Imagine taking a sweet picture book about cats and then altering it completely – crossing out and penciling in new text, drawing over the illustrations and scribbling laser beams that shoot out from the cat’s eyes with a permanent marker. Back when we were wildly imaginative kids, we did this to books all the time…. Read more »
Lisa Cron is the author of WIRED FOR STORY: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers From the Very First Sentence, and her video tutorial Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story can be found at Lynda.com. She’s worked in publishing at W.W. Norton, as an agent at the Angela Rinaldi Literary Agency,… Read more »
Most writers are readers. We grew up absorbed in books. I was one of those kids who grew up without a television, so I was reading a book a day on average. I still read a lot now, but unfortunately, I don’t absorb good writing technique automatically. I have to be deliberate about it. I… Read more »
Writers must be readers first. In fact, we could argue that reading just as important as writing. According to Stephen King, ‘If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” And we couldn’t agree more. To that end, we’ve put together a go-to list of DIY MFA articles about… Read more »
At ThrillerFest, as with all writing conferences, you go into each session with a set of expectations. Most of the day consists of listening to panels on certain topics, and then interviews. Over the course of the day, I heard discussions on everything from reading and editing to villains and violence, from debut authors and… Read more »
The art of giving up on books is something I have practiced in short seasons for two years now. I never would have done it before, because books are sacred and I had convictions about finishing each one before I moved on. Practical reasons compelled me to betray those convictions. And I think you should… Read more »
Tomorrow publishers, booksellers, writers and industry professionals gather in New York City for one of the most most magical–not to mention, massive–events of the book industry year. Book-lovers rush in droves toward that glorious concrete behemoth overlooking the Hudson River (AKA the Javits Center), united by a passion for the written word and the hope… Read more »
Today I am so excited to be hosting literary agent, Mary Kole. Aside from her role as Senior Literary Manager at Movable Type Management, Mary is also the mastermind behind the website KidLit.com where she shares tons of excellent information for writers. While her primary focus is children’s books (affectionately called “KidLit” by those in… Read more »
Have you ever read a book that changed the course of your very existence? If the answer is yes, chances are it was a book you read as a child or teenager. The books we read when we’re young tend to leave a profound mark on us. Even if these books aren’t strictly children’s books… Read more »
Whether you love children’s books or you haven’t read a kid’s book since you we’re a kid yourself, , we writers have one thing in common: we were all kids once. At some point in our lives, we all had that experience of finding a book that captured us in a profound way and chances… Read more »
