to set up one of the coolest, slickest, easiest communications vehicles for a writers' organization on the web, one that works 24/7, gets updated monthly, and runs around the globe.
A lot of the hard work - building the engine - is now pretty much done. What remains is the easy stuff. This is a community of writers, remember? And now you have the chance to communicate directly with the world at large, launching your own books, in your own words, with your own take on how they came about.
How? If you're an ITW member just e-mail us at editorial@thrillerwriters.org and we will send you the magic key to file your own stories, under our overall editorial control naturally. It's easy, it's quick and it's free too, and it means your new books will get automatically listed on the fastest-growing writers' organization site on the web.
We hope you find this to your tastes. But let us know, whoever you are. At the foot of every story there's a comment form where you can tell us, and make your own public observations on what you read here. Writing is about listening too. And we are.
