I worked on a literary magazine for a good number of years and I learned a lot about what makes for good printed content. I also learned a lot about why even good writing gets rejected. It’s hard for us to see the flaws and problems in our own work—it’s hard for me and it’s…
If you want to snag the attention of an agent, your book’s concept needs to be irresistible. But what’s going to buoy your book up above the other great concepts in the submission pile is the quality of your writing. And I don’t just mean polished writing. I mean writing that is unique and captivating….
In between some fiction writing and my usual blogging/guest-article writing, I’ve written some poems recently, which got me thinking: Prose writers, listen to me, your writing will improve (I promise) if you read poetry. And if you write it, it’s guaranteed. And now I’m thinking I really need to offer a class called Poetry for…
A farmhouse, a beach, the principal’s office, church. These are the kinds of places we think about when we think about writing setting. We choose a location for our scene and then we contemplate what sensory details we might incorporate to describe it. We consider the lighting, the weather, the color of the furniture. But…
There are a number of writing how-to books that I turn to over and over and they’ve become my favorite writing craft books. In fact, I’ve read so many (hundreds) of craft books over the years I’ve put together a big list of recommendations. If you want to take a second to snag that list,…