Hey there word nerds! Welcome to the 2018 Epic BookExpo Recap episode! If you don’t already know what BookExpo is, it’s the big industry trade show that takes place in the United States every year, and today it’s going to be just me talking to you about this awesome event! This year, the big thing… Read more »
I’m working on a short story in which the main characters travel a great distance in a short amount of time. They also experience a variety of different landscapes. My aim is to quickly acclimate the reader to each new place through the narrator’s perspective using sensory details. So my question is this: besides “show,… Read more »
In the digital age, an author’s website is among your most important assets. After all, it’s your home base online and your only truly owned corner of the Internet. This is where readers will turn to discover you, connect, and learn about your writing. Thus, it is important that your website establishes a recognizable look… Read more »
If you’re serious about blogging, and you want to find success with it, you’ll need to make sure your blog continually remains valuable and engaging to your readers and subscribers. The more value your blog offers your readers, the healthier it is. The more engaging the content, the greater its vitality. A healthy and vital… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to have Michael Zadoorian on the show! Michael is an author and recipient of numerous awards such as the Michigan Notable Book award, and the Kresge Artist Fellowship. His writing has appeared in several prestigious journals including The Literary Review and American Short Fiction, as well… Read more »
We writers are always urged to find our voice in writing. Develop our voice. Be true to our voice. But in the middle of all of that furor over voice, what voice is often gets lost. As readers, we have favorite authors. We form fierce attachments to their work. Each new novel, collection of short… Read more »
Earlier this month, I was invited to be part of a career fair at the school where I teach. The fair administrators wanted me to talk to the third, fourth and fifth grade students about balancing writing with my teaching job, how I’ve been published, and why the students should consider a writing career for… Read more »
Theme is one of the most important parts of a writing a book — but it’s also hard to execute without feeling like you are beating the reader over the head with “and the moral of this story is…” Thankfully, there are a few tricks to incorporating theme into your first draft that don’t involve… Read more »
Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of interviewing author Cynthia Grady on the show! Cynthia has earned master’s degrees in Children’s Literature, Library Science, and the Classics. She taught elementary school in her home state of California and was a children’s librarian for seventeen years before relocating to New Mexico where she… Read more »
Last year, I wrote a two-part series on The Hero’s Journey. In the second of those columns I mentioned discovering Kim Hudson’s The Virgin’s Promise and vowed to return to the topic once I’d had a chance to study the book. Now that I’ve done my homework, I’m going to write another two-part series on… Read more »
