Alison McGhee, writing instructor and author of many wonderful novels including Shadow Baby (my favorite), once taught a very effective exer...

I finished a really GOOD novel last month--written by someone else, a writer who is just entering the publishing scene but has done a marvel...

The internet is full of great questionnaires for characters. I love taking a break from the grind of writing a book to play with one of thes...

One of my favorite weekly reads about writing is George Saunders' Story Club. Recently he wrote a post about the time it takes to grow i...

As in any business world, referrals matter in publishing. I wish I could say that books are bought by publishers on merit alone, that it doe...

An important lesson I learned as I wrote and published my books was this: there are predictable gates, or passages, in the journey. These ar...

At a gathering this past week, a friend was talking up Morning Pages, the stream-of-consciousness writing activity proposed by Julia Cameron...

I'm reprinting this post from 2012 because I get more questions about it than almost any other. Enjoy! This month, my novel-in-progress ...

One of my favorite winter traditions in our book-loving family is the box of books we give each other for the holidays. Sometimes they come ...

Every now and then in my classes, a writer would ask about series. it takes a dedicated soul to even consider a clutch of books and plan for...