Welcome to Winged Words UK – let your writing take flight
Anna Mainwaring and Louisa Reid, published writers of YA/Crossover fiction, are delighted to welcome you to Winged Words UK, an editorial service designed to help you become the best writer you can be.
As writers and teachers, we have a combined wealth of experience that we’d love to share with up-and-coming writers of fiction – be it MG/YA or crossover and commercial fiction. We are happy to work on manuscripts in all genres, including fantasy and sci-fi, thrillers, crime, and romantic comedy. Your work can be written in verse or prose.
Having honed our skills with SCBWI and WriteMentor (with our mentees going on to gain agents and publishing deals) we can give your work what it needs to take it to the next level. Whether you be writing for fun, for publication, for yourself, in hopes of getting an agent, or to self-publish – objective editorial eyes are an important part of the process. Not only will we help your manuscript to improve but we’ll boost your confidence and support you in your writing journey.
Our detailed, expert feedback will focus on the building blocks of a good manuscript: plot, pacing, character, dialogue, and world building in advance of submission to literary agents or in preparation for your own self-publishing.
What we can offer
We offer a number of services as listed below. Do get in touch with any questions.
Do you have a partial or full draft that you want feedback on prior to submission or self-publishing?
Full Manuscript Package –Includes an editorial report (minimum 5 pages) covering feedback on concept, structure, voice, character and voice, and where it sits in terms of the market.
This includes an hour follow up zoom/phonecall to discuss feedback and agree next steps.
£5 per one thousand words, minimum £150.
Turnaround to be agreed before payment.
Are you ready to submit?
If you feel that you are ready to take the plunge into the rollercoaster that is submission, then our Submission Package will be of assistance. We will give feedback on your submission letter, synopsis and the first 3 chapters of a manuscript up to 10,000 words. This includes detailed feedback on each element submitted.
£75.00
Mentoring
Mentoring is available on request. Please email for more details,
Contact
Please see contact page for further details.
Louisa Reid
Louisa Reid has spent most of her life reading. And when she’s not doing that she’s writing stories, or imagining writing them at least. An English teacher, her favourite part of the job is sharing her love of reading and writing with her pupils. Louisa lives with her family in the north-west of England and is proud to call a place near Manchester home.
Her latest novels for young people have been in verse: Gloves Off (Guppy Books, 2019) and Wrecked (Guppy Books, 2020) and she’s fallen in love with the exhilarating and exciting challenges and opportunities that writing in this form brings. Her previous two novels were published by Penguin: Black Heart Blue and Lies Like Love.
Louisa writes about things that she thinks are important to young people, and all people generally, really. Drawn to write about themes of female empowerment and personal freedom, Gloves Off is about bullying and body image, with some boxing thrown in too. Louisa hopes the novel will strike a chord with anyone who’s ever had to fight for self-confidence and self-belief – things which are, for many, very hard won.
Twitter @louisareid
Anna Mainwaring
Anna is an established author and editor. She read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ when she was seven and doesn’t appear to have stopped reading since. She has had two novels published in the UK and abroad. ‘Rebel with a Cupcake’ and ‘Tulip Taylor’ have both been publishedby Firefly Press and been translated into French. She has experience of self-publishing and is in the first year of a PhD in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is lives just south of Manchester in a place which never knows if it’s in Manchester or Cheshire. She is powered by naps and tea.
Anna says, “As an editor, I want to help you to make your work shine, whether this through an structural edit, character work or supporting you in finding your characters’ voice.”
Twitter @Anna_Mainwaring
Instagram @annamainwaringclark
Louisa
Louisa Reid selected me to mentor during the #WriteMentor summer programme 2020 and I could not have been luckier. She was able to quickly grasp the concept of my book and help me to see what I needed to focus on. At the start of the process, she gave me an editorial letter. We then moved through several drafts which involved removing some characters entirely, killing others and unkilling the lucky few. Finally, she worked on line edits with me – selecting bits that just didn’t feel right. This resulted in a polished final draft that we were both proud of. I’ve since signed with an agent and, because of Louisa’s rigorous editing, I have had very little to do to the MS before it goes on submission to editors. . Jess Birch
Anna
Anna is an amazing support, and she gets to the heart of what you really want to say as a writer, and gives you the tools to do that more effectively. She’s very approachable and genuine in her care and attention to detail in your work. She helps you to see the bigger picture, but also the zoomed-in level of words and sentences. You get to a point with self-editing where you hit your limit of what you can achieve, and how objective you can be. Anna’s fresh perspective energised me to go back (again), but this time to breathe new life into my MS so it became the best it could be. I’m so grateful for her input. Sophie Toovey
About
Winged Words UK is a UK based editorial service created by Louisa Reid and Anna Mainwaring
Get in Touch
Get in touch via
Twitter @UKWingedWords
email: ukwingedwords@gmail.com
LinkedIn:
Opening Hours
We aim to get back to you any inquiries within two working days.
Winged Words UK 