I’ve really enjoyed some of the guest posts I’ve done at other blogs recently in support of my new novel, The Dead Hamlets. It’s been great to be a part of the Big Idea, My Bookish Ways, Eating Authors, The Hook and Unlikely Influences. I love reading what makes other writers tick, and it was an interesting process of self-discovery to think about my own works and writing processes a little harder when I wrote my guest posts. I hadn’t even realized how much things like the Gaudi church or mortality or other writers had affected me until I started talking about them on other people’s blogs. And, of course, it’s also great to reach out to the broader community for a little discussion — this writing thing can be a lonely business sometimes.

I thought it would be interesting to come up with my own version of those things, so I’ve created a space for other creators on my site. It’s called The Moment, where writers, artists, musicians, whatever can talk about the big moment that changed their lives. Here’s the general info:

Introducing The Moment

Every creator has a moment that changed their life — something they read, saw, experienced, heard, whatever. Let’s hear your moment. Tell us about what changed your life.

How to be considered

Send me a message at peter.darbyshire@gmail.com with “The Moment” and your name in the subject line of the email. Tell me what you’d like to talk about in the message. If it sounds good, I’ll get back to you about the details. I’m looking for around 250-1000 words.

Obviously, this is a chance to publicize your works. I don’t want The Moment just to be a self-promo feature, though. I’d like creators to genuinely talk about important moments to them. It can be about your new work, sure, but please make it about more than that at the same time. On the other hand, it doesn’t have to be about your work at all! I’ll do some promotion for you in the intro I provide, where I’ll list your new works, etc. So please think of it as a chance to share something rather than shill.

Who can contribute

Anyone who’s a creator — writer, artist, musician, you name it. To start with, I’m going to limit it to people I know in person or online, just to cut down on requests from random bots online. We’ll go from there once it’s up and running. I hope you like the idea. Let’s see what happens.