Most of us probably encountered poetry even before we began school. Picture books are often based around poems, and some of the best loved Children’s authors write with rhyme and rhythm. Many of us were probably asked–somewhere between forced and strongly encouraged–to write a poem during our first few years of schooling. A few...
Probably there is some writer out there who has no doubts about their ability to write great novels, stories, poetry, and any other form. They always know that the rejection is just the agent or editor not understanding the brilliance of the piece. Maybe they never get rejected. I am not that writer. I’ve...
I’m always suspicious when I see the words “inspired by real events” applied to a movie, TV show, or book. How many books, in particular, are not inspired by real events? Many people are pointing out, for example, that Game of Thrones is based on the War of the Roses. As far as historical...
I recently attended the Muse and the Marketplace conference, offered by Grubstreet in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2018, I attended two conferences. Whether I attend any in 2020 will depend on time, budget, and the location of the conferences. People define being a “serious” writer in many different ways. I’ve certainly met those who think...
I don’t remember when I first formally learned about “unreliable narrators” in fiction. It was probably sometimes during junior high or high school. First, we had to learn about points of view, of course. Was the fiction written from a third-person or first-person point of view? If third person, were they omniscient? Limited omniscient?...
A review of Pink Plastic House by Kristin Garth, in anticipation of a new chapbook by her.
CN: Child Abuse.
Who doesn’t dream at night of dosing her son with ipecac and then, when he goes to vomit, just... shutting the lid? (A true story about my mother)
I just spent a week in Tokyo teaching professors, post-docs, and PhD students how to write better papers for submission to STEM journals. There are a lot of rules to this, but also a certain mentality that’s changed over the years. As recently as 20 years ago, authors strove to write dense prose that...
I’m currently working on my fourth novel, and querying my third novel. None of these have been published. But finally, I have a query that is resulting in agents requesting the full manuscript. One of the main things I learned in refining this query is how much it matters (or at least seems to)...