The International Writers Magazine Editorial January 2021

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Welcome to this January 2021 edition of Hackwriters. 22 years on-line, 7765 + articles - reviews - stories - travel - share any feature you like and pass them on. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

Covid has reached 84,085,213 cases worldwide and 1,830,404 deaths. Source: Worldometers. Jan1st 2021
Covid USA: 20,462,501 infected with 354,381 deaths - 17.00 hrs GMT

EDITORIAL: Stay Safe - Wear a Mask - Stay Alive
It's great news the AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved and they will roll out a million doses a week in the UK from January 4th . Let's hope they can deliver this many at the point of use.

I have had the trace call.  Seems I sat next to someone who tested positive for Covid on Christmas Day.  This, as you will expect, does not fill me with joy. 

I think of all those who are daily getting the same trace call and the shock they will get.  Nearly 55,000 infections in the UK yesterday and the new variant is spreading like wildfire. Some might shrug it off and say I’m young and healthy it won’t get me.  But the new variant does get the young, that’s why it changed. The virus doesn’t seek to kill the host but to spread and spread it must. 

My first thoughts were at least I got my new book ‘We Feel Your Pain’ published and then, god, I had better get my affairs in order.  By chance I have already written a will, but my best friend Kit, the holder of the document, will need all the passwords to everything and a list of where everything is.  She may not relish the responsibility at all.  No one does.  The worst part for everyone who gets this call is that you are immediately isolated and no family member or friend can come to your rescue or tend to you when and if you start to show symptoms.  (I pray absolutely nothing will happen to me and I'm still here seven days later).  Judging from all the ambulances that have driven past in the last two days the local hospital is jammed already. In fact they are treating Covid patients in the ambulances having run out of beds inside.

How would you respond if you got the call?  Despair?  Fear?  Resignation?  Most likely a mixture of all.  The irony is not lost on me that I spent a whole year in isolation writing the TV version of Girl with Cat (Blue) all eight hours of it and another four hours of script for The Repercussions of Tomas D.  I had ambitions for these projects and a new sci-fi screenplay I completed in November.  It’s not wasted effort.  I learned things, enjoyed the writing process with my mentor Anna Southgate at Euroscript.  But part of me just wishes now I had gone to live in Africa and explored all the places I wanted to see, my original plan before Covid emerged.  Of course, I know, the virus is there and killing just as easily as here.  But hey, if you’re going to peg it, at least choose where you want to go.  Funny, the Trailfinders brochure has just arrived this second in my letterbox.

Right now I need to ponder, it’s as if time has frozen, and I'm in some sci-fi movie.  In the end you’ll just be a number, like the ones at the top of this welcome page.  A number in a bad couple of years for numbers.
Now I wait.
And wait.
And hope … I will let you know. * Friends at the same lunch have tested negative. Yay!

© Sam Hawksmoor Jan 1st 2021

Read Sam Hawksmoor’s new novel  ‘We Feel Your Pain – so you don’t have to’.  Your first post-Covid novel.

We Feel Your Pain Hammer and Tong December 2020 ISBN-13: 979-8699087693 *Review: a captivating adventure that ...could be compared to a Roald Dahl tale filmed by Wes Anderson .. The Case: Delaney (42) and Asha (22) run the Office of Berg City Oversight. Their role is to expose the scams, keep the city safe from unscrupulous people.  When something looks too good to be true – it’s a scam, right?  But what if the scam works?  What kind of scam is that? We Feel Your Pain is available in print and as a download.

All pain teaches us something - it is for you to understand what that lesson might be.
- Guru Gurajani

'Begun in 2017, it has been a tough one to write.  I was in so much pain, from what was diagnosed as fibromyalgia, I had to give up teaching and went on all kinds of adventures in pain management, cures, visits to osteopaths etc, I can truly say I did my research'. 

Stay Safe – Stay Sane – Wear the Mask
* Keep abreast of the latest virus numbers here. Source:

The Sam North Novels - still available to order Amazon or Lulu
Another Place to Die: Endtime Chronicles. A definitive pandemic novel.

Read Girl with Cat (Blue) - 'funny, scary and full of surprises - a must read' LD

*Keeping Hackwriters archived is supported by sales of our books - so do buy, print or kindle, we aren't picky.
Magenta - A chilling story of kidnapping, burning and strangeness set in the wilds of Lincolnshire

** The Heaviness, & The Repercussions of Tomas D - 'best time travel WW2 story in a long while'

The new edition of 'ANOTHER PLACE TO DIE: ENDTIME CHRONICLES By Sam Hawksmoor & Sam North There's no safe place to hide from a lethal pandemic Print & Kindle - Q&A interview with the authors here A city gripped by fear. People are petrified of being thrown into quarantine. Best friends Kira and Liz once parted are scared they will never see each other again. Teen lovers, Chris and Rachel, prepare to escape to the islands. a taster here The Last Ferry Review from the First Edition: 'Beautiful, plausible, and sickeningly addictive, Another Place to Die: Endtime will terrify you, thrill you, and make you petrified of anyone who comes near you...' Roxy West - Amazon.co.uk

Girl with Cat (Blue) - Shortlisted for the Rubery International Book Award 'a funny, bloody, colorful narrative that never fails to surprise the reader. Girl with Cat (Blue) provides great entertainment'.

'This book was amazing! I was hooked from the first few pages and couldn't put the book down.' Judge, 26th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. - Honorable Mention

J&K 4Ever - A post-apocalypse love story Sixty years after the end of everything the city of Bluette survives, controlled by a malignant sect.  A place where men rule, girls receive no education and are matched at 16 to the highest bidder.  No one is ever permitted to leave the city and outside is a murderous wasteland of despair. Orphans Kruge and Jeyna have been devoted to each other through all the years of terror in this harsh regime and sworn never to be parted.  But the beautiful Jeyna has been betrayed by the Warden. Kruge has been swiftly banished to the Scraps, under the control of the Keeper. Jeyna is heartbroken; she will not accept her fate and escapes to find Kruge.   'A genuine romance in a bleak but plausible and terrifying setting'.

J&K 4Ever

MARIKKA- exclusively on Amazon Print and kindle 2 Based on a tragic real life event, Marikka flees from an arson attack on her home to the sea, where she meets Starfish boy – a runaway working for Jackson, a scarred man hiding a sinister secret from the world. Meanwhile her real father searches for her with the aide of Anya, ‘the girl who can read objects’. More about the writing of this book ‘Long after my tears dried, my heart stayed with Marikka, Starfish Boy and the strange girl who reads objects.’ CT You will smile, you will gasp with shock, and you will struggle to read the words through your tears. Gemma Williams - Amazon.co.uk

Spy/Romance thriller set during the Blitz in WW2 - Kindle download The Repercussions of Tomas D A Hero? Or Englands Greatest Traitor? USA Paperback here 'Disturbing and very poignant YA love story that presents a chilling alternate future for an England that lost the war.' Marcel d'Agneau 'A brilliant imagining of living in the Blitz, well researched.' Amazon UK 'This is Man in the High Castle for teens and scarily plausible ' *download the Kindle version or buy the paperback from Hammer & Tong

'The Heaviness' for any reader who likes to think about such things as betrayal, revenge, relationships and the laws of gravity. An original Genie Magee story Genie & Renée have just 36 hours to save Rian or he dies 'Without a doubt, one of the best YA Sci Fi series out there.' Evie Seo Bookish Kindle & print Thanks to readers who have been buying this title. * Also published as Rüya by Marti Yayincilik - The Turkish publishers of TOZ & Golge

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