WRITERS WITHOUT BORDERS
New James Patterson "Go Finish Your Book" $50K Grant
September 3, 2025 - As reported by the AP News, James Patterson has launched a new initiative called “Go Finish Your Book,” a grant program offering up to $50,000 to emerging authors struggling to complete their manuscripts. Backed by PEN America, the Authors Guild, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the program selected 12 writers across genres—ranging from memoirs to graphic novels—for its first round of funding. The goal is to remove financial barriers that often stall creative projects and provide authors with the resources needed to bring their work to completion.
From Booktok Teen to Romantasy Bestseller
September 3, 2025 - Lauren Roberts, 22, rose from a BookTok teen at 16 to a bestselling romantasy author, leveraging TikTok’s community not just for promotion but creative feedback. She began by sharing snippets of a story she was writing—followers even helped name her protagonists—and dropped out of college to self-publish the first Powerless novel at age 20.
Her trilogy, now under Simon & Schuster since 2023, includes Powerful, Reckless, Fearless, and the newly released novella Fearful (Sept 2, 2025) — exclusively reported by People.
Roberts emphasizes that BookTok offered more than visibility—it provided a path to publishing that many prior generations lacked. She’s expanding her work beyond print with Funko Pop! figures inspired by her characters and a Prime Video adaptation in development. Now experimenting with literary fiction elements, Fearful marks her evolution from genre Romantasy toward more layered storytelling .
Direwolves Now a Global Franchise
September 3, 2025 -
Annie Paige-Stone and Eliza Phillips, writing together under the pseudonym Sable Sorensen, have transformed a self-published romantasy into one of 2025’s biggest publishing success stories. Their debut, Dire Bound, featuring telepathic direwolves, secret identities, and a heavy dose of romance, went viral on TikTok and Instagram after its February release. Within 90 days, the authors signed with William Morris Endeavor and landed a seven-figure deal with Hachette Book Group, according to The Wall Street Journal (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Aug. 29, 2025).
The speed of the deal reflects how publishers now mine digital spaces like #BookTok and #Bookstagram for titles with built-in readership. Dire Bound has already sold rights to a major U.K. house and 19 international publishers. Industry tracker Circana BookScan reports that romantasy sales are growing three times faster than adult fiction overall, with 34.1 million books sold in the past year, underscoring the genre’s momentum.
The whirlwind rise of Paige-Stone and Phillips, as reported by the Journal, illustrates how social media buzz, once dismissed as fleeting, is now a critical lever in traditional publishing—and how two “wolf girlies” turned an ebook into a global franchise.
Chronicle of a Modern War Correspondent
September 3, 2025 -
Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko has become one of the most recognizable war correspondents of the Russia–Ukraine conflict, his story capturing the urgency and grit of frontline reporting in Kyiv. Known for his raw, unfiltered updates on X (formerly Twitter), Ponomarenko chronicled the defense of the capital with nothing more than “my iPhone, X and a brain in my head,” as he told The Guardian in 2024, framing himself as both witness and participant in the fight for survival.
Ponomarenko’s commitment to remain in Ukraine, even when offered safer options abroad, adds a cinematic edge to his journey. As he explained to Business Insider, leaving would have felt like “a deal with the devil,” a betrayal of the duty he felt to document events as they unfolded around him. Instead, he stayed, embedding himself with soldiers and civilians alike, turning battlefield chaos into dispatches consumed by millions worldwide.
What sets his story apart is its populist resonance. Ponomarenko does not present himself as a distant observer but as a conduit for ordinary Ukrainians. His memoir, widely discussed in Western media, doubles as both personal confession and national chronicle, blending the immediacy of social media with the enduring weight of war literature. The effect is cinematic: a lone reporter in besieged Kyiv, armed only with his words and a smartphone, channeling the terror, resilience, and unbroken defiance of a nation under fire.