The last two posts have covered building your writing community through in-person events or via classes and workshops. Today we’ll look at options for building your community online. The hardest part of writing an article about online writing communities is that there are so many of them it’s almost impossible to make sense of all… Read more »
In our last article, we talked about building your community through in-person events like conferences, author readings or other such gatherings. Today we’ll address the issue of using writing classes and workshops as a way to meet and connect with other writers. Wait, what? You read that right. I’m suggesting that one great way to… Read more »
Writing can be lonely work. As writers we spend most of our time working alone so a community of like-minded creative people can bring a ray of social light to an otherwise solitary existence. But how do you go about finding that magical group of writers to call your own? How do you find a… Read more »
For today’s Write It! Wednesday (on a Friday) I’m going to need your help. If you haven’t already, please fill out our 2013 DIY MFA Survey. It’s short and sweet and will help us make DIY MFA so much better! Whether you’ve just discovered DIY MFA or you’ve been following the program from the very… Read more »
Writing guest posts for blogs and websites can be a great way to build connections both with fellow writers or potential readers. Guest posts can help you get a “foot in the door” with members of your target audience who you wouldn’t normally reach through your own blog or social media channels. These posts and… Read more »
Today I have an exciting announcement. For some time now I’ve wanted to expand the DIY MFA leadership. A project like this can only grow so much with one person at the helm and I’ve realized that sooner or later I’d have to start sharing the load. Also, let’s get real, much as I would… Read more »
“Writing is a fairly lonely business,” Marc Lawrence wrote, “Unless you invite people in to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then you have to ask them to leave.” This is true: we face the blank page alone. But writing doesn’t have to be a lonely business. Indeed, at DIY MFA, we… Read more »
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing superheroes, those people who have shown me what it really means to be a writer. What I’ve realized is that in writing (as it is with most heroic feats) it’s not always the people you think of as heroes that end up saving the day. More… Read more »
One of the many great things about the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar was that the agents really dug into the nitty-gritty details of how to write a query. The second day of the conference included three Query Letter Bootcamps in which a panel of agents would dissect query letters submitted by conference attendees. Here’s an inside… Read more »
Last week, I was inspired. Truly inspired. After several days of chaos and anxiety–worrying about and tracking down friends, family and colleagues–I finally ventured out into New York City to attend the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar. By some miracle, the hotel hosting the conference still had power (the blackout area started just a few blocks south)…. Read more »
