Dear Lauren, I am an aspiring writer who hopes to publish traditionally. After getting my MFA, I worked on my memoir as much as I could and began the journey of trying to secure an agent. I queried literary agents—big and small—and wanted to hit 100 rejections before revisiting my memoir and rethinking my approach…. Read more »
Hello, fellow kid lit writers! This week I have another interview to share with you from the wonderful author Heather Mateus Sappenfield. About Heather Mateus Sappenfield Heather Mateus Sappenfield loves adventures, especially in the Rocky Mountain landscape that’s been her lifelong home. As part of women’s teams, she’s won 24-hour mountain bike races and road… Read more »
In life, rejection is inevitable. In publishing, it’s an absolute. Over the course of querying three novels and going out on submission three separate times, I have faced over five hundred rejections. And that’s not an exaggeration. Some were very difficult to handle, like the full requests that turned to no’s or the near offers… Read more »
The Copyediting Checklist: A Recipe for Clean, Clear Writing Copyediting is the final step of writing, the one that takes your manuscript from really good to almost perfect. A lot goes into a successful copyedit—it’s more than just a quick spell-check. Today, I’m introducing the copyediting checklist you need to polish a manuscript. What Is… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Leslie Johansen Nack. We’ll be discussing The Blue Butterfly, A Novel of Marion Davies, a historical fiction novel about Marion Davies and the burgeoning Hollywood scene in the 1920s. Have you signed up to be a DIY MFA Radio Insider yet? This is an exciting new monthly newsletter,… Read more »
Hello, beautiful people on the internet! Welcome back to Worldly Wise where together we’re going to take the reins of your speculative fiction story and see it to the finishing line. Did any of the book recommendations from last time make it to your TBR Pile? If not, but you still want to explore the… Read more »
We are continuing our quest to craft complex characters and build dynamic worlds that readers with marginalized identities can connect with. In my last column, It’s Messy in The Middle: Answering the Call, we discussed how to find the messy middle of writing underrepresented identities. In this essay, we will explore the historical context and… Read more »
April 2022 Leisure Learning Spring greetings, leisure learners, and word nerds! I hope this April has found you immersed in the power of individual words, a la National Poetry Month. Now, what happens when you put a whole bunch of words together, complete with punctuation? Hopefully, a short story. Pair it with the month we… Read more »
My first experience with astrology was probably like many of yours: reading a horoscope for my sun sign in a magazine. As a Virgo, my horoscopes were generally about being tidy and organized and not being so critical. Which, sure. I could 100% use that advice. But I’m more than a pathological organizer with a… Read more »
For the first time ever, an editor had accepted one of my pitches. And he just so happened to work at a lit mag of my dreams. I dashed off my reply, mentally adding this triumph to my author bio, then looked at my calendar. I’d agreed to send him a 2,000-word personal essay on… Read more »
