No matter how much writing you do, there’s always something new to learn!
In September 2025, I invited three authors to join me for a conversation about their new books on developmental editing, book review writing, and threshold concepts about writing, respectively:
Laura Portwood-Stacer, Make Your Manuscript Work
Steven E. Gump, How to Review Scholarly Books
Elizabeth Wardle, Writing Rediscovered
In the first hour of this free WriteSPACE Special Event, I spoke with each writer in turn; and in the second hour I ran a hands-on workshop for WriteSPACE members based on exercises suggested by the panelists. an emphasis on helping you find ways to apply each book’s wisdom to your own circumstances, whatever kind of writing you do.
Here is WriteSPACE Event Manager Amy Lewis’ personal account of the live event.
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This Special Event was great because we heard from three authors with distinct but complementary missions: making your messy manuscript readable; writing scholarly book reviews with clarity and generosity;and exploring threshold concepts that might secretly be holding you back. There’s so much to comment on because it was a rich discussion, but I’ve managed to cherry-pick a few highlights:
Laura Portwood-Stacer’s book is all about developmental editing—the big-picture shaping of a draft. As she explained, developmental editing is not about commas; it’s about helping writers shape their arguments. I think it’s often easy to get lost in the weeds with one’s writing; but rather than obsessing over surface-level details, Laura urged us to focus on clarity, organisation, and the overall arc of the book. She also talked about the importance of understanding your audience, making sure your manuscript has a clear sense of purpose, and emphasised that the process should be collaborative. Editors and peer readers aren’t there to “catch you out” but to help you realise your vision. As she said during the session, “Your book doesn’t have to be perfect before you send it out. It just has to work”. That reminder landed with many participants. who confessed in the chat that perfectionism often stalls their progress. Laura’s practical strategies showed that no manuscript is beyond redemption; what matters most is learning how to shape it.
Next, we heard from Steven Gump, the book review guru (he has been writing reviews for almost 20 years!). Steve explained that reviews are far more than academic busywork, they’re part of the lifeblood of scholarly communication. But his approach is so generous and unlike that which most of us are taught in postgraduate education. Reviewing books is not about tearing them down and nitpicking every argument or spelling error (every book is going to have small things like typos). The better approach is to demonstrate to the author that you have made your best effort to figure out what they were trying to accomplish with the book, and then to comment on the success of that attempt. That is really, in Steve’s view, what an effective book review will do.
His practical advice included being transparent about your perspective as a reviewer, focusing on the scholarly contribution of the book, and remembering that critique should be constructive. A key takeaway was that reviewing should not be gatekeeping; it’s not “I'm gonna tell you whether this book is worth reading or not” but rather an opening of the gate: “Dear reader, here's why you may want to read this book.” A really great distinction, I think!
Finally, Elizabeth Wardle introduced us to her new book Writing Rediscovered: Nine Concepts to Transform Your Relationship With Writing, which explores the transformative but often uncomfortable ideas, aka “threshold concepts,” that reshape how we understand writing. Elizabeth reminded us that writing is not a basic skill you master once and for all; it’s a complex activity that you continue to learn across your life. She talked about the importance of reframing your writerly struggles as signs of growth and challenged the myth that real writers produce effortlessly:
“The writing gods don’t exist, they don’t bless anyone. None of us is born able to write; we all have to learn to write. Writing is hard for everyone.”
So right there we have a powerful threshold concept: Difficulty is inherent to the writing process. If writing feels hard, that means you’re doing the kind of thinking that writing requires. And there can be satisfaction in that process (Helen would say pleasure even!). Elizabeth’s book is full of threshold concepts to make you reform your relationship with writing. Some of us may have already stepped over a particular threshold, but there may be others where we stop and say, “oh wait, what's she mean by this?” There are four key words she used to describe threshold concepts, and I love each of these: transformational, integrative, troublesome, and meaningful.
One final highlight came in response to a question from the audience: What’s the best advice you would give to a PhD student who has returned to writing after a long period and is feeling daunted? Each panelist answered from their own perspective:
Laura: I would say one of the premises of my book is that every piece of writing needs development. Nothing starts out perfect and publishable. And in fact, your first draft is for you, the writer, to figure out what you think and get it on the page and just form the ideas. They're not gonna be fully developed yet. I hope that takes some of the pressure off… Just get something written down. You can develop it further later, for whatever purpose you need it to serve.
Steve: I would say to prioritise and schedule writing time and then treat it as sacred. I'm borrowing that from a lot of the writing guides, but you can't push it off. You can't let other things that pop up in your life take away from the time that is important to you for the writing. And it does take time. So treat it as an appointment, treat it as a meeting that you can't miss, and then you will be able to be productive when you do that regularly. May I just add, treat it as a meeting that you're looking forward to rather than one you dread (not the dentist!)
Elizabeth: I would start with a threshold concept, which is that writing is social. You should not imagine that this is something that you will be doing alone while you wait for genius to drop on you. You need a community, you need to go to writing hours, find writing groups, and just engage with other people. Don't become isolated, because writing is social.
A big thank you to Helen for hosting; to Laura, Steve, and Elizabeth for sharing their expertise; and to everyone who participated in the workshop afterwards. Writing may always be challenging, but with insights like these, it becomes a little less lonely—and a lot more possible.
We look forward to seeing you all at the next WriteSPACE Special Event!
WriteSPACE and WS Studio members can find the full recording of the two-hour Special Event in their Video library.
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