Cornerstones have kindly offered to run monthly 'surgeries' on the site, where they would tackle a range of themes and genre such as women's fiction, YA, children's fiction etc, with invited guest editors/agents etc popping in to answer questions, address issues etc. Any thoughts on this welcome in this thread.

Speaking from my little Women's Fiction corner, that sounds very interesting. How would it work, would we send in questions in advance of a certain date which would then be answered, or would it be more of a 'drop-in' type thing?

Well, not sure just yet, but am guessing possibly along the lines of the Q and A they've just done- WW members post up queries or even synopses/sample pages etc (they've done that in the past as well) and then Cornerstones or guest editor/agent people would pop in on a given date to make comments/answer questions.

Sounds brilliant! I'd definitely be interested.
Susiex

I think that's a good idea!

Anna, I think it's fair to ask at this stage, what's in this for Cornerstones? They're a commercial enterprise which makes its living from reports on writers' work. This is a site for writers, many unpublished and who may wish to purchase reports from a manuscript agency. There's nothing necessarily wrong with WW allowing an agency to in effect promote itself here. However, I think the motives involved should be more transparent, especially in light of this being a fee-paying site.

This is the second Cornerstones project here in a short space of time and, speaking as a fee-paying member, I'm a little uncomfortable about the danger of this becoming an advertising venue for them, ripe with potential clients. If WW has reasons for allowing them this opportunity, fine; but I think a) we should know what they are, and b) you should consider giving other agencies the same opportunity and thereby providing WW members with a wider spread of options.

Terry

I like the idea of having a regular Q and AS - but not only with Cornerstones, with other agencies offering similar Q and As too. I think it would be a shame to have the site endorse just one company.

But then, I am not totally disinterested in the topic, so should probably leave it at that.

I met both Kathryn and Helen last year and found them both really genuinely nice people who wanted to help would-be-writers to get published.

Of course they may get some work from it, but we would be gaining from their time and experience too. I think it's an excellent idea, especially if we could get the same help from other agencies as well. Are any others offering?

Pat

Thanks for your thoughts- I will approach other people as well, that's a good idea, and if they want to offer their time and experience that's all to the good.

Hi, I tend to agree with Terry. Can we have some others too? S

I've approached other people too, so we'll see what response there is- but if you've got a particular connection with a lit consultancy, or similiar org, or if you have a specially lovely/friendly agent/editor etc who is willing to be involved in either a Q and A or a mini-masterclass, do put feelers out.