Talk is cheap. Rather than words, supply your characters with romantic gestures to back up their sweet little nothings. Your reader will love your character’s creative actions and so will an agent who considers your manuscript. A reader plucks your romance novel from the shelf to lose herself in a world she can only imagine…. Read more »
The comma is confusing and controversial. Seriously. In 2018, a Maine dairy company had to award $5 million in backpay to drivers—all due to a missing Oxford comma in their contract. If you want to make sure a missing or misplaced comma doesn’t ruin your manuscript, keep reading. Commas are one of the hardest punctuation… Read more »
Hey kids! Thanks for checking in, genius writer. I worry. I worry because you never call nor write. Texting counts as writing these days. But you never text me. You send your grandmother your TikTok posts. Me? I get nothing. So, why should I, the author of four books, a fifth and sixth forthcoming, share… Read more »
I love a good mystery! And I especially love a good historical mystery. Who killed the Princes in the Tower? (Hint: It was not Richard III.) Did Princess Anastasia survive the murder of her family? Was Elizabeth I really a virgin Queen, or did she allow herself to be seduced by the dashing Robert Dudley?… Read more »
Nothing excites me more than a new writing project. It’s one of the reasons why I’m in this wonderful profession of stringing beautiful words together to form an idea or a tale. It always starts with my heart jumping, adrenaline pumping, soul soaring high and then just like that, I have amazing prose and a… Read more »
Rhys Bowen has been one of my favorite mystery authors for many years now, starting with my binging of her Molly Murphy mystery series and continuing with the Royal Spyness series. Georgiana (Georgie) Rannoch starts out as a royal who is nowhere near the throne and very short of funds. It’s not easy for any… Read more »
Agonizing dread arrests most writers at the prospect of revisiting their old work – especially an essay collection. Our revision reflex activities and work that was due but (at least in your mind) not necessarily done is suddenly in need of a fresh coat of paint. We obsess over what we could have said, done,… Read more »
Too many novels go unfinished. Writers give up in frustration because they run out of ideas, they get stuck, or they become overwhelmed by self-doubt. This often happens because writers have unrealistic expectations about the novel-writing process. Through my own struggles with writing a novel, as well as my work with other writers, I’ve seen… Read more »
Immigration is an emotional topic that can turn the friendliest of conversations into a fierce debate. People have wide-ranging views that have been shaped by their own experiences, the opinions of friends, and the news programs they watch. Writing about the immigrant experience requires a lot of nuance and attention to detail. Seven years ago,… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Gonzalez James. Elizabeth’s stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, The Rumpus, PANK, and elsewhere, and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She is also a regular contributor to Ploughshares Blog. Her debut novel Mona at Sea was a finalist… Read more »
