Do you have a favorite season, one you embrace more than all the others? For me, living in Northeast U.S. and teaching for a profession, it’s summer. Besides the longer days and warmth of the sun, summer also means, “School’s Out!” It means freedom from external structure, and the opportunity to create new structures for… Read more »
Recently I pitched an editor a blog post idea. When her acceptance popped into my email I did my usual cheer and happy dance. Ideas for the piece filled my brain. I plopped back in my chair and fired off my next question, “When would you like the piece?” The editor responded with a generous… Read more »
Hey there Word Nerds! Today I’m delighted to welcome back the founder and principal of Book Architecture, Stuart Horwitz, and his collaborator Dave Stebenne. You can listen to my previous interview with Stuart here. Stuart has spent over fifteen years helping writers become authors and his clients have reached wow-worthy levels of success. You can… Read more »
As much as we love our protagonists, we can’t help but feel a strange or “corrupt” affinity for our antagonists. After all, the antagonist’s main role is to make the protagonist’s life difficult. However, this unique character relationship – er, conflict – is more important than we might think it is. Not only does it… Read more »
As we all know, in writing there are so many different elements to juggle: characters, plot, pacing, description, voice, dialogue…and that’s just the start. It’s not uncommon for a few storytelling elements to be shoved to the back of the stage as we write, but today I want to talk about one that really shouldn’t… Read more »
Hey there Word Nerds! I’m so glad you’ve stopped by because today I’ve got a great interview to share with you. In this episode, I talk to thriller author Steve Hamilton about his new book: The Second Life of Nick Mason. This book is a fascinating study on what happens when a fundamentally decent character makes some very bad choices…. Read more »
I knew I was a devotee of Gabriela’s DIY MFA philosophy, but I didn’t know by how much until I read her book. I joined the team and started writing columns for the site a year and a half ago. My writing has gone a wild ride since then. When I started, I was a lowly… Read more »
As writers, there’s a specific moment we all dream about. It’s the moment that motivates us and drives us to write our book in the first place. No, it’s not first holding a copy of our books in our own hands, though that’s a pretty great moment. It’s also not seeing our books on store… Read more »
Hello hello Word Nerds! Welcome back to DIY MFA Radio. OMG, you guys! It’s episode 100! How awesome is that? I can’t even believe how amazing it is that we’ve come this far. Today’s show is super-special for a number of reasons. Not only is it episode 100, but this is also the first solo show I’ve… Read more »
A few weeks ago while I browsed through the YA aisle in Barnes and Noble, I flipped through the Q&A section in the back of one of Lauren Oliver’s books. One of the things Oliver cited as inspiration for her popular Delirium trilogy was something she’d read that said all stories are either about love… Read more »
