Review by Lynne Mahan Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande First printing: Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York, 1934 J.P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1981 175 pages Some of the amazing things about Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer, a writing how-to book (in addition to the fact that it was written in 1934), are the techniques … Read more
Interview by Jenna Glatzer Rudy Shur is the publisher of Square One Publishers, and the author of the book How To Publish Your Nonfiction Book, part of the "Square One Writers Guide" series. Rudy has been responsible for the acquisition of more than 1,000 books, many of which have become bestsellers. He has lectured on … Read more
By Mridu Khullar Editors can be mean, unethical and downright unprofessional. But not all editors fit that bill. In fact, most editors would rather give you money than take it, would rather make no changes than rewrite whole pieces two hours before deadline, and would rather accept a piece than start their mornings sending out … Read more
By Monica Di Santi Humor, which is the ability to find a comic or amusing quality in a situation, action or group of ideas, can help you not only to laugh and have fun, but it can be a great tool to help you harvest new ideas, overcome writer’s block and improve your craft. To … Read more
By Chris Stewart Open any book on “how to write,” and somewhere you will find a discussion of how many words you should write every day. Forget the struggle to get ourselves to the paper or the computer every day, now we have to produce a certain number of words? Me? I don’t write every … Read more
By Lisa Silverman With the tremendous success of such memoirs as Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes, Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club, and Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the 1990s and early 2000s saw an explosion in the genre. The boom was seen in the number of memoirs acquired by publishers, the number of titles shelved in … Read more
By Julia Rosien Women in conflict with the law have taught me more about my own journals than any book or motivational speaker ever will. I teach journal writing at a federal prison for women. They write to heal. And their writing reflects a path filled with heartache, shame, courage, and for some, hope. We … Read more
By Jan Weeks I eased into freelancing while teaching middle school. Back then, record-keeping for tracking expenses and income was easy. I just added my meager writing pay to my form 1040 and filed it with my W2 from my regular job. Then I started submitting and selling more, and suddenly all those scraps of … Read more
By Victoria Strauss There are sharks out there in the literary waters. Be wary: literary deceptions abound, from fee-charging agents to dishonest book doctors to fraudulent subsidy publishers to fake contests. Some of them are staggeringly successful. Edit Ink, for instance, a book doctoring firm that engaged in a kickback scheme with disreputable literary agents, … Read more
By Sarojni Mehta-Lissak To set things straight, I am not a writer who suffers from writer’s block. Yes, the occasional lull passes through me and I feel stymied, but writer’s block is not my issue — real life is. Since becoming a writer, I have seen patterns emerge that interfere with my writing life; those life … Read more
