Tag: featured
On Writing The Girl
Since I left my corporate job in 2019 to pursue my writing dreams, a term has cropped up again and again that has always irked me when I’ve had to describe some of my short stories: the “unlikeable female character.” I know it started as a term to describe a female character who went against […]
Archery and Writing
I am like an arrow shot from a bow. Where the wind guides me, my heart follows. –Stephanie Cotta I breathe in and out, gripping my bow as I snatch an arrow from my quiver nestled against my back. Nocking the arrow, I adjust my footing in the grass, and my eyes fix on the […]
How Conversations Inspire Writing
By Kelly Ohlert, author of To Get To The Other Side One gorgeous sunny day, I took a walk on my lunch break. Thanks to my incredibly low attention span, or rather, the low attention span of humans in general these days (thanks technology), I of course couldn’t just walk and enjoy the sunshine. I […]
Authors Interviewing Characters: Alex Kenna
About What Meets the Eye: Kate Myles is a down-and-out PI struggling to rebuild her life after an accident and opioid addiction destroyed her family and LAPD career. In need of cash, she reluctantly agrees to look into the suspected suicide of a famous artist, Margot Starling. Margot Starling seemed to be on top of […]
How Living Abroad Informs and Inspires My Writing
How Living Abroad Informs and Inspires My Writing How do our life experiences shape our writing? And how does being a writer shape our life experiences? As an American expatriate preparing to launch my debut novel into the world after nearly three decades of living abroad, I often wonder which came first—whether my life abroad […]
From Science to Story: Nonfiction and Audience
From Science to Story: Nonfiction and Audience By Erica Hannickel My first book, a dissertation-turned-monograph about wine history, caught academic success, but contemporary wine industry people (from what I could judge) hated it. They seemed to think that I had a special axe to grind with wine. In truth, 19th century American historians had covered […]
On Writing Angels, Herpes and Psychedelics
Angels, Herpes and Psychedelics: How the book came about, and the process of writing it. I’ve always wanted to be an author of a wisdom book with something like the five keys or the three tips that would empower others to live their life passions and purpose. However, my soul had something else in mind. […]
On Writing Blurb Your Enthusiasm: An A-Z of Literary Persuasion
How do you sum up a whole book in a few words? Your book is nearly ready to enter the world. You’ve got a title, a cover, even some endorsements. Then, something you’d almost forgotten rears its head: the jacket copy (or, as we call it in Britain, the blurb). It’s often an afterthought in […]
EDITING TIPS FROM A FREELANCE EDITOR By Libby Sternberg
EDITING TIPS FROM A FREELANCE EDITOR By Libby Sternberg For many years, I’ve been a freelance editor at a major publishing house, editing romance novels and women’s fiction books. I started as a copy editor, checking for grammar, usage, and style, but now I’m a line—or developmental—editor, which means I check manuscripts for characterization, consistency, […]
Alternative Book Review: Letter To A Protagonist
After reading Priya Malhotra’s gorgeous WOMAN OF AN UNCERTAIN AGE I felt compelled, rather than writing a review, to write a letter to the protagonist, Naina. About WOMAN OF AN UNCERTAIN AGE When fifty-something Naina Mehta’s husband dies of a heart attack, she transforms herself from a suburban wife into a bold woman thirsty […]
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