Open Writing

Open Writing was launched on January 5, 2004. Since that date we have published something new every day, seven days a week.

There are now almost 13,000 different pieces of writing in this Web magazine. There are words from regular columnists. Novels and autobiographies have been, and are being serialised. Countless poems have appeared in our pages. We are serialising a play, act by act, which was performed in London last year.

AND WE WANT MORE WRITERS TO JOIN US.

Here's part of an article which appeared in the very first edition of Open Writing which offers some explanation of the inspiration and reason for Open Writing.

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A Thirst For Words

My father gave me an unquenchable thirst for printed words.

He arrived home from work at 5.30 pm, tired out after a day's toil at a chemical plant. After his tea he settled down in an ancient cracked-leather armchair to read the News Chronicle.

And that's when I started to nag.

"What does that say, dad?" pointing to a front page story. "What does this say?"

To satisfy my four-year-old curiosity, and to provide himself with a nag-free half-hour, dad hoisted me onto his knee and read aloud the stories I had indicated.

Stories about the build-up to World War Two. Stories, after war had been declared, illustrated by maps of Europe with lines drawn on them to indicate the battle fronts.

Of course I didn‚t understand those News Chronicle reports, but long before starting school I realised that words and sentences formed a magical highway to boundless mental treasure.

I could read before a school bell summoned me to the classroom. As an only child, in pre-TV days, I read books by the dozen.

Step by step, I mounted the literary ladder. Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome, Dennis Wheatley, H G Wells, John Steinbeck...

Long before reaching Tolstoy and Flaubert, I realised I wanted to be a writer.

So I became a journalist, a spinner of simple, direct words, thinking that a career in newspapers would naturally lead on to writing novels.

The novels remained locked up inside my head. But I enjoyed journalism. I relished meeting people, famous and infamous, just as much as I did the mental processes required to write about them.

I worked for newspapers and news agencies in England, the United States and Africa.

I've produced millions of journalistic words, and read millions of words produced by other writers. Writing and reading are as essential to me as water and oxygen.

I love the challenge of filling a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen with words worth imbibing.

And I revel in the opportunity of presenting words written by others to a large and appreciative world-wide audience.

So...get the habit. Join in the fun. Make 2011 a writing year.

SEND US YOUR WORDS.

- Peter Hinchliffe