Christmas Gift Guide for Writers

What do we want? Tote bags! Haven't we already got hundreds though? Shhhh!

MY APOLOGIES for the slackness on the newsletter front. I am on tour, and I write this from the much belayed and overcrowded 8:56 to Birmingham. As it is now Officially Christmas, I thought it was a good time to write a FESTIVE GIFT GUIDE FOR WRITERS! I am a writer and I like stuff. If you have a writer to buy for, they may like stuff as well! 

Except. The thing that writers really want is not pens and notepads - it is TIME and PERMISSION. This may take the form of pens and notepads! But with all of these gifts, the important thing to remember is that you are not really giving the thing - you are giving the space to be, to foster thei work and their identity. You are giving the gift of taking them seriously.

The Best Gift For A Writer

Pret Subscription (OR gift card to nice local coffee shop)

So. This is the number one gift for the writer in your life (obviously as long as they live within striking distance of a Pret or nice local coffee shop) and it would STILL be a good present even if you just gave them the first month, which would cost you only £15. The reason it’s such a good gift is this - IT’S NOT ABOUT THE COFFEE. And you need to make this absolutely explicit. You hand over the gift card (maybe stick it in a nice mug, below, and you say something like this - 

“So, your present isn’t really coffee. I just know how hard you’ve been working on your writing, and I know that you’d like more time to write. I thought that maybe if you had a place to write before work with some free coffee that might help!”

If you live with this person, there’s an easy way to make this present SO MUCH BETTER, but the one catch is you have to really mean it. You can also say - 

“I’ve been thinking about how I might be able to make that happen. So from now on I think that I should do the morning school run an extra day per week/go and do the big shop every Saturday on my own/cook us dinner every Friday even when it’s not my turn SO THAT YOU CAN HAVE MORE TIME TO WRITE.”

This is what the writer in your life really wants. They want to feel that you’ve seen them, that you take their writing seriously, and that they can rely on you for tangible help in finding the time to write.

But maybe your writer doesn’t live near a Pret, or maybe you know deep in your heart that you will not actually do the big shop on your own. If that is the case, here are some other ideas - 

Normal Budget Gifts For Writers

Tote Bag

Book people bloody love tote bags. Publishers bring them out all the time and bookshops sell them and writers and readers obsessively haul them around and collect them. I have two favourite tote bags - one is from my publisher (shoutout to Dialogue) so you can’t buy it, but know that it is roomy and sturdy. The other one you can buy, and it is this Daunts beauty. This is a wonderful tote bag because it has two concealed pockets within for your cards and phone and lipstick and also a loop to thread on your keys. Also, you can get the print in gold!! I love it.

I used to have (and adore) this Books Not Bombs tote, but sadly I used it to keep all my blood sugar monitoring stuff in when I had gestational diabetes, and now it has Bad Vibes.

Mug

I really do like a mug that says something like Fuck You, You Prick, Leave Me Alone, I am Writing, Are You Blind? My favourite is this slightly more measured one from the Bodliean. Mugs are good gifts because you kind of always need them and they acknowledge identity. If you live with the person you’re buying your mug for, you could solemnly promise not to talk to them while they’re drinking out of it, as a way to give the gift of Space. 

Notebook

But not just any notebook. A MEANINGFUL notebook. Your mileage will vary on this, but my favourist ever notebook gift was when I’d just had my first novel published and Paul got me a tiny moleskine with Lucy Ayrton - Author printed on it and I cried. My second favourite was from a friend, during my poetry days, and it was just a normal notebook, but she’d pasted one of her favourite poems into the front “to get you started”. A notebook is a great way to make someone feel SEEN.

Planner

This is similar to notebook, but I would council some caution on this. You need to make sure that your gift recipient is a Planner Person to begin with, or they will be offended and think that you are implying they are a mess. However if you DO have a Planner Person to buy for they will be delighted, and feel validated that you know how difficult it is to find time to write, and how admiring you are of them doing it anyway. You can obviously use this as another way to give the gift of Time - you could hand this over and earnestly say that their REAL present is that you will support them to find the time, by, ie, doing the nursery run on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or cooking dinner on Fridays whether it’s your turn or not. 

The two best planners are the Passion Planner and The Productivity Method Planner.

Book About Writing

Writers like books about writing because we are all nerds! 

My favourite are - 

On Writing, Stephen King

Monkeys With Typewriters, Scarlett Thomas

The Science of Storytelling, Will Storr

But check which ones your writer nerd has, and never be afraid to give a book voucher instead, with “this is for a book about writing” written inside it. This is of course, Not About The Book, just as a Pret subscription is Not About The Coffee - it’s a gift of recognition. I see you. I see you like writing. Know who else likes writing? Stephen King.

Here is my list (plus a few extras) on my Bookshop page.

Big Budget Gifts For Writers

Writing Retreat

This is the gift of Time on a grand scale. A writing retreat can be held pretty much anywhere - it can be student room in Oxford (surprisingly easy and cheap to rent by the night out of term time!) or it can be an air bnb in the Lake District. You could look at Arvon for a guided one, if you wanted. The place I most want to go is here - the country’s only RESIDENTIAL LIBRARY!! WTF. How cool is this? I confidently predict that two nights here is what EVERY WRITER YOU KNOW most wants.

Writing Course

And at last we come to the plug. As you will know, because I wang on about it constantly, I am running a Novel In A Year Course next year, for the perfect luxury-Christmas-gift price of £250, and you can email me any time to discuss how to turn this into a gift voucher. But LOADS of short writing courses are available, both online and in person. I can also wholeheartedly recommend Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education courses (which I teach on) for courses ranging from a day to two years, and most cities in the UK will have a similar offering. Much like the writing book, this is a gift of recognition - you see that the person in front of you is a writer, you see that they take that very seriously, and that you want to support them in this endeavour. And that is basically all that anyone wants for Christmas, isn’t it? To be seen.

Except for me. I’ve already got a Pret subscription. I want a massive Lucy and Yak voucher and a bottle of Baileys.