The Short Answer to Long Series for Kids

What’s up with all the long-running series for middle grade readers?  For the purposes of this article, I’m talking specifically about books series that span more than fifteen books—in fact, some of them feel like they might never end!  Kids love them, adults perhaps less so when our bookshelf threatens to collapse from the weight… Read more »

Episode 56: Writing Literary Mysteries – Interview with Tana French

Hi there Word Nerds! I’m so excited to share today’s interview with bestselling author Tana French and her process in crafting series and writing literary mysteries. Tana French has been called “one of the most talented crime writers alive” by the Washington Post. With four bestselling, critically acclaimed, and award-winning novels in print worldwide, she… Read more »

Episode 46: BEA Recap and Publishing Industry Trends

Hey Word Nerds! Welcome to this week’s episode of DIY MFA Radio. Now that Book Expo America (BEA) is behind us, I wanted to take a look back at the conference and its notable moments and start looking ahead at the publishing industry and the trends I see coming up in the future. This year… Read more »

Episode 43: Book Expo America Survival Guide 2015

Hey there, word nerds! Thanks for joining me for this episode of DIY MFA Radio. Today I want to share with you some survival tips for Book Expo America (BEA), the publishing industry’s premier trade show in the United States. BEA is the Big Kahuna of trade shows in the US. If you’re in the book… Read more »

#5OnFri: Five Great American Novels That Feature Outsiders

Washington’s Birthday is coming up and, in honor of that, I want to talk about American novels. There’s been a lot of debate about what constitutes the “Great American Novel.” With so many voices, and so many different experiences in American life, this list should be huge. Since we only do five books on a… Read more »

#5OnFri: Five Books to Prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse

Happy Friday everyone! Most of the country is currently being pummeled with snow and freezing cold temperatures. We are also in an arctic freeze of television, in that terrible limbo in-between the first and second half of most TV show seasons. And I don’t know about any of you, but one show that I’m really ready to premier again… Read more »

#5onFri — Medical Narratives: Books for the Medical Mind

At the very thought of “medical books” or books about diseases and other health afflictions, we often think of probing, unemotional texts filled with technical verbiage and doctors studying sick humans as if they were machines with a few broken gears. And maybe some are like that. But there are also medical narratives that put medicine into… Read more »