So I just got a box of Advance Reader Copies for my new collection The Necessaries, and I’m noticing how the delirious joy of having a copy of one’s book to hold in one’s hands gets overwhelmed fairly quickly by
Advance copies of THE NECESSARIES
When It Works
We all know what the ideal route to publication looks like. It’s a walk through the park with a few major landmarks: Draft, stew a bit, finish draft, let it rest. Get reader feedback. Revise. Rest again. Revise some more,
Celebrating Book Lovers Day
So the news tells me August 9 is National Book Lover’s Day, and while my first response is curiosity—isn’t every day a good day to be a book lover?—I realize the point is to get people to put down their
The Engine of Desire
I recently took a class from novelist Amy Hassinger at the Midwest Writing Center‘s David R. Collins Writing Conference, intriguingly titled “Revving the Engine of Desire.” Amy taught us that the key element of a compelling story—the most powerful tool
Descriptive Writing
I’m rechristening this blog as The Writing Well (not to be confused with an assortment of workshops, writers group, and other writer resources that use that name) and I plan to use it to think more deeply about the writing
A Lesson in Patience
I’ve been thinking about patience lately, as three projects that I finished over three years ago have finally found a pathway to publication. For the record, I’ve been in Muscatine for three years. Before that, we lived in a tiny