By Mark Terry A long, long time ago (in what occasionally does seem a galaxy far, far away), I decided I wanted to be a writer. This was toward the end of my college career, between, I believe, my junior and senior years. I was majoring in microbiology and public health and not doing a … Read more
You might wonder how the staff at other writing websites feel when one of our “competitors” goes out of business. Are we glad? Do we rub our hands together with glee and cross out a name on our list of businesses to annihilate? Hardly. The online writing community has always been just that: a community. … Read more
By Laura A. Hazan The song New York, New York goes something like this: “If I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere. It’s up to you, New York, New York.” That pretty much sums up the feelings of many writers, too. Breaking into the elusive New York publishing world equals success, and the … Read more
Review by Betty Winslow The ABCs of Writing for Children. Compiled by Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff Quill Driver Books November 2002 258 pgs. Writing-related The title of this book implies a linear, nuts-and-bolts approach to the subject of writing for children, but in reality it’s almost a stream of consciousness on the subject, collected by Koehler-Pentacoff from … Read more
By Rob Loughran Not time for only sex; but for all those things we are obligated to do on a regular basis: job, family, exercise, finances, changing the catbox. I just used “sex” in the title to get your attention. The first step in writing your novel is to realize no one but you can … Read more
By Rudy Shur Excerpted from the book How To Publish Your Nonfiction Book Over the years, I’ve seen literally hundreds of submission packages. Some of them inspired me to immediately request more information from the author. In other cases, however, I could not send the package to the kill pile quickly enough. Throughout this chapter, … Read more
By Phyllis Hanlon At the mention of “nonfiction” you may cringe and think of wordy, boring essays by long-winded speech writers, technical manuals bursting with legalese that no one except the creators can understand, or dry newspaper stories. Well, let’s place the word “creative” before nonfiction and see what a difference it makes. A new picture … Read more
By Denis Ledoux Is your family one of the many whose history is lost to future generations because no one has written it down? Writing your stories—even just a few—is a great way to memorialize your family and to prevent the experience of your life and theirs being forgotten. The details you take for granted … Read more
By Joyce Lavene 1. Read what you want to write. I can’t stress this enough. If you don’t know what the market is doing, you can’t expect publication. Have a feeling for what you’re doing, write from the heart, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that because you love your baby, everyone else will. … Read more
Book review by Alex Shapiro The Complete Guide to Editing Your Fiction By Michael Seidman Writer’s Digest Books 2000 264 pages In this easy-to-follow book, experienced editor and writer Michael Seidman explains how to approach fiction editing, using his own short story as example. The author compares the writer’s job with that of a sculptor—both … Read more
