On Writing

We’ve all heard the old writing saw Write what you know. I usually embellish this as: Write what you know. Write what you love. Write what you’d love to know. But thanks to the pandemic, many of us are spending way too much time at home, and I for one am getting...

During this wild and crazy pandemic year I planted my first potager garden. Something I’d always planned to do but finally managed to pull off. Like writing my first novel. I learned a lot, and a lot of what I learned applied to writing as well as gardening. You amend...

With the summer now officially over, we all go back into school mode, sharpening our pencils and our plots, renewing our commitment to writing. As artists we never stop learning, and many of us take advantage of the many conferences, workshops, classes, critique...

Sooner or later, you may face the challenge of how to write a book proposal. If you’re writing nonfiction or memoir, it’s obligatory. But even if you are not, you should know what’s included.

Comparable titles are the ammunition you—and agents and editors—all need to sell your work. Here’s an agent’s primer on finding good comps for your project.

Does your work have a strong organizing principle? It’s not what happens in your story, but rather how you choose to frame what happens in your story.

Everywhere I go I hear writers complain about the black hole that is every agent’s in-box—the slush pile—that dark and dangerous place where their queries and manuscripts go in, never to be seen again.