Read, watch and learn: Writing Magazine January

• Read our exclusive extended interview with Lee Child, discussing his writing, Jack Reacher, and his new novel, Night School, scroll down to watch our video or click here to read an extract from the novel.

• Historical novelist Nicola Cornick explains how to make your historical fiction stand out in an increasingly crowded field, and offers her top tips for writing in the genre, in WM. Read an extract from her new novel, The Phantom Tree, here.

• Analyse our suggested rewrite of a reader's zombie novel opening in Under the Microscope Extra

• Study the short story masters to get to grips with the unreliable narrator. Get ahead of the game by reading the stories now: Daniel Keyes' novella Flowers for Algernon, Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado and Henry James' The Friends of the Friends (or The Way It Came)

• Enter this month's dialogue-only open short story competition and our subscriber-only epistolary short story competition, plus read our latest winners and judging comments in Competition Showcase

If you haven't already, get your copy of January 2017 Writing Magazine here