I admire Andre Dubus's writing, both his fiction ( House of Sand and Fog ) and his memoir ( Townie ).  This week, as I return from...

I don't know anyone who thinks our world is perfect right now.   My Facebook feed is so disturbing some days, I can't read...

Natalya was in one of my storyboarding classes at Grub Street writing school in Boston a year and a half ago.  She also describes hersel...

One of my private coaching clients successfully finished her revision last year.  Her next step was to find close ("beta") rea...

I like playing with resolutions but I don't have much faith that I'll stick with them.  I usually get a "glory ride" o...

My fall online classes are ending this week, and the groups are loathe to leave each other.  They've bonded terrifically this semeste...

Before I wrote books, I wrote stories, essays, poems, columns, and articles.  Short stuff.  Short stuff doesn't require that much or...

Many of my students and clients are signing up for spring pitch conferences, where they hope to pitch their book to a few agents.  These ...

These past few weeks, I've experienced an unusual stall-out in my writing.  I couldn't locate any still point inside, or that ...

A MG (middle-grade fiction) writer in one of my online classes posted a great question this week:  How do I make my characters more distin...