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The Emerging Writers Network has an interview with author Ron Rash. Dan Wickett and Rash discuss a wide range of topics from the importance of place to water as theme, but it was this line that caught our attention (note how we skipped over the part where running trains good writers. . .we do not, […]

Okay, there is nothing new here. Honest. We were just amused as heck to see this on the Los Angeles Times Opinion page. Though, hmm, perhaps the placement was apropos. Setting aside our confusion, it strikes us there is a perfect plot for what we suspect will be the a recurring theme this summer: The […]

We have just learned something awful…almost too awful to share. We cannot bring ourself to type the horrible words, so will let John Rickards do the dirty work for us: Crime is very formulaic, it’s true. Like any genre, it has its conventions, which more or less have to be obeyed to satisfy the reader. […]

The long-running lawsuit by various authors against The New York Times and others regarding compensation for republication (or, we suppose in some cases, publication) of works in databases and online has been resolved. The issue, essentially, involved generating revenues from different distribution streams but not compensating authors for the use of their work. Yes, bad. […]

Gwenda Bond, she of Shaken & Stirred (there’s a woman who knows the right decision to make when encountering a novice bartender), wrote a few things last week that we meant to get back to because she touches on topics near and dear to our heart. First, she revels in the joy that is revision. […]

Jesse Kornbluth gets all worked up about grammar of all things. Like there’s a problem or something. Oh wait, there is a problem. Nevermind. We can buy into all of Kornbluth’s suggestions except the one about shining shoes — isn’t just easier to buy new ones? Hopefully (Not): Ten usage and grammar errors that could […]

Tod Goldberg has, out of the goodness of his heart, compiled a brief (but comprehensive) list of things one should consider before submitting an application to an advanced writing course. He skips past all the typed, double-spaced advice in favor of Stuff You Can Use: If any of your dialogue regularly has the following tags, […]

Much as we love Edward Wyatt (and we do), we cannot help but leave his story about Glynn Wilson dropping his case against Kitty Kelley, et al, without a few questions. Maybe it’s because we don’t get it (we are admittedly slow, but that isn’t a crime, necessarily). Let us begin by noting that the […]

David Thayer of Collected Miscellany and The Untrained Eye discusses the stumbling block of many an author: The Working Title. Every author encounters this in some form or the other — Thayer explains the reason: It’s probably why writers have brains that are shaped differently from regular people; there are odd tissue formations where plot, […]

Someone recently said that math is scary. It’s not — it’s just plays the heavy on TV. What should be scary is not understanding math as it relates to your business. In the past, we’ve talked about your royalty statement is real-life algebra (you know, the stuff you swore you’d never use). Mad Max Perkins […]