I am working through plotting issues myself and returned to these notes from a master class I taught on narrative endings a couple years ago. They are just my notes, which may or may not be helpful to anyone who did not attend the lecture. With that caveat, I'm bumping them up … [Read more...]
A new book by Madeleine l’Engle: Stories found in her “Tower”
The two books that made me dream of becoming a writer were Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. So the news I read this morning in a Publishers Weekly email made me squee: a new l’Engle book is coming! It's an adult short story … [Read more...]
Advice from Steinbeck to Kick Off NANOWRIMO
Today is the first day of NANOWRIMO, wherein some crazy folks try to write an entire novel draft in a month. I confess that is faster that I can write (and anyway, I'm going on a girlfriend getaway mid-month), but I do applaud the idea of dedicating oneself in a concentrated way … [Read more...]
10 Terrific Quotes from Elizabeth Strout's Fresh Air Interview
May I recommend this interview -- Pulitzer-Prize winner Elizabeth Strout with Terry Gross on Fresh Air -- to anyone who writes, anyone who wants to write, anyone who has been to law school, anyone who wants to know what it's like to be a writer, or ... well, anyone! My favorite … [Read more...]
Ain't Nothing Like Him Nowhere
Writer Wins Love Lottery Because this is a writing blog, there is a writing angle here—perhaps the most important writing advice I can give anyone—but it's going to be mostly about the smartest decision I ever made, which was to say "I do" 27 years ago today. I didn't fall in … [Read more...]
